I'll Protect You (Original Version)

It's a happily never after, at least for me.

"Here comes the bride on this glorious day of doom," I sang under my breath, kicking my heels into the grass as Jasper, Alec, and I greeted the guests that were beginning to stream through the iron archway that would lead to the fairy tale atmosphere of my mother's wedding.

People came by and asked Jasper how his family was faring. For a moment, I thought we were screwed because Jasper completely froze over, unable to answer. That's where I stepped in, reminding them that they were dead.

Idiots.

Jasper was a cousin to the Sparrows, son of my mother's brother who had died two years ago. The story we had created for him was incredibly flawed. I mean, if you're a single man, and you only have on kid, you're not going to send him away when he's a child. Apparently, though, the entire public ate it up, believing the whole shabam about us adopting in Jasper when he was three because his father had been going through financial issues.

People these days, my mind sighed as another person gave Jasper their condolenses. My younger brother shot me panicked looks, not knowing how to act like a grieving person.

The paleness of his complexion and his flinching at every hand extended out to him helped a great deal. It made the guests blind to the scars I had smeared cream over, the yellowing bruise around his left eye, and the way his arm tensed every time someone patted it or shook it. 

He was still recovering from the incident two weeks ago. After two weeks of being fussed over by both my mother and father (who had gotten on the first flight here when my mother called him to alert him of both of our disappearances), and after two weeks of being taken care of by the best nurse possible (me), he still wasn't better.

My mother decided it was real funny to make me nurse Jasper and Alec back to health, because I was the one who ran off and saved both of them. I should've just left them both there if I had known that I would have to change their bandages and feed them soup every evening.

Jasper, I could get. But seriously? She just had to make me force-feed Darkwood soup every night, and change his pillows, and get him new sheets if the old ones got too thin. That monster had thought of every possible way to torture me the entire time.

Granted, I had threatened to kick his chest in, but hey! He punched me first, if I recall correctly. And everything I recall is correct.

"Who is this gorgeous fellow? Park, don't tell me you dumped Logan and went for a Darkwood instead?" joked an incredibly familiar voice. I looked up and a shout of glee escaped my lips as I threw my arms around my boss, Elijah Bishop.

Elijah (or Eli, back at Paradise Coffee) was a very aristocratic yet gay coffee shop manager. His history with the Sparrow clan went back long before I moved to that town. Elijah had to quit at one point, and he moved away from Cimeria, disappearing without telling everyone where he went.

When I needed a good town to lay low in, I chose Paradise, Montana, due to Logan's lovely mother, Caterina, and because of Elijah, who I knew could keep me safe for a while.

"I didn't think you would come!" I laughed as Elijah stopped spinning me and set me down. I gave him a good look. After me being gone for a month, he had died his hair with occassional streaks of a latte brown in his raven black hair. It reminded me of my friend, Zen, because he had the exact same hairstyle, except he had red streaks in his hair the last time I remembered.

Did they have the same stylist?

"Of course I'd come. I love being with your family," Elijah replied, ruffling my hair just like he used to when I was a child. I looked up, and Elijah's silvery eyes were scanning the the area. My shoulders tensed because I knew exactly what question was coming next.