𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 [𝐉𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫 - 𝐓𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭]

7 | Closer to Sleep

CW: Death and sexy times, but not the sexy times you're probably hoping for. Oh yeah also implied child abuse— lovingly called 'good old-fashioned discipline'. Yuck.

J A S P E R — 1964

— ITS THE LATE SUMMER OF 1964 AND A YEAR HAS CRAWLED PAST. Jasper is viscerally ashamed of himself when he pulls around the corner of Bassett Street and into Hargate Close. It's sunset and the birds swarm overhead, a black, buzzing stain against the burnt sky. The sun sits on the hills behind the yellowing trees and the moon looms pale and faint well above his head. He parks a little ways from number 26 despite the empty curb outside the Robinsons' peach-coloured house, just in case he changes his mind and turns back. He ought to turn back, really. Every part of him screams to turn back, and yet, he's opening the door and stepping out of the red Mustang with too many buttons undone on his shirt.

His hardened shell had not protected him from the shocking conditions of the personal life he has been unknowingly swept into — swallowed and stuck in the belly of their home. He had left, of course he had left, after the first kiss, the first trip, the first tangle of limbs and that deeply-rooted regret he would never be able to unpick from the mess of his ribs.

At least, he thinks, ears burning in a phantom, it was not their son.

And he felt that with true relief — it had not been their son. He hadn't dreamt of, or even entertained, the notion of defiling their son. He's too young and too new and, mate or not, Jasper is glad he couldn't bring himself to feel any sense of desire for the boy like he had always imagined he would on those days he pondered over the unknown presence of his mate.

For all of his years, Jasper only now feels his age of death. Nineteen once more. Confused, perhaps even sensitive, in a way he had not felt since he was fifteen and fancied himself in love with the Belle of Bailey Hall. He still remembers waking up earlier than his chores required just to watch Lacy Durand take her morning stroll across the plantation, looking completely at ease and untouchable in her white ruffled dress and delicate red ribbon, not a styled curl out of place beneath her bonnet, shaded in the dappled sunlight of the lace parasol a dark-skinned girl dutifully held overhead. She used to wave at him with a little tilt of her wrist, so easily fulfilling her role as a beautiful, innocent, infuriatingly flirtatious Southern Belle. Jasper can still recall the frustration of wanting nothing more than to shed her layered skirts and unbutton that blouse, and the lingering memory still makes him flush and swipe a hand over his face in humiliation. Such misplaced wants.

This is very much how he feels now, easing up the creaky steps of the porch with an unnecessary hesitance, as if at any moment his body will take to fleeing before his mind can even start on the thought.