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There's these old tales about the night- a divine hour- from whence everything came. The night is where creation began, and each coming twilight brings people back to the world's primal beginnings.
Jasper has become more familiar with this than he'd ever thought. This L.A skyline cradles him as close as a mother, closer than his ever could. Each sundown is an upheval of promise; every waking moment draws him a little closer into a world hidden under the stars- draws him into the world of things that scratch and bite. It draws him closer into the world of wild things.
Scrabbling against the wall helps Jasper haul himself onto the shingles above. He's growing used to this route. Fleeting footsteps carry him over the rooftiles, across the cacophany of light below: blotted yellows and violets that blink and flutter with every leap. The once-bustling city that looms below his feet now lay barren, void a few streetlamps standing guard beside the road. It would be lonely out here, if it weren't for the buzz of texts against his pocket. No use stopping to read them; he knows the incessant complaining of his coterie when he hears it.
He skids to a halt, scattering cobbles onto the alleyway below. As his boot's heels slot against the roof's edge, his hands can't help but draw his hood further over the detrital remains of his face. It feels as if he's bracing himself for impact, as he slips down the guttering-pipe and finds purchase on the windowsill below.
Knock, knock... knock.
Three soft, almost inaudible, raps against the window pane. A signal that neither kindred should be a stranger to. Jasper stands aside, awaiting the eagerly flung-open windows, and the 'friend' who recently began to live behind them.
Her perfume greets him before her face can. She smells of the strangest incense, rolling over him like a warm thunderstorm, leaving warmth beneath his collar and longing on his lips. Jasper has to catch his breath when he sees her. Her face is full in the candlelight, craning to taper out into the endless evening, searching for his presence.
"Jasper..?"
If Jasper could bottle that voice and drink it, he would.
"You can let yourself in, I hope that you're aware..?" It's silvery and singsong, her voice nothing but a low murmur as her face meets his. "I don't mean to leave you waiting out in the cold."
"Eva, you know-" The growl catches in his mouth. Jasper tries to choke down the usual gravel, croaks forming into a chuckle. "You know I don't feel it."
He slips through the crack of the windowsill, drawing cerement curtains shut behind him. As Jasper passes, he swears he can see the slightest trace of embarassment on her lips, a twitch in the corners. The thought of blush flaying away the porcelain of her skin is something so alluring- warmth against his fingertips. He kicks himself for the thought.
"I appreciate it though, honestly. I'd rather be in here..."
The room smells dusty and warm, draped in candlelight as if nobody besides the two of them existed. As he stands besides Eva, even in complete silence, the eternal ache inside Jasper begins to still. When he's with her, Jasper forgets how little he had wanted to survive.
"Is that so?" Eva scarcely laughs, atleast in the time that he'd known her. She laughs like windchimes and honeyed tea; as if she's making up for all the time that she hadn't. "Did you bring what we talked about?"
He unslings the backpack, kneeling besides to unzip the tatty thing. Her eyes follow him intently, watching his hands flick through the ever-full contents of his bag. Jasper produces a quaint book, palm-sized yet suprisingly sturdy. The cover has been scrubbed away by years, but the familiar sepia colouring of a romance novel is made myriad in the chunks.
"It's nothing weird." He promises, allowing her knuckles to brush his as she takes it. "I found it outside of a Goodwill. It's not fancy, but i'm sure it'll do."
"It's perfect."
Jasper watches her slide a thumb over the spine, fanning through pages dilligently, leaving his embarassing offer nothing more that a flurry of pages between her fingers.
"It should take, say, an entire night to read together," She clicks her tongue. "Do you have anywhere to be..?"
Something spurns inside of him. The beast scratches at his throat, kicking and wrestling, desperate to be out into the night and lodged in to someone's neck. Yet as he swallows, something chokes it back down. When they wordlessly move to perch the edge of Eva's mattress; when she settles herself into the crook of his arm, the once-unbridled violence within him lays itself to rest.
For once, something gentle blooms inside of the pit in his stomach. Something brings him back to life, no matter how long ago that was.
He listens as she begins to read, a million different nothings from the fallowing novel.
There are so many different words that lie in Jasper's periphery- but for once, he's comfortable with the silence.