Archive of Our Own

It was strange for her to reconcile the Jasper and Eva she knew separately from the Jasper and Eva she knew when they were together. When they were together, all their rough edges were smoothed out into something polished and soft, and they traded secret smiles when nobody was looking. It was sweet, almost, though Annabelle couldn't quite put a name on what they were to each other. Surely, they were friends, but could they be something more than that? She knew that she would never really know.

Though the coterie thought that she was nothing but an impulsive powder keg with misplaced morals and a chip on her shoulder, she could be perceptive when she wanted to be. She tried not to speak too much when they met with Eva, understanding that Eva knew important information and only called them when it was of the utmost importance, and so to keep her mouth firmly shut she occupied herself by watching Jasper.

She liked Jasper but he was someone she she knew the least about. He was a mystery, a true conundrum, and it felt like the more Annabelle tried to pry out of him the less she really understood. But when they were in Griffith Park speaking with Eva, it was as if some of his walls fell down around her, used her enigmatic charm like a wrecking ball to leave him tempered and palliative. 

Jasper always greeted Eva with her full name and told her what she was wearing was very nice. Eva would affix him with her radiant smile and thank him, assuring him that despite his horrific visage, he also looked quite lovely, and she even sounded sincere when she said it. Jasper would tilt his head down, hiding his face beneath his hood, and smile whenever Eva said something specifically scathing, and Eva would smile at the floor when Jasper said something that made Nelli and Victor splutter in indignation. Jasper would laugh, rough and grating and real, whenever Eva said anything witty, and her eyes would dart to him as if to gauge his reaction to her joke. She doubted that the others had noticed it yet, but Annabelle certainly had.

"So," she said at length, tapping her fingers on her knees. "Eva and Jasper, huh?"

Victor flickered his eyes up at her over the top of his phone, but Nelli didn't bother, fingers dancing across the touchscreen with the familiar soothing clicking of her long manicured nails. "What about them?" Victor asked, bored sounding.

"How long have they been, you know..." Annabelle trailed off, glancing out the window again to the way Eva was covering her mouth to snigger, Jasper watching on with a pleased expression. "Them?"

"Honestly Annabelle, what on earth are you talking about?" Nelli put her phone down in her lap just long enough to shoot Annabelle an exasperated scowl, displeased. 

Annabelle shrugged, helplessly. "I was just wondering how long the two of them have been friends, that's all."

"They're not friends," Victor explained. "I don't think Jasper has friends. Eva's useful, that's it."

"That's it, huh?" Annabelle looked outside again to where Eva was studying the lines in Jasper's palm, held delicately between her own alabaster fingers. Jasper was standing so still he could have been mistaken as a marble statue, watching Eva with rapture, focused on her every move. "So they've never met before?"

"I don't know," Nelli sighed, obviously aware that Annabelle wasn't about to give up this line of questioning any time soon and put her phone aside. "I think they met the day we brought you here for Eva to find out your clan."

Oh, Annabelle highly doubted that. That was only a few months ago, and even on that day, waiting with bated breath for Eva to find them with her cup and her blade, Jasper complimented her dress, told her she looked lovely, and let her know how good it was to see her. That wasn't the words of brand-new acquaintances, that was the words of something much more. Annabelle had seen young couples in long-time relationships on campus with less gall than Jasper had that day, and now that Annabelle knows him better, she could recognise it for what it was- he wasn't only complimenting her, he was flirting with her, and she had reciprocated.

She could feel both their eyes on her now, but she refused to look at them, too busy watching the shy yet obvious display of affection happening outside. "Are you sure about that?"

Nelli made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat. "I think we would know, Annabelle."

"Jasper can be pretty secretive. I think there's a lot about him we don't know," Annabelle shrugged. "Besides, does that look like 'new acquaintances' to you?"

They responded with silence, and then the scrabbling of them leaning forwards on the seats to join her in peering out the window, and Annabelle bit her bottom lip to stop herself from grinning in satisfaction. Outside, Eva had stopped inspecting the lifelines on Jasper's upturned palm but still cradled his hand gently in her own. "What the fuck?" Victor swore vehemently, squinting.

"Is he smiling?" Nelli demanded. "Is he smiling at her?" 

Indeed, Jasper was peering at Eva down the tip of his long nose and was smiling at her, soft despite the row of razor-sharp teeth and the blackened gums. Eva's ivory hair cascaded over her shoulder in glittering waves as she tilted her head to peer up at him. Jasper reached out a hand to touch the rhinestones that hung, suspended, in her curls, and Annabelle had the feeling that if either of them still had warm blood that circulated through their long-dead bodies, they would both be blushing.

"What the fuck?" Victor's expression was twisted as if he had swallowed a lemon. "How long has that been going on?"

"A while, I'd say," Annabelle couldn't help but feel a little bit smug. It wasn't often that she noticed something long before either of the others did. "Considering how close they seem to be."

"Why didn't he tell us?" Nelli asked, aghast.

"I mean," Vicent winced. "If you were Jasper, would you tell us?"

He gestured with a many-ringed hand between himself and Nelli, and she rolled her eyes with a scoff but didn't refute it. "They're... cute. I can't believe I just called Jasper cute but this is so cute that it's making me sick."

"I think it's giving me cavities," Victor agreed. "Any more sweetness and I'll have to go to the dentist."

"Come on, guys," Annabelle chided. "Leave them be. Nobody likes a rubberneck."

She watched as Eva smiled and ducked her head, looking up at Jasper through her fair eyelashes. Jasper's thumb was moving in an unconscious, repetitive motion against her skin where their hands were connected. He gazed down at her like he was seeing her for the first time. Annabelle honestly felt a little bad for intruding on what was obviously a private moment, but it was clear that Victor and Nelli had no such qualms. Their faces were almost pressed up against the window, and if either Jasper or Eva were to shake themselves free of their little bubble and look their way, they would have seen them watching raptly, fascinated, like kids at an aquarium.

"I think it's cute," Annabelle said, a little defensively. She wasn't sure why. Jasper could fight his own battles, he didn't need her to defend him at the best of times, but especially not about something like this.

"Oh, darling, I think it's adorable," Nelli insisted, finally leaning back against her seat. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and crossed her legs. "Not to mention aesthetically pleasing."

"You can't say that you're not shocked," Vincent said to Annabelle, raising his eyebrows at her, doubtful. "This isn't blowing your mind at all?"

Annabelle shrugged. "I mean, I've sort of suspected it. This isn't the first time they've been like this."

"What?" Nelli demanded, returning her attention to Annabelle from where she had glanced back down at her phone. "What are you talking about?"

"Come on, guys, don't tell me you haven't noticed?" Annabelle couldn't help the stunned laugh from leaving her, even if it made Nelli scoff and roll her eyes, and made Victor scowl at her. "Every time we meet with her, he compliments her. Tells her that she looks lovely and that it's always nice to see her."

But Victor was still unconvinced. "That's probably just Jasper being a gentleman."

Nelli raised an eyebrow at him. "Jasper? A gentleman? Are we talking about the same person?"

Before the two of them could get into one of their bickering arguments that they really didn't have time for, Annabelle continued, speaking louder to be heard over them, ending their dispute before it could really begin. "And Eva always tells Jasper to be careful and to come back and visit her soon, and she tells him that he also looks nice even though we all know that he really doesn't, and even if we're all there as a group they always end up standing really close together, and they get all smiley and giggly like teens when nobody else is looking."

Her evidence was met by silence. Nelli and Victor stared at her, gobsmacked, eyes wide and mouths agape before they slowly turned to look at each other. Annabelle knew that they had seen the signs themselves, but had just brushed it off and hadn't paid it much attention, but now that it was presented to them like that, it all made sense. Too much sense, actually. How long had that been going on before Annabelle had arrived? Victor and Nelli were under the impression that Jasper and Eva had met that day months ago when Eva told Annabelle her clan, but somehow she doubted it. Even back then, Jasper was reverent and softly kind and Eva smiled at him despite the situation.

There was another beat of silence with Annabelle watching as Victor and Nelli gaped at each other, before they blinked, and they both swore, "Fuck,"

The door opened, the same door that they had been pressed up against to ogle, and they desperately pretended to act natural as Jasper rejoined them in the limo, Nelli and Victor dashing for their phones in their laps as Annabelle just turned her head and stared resolutely out the opposite window. Jasper slid into the cab, clipped his seatbelt and shut the door in what seemed to be a single smooth motion that Annabelle was a little jealous of. 

But maybe they were playing it a little too cool, because after a too-long moment of silence with nobody acknowledging Jasper, he growled low in his chest, an almost subvocal sound that rumbled through him like thunder, and hissed, "What?"

Typically, that tone was enough to scare even the most steadfast of vampires, but Annabelle knew him better by now, and so did Victor and Nelli, and after all this time the three of them were immune to it. "Nothing," Annabelle tried to keep her tone as even as possible. "How's Eva?"

"She's fine," Jasper's brow furrowed. His eyes darted between the three of them, his expression growing more and more dubious, more and more suspicious. "Why?"

"You were out there for a long time," Victor said, doing a much worse job of keeping the teasing lilt out of his words. "What did you talk about?"

It was almost funny, the way that Jasper slid his clawed hands into the front pockets of his hoodie and slumped further into his seat, while also glaring at them with enough ire to send a lesser vampire running, mouth twisted in disgust with blackened lips pulled back to reveal his razor-sharp teeth. "I was asking her her thoughts on the book that I loaned her last week."

"What, so the two of you are in a book club now?" Nelli didn't even bother to hide her interest. "Cute."

"What are you talking about?" Jasper demanded. "We have common interests and not a lot of friends."

"Not a lot of friends?" Victor said, disbelieving. "What about X?"

Jasper glared at him. "Do you really expect me to discuss ancient Russian literature and Shakespeian poetry with X?"

Wincing, Victor conceded the point by raising his hands in surrender and leaning back into his seat. Nelli, however, was unphased by the tense set of his shoulders and the scowl on his face. "So you're saying that you and Eva are friends then? Or more than friends? I wasn't aware that the two of you even knew each other."

"Friends," Jasper said through clenched teeth. "Barely."

Ordinarily, Annabelle wouldn't join in on their ribbing, but it was so rare that she saw Jasper so vexed and bothered, humanized in a way that he never was, that she just couldn't help herself. "Oh yeah?" Annabelle elbowed him gently in the side and he twisted so he could hiss at her. "You sure? Because, I don't know about you, but I don't think 'barely friends' look at each other like-"

"Alright!" Jasper interrupted abruptly, sitting up straighter and fixing them with a stare as if daring them to continue. Annabelle thought that if he still had a beating heart and blood flowing through his veins, he would be blushing. "Are we going to get going or not? Because I was under the impression that we still had stuff to do tonight, but if we don't, I have places that I would much rather be, doing things I actually enjoy."

"Fine, fine," Victor relented. "Ib?"

"Yes, sir?" Ib called from the front seat. Was Annabelle imagining it, or did she hear some amusement in her voice? "Are you ready to get going?"

"Yes, thank you," Victor replied, and Ib keyed the ignition and pulled away from the curb. Victor and Nelli both stared at a lowly growling Jasper before ultimately deciding- rightfully- that pushing any more would result in bodily harm, and he sighed. "So, does everybody know what to do when we get there?"

Annabelle let the other three discuss, Jasper with a scathing retort, Nelli with offence, and Victor trying to play mediator, and she stared out the back window to the observatory behind them. Eva was still standing where they had left her, startlingly white in the twilight, and she continued to stand there, watching them until they had left Griffth Park behind them and she disappeared from view, nothing but an ivory speck in the distance.

No, Annabelle corrected herself. Not watching the coterie, but watching Jasper.