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Rare moments of total clarity, those are the worst – enough to understand, enough to see. The mind slipping, losing sharpness. A day years ago, toes sinking in the sand in the backdrop of Florida. The chase and the thrill, in the narrow alleys of Soho. Roughened fingers locked together, pressed tight against his chest, over sullied sheets in a hotel in Lubiana. All over the place, the order inconsequential. His name pronounced with spite, with agonizing devotion. Flashes of mundanity, briefly making sense, before they too fell into the black hole. A void of the most frightening kind. The horizon of events approaching, bodies tumbling down, down, where no light can reach. Peaking inside his mind only to find a scorched wasteland, the rotting corpses of memories eviscerated, their truth hanging by a thread. The walls that had been so carefully constructed crumbling all around Guy, held together by veiny hands holding his, and a resolve that knew nothing of surrender.
So he’d hold Guy, grounding him to the earth with his body and his thoughts. If only to hear him whisper, the echo of fear made man:
“You love me.”
And Jasper would reply, feeling the gravity pull onto his fallen sun, phagocytized and spat back out as stardust:
“You know I do.”
And Guy would close his eyes to sleep, and he would not question why Jasper seemed so sad while saying so, or why for a moment he couldn’t remember his name was Jasper at all.
It begins slowly at first, enough to pass as simple human distraction. Guy's mind is a boundary Jasper won't cross without permission, not anymore. Early signs go unnoticed, until they don’t. Guy collapses on his way to the dry cleaners on a regular Tuesday; Jasper holds time still with his fingers before taking him back home, the sun still low in the sky and his skin sizzling under his coat, the limitations of his body all but forgotten. A nightmare he once had, of a cadaveric Guy under a thin white sheet, reminiscent of a time he’d rather not exhume again. It had suddenly felt all too real, all a preordained, sick twist of fate that would take Guy from him before his due time.
Another memory, far older, sweeter but no less prophetic. The musty smell of old books and boarded up windows, rooms bathed in trembling candlelight. Chalices filled with red nectar being passed among family, hands picking Jasper up, the gentle hum of Mergu’s voice to accompany the night. Long hair braided in perfect tresses, bosom warm when her arms tightened around Jasper, fixing his hair in place. Showing him the cards, the spread laid on the table. Ten of Swords, eight of Cups, the Tower. ‘Esto no es bueno,’ concern etched on Carla’s face as she looked upon the centuries-old questions, the cards revealing nothing more than looking into a puddle of mud and horseshit would.
A conversation decades down the line, with someone that looked nothing like Carla, yet held the very same defiant gaze, just as annoyingly good at discerning the truth behind the façade.
"You think you hold all the right answers, but how can you tell? Could you anticipate this, when you first met him?"
Jasper had no answer then, had snarled and thrown a side glance at the figure of Guy, slumped against the car seat, evening lights casting shadows over his face. Already looming, already taunting. He wished he could have seen them at the time, pulled Guy out onto the road under a streetlamp, let him be washed anew in light again and again.
Jasper has no answer to this day, to the question he can’t spell whenever Guy glances upon him as if still dreaming, before recognition takes place. Jasper’s memories replay words, smells, the elegant picture of the floral arrangement. The light teak of the coffin a smear against the white marble of the chapel, Doris a dreary black silhouette leaning over her sister's casket, showing him the extent of her grief. Their grief. A snapshot of Jasper’s future, foretold ahead of its time.
Then you're just like the rest of us, Jasper. You’re just a fool.
Beautiful, the likes of which only painters could portray, in strokes of blues and browns and passion to spare in between. The softness of his youth replaced by valleys and hills on that peach-tanned skin, a litter of freckles on his cheeks, eyes that remained the same as when they'd met twenty years ago. Made all the more beautiful by a life lived. The beauty of surviving and thriving, of withstanding time and braving its currents against all odds. Of doing all of it next to Jasper, tied in ways that have no scientific grounds, no rhyme or reason.
His boy, always his boy. But oh, the pain of living had taken its toll.
And Jasper loved him, the intensity of which neither his last sunrise nor his first taste of blood could ever rival.
"Turn me." Frenzied, high on blood – Jasper’s blood – and grasping at Jasper, nails clawing, body shivering, clamming up. "Turn me, Jasper. Why would you deny yourself happiness? Why would you deny me mine?"
(You love me.)
"No."
Jasper understood, then. Tearing out Guy’s throat would have hurt him less. Breaking his body down would have done less damage than denying him the Gift, refusing to deliver Guy onto eternal darkness. Jasper had thought at the time that he’d heard the last of it years before; hearing the request again did not surprise him in the slightest. It will be years before he realizes, that was the last time Guy would ever ask.
"You're going to watch me die. You will, and it will be your undoing."
Memory is a wondrous, terrible thing at times. Then, just like today, Guy’s words had sounded like a curse.
Hands around his throat were welcomed, accepted reverentially each and every time.
Pale, bony fingers would wrap around the long line of Jasper’s neck and squeeze, or grasp for salvation. Guy had gone too far, had done too much, the timing had been all wrong. His mind was there, but Guy himself slipped away at times, swallowed down whole and chewed, spat back out, pieces of himself chipping away every time. Splintering into fractals that Jasper would tentatively pick up and put back together, in long sleepless nights and mornings where he fought tooth and nail to resist the pull of the sun pushing him towards slumber.
Guy came first. Always had, always would. Even back when Jasper had no intention for the boy to ever find out.
Other times Guy’s mind would simply make up its own nightmares, of which Jasper knew he’d played a part in. Horrors the likes of which humans are not accustomed to, further aggravated by withdrawal and a mind too open to the world; a drop or two of vampire blood too many, slipped in for Guy’s sake most times, but here and there selfishly concealed to ensure Guy would be back every time, would never be farther than Jasper would have him be. And what would he know after all, of the interaction between drugs in such a complex system as the human body? Klonopin to blood to sex to blood to alcohol to blood again, and all bad habits in between, none of which made Guy any better than he’d ever been. It would calm his mind, soothe the mulling and the overthinking, but only for it to be back with a vengeance. With demons clawing at Guy’s sanity, his body pressing on Jasper’s chest, eyes bloodshot, drenched in sweat. Smothering it down only made the festering worse.
You killed her you killed her you killed her—
Jasper gently patting his head, placating. They’ve done this a dozen times. Jasper expects to do it a hundred more.
I killed her. I KILLED HER I KILLED HER KILLED HER IT WAS ME ME ME ME M
The indents made by Guy’s nails would heal overnight; the resounding screams of his mind would keep Jasper awake well into the early hours of the morning. Even when Guy would eventually succumb to sleep, tucked uncomfortably in Jasper’s arms, his mind quiet but simmering, slowly unravelling.
All Jasper would think about then was the silence, the quiet after the storm. Jasper would take his time savoring it, tracing the shape of it, the contours of a stillness he’d have to face one day. Anticipatory grief of the flesh is one thing, but to know the very thoughts of somebody, to be privy of their innermost desires – shared freely and willingly – for almost two decades, and then nothing at all? Jasper couldn’t fathom it, let alone live with it. But Jasper has survived everything he thought he wouldn’t and then more, so who’s to say?
Then again, fate always has such a peculiarly cruel way of making fun of those foolish enough to challenge it.
Birds chatter outside the window, neon feathers shining in the sun. All Jasper had found for them was a trinket plate from a late-night flea market down the road, one Guy had looked at with fondness, there on the street as much as sat by the window in their contained two-bedroom apartment. A simple life, a compromise between the vast lands of Texas and the cityscape Guy was accustomed to. The place has no meaning beyond what they make of it. The clattering of dishes in the sink, the inhale when Jasper sips at Guy’s neck while they watch TV, the rusting of book pages being turned, Guy rinsing Jasper’s hair in the too small bathtub after a feeding gone rogue. Swaying to the notes of Only Forever with Guy’s curls tickling the side of his neck, with the night sky almost purple at the height of summer, when the windows are left open and the breeze carries the scent of the sea all the way downtown.
A dream, a moment fixed in time that Guy will bear no memory of six months down the line.
Here, now, in Jasper’s embrace, it matters not. Lips pressed against his temple, Jasper sways them both, side to side, humming the melody, counting the heartbeats. One-two. One-two. The beat of the music, far slower, as if it could slow down time. Let them live in this pocket of the universe for a short time, belief in reality suspended until Jasper can believe it’s really going to last.
Guy’s dreamy expression turns vacant for a moment, eyes cast to their joined hands, the ring that contains Jasper’s blood. Unrecognizing, uncertain. Jasper whispers at him, a mental caress: It’s alright love, you’ll figure it out again. Guy smiles, part knowing, part soothed by blood, and all is well again. For a short time, the memory of what it means just on the edge of Guy’s consciousness. Exactly no further, no closer than Jasper can manage to keep it.