summary: there's a pigeon chasing her.
notes: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
nuits_froides wanted her/jasper. I HAD TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. <33 and i feel sort of bad since i had to make half this stuff about you up, but in my mind this is you, okay? :*
eta: FU LJ CUT. GTFO.
just... pretend it's behind a cut?
( this song, it won't stop playing )
No, really. The first time he sees her, she’s half running, half tripping down an oddly un-crowded New York sidewalk, a pigeon hopping after her bare heels. Why she’s not wearing any shoes, he’s not entirely sure.
He sort of wants to ask.
--
The next time he sees her, she’s buying crepes and People at the grocery store.
He spots her through a dirt-streaked window with peeling red letters, and notes that she’s wearing black heels this time. They don’t match her blue dress (it would torture Alice, he thinks briefly), and when she thanks the cashier, her (too, too full) lips round out the man’s name as her eyes flicker to the tag on his vest.
Edward would call seeing the same woman twice in a city made up of thousands of people fate.
Fate is for sissies. He much prefers coincidence.
--
Because, yes, it’s a total coincidence that he winds up passing by that same store a few days later and just happens to catch a glimpse of her, flipping surreptitiously through a copy of Cosmopolitan beside the checkout counter.
The smell sort of makes him want to, you know, vomit up all of his intestines, but he goes inside anyway.
When he reaches her lane, she’s tapping her foot to an imaginary beat, and an odd combination of fear, expectancy, and excitement is wafting gently from her (human human human) skin. The scent almost throws him off, when she shifts her neck and the motion sends cords of sblood spiraling through his senses— he can tell she’s wearing perfume, but, strangely, it doesn’t take away from her smell; only enhances it.
He pauses slightly to her side, hesitating only a half of a half-second before tapping her bare shoulder.
“Excuse me,” he murmurs, the Southern accent he tries so hard to bury rolling off his tongue and into his words with an unexpected ease. “Miss?”
She looks up, stares at him for a moment, and then snaps the magazine shut (but not before he catches the title of the article: 25 Ways to Spice Up Your Sex Life). She runs a thin hand through her dark hair, her lips parting faintly.
“Um, hey,” she says, then rolls her eyes once, quickly, and, along with the embarrassment he can feel thickly, he can tell she thinks it a stupid reply.
“I was wondering,” he begins, and it’s only then that he realizes he’s got no idea what to ask her. Where do you live? Why are you reading that magazine? What’s your name? Can I suck your blood?
He settles for the third.
“May I have your name, m’ame?”
If she thinks it’s an odd question, she doesn’t let on. He’s not sure if he’s impressed by her bravery or amazed by her stupidity.
“Gabby,” she tells him, sliding the Cosmo back into its proper place on the magazine rack. She’s got such a voice that it makes him want to ask her so much more, just to keep her talking. “Well, you know, my nickname. I guess. Some people call me Gee. Whatever you want.”
Somehow he finds the babbling endearing.
“May I call you Gabby?” he asks politely. A stock boy gives them an odd look on his way to un-package several boxes of microwave popcorn, and she bites her lip.
“If you want.” She shrugs, roots around in her purse. “Um, hey, do you mind—”
“Jasper,” he answers hastily, backtracking with his own rudeness. “My name’s Jasper.”
She shoots him a look, eyebrow scrunched up in an amused sort of way.
“Well, I was going to ask if you had change for five bucks. But thanks anyway, Jasper.”
She, Gabby, turns to walk away, her hips swinging and blowing her delicious scent his way.
For the first time in a century, he feels mortified.
--
“So, do I want to know about the pigeons?”
They’re sitting in side by side in the hallway outside her apartment. She’d assured him that it was fine, the really shady dealers only came out after midnight, anyway, but he stills sits a little closer to her than he normally would.
You know, just in case.
“Oh, the pigeons!” She laughs, pulls the elastic out of her long hair. He forces himself to hold his breath.
“Well, I sort of had some crackers in my hands that day— y’know, I was hungry as hell” –he nods as if he remembers being hungry for something other than (her her her) blood— “and that demented pigeon was like, obsessed. I finally was all, ‘Fuck this!’ and gave it my crackers a few minutes after you walked away.”
Wait, what?
“You knew I was there?” he asks incredulous, watching her eyelashes flutter to her cheeks as she looks down, demure.
“Ye-a-a-a-h,” she mutters, stretching out the word and giving it a strange, metallic sound. Then she grins, lush lips breaking her pale face in half.
“You’re not that hard to spot in a crowd, Jasper Hale.”
--
Thirteen freckles scattered across her arm.
Seven bobby pins scattered throughout her tangled hair.
Five gum wrappers scattered over the chest of drawers.
Three whispers of, Yes, my roommate’s gone till tomorrow, scattered through the night.
One scattered thought that won’t leave him alone.
Don’t bite don’t bite don’t bite don’t bite don’t bite.
Any other girl would be dinner by now.
--
She’s not any other girl.
content
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contemplative
cranky![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
100quills will have to wait :) Henceforth I shall be obsessed with writing for ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
rarepair_shorts 