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Post by Jasper on Jan 19, 2008 13:16:21 GMT -5
As Arai opened the door, the old doctor was surprised by her beauty, but at first glance saw the scar dragging down one side of her face. "Well..." he said looking at it. His words stopped, he'd never seen a girl that was so nonchalant about her facial scars, all of his patients so far had begged to have them removed and covered them up as best as he could. Dr. Pettenati cleared his throat, "Well Jasper came last night and told me about the situation, so when you came we had no choice but to sedate you. By the way, I'm terribly sorry for the cage lass, but it was the only way to safely contain you until you woke." He adjusted his spectacles and kept going, nodding his head back to Jasper who couldn't hear them, or at least he didn't think he could, "Poor lad stayed in there with you all night. Didn't even go out to get anything to eat." He glanced back at the vampire cooking ham now, then back to Arai. "I think he fancies you.." The doctor cleared his throat, "How are you feeling?"
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Post by Arai on Jan 19, 2008 14:49:30 GMT -5
Arai noticed the doctor's wise eyes stop at her scar. Self-conscious, she reached a hand up to brush a lock of hair behind her ear, covering her scar a bit with her palm. She forgot about the scar sometimes. But now that someone had noticed it, she was overly conscious of it. So she had been sedated. A wise choice, she knew. Her wolfen rage was uncontainable if awake. But now that it was gone, she was just plain little Arai, a five two, innocent looking teenager. Actually, she was nearly twenty now. But birthdays were of little matter when your life expentency was hundreds if years. Had Jasper really stayed with her all night? There was really no need to; drugged, there was little she could have done. Arai blushed at the doctor's words, lowering her pale gold eyes a bit. Jasper liked her? Why? She had barely met him, then tried to kill him. Men were strange. So decisive sometimes. "Better," she replied with a weak smile, "hungry." The sizzling meat only fueled her hunger. She wanted to eat, but was no so impolite as to rush to the table. Though she was a nomad now, she still held onto her maners from her earlier life.
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Post by Jasper on Jan 19, 2008 20:53:13 GMT -5
The doctor put a hand under her elbow to guide her into his apartment. "I'm terribly about that by the way. You might feel a little soreness in your arms where the needles were an in your neck from the initial dart." The floorboards creaked and whined beneath his slippered feet as he moved into his room. Dr. Pettenati winked at Jasper as he caught his eye. Jasper put the last plate of sizzling meat on the table. "Good morning sunshine," his voice greeted brightly. Seeing Arai brightened his mood ten fold. It didn't matter that last night she had tried to kill him, all that mattered was that she was here right now, and that was all that mattered. Jasper just needed to be careful when she got a temper as she proved last night and she would have to be pumped full of sedatives once a month, but hey, he could work with that. "I hope you're ready to eat, I knew you'd be hungry. I wasn't sure exactly what werewolves preferred cooked or raw.. so we have both." Jasper pulled out a chair and stood behind it, offering it to Arai. "Your chair, ma' belle."
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Post by Arai on Jan 19, 2008 21:41:01 GMT -5
Seeing Jasper, the doctor's words popped unbidden into her mind. I think he fancies you... Arai was torn. Jasper was strong, was handsome, and charming, despite being a vampire. And therin lay the problem. Vampires and lycans were supposed to be enemies. Accepting Jasper's feelings would probably mean being thrown out of the pack. Seeing as they were her only friends at the moment, she was loathe to throw that away for a guy. Besides, she was still leery of any male contact. Even Pete, the lycan who she knew was in love with her, rarely got a chance to show his affections in any physical way. A week at the resistance base had cured her of men. Slowly she was getting better. But even the doctor's arm on her elbow made her a bit twitchy. He let go, though, once he knew she was steady on her feet. Sitting in the chair, the meat even closer to her, her stomach growled hungrily again. "Raw?" she said incredulously, "why would I eat raw meat? Except for full moons, we eat, talk, and act the same as any other human. I would never eat raw meat unless in wolf form. I'm not uncivilized," she snorted. The food did look quite good, but she would not be so rude as to leap at it before her host and Jasper sat.
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Post by Jasper on Jan 22, 2008 11:40:04 GMT -5
Jasper pushed her chair forward, smiling down at her. "Well, vampires have that blood thing, remember?" He chuckled, "Even though we don't exactly eat 'normal' food, we could eat raw meat if we didn't have anything else as long as there's blood still in it. And hey, I didn't know that your kind existed outside of Hollywood until this morning, and I certainly didn't see you burst through your clothing and start harassing townspeople." Jasper had seated himself whilst he spoke, and the Doctor sat across the table himself putting his pipe between his slightly yellowed teeth. "So, I'm sorry that I'm not exactly well hearsed on the diets of werewolves, love. But the good doctor over there wouldn't help in his endless fountains of knowledge," he shot a playful glare at Dr. Pettenati. Jasper began to wonder if things would be like this every time that the full moon came? Or how long would it be before Arai grew tired? Or tried to push him away? Arai looked so beautiful in his shirt. His fingers longed to slip every button slowly from its hold and take her into his arms. Her creamy skin was radiant he followed her neckline and dreamt of sinking his fangs into it. He shook his head trying to make the thoughts scatter. 'No..' he thought, 'I'm not putting anyone else through that again...' But he couldn't tear his eyes from Arai, it was lust, fantasy and her irrevocable beauty that kept his eyes trained to her. For some reason he didn't feel it was right, but that was all lost and pushed to the back of his mind for a while.
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Post by Arai on Jan 22, 2008 13:03:37 GMT -5
Her eyes switched to the doctor as Jasper spoke. A fountain of knowledge? A strange thing to find in a human. For the doctor was a human, or at least she thought he was. His touch on her shoulder had been warm, meaning he was not a vampire, and he had not transformed during the full moon. Every lycan transformed during the full moon, master or not. It was merely a matter of how much control they had. Arai had none. There had been no one to teach her such control, and hence she did not know how to master the wolf. "Well, only the masters can change whenever they want," she explained to Jasper with a small smile, "I am far from a master and far from embracing that." As she hungrily began to eat some ham, she was all too aware of Jasper's eyes on her. It made her uncomfortable, somewhere deep inside, his intense looks her way. It was something like the looks that her Jason would give her, that Pete used to give her, yet there was a baser urge within his gaze. A hunger, in a way. And though she didn't like to think on it, Arai was reminded again that he was a vampire. Sucking blood was his lot in life, and it would not do to feed that constant hunger. The walls around her heart went higher. She would protect herself, be cautious. It would not do to let a caring face and a handsome man draw her into trouble. It would be best now to get back to the den. Back to her family of sorts. The longer she stayed here, the worse things would get. But for now she ate. Her ravenous appetite still stayed in her, though she was no longer a wolf. She would eat well today. Her next meal was uncertain.
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Post by Jasper on Jan 26, 2008 12:23:29 GMT -5
Jasper could tell that Arai wasn't paying him the attention that he would've liked, but he thought maybe that she was playing hard to get. He reluctantly tore his eyes from her, and his mind from his fantasy in conjunction. The vampire pushed them away in his mind and tried to be more gentle, and hope that she wasn't paying attention to his gaze. The sun was shining through the bottom of the windows where the heavy quilts weren't attached. Jasper winced as he glanced back and slunk over to the counter and stole the duct tape. Careful to stay out of the harmful rays Jasper pressed the quilt with his foot to position it and then taped the edges of the blanket to keep out the rays. He did the same with the other windows and came back to sit down.
"Sorry Jas, I wasn't sure how sensitive you were these days," The doctor managed to utter through his mouth full of bacon. Jasper raised his brow, "I'm less sensitive than I was at first, but almost a hundred years can help you get accustomed, I guess." He turned to Arai, "If you need to leave, feel welcome, its a little sunny out today and so I'll be stuck here until night. I have some work to do anyways." Music wasn't Jasper's only forte, he had a vast knowledge of science, and he had a project that he and the doctor were working on. He felt guilty for interrupting the doctor's sleep since he kept him up most of the day and let him sleep at night while Jasper went out to feed. He felt unreasonable and stupid to imagine that Diorah could possibly be reincarnated in Arai, he looked at her and could see so many similarities that it made the pain of loss a little better. He knew she needed to go soon, but something told him that she wouldn't stay away. "Just be careful when you cross the street, and watch for any on coming buses okay?" he smiled at her warmly.
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Post by Arai on Jan 26, 2008 15:38:56 GMT -5
One hundred years? Arai now viewed Jasper in a new light. Being over eighty years her elder, there was no reason to do anything even slightly romantic with him. I mean, sure she was supposedly going to live forever, unless she was killed, and in the course of that lifetime eighty years was of no difference. But still it was a large warning sign to her, adding to the major one about him being her supposed natural enemy. And supposedly not having a soul. But Jasper, despite her doubts, seemed rather.....soulful. He was caring, attentive, and no doubt fairly intelligent. You had to be to survive an attack from a fully out-of-control werewolf. If he had been anyone else, had not been a vampire, Arai fancied she would have fallen head over heels for him. But her logic kept her emotions in check, and she pushed any thoughts of romance to the back. "Don't worry," she assured with a small smile, "that won't happen again." Jasper had been her savior twice now, and she was not about to put herself further in debt to him. "But do you think," she continued, a slight flush creeping into her cheeks, "that I could get some proper clothes? No offense against you shirt or anything, but I wouldn't want you to walk around shirtless." Actually, she didn't mind it. His muscles, she couldn't help noticing, were toned and distinct. His sculpted chest looked like it was carved by a master sculptor out of the finest marble. Arai wondered, though her mind protested most vehemently against the thought, what it would be like to touch those muscles, run a finger down his strong arm. The slight flush returned to her cheeks as she realized what she was doing. No. Jasper was not for her, was not one she should be getting attatched to. He was a vampire - she had Pete, didn't she? But Pete had been a bit distant lately, she reflected a bit wistfully. Still, he was what she had as part of her little lycan family. Arai would not desert that for some good looking, smooth talking vampire.
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Post by Jasper on Jan 26, 2008 23:29:28 GMT -5
Jasper smiled at Arai's comment. "What so you think I don't look good shirtless?" he teased, "Hey, at least its me and not the good doctor strutting around barebacked." Dr. Pettenati snapped a playful glare at Jasper and self consciously put a hand to cover the wirey white chest hairs that protruded from the gap in his coffee stained button up shirt. He picked up the paper and glared over the wire glasses on the tip of his nose and shuffled over to his easy chair and sank into it; leaving the two to themselves. Soft snores could be heard as the paper flopped back onto the doctors round belly only seconds later.
Jasper jerked his chin in his direction, "I guess we kept him up a little too long then." There were three stories to the doctor's home, and at the very top were places where he kept his wife's clothes in trunks and things that patients had left here. "Well the doc has some stuff of his late wife's upstairs that should be about your size, and his daughter left some clothes as well. Her tshirts and stuff should be a little more fitting." He had slipped out the fact of his age in conversation earlier, he felt that she should know but didn't know what she was thinking. Jasper knew it would come out sooner or later, and he wasn't sure how long Arai had been a werewolf and to think of it, he didn't know anything much about her. His work called for him, but he pushed it out of his mind, it'd been a while since he had had real company other than his ghouls and the doctor. He held out his elbow to her, "Shall we?"
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Post by Arai on Jan 26, 2008 23:59:03 GMT -5
Finishing a bit of ham, Arai deemed it prudent to not respond to the rambunctious Jasper. With the room darker, he obviously felt much better than before. Of course her not trying to kill him might have something to do with it as well. Finishing her mainly carnivorous meal as the doctor fell asleep, Arai watched the doctor with some amusement in her pale gold eyes. A strange one, to be sure. She supposed it took the strange to handle the strange. Normal people denied the existence of the dark underworld that ravaged their cities. Still, in a way that was better. The Resistance - curse those stupid humans - made everyone's lives more difficult. Hers particularly and specifically, at least for a few months. Though now the threat to lycans was mainly of the vampire sort. They were beginning to get edgy. At least in America. Sneaking a sideways glance at Jasper as she rose to follow, she wondered if the European vampires shared the same hatred of werewolves. Probably. Hopefully Jasper was an exception. Following him out, past the harsh metal cage where she had thankfully been contained, she listened avidly to Jasper. Late wife? Had she died naturally or by....other...causes? And a daughter? Where was she? Obviously not here. When he unexpectedly offered his elbow, Arai was too bewildered to do anything but automatically lay her hand upon it, resting it there. In comparison to his bare muscular arm, her hand seemed small, fingers long and delicate. And yet, though she did have paler skin due to being a redhead, her hand seemed positively tanned against his pearly tone. "What happened to them?" she couldn't help but ask quietly, making sure the doctor, if he was still awake, couldn't hear, "his daughter and wife, I mean?"
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Post by Jasper on Jan 27, 2008 0:41:56 GMT -5
Jasper looked down at Arai beside him and moved on up the stairs soundlessly. He made sure they were out of ear shot and started, "Well, they were killed by vampire hunters. Both Alicia, his wife, and Isabella were vampires and they were stalked and thrust out into the sun." He shook his head, "They were hunted by some group of self righteous baptists who stick their noses into other peoples business where they don't belong. The hunters broke in one night and brought them out and tied them up outside to the roof and left them to the dawn. Meanwhile they brought the doctor up and made him watch his only daughter and his soul mate crumble away to ash before his eyes."
They were at the top of the stairs now and Jasper opened the creaky door that led up into the dusty attic. Various trunks littered the room filled with clothes and news papers and assorted things from the past. Sewing dolls and old distressed metal bed frames sat together with naked plastic baby dolls with lazy eyes and disarrayed hair. The attic was dark due to its lack of windows, but the weak door that opened from the ceiling let little rays of golden light peek dangerously into the dark room. Jasper winced at it, he slunk into the corner of the room falling onto the creaky mattress of the old bed frame. He nodded up, "That's where they took them. Now its a little more understandable why the doctor helps out those like us... Ever since their death he knew that, that was what his calling was."
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Post by Arai on Jan 27, 2008 13:19:16 GMT -5
Listening to the sad story of the deaths of Isabella and Alicia, Arai felt a strong pity rise in her. The poor doctor. To see his wife and child die before him. Although she did wonder how exactly how the doctor was not a vampire, she felt sorry for his loss. Seeing someone you love die was a horrible, haunting thing. Especially his daughter. It was a terrible thing for a parent to see thier child die. She knew that it must be hard for him to continue to live without them. "The poor doctor," Arai whispered, looking around the unused room, "it is terrible to see someone die while you are powerless to help them." Her pain at seeing Jason mauled before her eyes must be manifested tenfold in the doctor. It must be terrible for him. Still, she was glad that he did not wallow in it. His dedication had helped her and Jasper last night. Jasper retreated to the shadows as Arai followed him up, and seeing the weak dusty sunrays stream in, she knew why. At least she could live a relatively normal life as a lycan. It was only on full moons that she could not live among normal people. Vampires could not emerge in the sun, and that must be a terrible thing. "Are you sure the doctor won't mind me wearing her clothes?" Arai asked softly, her pale amber eyes taking in all that surrounded them. It was obvious that few came up here. The dust was thick and undisturbed by footprints, and it didn't look like anything had been moved in a while. She was ready to get in real clothes again. Jasper's shirt covered everything, being far too big for her, but still she would feel more comfortable in pants.
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Post by Jasper on Jan 27, 2008 20:21:23 GMT -5
Jasper stretched out on the old mattress lazily; folding his arms behind his head. His messy dark hair hung around his neck as he shook his head, "No, they've been gone for about ten years." He was a friend of Isabella's and knew the family quite well at the time of their death. Alicia and Isabella fed only on animals on the countryside. "The doctor thought that he would lose Alicia to her battle with breast cancer. When they discovered that she did have the disease it'd already spread into her bone marrow so there was nothing they could do. Isabella came to me and told me what was going on, and since I was a great deal older than she was I knew more about the inner workings of our vampirism. I told her that one way to save her mother was to bite her and transfer the disease so that she would be a vampire as well. She listened to me, even though she had never bitten a human before and her mother survived, even though she was a little bit more of a modified version of herself as she was previously." Jasper shifted on the bed as he continued his story, keeping his eyes on Arai. "The doctor cut back on his hours at the hospital and lived a nocturnal lifestyle so that he could be with his family in their safe hours. He entered a new line of work as Isabella began to bring in her friends with various medical ailments that prevented them from being treated at the hospital. Doctor Pettenati hungered for new knowledge about other special cases like ours and the death of his wife and daughter only drove him to help people like us more and more. Over the years he's treated everything from werewolves, to demons, hybrids, sirens and many, many vampires." Jasper cleared his throat, feeling a bit long winded. "Anyways, just pick through the trunks and see what you can use." He got up off the bed which creaked and lurched in response and careful to stay in the shadows glided over to a scratched black trunk with band stickers all over it. He lifted the lid carefully as dust billowed out and the trunk groaned. The clothing inside was preserved and looked as if they'd only been worn yesterday. "These are some of Bella's, feel free to pilfer through whatever though." Jasper dusted off a corner of a mirrored dresser and sat down gently on it.
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Post by Arai on Jan 27, 2008 21:11:11 GMT -5
So that was how the doctor and Jasper became so close. No doubt, with Jasper being the friend of his daughter, the doctor felt like he was a son of sorts. A strange, yet sweet, relationship. The story gave her insight to both the doctor and Jasper. A strange one to be a vampire. Somehow she felt that he did not want to become a vampire, much like she did not want to be a lycan. It was a twisted world, one that forced your future upon you sometimes. She was glad for the doctor and his experience; it had saved her life and Jasper's too, probably his more than once. She coughed a bit as the dust swirled around, graying the air and settling over the beds and dolls, adding to the slightly gloomy feeling. Walking over, her footsteps sounded small and lonely in the attic. Standing next to Jasper she was dwarfed by his shirtless frame, her short auburn hair a bright spot in the grays and blacks. Running a hand over the clothes, she marveled at how clean and fresh they were. There were shirts there, shirts and pants and all the clothes that she would need. Some looked rather large for her; Arai was a petite in everything, being five two and barely one hundred pounds. But they were better than the loose flowy shirt she wore. Jasper probably wanted it back. The sun might not hurt him as much if he had a shirt to cover his sun-sensitive skin. "Thank you," she finally said, "for not running or giving up on me." She finally brought her eyes to his, the shimmering gold flecks catching the pale light.
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Post by Jasper on Jan 27, 2008 22:07:42 GMT -5
Jasper looked down into her glittering eyes and his breath caught in his throat. Even in the shadow they looked as if they robbed the sun of its light. From experience he knew that he couldn't be so free spirited with Arai, that she was more than met the eye. He leaned in closer to her face and caught her floral scent. An electric pulse of nervousness shot through him as he got closer, his hands itched to touch her but he held back. Jasper's lips parted as he was caught up in the radiance of her gaze, slowly inching closer and longing to be nearer. Then reality hit him like a ton of bricks. Jasper cleared his throat and straightened himself to his normal height. He looked away bashfully feeling a tingle rise to his cheek. "Well, work calls me. Pick what you like, Arai. I'll be downstairs." He pivoted on his heel and soundlessly went downstairs. At the end of the banister the doctor leaned on a chubby elbow with a knowing smile on his face. Jasper grumbled as he passed him, "Pervert." The doctor chuckled and the two went into the separate room to get to the work of clarifying their formula.
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