Notes: I was so worried that jpex had died, but it hasn't. Written for pexylexy's prompt, 'what did I do that you can't seem to want me? And why do we lie here and whisper goodbyes? Where can I go that your pictures won't haunt me? What makes it so easy for you to be walking by?'
Title: Break Me
Pairing: Edward/Jasper
Words: 1322 words
Disclaimer: The Twilight series isn't mine, it's the property of Stephanie Meyer. I'm clearly not a Mormon mother with kids, and I'm not wealthy either (clearly), which means that nothing was made by the writing of this fic.

Break Me

If Jasper was a broken man before he'd found the Cullens, before Alice and before everything else, then he wasn't too sure what he was then, after everything had been said and done. Too many times he'd seen his heart broken, and every other time before, he'd managed to piece himself back together and move on as best he could. But a part of him was always left behind, marking those dark incidences in his past.

Those holes in himself, both in mind and spirit, spoke of dangerous times and dark and bloody deeds that were never spoken of, not even in the hushed whispers of thoughts.

Most often, Jasper thought, every time he'd had to say goodbye to someone, it seemed as though they were more important then the last person in his past that he'd had to leave behind. All of them had left behind some mark, and some of them were more visible then others, but it didn't change that fact. But the one person that Jasper should have been able to let go of, the one person who'd changed him for the better in so many ways, was the one that had so effectively captured his heart.

There was no easier way of putting it, he had fallen in love with Edward. Jasper thought, that was easy enough to swallow, it was something that he could live with; he had no problem with harbouring those feelings for Edward. After all, the younger vampire had managed to worm his way into Jasper's heart the way anyone else had, making him the most important person that he'd found in decades.

It was just too... too hard to comprehend that no matter what Jasper felt or did, he wasn't what Edward wanted and that rendered any and all feelings useless.

And you knew, you knew all along how I felt.

Edward isn't stupid, but sometimes Jasper thinks he looked away from the truth when it didn't sit well with him, when it didn't seem to fit in with the world that he'd lived in. Somehow, Jasper thought, Edward was still stuck in the times he'd been born into, instead of moving on with them.

Why her? Why did she have to come here?

Try as he might, Jasper couldn't help but harbour those dark feelings for Bella. He hated her, hated her for taking away the meaning of his own existence in order to satisfy her own selfish whims and need for attachment. Edward couldn't see her thoughts, but Jasper could read her emotions all too well, and there was always that blackened edge to every emotion that she felt.

She didn't like him, didn't like Jasper, and that was causing a rift in both her relationship with Edward, and Edward's relationship with Jasper. Of course, Edward refused to believe that Jasper did actually dislike Bella as the human child claimed, but he was starting to form suspicions.

I won't make him choose, because I know which way he'll go. That... that would hurt too much.

Jasper would take the high road with this, he wouldn't force Edward to choose between himself and Bella. The girl was too selfish, too much of a monster, to ever make any selfless choice and be nice about it and letting her 'boyfriend' have any life of his own. He was too... critical to her own stability for her to ever consider him having any other substantial relationship with anyone but herself.

And he knew that Edward would always side with her, would always go with whatever made her happy, because if she was happy, then the hole that Edward had in his chest wouldn't ache so much. Bella's well-being, and maintaining their 'love' was too important to him to consider upsetting her.

But Jasper wasn't doing that without a selfish motive of his own, because if he avoided Edward, then he wouldn't, he believed, have to face the inevitable rejection. Having a mere human chosen over him was too much to bear, and Jasper couldn't go through with any further build-up of their relationship, only to have it later crash down around him. It was better if there was as clean a break as possible.

I couldn't be what you wanted... but I was always what you needed.

At the very least, Jasper knew that Bella might have been what Edward wanted, but she would never be what he needed. No matter how hard she tried, she would never get that honor, because that was a position in Edward's life that only he, and he alone, would ever hold. She couldn't fill that void which filled every vampire, she could only spread a thin membrane over it that would mimic what Jasper knew he could do if only he'd been given a chance.

That was another painful thing to think about, all of the 'could be's and 'what if's. Jasper hated to dwell on thoughts like those, but it was impossible when he was surrounded by a future that could have been his. It might not have been legal for he and Edward to marry, but things like that had never stopped the Cullens before, and there hadn't been any reason for it not to happen then.

He couldn't stay for the wedding, he couldn't. It was too painful, too much to bear to know just how final everything was. After that day, there would be no turning back, and any mistakes that he or anyone else felt that they'd made would never be able to be fixed.

I hope you're happy with your choice Edward, because you're never going to get a second chance. That's not how life works when it comes to this. You'll have to live with your choice.

It was a savage and cruel choice, just to leave without telling anyone, but there was just no way that Jasper could face the reality. Especially not with such black and almost... suicidal thoughts scurrying around in his mind, he knew that there wouldn't be another chance in his future. Alice had seen that everything would go as Bella wanted, because Edward thought that was what he wanted too. There wouldn't be second-thoughts until years, maybe decades, into the future; and by then, it would be too late.

Jasper was walking away now, so that later he wouldn't be tempted to do something that would get him killed by an insane vampiress. Just as he'd thought before, the last thing he would ever want was to force Edward to choose between himself and Bella, he wouldn't cause him that pain. In this, he would be selfless. It was better if they both had a clean break, he told himself, it was better this way.

I'll always love you, even if you never do.

FIN.

Unrequited love, ugh, I've been hanging around in the ST fandom for too long now, because it's starting to rub off on me in the strangest of ways. And now I'm tired because I wrote this damn thing at 2:30 in the morning, and I've had a long day, and now my mind is starting to go to that weird fuzzy place that it does at ridiculous hours of the morning.

Anyway, comment if you enjoyed; I did this specifically for you, pexy.

Twilight.