Summary: Jasper and Alice Whitlock are professionals in a dying art. They live in, and own a funeral home in the cold center of Seattle. When the economy crashes, they're threatened to get put out on the street. Desperate for cash, the duo resolve to create more business for themselves. This is one home everyone is dying to to enter :)

A/N: So this is what Morbid Curiosity was originally. Since I went insane, and totally Jasper Alice, and not Bella Edward, I've decided to let it out of the closet. This story's going to be pretty graphic, and sort of sick. That's the point though. Please love it. I'll be updating Morbid Curiosity soon too. I hope you like the puns in the summary ;)

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Morbidly Married

Foreclosure.

That word has struck fear into the hearts of millions, especially lately. And that was the word we were facing now. Foreclosure. The liquidation of all we had accomplished. All we had striven to gain. Years of reputation, and back breaking work all boiled down to this. The decline in the economy was driving us into the ground, and there was nothing we could do. Why?

Although the suicide rate had gone up quite dramatically since the crash, no one could afford nice, expensive funerals. Everyone just got cremated and sent to their loved ones in a Zip-lock baggie. No caskets sold, no flowers bought, no embalming expenses, hall rentals, minister fees, tiny sandwiches, sappy greeting cards, burial singers, crane operators... and no money for my husband and I.

Jasper was pacing again, to the dark swirling staircase, and then back to the double oak doors. He had the horrid pink sheet of paper gripped in his left hand, right hand running through his already stressed hair. We were both in our dress clothes. Him in a black suit with a blood red tie, and myself in a black dress with a lace neck. From my seat on the floral couch I could see every tendon in Jasper's hand flex as he got to the part at the bottom. The part where it politely told us to get our creepy asses out unless we paid the bank.

"Shit." Jasper said quietly. He then crumpled the paper up with one hand, and threw it into the waste basket in the office beside him. That little wire trash can had held a lot more of those papers, ranging from blue, to yellow, to orange. Pink was an all new type of bad.

Jasper sat down next to me, thumping the couch back an inch. He sat on the very edge, balling his pale fists in his honey blond hair. There was no way to mistake this for anything but stress and despair. This had been a bad day from the start.

When I woke up the milk had gone bad in the fridge and I'd had no coffee cream. Then when I went to dissect Ms. Robinson, I found maggots in her stomach. After that, Jasper received a call from the hospital saying Madame Torricelli was revived in the morgue by an attentive intern. That made it all the worse. That old bat was loaded! And then there was this.

We were on our way out of the house to go to a meet and greet with a future client when we found the horrid sheet. A note from City-Wide Financial saying we were in foreclosure. I was just waiting for a piano to fall from the sky and knock my head in through my ass.

Jasper sighed heavily, as I rubbed soothing circles on his back. He was making his angry face. I didn't like it when he made his angry face.

"Sweetie, don't worry. It'll all work out." I lied. There was no way this was going to end well. I'd been imagining myself living in a cardboard box for months. People just didn't die like they used to. Not the wealthy ones at least. We were going under. After years of college and university, this was how it was going to end. Bankrupt.

Jasper angled his body toward me and tried to smile. It didn't reach his eyes, or even his nose. He could feel the bad times rolling in as well. It started slowly. Every month there would be a couple less funerals, until finally there was about three or four a month. A month! There was no way we were going to make it. Our home, and business would be seized by the bank in mere weeks. This was the edge of the abyss.

"Yeah." Jasper said almost mutely. "I'm sure it'll be fine." He smiled palely again, and gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek. Even his voice, still evident with a southern accent, was weak. "I love you, Alice."

"I love you, too." I said, and stood up. "Come on. Let's go get drunk."

Jasper stood up, and we went into the kitchen, ignoring our appointment. I pulled out the vodka from under the counter, and Jasper grabbed some orange juice. We both mixed them together into shots, and lined five each up at the table. Jasper slipped off his jacket and undid the top couple of buttons on his starched dress shirt. I took out my earrings, and slipped out of my shoes, stretching my toes. Both of our hands met the shot glasses at the same time.

Jasper smiled, really smiled, for the first time in a long time. "One, two, three!"

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"So... we're toad-alley fucked, eh pumpkin?" Jasper slurred with a crooked smile. Or at least I thought it was crooked. Maybe the room was crooked, and he was straight.

"Oh yeah..." I sighed, my shoulder holding my head up. My neck felt like a pipe cleaner, all bendy. So I had to keep it this way. "So screwed! Sugar muffin, give me tha cookie dough."

Jasper laughed, and handed me the mauled stick of Pillsbury. I took a bite out of the end, getting more plastic than dough. But I ate it anyway. "You now, people jus' don't die like they used too, Alice. Hah! You have lice in your name."

I laughed too, until I started crying. And then when I was crying I couldn't stop. There was so much going wrong with everything. The tears just came out instead of words.

"No, no. Alice, bay-bee!" Jasper was at my side, empty vodka bottle in his left hand. He sure smelt like he lived on the streets. "Sweed-dee! Please stop cryin'. I love you!"

"I love you too!" I wailed, and fell out of my chair onto him. He fell backwards onto the floor, and hit his head off the counter.

"Jesus!" He shouted. I found his lips, and started kissing him. Big, sloppy, drunken, mortician kisses. He grabbed my butt, and I pulled his hair. Then the nausea hit. We pulled apart, and I threw up all over his shirt. Then I started crying again."Alice, stop." Jasper said, sounding a little less drunk, but still pretty damn drunk.

"I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry!" I all but screamed. He pet my hair down."I'm sorry we're going broke. I'm sorry we're poor. I'm sorry about your premature ejaculation syndrome. I'm sorry about everything. But rich people jus' don't die on their own anymore!"

Jasper was really silent. "You're right." He said somberly. "They don't."

I started crying again, but not as hard. Jasper didn't speak. He just pet my hair, stopping only once to throw up into the garbage can. Eventually, I started to fall asleep. My eyes started to droop, and my breathing became a snore. Sometime I guess I realized Jasper was rolling me off. He was still drunk, obviously. A sober Jasper would never roll a lady into puke.

He must have picked me up, but I didn't notice. I knew when we were on the stairs because he bounced my head off the banister. And then I was on my nice, soft down bed. The one the bank wanted to take away from me. Asleep. After that, I was asleep.

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Morning came. I woke up in dried puke at three in the morning. Jasper wasn't in his spot next to me on the bed, or even sitting by the bay window near the closet, smoking.

I went into the bathroom and looked at myself. Vomit covered my shoulder, and half my face. This dress was ruined... unless I cleaned it. There were two dark purple rings under my eyes to accompany my dull headache. This sucked.

Showering was a must, so I got that out of the way. The water had to stay on lukewarm whenever we showered because the heaters in the basement were close to the body locker. It wasn't like we kept much in there these days. Just an unfinshed Ms. Robinson on the white slab in the prep room. After seeing those maggots I had been to fed up to drain her. That was second on the list. Well, third. Jasper was important too.

Downstairs in my robe, I began the search for my beloved bankrupt husband. There was nothing in the kitchen, not even vomit. It looked like we'd had a clean night, other than the puke I got on myself. The living room, study, office and visitation room were empty too. Where was he? I looked in the car. Our crappy Subaru was parked next to the black hearse as always. Weird.

I turned the lights on in the little room at the back of the garage. The one with the casket lift. There was a radio playing down in the prep room.

"Jasper?" I called.

"Down here!" He replied. He was prepping Ms. Robinson! God I loved my husband.

I decided against taking the stairs, and stood on the edge of the casket lift. The little green light switched on, and I pressed the button. It slowly brought me down to the basement floor. Oh the beauty of being lazy.

Through another door was the body locker, and then after that was the prep room. The prep room led into the casket show room. Jasper stood beside the white slab, his little table of tools at his side. He turned around to smile at me, and wave one blue gloved hand.

"Morning sleepy head." He grinned. "I got rid of the maggots for you."

"Thanks." I yawned, and kissed him on the cheek. There was no way I was getting old blood on my good robe.

I sat down on the sterile white chair in the corner, and rubbed my hand over my eyes. Ms. Robinson lay cold, gray, and naked on the table in front of me. Her lips were sewn shut, making her look silent and peaceful despite the steady sound of her blood draining from the tube in her neck into the bucket at Jasper's feet. It took only four minutes to drain the whole body. It was putting the embalming fluid in that was hard.

Jasper was looking at me, wearing only a thin silk robe. It was that look.

We'd had sex in the prep room a couple of times, but never when someone was in with us, and we always sterilized after.

"No. I have a hangover." I stated plainly. He shrugged, his gray eyes impassive.

"I didn't say anything." Jasper smiled to himself. What was up with him?

"Why are you in such a good mood?" I finally asked.

"Oh, no reason." There was definitely a reason. His perfect lips were still smirking.

"No, seriously. Why are you so happy?"

No response. I hated it when Jasper was coy. When we'd first met in college, he had become my friend instantly, but whenever I asked him if he thought I'd make a good date, he'd shrug. By the time we finally went on our first date, I'd wanted to chop his shoulders off.

"Let's just say we don't have to worry about our money troubles any more." He said, and roughly pulled the inch long spike of metal from Ms. Robinson's jugular.

So feedback. What do you think? Like it? Lump it? Want to hump it? No, don't do that last one. I think I like this, but I need someone to agree. Thanks!

Stevie