#and jalice just wouldn't have even happened

[philtatosbuck]

"edward and bella would've never been together if he wasn't a vampire" is a crazy statement because they're quite frankly the couple that would've most likely gotten together in a modern no vampire retelling. edward and bella started as fucking lab partners or some shit to begin with. what do you mean they're the only couple who wouldn't be together without vampirism they are frankly the most likely couple???

[goldeneyedgirl]

I feel the NEED to talk about how much Deaf Mary Alice means to me because this story doesn't get enough love??? I have so many questions and thoughts and headcanons (headcanon over the fic yes because I can't help myself) Like.......Jasper just created a language to communicate with her?? Try to tell me this isn't the epitome of romanticism. I would very much like to know how were the first days he spent with her in South, the ideia that he let her get so close to him makes me so 😭💝🥰😫 (also this is very funny in my mind. I supposed she didn't know how to read back then so the communication had to be a challenge, especially if the only thing Jasper was used to teach people was murder)

Anon, I am SO happy and excited that you love Deaf Mary-Alice; I have fun writing a version of Mary-Alice that isn't as depressed and miserable. This version of Mary-Alice definitely tries to outrun her trauma and unhappiness and focus on the good.

I've only got notes for their first meeting (Mary-Alice is very much the 'lost kitten' that kind of keeps going to find Jasper over and over again. And all the other soldiers are bewildered by her, because the Major is *terrifying* and they wouldn't even make eye contact with him if they had a choice) because I keep changing my mind. I can't decide if Jasper did try to discipline Mary-Alice like the other newborns, or if he's always a little bit gentle with her.

Anon, I will cheerfully answer any questions about this verse, and squeal over your headcanons. I am always over the moon when people enjoy my weird little Jalice takes.

I've got a little snippet of some of Alice's feelings below, I hope you enjoy it!

deaf mary-alice.

Sometimes, it’s hard. Especially with the Cullens. She’s never really been bothered by the silence, especially with Jasper. It’s never about living in a quiet world - she doesn't remember any different.

It’s always been about not being alone.

But when her words run out, when she doesn’t know how to say what she needs to, the quiet presses down on her. How does she explain everything she needs Jasper to know? That all of the years, all of the darkness and rage and violence that she lived through, are still there - she just chooses to let it go? That she really does understand that she’s the weak-link, the canary in the coal mine, the thing that never should have survived? Jasper left her behind because it was a miracle she had survived her newborn year, let alone the ones that followed - at least he knew that she was surviving in the South. He had no idea if she'd last a day up North.

(That for Maria’s rage and resentment of Jasper’s defection, Alice lived because of the lingering affection and appreciation Maria held for the Major. That if she’d been the companion of any of the other soldiers, she would have been destroyed out of spite. Or maybe cast out and left to die trying to go north. However it might have happened, she wouldn’t be here if Maria hadn’t been truly fond of Jasper in the end.)

Monterrey is a time capsule, and she feels adrift and unanchored, and she’s really not sure of what can fix her. Jasper's grasp upon her doesn’t feel like enough most of the time, like something terrible is going to pull her from his grasp and this possible life will be lost to her.

She’s terrified he’s going to be the one to let go. That for all that she loves him and that he cares for her, it’s not going to be enough. Jasper will heal and want someone he can speak to, who can talk back; a girl who can fucking say “I love you” out loud. Who doesn’t get frustrated and bewildered when their words run out, when she has to take an extra beat to lip-read and decipher which language is being spoken. A girl who doesn’t need a buffer against the world to survive.

That's Mary-Alice’s biggest fear. That in the real world, the Cullen world, she’s not going to be enough for Jasper. That proximity had turned him in her direction, and now she was just faulty stock. She sure as hell doesn’t fit in with the Cullens - she doesn’t know how to be so neat and clean and calm. She doesn’t have the faintest idea how to be more human than she is. She can't even speak their version of sign language right.

But those are her problems. The ones she doesn’t really like to think about unless Jasper’s at school because he always knows how she feels. It’s only when she’s alone that she lets it all out, that crushing terror that she’s never going to be quite good enough.

(Maria wasn’t surprised when she was found in the wreckage of one of her last battles, leg torn off at the hip. Alice had still killed her opponent. But she knows there was a second that Maria considered just leaving her on the field to perish when scouts found her. Maybe even just douse and burn her; Alice had seen Maria do that before. The terror and determination had sat entirely in her throat. Her visions told her this could go either way, and she got to live.)

And yet, she’s still… hopeful. She might be terrified that Jasper is going to be the one to let go, but she’s clinging tightly to him. The room next to his becomes hers, and Jasper is the one that helps her paint it. It takes a day, as she painstakingly hand-paints mock-wallpaper; Jasper daubs her nose with paint, and she retaliates with a swipe of paint across his face. He laughs and kisses her, tracing the words they have for love down her spine. Later, she finds a heart painted on the wall near the window sill with ‘M-A & J.W.’ written on it, and that warms her right down to her toes.

(When she insists on painting all her furniture by hand, Jasper is the one that takes each piece apart for her; he sits with her as she works, a book in one hand, and the other locked in idle conversation about everything and nothing. He admires her work when she’s done, and she feels bashful, not having the words to explain that she wouldn’t bother with any of this if it was just her. This was her trying to build a ‘them’, trying to turn her room into theirs. She can’t offer him much, especially when it comes to tangible things, but she can offer him this.)

Edward tries to speak with her sometimes. He struggles with reading her mind; she thinks in the signs she and Jasper made together, in Civil War-era Spanish read from lips. He struggles even more to speak with her - he speaks text-book perfect American Sign Language, and flawless Spanish, and she speaks neither. Alice is also not entirely literate in either language, so passing notes is out. It’s messy. But he tries, and she’s grateful for the effort, she just wishes Edward wouldn't weaponize her deafness when she’s upset him. She wishes he would translate so she could be friends with Bella, instead of keeping them apart to protect the human girl. She very much wishes he wouldn’t try and correct her so often.

And when he tries to talk about Jasper, about the toxic thoughts that trickle around in her mind, and his efforts come across stunted and insincere.

(It’s easier to believe Edward’s stilted reassurances that Jasper loves her when she realizes that Jasper walks into the house and beelines to her, insisting upon a kiss before anything else. She obliges, and his greetings are hurried and disjointed as he pulls her close. Sometimes those greetings end in shedding clothing, his hands grasping and stroking bare skin; counting scars, tracing the seams on her skin. Other times, he gathers her up and tells her about his day, asks about hers. He’s gotten back into his old habit of signing all his conversations, even if she’s not in the room; the same way he speaks as he talks to her, a rumbling vibration that is uniquely him.)

[goldeneyedgirl]

Okay, so, you have written so much goodness already, I feel a little nosy to ask you for more, but.

[insert a promt]

I have some, if you feel like writing one of these, I would be grateful, if not, its ok, you spoiled me already with everything you have posted within those few days.

- Variable Stars, the family/friends/whoever side-eyeing Jalice being like “you two are FRIENDS, yeah, sure” // or // anything you would like to post from VS.

- Anathema, Alice comes to the Cullens after the shit show that happened

- Divorced Jalice, anything after Jalice meeting in the park.

Thank you❤️

Listen, I am happy to write and I wouldn't offer if I wasn't happy to do it!

Let's start with Variable Stars

"And what exactly is going on there?" Garrett grinned as Alice and Jasper disappeared into the forest, Jasper keeping close behind Alice. "If looks could kill, I'd be a distant memory."

"They're just best friends," Emmett said solemnly, trying futilely to keep a straight face for a moment before he grinned. "That's what they both keep insisting when they come back from 'wrestling'."

Garrett started to laugh. "Wrestling?"

"No, it's true," Edward sounded just as amused. "He's literally teaching her to fight at night - to make sure she can defend herself."

"Wait, you're serious?" Garrett stopped. "They're actually 'wrestling' and not ...?"

"She's his best friend, and he's her person, and they get really annoyed if you question them," Emmett said, shaking his head. "And the Tiny Terror packs a punch when she's pissed off, let me tell you."

"That boy looks at her like he'd like to devour her," Garrett was shaking his head. "How can she not notice? How can he not know?"

"Oh, that's new. Since you turned up, and Alice knew you, actually," Edward said pointedly, as they got closer towards the herd of elk.

"Fifty bucks they fuck before Christmas," Emmett said boldly.

"Bella has seventy for Thanksgiving. Esme has a twenty on the spring. Something about rebirth and renewal."

Anathema

It took me weeks to work out how to see Jasper again after Freddie decided that the best solution to me finding my soulmate was to keep me locked up in the Funeral Home - I wasn't exactly a social butterfly before the Cullens moved to town, but now I wasn't even allowed to run errands or go see Dulcie at the salon.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the house comes into view; my bike was designed for getting around town, not biking nearly ten miles away to find the elusive Cullen house. Thank god Mrs. Stanley was an unrepentant gossip - and that Freddie had decided today was a good day to drive to Port Angeles for supplies.

Dropping the bike onto the drive, I tripped towards the porch; surely they had heard me and were home? Knocking on the door, I suddenly wondered if I looked okay or if I was a mess from my bike ride.

The door swung open to reveal Mrs. Cullen, the rest of the family peering from the next room over.

"Hi, I'm Alice Brandon. I thought maybe we should talk," I said in a rush, absolutely certain I was turning pink as soon as I spied Jasper frozen on the stairs. Oh, he was beautiful, and my limbs were already twitching to go over and fling my arms around him, like I had wanted to when his brother and father had dragged him off.

Divorced Jalice

Alice didn't relax until she was back inside her apartment, the door locked. It wasn't until she was in the kitchen, taking her pills, that she finally let herself ... react to everything that had transpired.

Jasper. She'd be lying if she said that she hadn't thought of him so many times over the last six years. Hating him, mourning him, missing him, worrying about him. She'd only managed to resist stalking him on social media because she knew she just couldn't face seeing him smiling from wedding photos that weren't hers. So she hadn't. And now...

Why had she agreed to go to dinner with the family? She hadn't seen any of them since the separation, she wasn't recovered enough to be able to hide it for very long - she hadn't missed Jasper's curious glances in her direction over lunch, at the scar peeking out at the neckline of her top. And whilst Jasper hadn't asked - he always was a consummate gentleman when he wasn't fucking his co-worker - Rosalie or Edward wouldn't pause in demanding answers.

Why... why couldn't it just be them? She knew how to protect Jasper, how to make sure he only knew what wouldn't hurt him, but she'd never, ever been good at hiding anything from Rose.