Sweet Nightmares (Tag: Iris)

Jasper opened the door with one hand and closed it with his foot, walking into the loft that Him, Rosie, and Liam grew up before Lizzy was born. The place was up-kept and didn't reek of abandonment, quite the opposite actually. Everyone part of the family or that knew them used this loft occasionally. His parents used it whenever they wanted to think or just simply relax, both Rosie and Liam used this loft to be with Damon or Helena, Elizabeth used it for her decorating space, and Ari liked spending time up here so Jasper joined her.

His mother locked up the bookstore early, so by the time Jasper came into the shop, no one was here. The Library closed down about an hour ago and the instant they got in Jasper's car, Arianne fell asleep. He couldn't blame her, all the studying that they did was more than enough for Ari and even for Jasper. So, instead of going home, it was best to let her sleep in the loft. Much closer than home and he wasn't complaining about not going straight home to Lizzy's baking madness. He already received several of text from Rose and Li, begging him to find a way out.

Jasper walked towards his parents old bedroom and laid Ari across the bed. He tugged the blanket over her sleeping form and placed her things next to her. He kissed her softly on the forehead, his finger brushing her cheek gently.

Arianne did not stir from her sleep, despite being moved from the car and into the building -- not to mention up a flight of stairs. She had always been a heavy sleeper when she was really tired. She curled close to him and mumbled a sound of discontent when placed on the bed, out of his arms. Even in her sleep, she knew where she wanted to be. "Jazz...purr," she mumbled sleepily, pouting even in her sleep. "Love.... you," She yawned. With the blanket on her and his gentle kiss to her forehead, she was fast asleep once more.

Iris leaned on a wall in the bookstore, her eyes closed as she watched the scene upstairs mentally. He was alone now. Arianne would not come looking for him anytime soon. Everything was going smoothly. So, she sunk down onto the ground and pulled her knees to her chest as she hugged her legs. She hid her face into her thighs and started to sob quietly. It was silent enough in the store for him to hear her.

Jasper chuckled at her mumbled and kissed her lips softly. "I love you too Ari..." He whispers, nuzzling her nose. He blinked however, something churning his hearing. He listened carefully and he knew the sound was crying. He knew it wasn't upstairs but back down at the bookstore. Maybe he left the shop door open and someone had gotten lost?

He gotten up and moved out of the room, closing the door silently. He walked out of the loft and to the stairs of the bookstore. It didn't take him long to reach down to the library and see a girl in a ball. He pressed his lips together before making his way to her. "Hey... Are you alright?"

Iris kept crying gently as she heard him walking downstairs. When he came over to her, she smirked slightly. Once he was just in front of her, she slowly brought her head up. When she looked at him, her eyes were fully black -- no white nor iris showing. The second a faint, distant smile crept onto her lips, she pressed her index finger to his temple and watched as he fell onto the ground. She tilted her head a bit, looking upon his unconscious frame with an empty expression.


--

"Jasper...? Wake up," A female voice said quietly. It was Arianne's voice, just not as sweet as she usually talked around him. Jasper would find himself in the loft once more, 'asleep' on the bed. It would seem like he had merely fallen asleep and dreamt of going downstairs to find Iris. Arianne stood near the dresser, fixing her hair in the mirror. She looked serious -- like she was really trying to make sure she looked perfect. "What do you think...? Side part or center part?" She murmured, looking over at him in the mirror.

Jasper tilted his head to get a better view of her face. However, once he saw her eyes, he gasped quickly and his feet automatically tried to get away from her, a survival instinct that he'd gotten from his parents. He felt himself tripping and as he felt her cold finger on his temple, the world started to turn black.

---

Jasper groaned as he heard a voice, his eyes reluctantly blinking open. He initially sat up from the bed, his legs moving off the bed. He looked up a bit groggily at Ari at her question. "Your hair looks beautiful both ways, Ari..." He responded, his usual response to her if she asked him how she looked.

Arianne pursed her lips and rolled her eyes at his response. "Original," She muttered dryly. "I guess it doesn't really matter what my hair looks like, though..." She mused to herself. Her brown hues turned downcast to the arm by her side. "Fuck... You'll have to apologize to Belle for me -- but, blood is pretty easy to get out of the carpet," She said quietly as she watched the trail of blood go down from her wrist and drip from one of her fingers onto the ground. She clenched her fist and sighed. "Don't act like you care, though. I could go without your bullshit for once," She scoffed, turning her dark hues towards him in the mirror once more.

Jasper nearly blinked at her response, not catching it at first. He looks towards her when she mentioned apologizing to his mother and followed her gaze to her arm. He jumps up quickly and walks over to her. "Arianne! Your arm is bleeding for Christ sake!" He says quickly, grabbing her wrist. He looks back up at her with a confused expression. "What are you talking about? I've always cared."

Arianne gasped in pain when he grabbed her wrist. She yanked her arm away from him. "Of course it's bleeding! That's what happens when you cut yourself," She pointed out, scowling. At his expression, she rolled her eyes. "Sure you have, Jasper," She muttered sarcastically. "Like how you cared when I was put in the hospital? I waited -- hell, I even prayed -- for you to rush in and just hold me. You didn't come. You went on with Helena and left me in intensive therapy for a month. Do you even know why I attempted suicide?" She questioned. "You. You were the reason I swallowed half a bottle of pills. I begged them to stop trying to save me," She said, knowing she had left that part out in the library. "You were the reason I wanted to die," she whispered. "And you still are."

Jasper looked even more confused. "Why did you-." He went to ask before flinching back when she mentioned about being hospitalized. He shook his head quickly, "I didn't know. If I knew I would have been there in a heartbeat!" Jasper felt a hard lump in hus throat, his heart beating more quickly, painfully. Being the reason why she wanted to kill herself? He couldn't find the words, the will to speak. "Ari...I-..."

Arianne shook her head and put on a smile that was far from reaching her eyes. "Save it, Rider," She said with a shrug of her shoulders. "Look at you... Getting all worked up. Don't worry. You'll be able to relax soon. I mean, you'll have some stains to clean out of the carpet, but that's what bleach is for," She said with a small laugh before casually walking to the bathroom. She wet a rag and dabbed off the blood from her arm.

Jasper let out a well needed breath before turning back towards Ari. "Ari, what are you planning to do...?" He asked cautiously.

Arianne turned her gaze onto him and shrugged her shoulders. "I'm going to get rid of a problem," She said simply. She walked to the bed and knelt down, reaching under the bed and fishing out the metal case she'd found earlier. It had had a lock on it when she found it. Entering the twin's birth date was the obvious solution. "Flynn put this here for Belle, I guess... Protection," She mumbled as she popped the case open. "I found it while you were sleeping. I hope you don't mind me poking around," She smiled sheepishly. She picked up the small handgun and laughed slightly to herself. "Your mom doesn't go near these things... She likes knives, right?" Ari asked casually as she cocked the gun, her brown hues captivated by the silver gun in her petite hand.

Jasper watches her with knitted eyebrows before instantly knowing what the metal case contained. Even if his mother never liked using the gun, didn't mean that they didn't teach their children how to use it. Protection was all that all of his family knew what it was for, not this. "Ari... please... don't do this... think about Rosie... Stefan... your father and mother... everyone that loves you. Please...I'm not worth taking your life... You are beautiful and amazing... and I'm an idiot for not being there at the hospital with you... and being the cause of this. Please... Arianne." He begs her, inching closer to her slowly and tears sting his eyes.

Arianne listened quietly to his words before looking over to him and smiling sadly. "Jasper... I am thinking of them. All of them. I'm thinking about how they worry about me -- the way they look at me and wonder if I'm going to relapse," She laughed a bit bitterly and shook her head. "I'm tired of those looks. Of knowing they worry... I'm not taking my life. I'm giving a part of theirs back -- the part without worrying about the girl with a broken smile," She smiled down to her hands and bit her bottom lip slightly. "Even if you are the cause... I don't blame you. I love you. I always have. You're the Prince Charming I dreamed about when I was little... I'm no princess, though. I've tried to be. I've tried to start over with you -- to forget how deep the hole I've dug for myself over the years is... But... I can't get out of the hole. I'm trapped and I can't breathe," She whispered.

She looked back to him then with a soft, gentle smile on her lips. "Don't worry, baby. It won't hurt," She said quietly. "I'll be happy. I haven't been truly happy in so long... I don't remember what it feels like," She smiled, paying no attention to the tears on her cheeks. She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Sing me to sleep... Sing me to sleep... And then leave me alone. Don't try to wake me in the morning, 'cause I will be gone... Don't feel bad for me... I want you to know deep in the cell of my heart," She sang softly, her eyes downcast as she raised the gun to the side of her head. Her brown eyes raised to look back at him and she smiled a bit. "I'll be glad to go," She whispered as she met his gaze and squeezed in her index finger.

The sound was loud. Even Iris was slightly startled by it as she spectated from the corner, not visible to Jasper. She watched Arianne's now lifeless frame fall over onto the bed, brown eyes still wide open with a bit of their warmth still remaining and tears still fresh on her cheeks. The blood was already soaking into the bed. The gun rested in her loose grip.

"Arianne! Please don't-!" He yells and he tries to run over and stop her, but it was too late. All too late. His body completely froze, unable having the will to move anymore. So his legs collapsed under him, landing on his rear. Everything within him contradicted, his heart sped a million miles per hour, but he couldn't feel his heart. He couldn't breath but he could tell he was hyperventilating, his cheeks now felt soaked with wetness. His body felt cold, numb, lifeless in all senses but he could tell his whole frame shook, becoming painful after a few seconds. The blood, the red now slinking down the silk sheets, it was so much. So much and that's all he could see.

Iris watched, her eyes delighted to see the pain the boy was now in. However, this delight was not her own. Her eyes and her twin's eyes worked as windows for Hades to look through. Iris, herself, stood there with no emotions, despite the scene before her. After all, the scene was of her creation. She walked over silently, still not visible to him and knelt down beside him, studying the expressions on his face and the way his whole body reacted to his emotions. She'd always been fascinated by emotions.

Once she was done in her studying, she placed her finger against his temple as before and everything went white instead of black this time.

"...... Jasper? ......" Arianne's voice was a soft calling in the distance.

Iris looked at Jasper on the bookstore floor and watched as he awoke. Arianne had awaken upstairs and was calling for him. Iris knew her job was done. Jasper would not recover from what he had seen, and so her job was complete. She vanished as quickly as she had come.

Jasper awoke just a quickly as he was passed out. However, he awoke nearly screaming and his face plastered with sweat. A nightmare...? He thought but his thoughts were instantly cut off when he heard his from her voice. He nearly prayed, hoped, beg when he stood and nearly broke out in a sprint to the upstairs. He nearly threw the door open to his parents bedroom, full expecting the scene he just witnessed. But it was the exact opposite. There wasn't any blood on the floor, the gun wasn't present on the bed, and Ari stood awake and even more, alive.

"You're...you''re-..." He couldn't finish his sentence, his reactions coming back to him as he replayed the scene. Before he knew it, he was on the floor, curled up in a small ball. His body shook vigorously, tears wouldn't stop streaming down his face, and he still couldn't breath, his lungs burning for air from his short spurts of breathing.

Don't go yet, Iris. Let's see little Arianne's reaction to our game. Hades voice was soft in Iris' head. She obeyed, watching over the scene in the same bedroom as before, lost in the shadows of the room and out of sight from either mortal.

Arianne practically jumped out of her skin when she heard the sound Jasper made downstairs. Her first instinct was to run and check on him. But, she didn't have to. As the door was thrown open, she looked at him with wide, alarmed eyes. "Jasper, what's--?!" She tried to ask before watching him collapse on the ground. "Jasper!" She was quickly by his side, her hands caressing his face. "Jasper, what's..." Her same question trailed off as the room started changing.

The was a smell she knew too well. Salt and rust. She looked over near the dresser and stiffened slightly as she saw herself with blood dripping on the ground from her wrist. The image of herself was flickering, though. There for a few seconds then gone, only to reappear again and be gone once more. She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. She opened them again and the image was gone. There was a faint singing from somewhere. She recognized her own voice. That song was one she sang to herself when she was depressed and alone. It comforted her. But, now it only made her spine run cold.

When the song ended, the lights flickered slightly. "Oh my god," Arianne whispered, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as she was now faced with the flickering image of herself lifeless on the bed and covered in blood. What disturbed her the most was how peaceful she looked. She swallowed the lump in her throat and shook her head, closing her eyes tightly once more. "Stop it," She whispered to herself. "Hades! Stop!" She called out.

Iris then laughed from the corner -- It was not her voice. Hades spoke through her. She was literally a simple puppet. "You can do that to me -- the false worlds and the nightmares... Jasper doesn't deserve it!" She pleaded. "Oh, but you do, Arianne. And you'll suffer by watching those around you in agony, knowing you can't protect them from their dreams," Hades cooed. Arianne swallowed the lump in her throat and shook her head. "Sweet dreams," Hades whispered before Iris disappeared.

Arianne whimpered and looked down to Jasper. "Jasper... It's okay... I'm right here -- I'm okay. It wasn't real. I'm alive... I'm right here," She tried to soothe him, taking his hand and kissing his knuckles gently. "I'm alive."

Jasper couldn't hear her voice but the images the replayed in the room. He didn't know if it was real or a simple image from his mind, but it felt real. He watched the images flickered, his eyes not moving away despite his mind telling him to. He couldn't hear the conversation between Hades and Arianne, all he could see was the blood, her body, her lifeless eyes.

Tears poured from his eyes and all his reactions just wouldn't stop. Even hearing her voice say that she was alive, he couldn't believe it. He wished he could but he didn't know what was more real, her soft kisses on his knuckle or the blood spilling from her body.

Arianne frowned as she failed to pull him from his mind. She needed him back. This was her fault. She didn't want him to lock himself in his mind like this. She didn't want him to leave her alone like that. "Jasper..." She pleaded. She shook her head and pushed him onto his back. She crawled on top of him and curled against his chest, taking his arms and wrapping them around her. She wrapped her arms around him and held onto him tightly. "Here.... I'm right here.... Please, Jasper... I need you... Please come back," She whimpered.

As he was moved on his back, the images appeared less. Now, her sweet smell swirled around him removing the vomiting smell of iron. Her warmth invaded the coldness he felt in his blood and as he heard her soft voice whimpering, his arms tighten around her small frame. He buried his face into her hair and the only words he could say, needed to say, was I love you and I'm sorry.

Arianne started to cry then. But, it was not from sadness. It was from getting him to come back. To respond to her and not the images he had seen. His arms were tight, but she wanted them to be. She wanted to be close -- to make sure there was no doubt that he was there with her. "Shh...." She soothed, placing a few soft kisses on his shoulder. "Come on. We're not staying in here," She said quietly and got them both up. She tugged him to follow her to the bedroom she knew he had grown up in. Belle had moved their children's furniture to the new house, so this room had been converted into a guest room. Ari had always liked this room more than his parents because the bed was fun to her -- it was suspended from the ceiling, which allowed for it to sway lightly. It was circular and even had a white canopy.

She shut the door behind them and lead him to the bed. She crawled onto it and tugged him on after her. She closed the canopy and gently got him to lay down on his side. She laid beside him and interlaced their legs, laying close to him with their foreheads together. Her golden hues searched his. This room was calm and quiet. They were alone, isolated there beneath the canopy. She only wanted to be close to him. To protect him. She gently caressed his cheek, then turned her head enough to allow her to kiss his lips slowly and lovingly. "I love you," She whispered to him, still trying to soothe him.

(disbedtho http://st.houzz.com/simgs/1e71ab580f1fefcc_4-2515/-beds.jpg )

Jasper could only follow her, clinging onto her hand like letting go of it meaning she went away as well. He didn't question where she was taking them and he didn't dare to look back in that room. The instant he smelt that warm wood smell from the bedroom he grew spent nearly all his days in, doodling, playing with Rosie, teaching Li how not to be a dweeb, he felt relaxed for a time. The old, happy memories allowed his body to stop shaking so violent and his heartbeat to slow down it's pace.

He allowed her to move his body around, his mind not able to do that without collapsing into a small ball. As she laid close to him, he tried to concentrate on her bright, lively eyes, but it all just flickered back to the angry, the sad, the cold, the lifeless eyes that plagued his mind. He closed his eyes, trying to throw the images out and just feel her lips against his. But the questions wouldn't stop ringing in his mind.

"Did you really... attempt suicide... cause of me...? Did you... really beg them... not to bring... you back? Am I... still the reason... why... you want to..." He didn't dare to end the sentence nor did he want to open his eyes.

Arianne leaned back to look at him, seeing how he would not open his eyes. She frowned at his questions. Of course Hades would reveal the one thing Arianne never wanted Jasper to hear. What was worse was that it was true. "I..." She sighed and played with the fabric of his shirt aimlessly. "Jasper... When I tried to commit suicide, I wasn't myself... I was so far lost that I didn't think I would recover. You know the day you gave Helena those flowers, I went home and went 'on vacation' for a while... Yes, It was because of you at that moment in time -- when I went home and could only focus on you... Yes, I did beg them. I'm not proud of it. I just... Back then -- and still now -- you are the only thing that makes me even look decent," She smiled sheepishly. "I was convinced that... If you didn't want me, I didn't have a chance in hell of coming out of the hole i'd already started digging myself into with the sex and the drugs and grades..." She shook her head.

"Jasper... I was selfish and foolish. I do not want to kill myself," She said, her voice stern and yet soothing. "Especially now... I'd be even more of a bitch than Stefan is if I left you like this," She said, trying to lighten it a bit. She sighed and kissed his lips, cheek, temple and then forehead. "I love you, Jasper... Hades took my worst thoughts that involved you and used them against me. Against you. He wants to break us down. You're letting him win."

Jasper listened to her, now feeling worst, but he wouldn't let that come over him. He opened his blue hues to look into hers. His eyes were less pained than a few moments ago but they didn't, wouldn't, shine like before. The vision, memory, nightmare now forever imprinted in his mind. But her wouldn't let that take him down. His parents taught him better than that. If someone knocks you down, you bounce back up - with eye poking vengeance as his mother's version would go.

"I... never wanted to be the reason for your pain Ari... And knowing this now... I want to spend... the rest of my days, repaying you back for the pain I caused you... I love you... Ari." He whispers in response. He wraps his arms around her body, clinging onto her desperately, as he hid his in her neck. "Don't leave me like that... ever..."