themidnightson | 1924, Philadelphia

Edward tossed his medical book on the table across from him with a flick of his wrist.

The morning had been sunny, even though the afternoon no longer was, and being sick was not as fickle a thing to claim just vanishing to your Attending as the sun just deciding to come back out. He had enough things to he had to continue balancing for his Attending already--namely having already gotten on the man's nerves to the point of a truly frustrating degree over last Tuesday's full day shift spent on call with the phlebotomists.

Edward tilted his head back and mapped the ceiling, listening to Esme humming two rooms away.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ofthefamily

Carlisle is walking home, briefcase and extra nondescript bag in hand.

He is...extraordinarily cheerful, as far as Carlisle goes.

Hello, Edward. "Hello, Esme."

From:

sheisourheart

She came out of the room she was in, with a pleasant smile as she brushed her hands on the side of her unwrinkled skirt. His cheerful countenance is the focus of a moment's study before she held a hand out, gesturing for his scarf, and asked, both knowing and curious.

"Have a good day?"

From:

ofthefamily

The scarf gets yanked unceremoniously out of its near-Windor knot in one hand.

"Well enough I suppose," purposely avoidant, "I have something for the both of you."

From:

themidnightson

Which meant he, apparently, would need to get out of the chair.

Edward set his hands on the ends of the arms and pushed up. Even for all it's slovenly attitude, it put dancers of decades to shame. He walked over to the hallway which started the sitting room here, already baring an expression of consenting curiosity.

From:

sheisourheart

Esme folded the scarf over twice and hung on one of the high limbs of a well oiled, hard wood, coat tree and hat stand only a few feet from the door.

The extra bag got a look for his words, a gentle, charmed smile. "The occasion?"

From:

ofthefamily

"Do I need one?"

Carlisle doesn't wait for a reply; it is rare that he is so inclined to do something like this. He doesn't feel truly talented at gift-giving. He digs in the bag and hands two identical plain brown boxes to Esme. One is labeled with a rushed 'E' and the other has a scrawled 'Esme' on the top.

"You are both very difficult, having the same monogram."

From:

sheisourheart

"You seem to have managed without too much disaster," Esme said, taking the boxes, with an intrigued expression. She turned toward the parlor door where Edward's footsteps had stopped, and walked over to hand him his.

From:

themidnightson

Edward half rolled his eyes at the ohsoputupon complaint, as one corner of lips lifted. Carlisle's fondness for this show rather evident in his thoughts, even as Edward was looking at Esme as he took his box.

She'd paused an inquiring second once it was in his hands, but shook his head and verbalized the message she'd tried to give him. "You can go ahead."

From:

sheisourheart

Esme's gaze stayed on Edward for a second, glad to see the somber expression of the day breached by that part-smile, but she didn't need to be told a second time.

"If you insist." She half turned back, standing between them in the hallway. Her fingers moved along the edge to the right places to pull openings. Nearly the same time, she raised a hand to her lips, staring at the contents, as she murmured into it. "Carlisle, it's stunning."

The same crest as his family ring done in a nearly flawless silver bracelet with two classic simple bands to surround her wrist beneath it.

From:

ofthefamily

Carlisle risks a smile at Esme's reaction -- women and jewelry is the first thought, a joke, but much more important than the words of it -- before hazarding a look to Edward, who has yet to open his.

If you don't want like want it it's okay

From:

themidnightson

He knows. It's not as though Carlisle has been trying to keep him out, or been thinking specifically of it. But Esme's reaction does make some things fall through the cracks, that widen a little more pictorially at Carlisle's words following it.

He already knows. But it's Esme's look to him, once she's pulling hers bracelet out, more than Carlisle's words that has him opening the box. He can't help envying the simplistic joy the suffuses her and pours through him.

Less delicately, he popped the top open and looked down at the thing which looked exactly as it had in his thoughts first. An emblem he couldn't forget and had forsake by choice. He couldn't help the first thought of it's even bigger.

From:

sheisourheart

Edward expression was turned toward that state where she couldn't tell what he was thinking, whether it was a good thing or a bad one.

"Well?" Esme prompted, quietly, with her hand still over the face of her bracelet once it had been slipped on her hand. She couldn't keep the smile from her face.

From:

themidnightson

Edward tilted the box toward Esme, so she could see it. The dark black and the leather, the gleam of the silver caught in the over head light, and the black of it's offset pattern.

"It's a wrist cuff," he said simply, even though he was certain she could see that for herself now (even though he had yet still to touch anything but the one side and lid of the box).

From:

ofthefamily

"It was -- " Carlisle starts awkwardly, reminding him too much of Do you want to keep it? to be entirely comfortable, " -- I know it's a little modern, but I...gambled."

You gave me the ring back. I didn't want you to think that I...oh, hell. I gambled; that is all.

Not really.

From:

sheisourheart

Esme looked between them. Edward's still remote, leaning on the door frame and lack of either indicative comment or reaction, and the surplus of one from Carlisle, even in so few words.

It reminded her of their wedding. Of Edward's seriousness in giving her the ring, her seeming understanding of its importance and Carlisle's surprise in receiving it. As though she was in the room with an elephant she just couldn't quite make out even a year after it was past.

She turned to her husband, and walked over to him. There was concern, but it didn't out weigh the gratitude or her adoration for the gift. She leaned up to place a kiss on his cheek, with a whispered, "Thank you," which had a note of gentle finality to it.

From:

ofthefamily

"You're quite welcome. I'm glad you like it."

Which leaves Carlisle either standing and waiting for a reaction from Edward, or changing the topic and moving on.

"So. Have I missed anything thrilling?"

He can move on. It's easy enough. Mostly.

From:

themidnightson

Edward watched Esme bank from considering answering the question, and with a last look him, decide not to. To just lightly squeeze Carlisle's shoulder as she let go and walk back toward the room she'd come from originally.

Leaving the question on his plate, so to speak.

When her footsteps stopped the humming came back again, albeit even more cheerfully. Which was about when he finally looked back to Carlisle again. "It's been quiet. I read the first half of the new text book."

Again.

From:

ofthefamily

"Have they improved the indexing at all?"

Too official to be truly interested, but trying to be.

From:

themidnightson

"I didn't get that far."

It's been that kind of day, he means.

Before Carlisle got here even.

From:

ofthefamily

"Ah. Well."

Carlisle's expression twists uncomfortably, lacking something sufficiently eloquent to say. This had seemed like such a good idea before.

"Let me know how that progresses."

From:

themidnightson

Edward's look is impressively challenging-dismissive on the comment.

Maybe because he can or maybe because it's just tedious to avoid avoiding.

Whether it's his own or Carlisle's.

From:

ofthefamily

"I am being selfish. You don't have to keep it."

From:

themidnightson

"It's-"

Bigger. The Cullen Crest. Carlisle.

Edward looked back down at the still open box in his hand, tilting it so he was looking between the askance lid and it's contents. Why now and this. Why the symmetry. ~~Why him.~~ "It's fine. Really."

From:

ofthefamily

It's the first hopeful reaction Edward's given him; Carlisle's expression calms somewhat.

I owe you so much more than that. You know this.

From:

themidnightson

"Carlisle."

It's still, as though maybe saying it could stop the thought.

Before he raised his hand, holding the box back out to Carlisle.

"Here."

From:

ofthefamily

Carlisle silently reaches for the box in Edward's hand, nodding.

Carlisle gave him a choice. He's always been allowed that.

It's still a sting.

From:

themidnightson

Then Edward moved again, without speaking this time. Dislodging himself from the door and he held out his right arm, inner wrist side up, fingers curled into his palm. Waiting.

From:

ofthefamily

Carlisle exhales raggedly when he takes the cuff out of the box and drops the empty container on the floor without a second glance. The cuff itself is fastened with a cord rather than a solid button or other contraption. Easy, but braided and solid. Carlisle concentrates unnecessarily hard on securing the ties around Edward's wrist.

Once the cuff is tied against Edward's arm, Carlisle's hands linger to rest around Edward's wrist.

From:

themidnightson

Edward watched Carlisle's hands and his hair, standing very still as it was done. The image of Carlisle's fingers curling around his wrist and the cuff, another of those which which served as reminder of all that the present, and he himself, had come from.

He didn't recede from the touch, for all it's complicated gratitude and hazy half-formed thoughts, at his acceptance and its fastening being finished. It was very important to Carlisle, regardless of what he said or explained.

Turning his wrist, slowly, inside the loop of fingers he was not shaking off by doing so, he look on it. The flash of illuminated silver, the emblem that was fallacy and legacy (and memory), the sharp contrast of the black leather and his skin, and Edward reminded himself it could always be removed in a day or two if it was too cumbersome.

From:

ofthefamily

Carlisle squeezes Edward's hand once again lightly before releasing it.

"You can come back in, Esme. No need to eavesdrop."

From:

sheisourheart

To be eavesdropped on sets two assumptions that the two men in her life commonly refuted, that of actually talking. Something the last few minutes of silence claimed as a same truth of not happening. They had their own ways and patterns. Ones she'd knew well enough in letting them work out their own way was not a slight to them or to herself.

The second of,

"Last I knew, there wasn't a way I wouldn't hear you."

It's only one room away, and the outside world could be heard for a good distance beyond the whole house. But her tone was affectionately hopeful in its point as something was set down on a table and she came through the door half a minute later.

From:

themidnightson

Carlisle was always talking. Not always aloud, but always talking.

It made a great difference to a world already absent of silence.

Edward stepped back almost in unison with Esme's return, not quite to the door but neither as close anymore. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his slacks, the movement half covering the wrist cuff, even as he managed for her smile.

"You wouldn't want it if there was one."