1926, Philadelphia

[themidnightson]

He comes home later than normal, this part is not new.

(Edward spends much time out of the house. Even graduation and giving up medicine has not increased his presence in the house. He is still gone the same amount of time still, leaving and coming sometimes with warnings and others with no more than silent vanishing and appearing. He doesn't avoid them nor does he reject plans they invite, but it’s as though he's walking through them now. A perfect display in public of an endearing brother which ends with the event.


He doesn't comment on Carlisle telling Esme he hasn't seen Edward this restless since their earliest times in America. He doesn't comment on the fact Carlisle isn't telling her everything, that he isn't certain why he's so far away now. He doesn't have any answers when Esme points out she'd love to help him find with whatever he does want to do.

Instead he takes long walks, and he plays his piano, and the days roll on the way they have. They never seem to stop coming, those unchanging, unphased, unstoppable days.)

But he comes home later than normal this specific night, smelling of blood.

Specifically blood that doesn't belong to an animal.

Comments

[ofthefamily]

Esme is helpfully elsewhere when Edward arrives.

Carlisle isn't as helpful as he rushes to the doorway at the simultaneous smell of Edward arriving and the scent of it.

Edward?

[themidnightson]

The door is closed behind him, classically smooth and easy movement, though his gaze remained somewhere about the floor. "Good evening, Carlisle."

[ofthefamily]

No it isn't.

"What happened?"

Look at me. Please?

[themidnightson]

Edward looked up, with a turn of his head.

An accusative glint unspoiled by his dark-shot amber eyes.

[ofthefamily]

That doesn't shake the nerves that had Carlisle ask the question.

I didn't think that -- something obviously occurred, I just --
don'tlookatmethatway


What happened?

[themidnightson]

"I saved a young woman-" There's a derisive near snort. "-from a monster."

[ofthefamily]

Whatever answer Carlisle was expecting, it...probably wasn't that one.

"Did he survive?"

[themidnightson]

"Would it matter, if he didn't?" Edward answered, without a seconds hesitation. "Is the world a lesser place for one lost pair of boots that only served to crush others? No one would notice, and others would take his place."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle is slightly taken aback. "It matters for me. I want to know."

It could be for logistical reasons -- is there a body to hide, dispose of, deal with --

Or just for Carlisle's own knowledge.

"I'm not attacking you here."

[themidnightson]

"I can take care of things myself."

His answer is more for the listing thoughts that the obvious request. It's been nearly a decade now, and he hasn't needed coddling or direction in it for a while now.

[ofthefamily]

"And I'm allowed to want to help, Edward, qu'est-ce que j'avais fait contre toi que t'es faché avec moi maintenant?"

What did Carlisle do to piss you off, Edward? He is not following.

[themidnightson]

The list is multifaceted. And tragically simple.

"You would not want to help me take care of a body." Edward frowned, hands at the buttons of his winter coat. "I am not a child, who would cry and ask for your forgiveness, or need you to clean up something I hadn't regretted doing."

[ofthefamily]

The confusion can only turn to hurt, here, and just the smallest bit of offense.

"I wasn't asking for you to...to repent for any damned thing. You did what you felt you needed to do. I've never expected you to do more."

Carlisle opens his mouth to say something else, something more, but whatever shriveled-up idea he had to say dies before he can speak it.

[themidnightson]

"I didn't say I did anything."


There's the flare of an angrier accusation in it.

In the words under the words he's saying.

[ofthefamily]

Edward's voice in Carlisle's head: "I saved a young woman from a monster."

Carlisle looks back at Edward. Yes you did.

[themidnightson]

"No. She's-" There's a wave of his hand, and he narrowly saves himself from saying from saying trivial, punctuating with a sharp flare to the movement. "--not the point."

His jaw tightened, disgust in the words that followed.

"I should have done more."

[ofthefamily]

"So that you would become avenger."

As meekly as Carlisle ever speaks (which isn't all that much), but all the same, he's trying to understand rather than accuse him.

"I cannot judge you for that, if that is even a concern of yours." Carlisle gathers it is not. After all, I acted so with Esme's past.

[themidnightson]

"Twice. Two grand extenuating--" self-serving "--circumstances."

Even as they break down again to one circumstance again. The one who isn't within the walls of the house. He doesn't wonder where she is, still finding himself greatful she isn't there to hear him.

"And she had her one." Her mistake. Her slowly slipping away regret.

"We play at being people until the mask slips, until it becomes one of gods or monsters before a different need or trespass." Except for him. Except for having held out nearly a decade to things he can't remember why made so much sense.

[ofthefamily]

Slowly, so slowly, the thought forms, I never...

Don't you trust me to accept whatever you choose to do?

[themidnightson]

Edward's look for that probably clearly said his answer. Whether it was abjectly no or the fact that everything was acceptable and therefore nothing important, it was probably evasively clear that the question was its only answer.



But it became more remote as struck upon a thought, the fire of his anger banking on something else. He pulled his jacket off as he spoke this time. It's more of a winded challenge than a serious statement (this time).

"If I had chosen to drain him until death, and then done away with his remains?"

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle exhales overdramatically in what would have felt like a push of air to anyone whose lungs are vital organs.

"Then we -- I -- would have adapted."

[themidnightson]

Edward frowned; or, more aptly, the skin at the corners of his mouth turned down without the rest of his mouth much moving except to stay together, when his brow furrowed at the answer given.

He opened his mouth, only to turn a half step and look toward the door.

An actual frown dipping his lips this time. "Esme's almost home."

[ofthefamily]

"I won't say anything if you don't want me to."

She'll know.

[themidnightson]

"She always does." Edward shrugged, gracefully and ran his fingers up into his still winter-wind blown bronze hair. Enough to notice and never quite enough to really understand the why. "Tell her whatever you want to."

He turned down the hallway, headed for the stairs and a shower, eventually to be followed by playing the piece of music, with its frantic tempo, that was roiling itself across the inside of his head.