(no subject)

[themidnightson]

He walks for a long time, in what might as well just be a very large circle. He stops places, but mostly he walks. It's been ages (almost two weeks) since he was running an extended distance. There is nowhere to go. There is nothing to find. This is home.

It's making him stir crazy, along with the symphony of voices and memories.









Eventually, he returns to the house.

Comments

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle is impressed when he doesn't jump on Edward as soon as he hears him return through the front door.

"Go anywhere exciting?"

Nervous anxiety and a tremor in Carlisle's tone.

[themidnightson]

There's a bag, casually strung over one shoulder, and an odd, not quite inquisitive, flicker on his features for the combination in the address, in the forefront of Carlisle's thoughts.

"Just....around."

The places didn't matter as much as the moving.

[ofthefamily]

"I didn't know."

[themidnightson]

"It wasn't very--"


Edward stilled in the middle of a hand going to the strap.









Oh.


If not specifically softer, it's quieter, more specifically to Carlisle instead of another act of conversational attempting suddenly. "It was only a walk."

[ofthefamily]

"I overreacted." Thank God.

Embarrassed, he shifts quickly, "What's in the bag?"

[themidnightson]

"Books."

And his journal.






"I wouldn't just walk out."

As if the level of hypocrisy in that statement didn't scream. And his face shows that not even the half second later while he's pulling off the sunglasses. Intent-impossibility turned a guilty frustrated.

It's not even as if he hadn't considered it.

[ofthefamily]

I just didn't know what to think.

With a fair level of shame crossing Carlisle's own features just as quickly.

[themidnightson]

"I-"

He stops. He tired of stopping only to start. Tired of holding his tongue. Tired of the unwanted words being what he has, tired of having them when they aren't good enough for him to hear even in his head. A collapse of phonetic sounds.




He pulls the bag, trying something else.

"I didn't stay in one place for very long."

It's harder staying in one place, he means, somehow.
And those other words, the ones not said now.

[ofthefamily]

"Neither did I, when I was traveling by myself," Carlisle nods. At least in that Carlisle can understand somewhat.

[themidnightson]

"I thought it might help."

He places the glasses on table, near a plate for keys, and the bag goes on a hook from the stand. Things that very much say Esme's choices and opinions. Convenient, helpful, tasteful -- not even vaguely distracting even when he's looking at them.

"Walking."

[ofthefamily]

That sounds uncertain as to the efficacy of the idea.

Carlisle doesn't reply.

[themidnightson]

It really does. Doesn't it?

He can't out run anything now. He doesn't want to.
But standing still is hell, and walking wasn't much better.





"You're home early."

It is a question.

[ofthefamily]

"I had more important matters to attend to at home."

[themidnightson]

Edward's eyebrows raised faintly, inquiring.

Instantaneous reaction more than pointed must knows.

[ofthefamily]

The exhalation almost sounds frustrated. Almost.

"How could I go and stay for my shift and pretend everything was as it had been for the past five years? I could barely focus."

[themidnightson]

He's been here days. Almost two weeks. It's--

Edward at least doesn't look away, if that's not mollified. Today he's managed to disrupt Carlisle's day by having left the house and by not having left it.

He tries to keep that thought reigned in.



"What would you do now?"

[ofthefamily]

"See you. Be with my wife and family. Take a day off, which my coworkers say I do not do enough of."

[themidnightson]

"Have you had one off in the last year?"



There's a wisp there. It's not quite the lead-in to a joke.
But it's something in his tone that's slowly coming back.
That is making it slowly back to such lines being smart.

Maybe it nearly makes it one in that.

[ofthefamily]

Completely calmly, "I do not remember."

So that's a no.

"Everything mostly blends together."

[themidnightson]

He didn't. He really didn't. An endless parade of the same things. Whatever had been infinitesimally funny about it sobered instantly, with an understanding of what those words all meant together, the how and why so glaringly obvious.



But they are being calm, so he strives to stay somewhere near it, "I started packing one of the upstairs rooms, too."

[ofthefamily]

"That's good. Anything I should be helping with?"

[themidnightson]

"If you'd like."

It's his house, after all.

[ofthefamily]

Still noncommittal and dancing around each other.





"I don't know what to say."

He hates it.

[themidnightson]

Edward hates mostly that it bother's Carlisle.


"Box packing doesn't require you to." Edward doesn't quite even latch on to what he's saying, just keeps going. "You open them, fill them, close them. Doesn't require much else."

In another lifetime that would have been a joke.

But it's very even here, if it is an invitation.

[ofthefamily]

But there's so much to say.

Carlisle nods, stepping back and directing his arms towards the walkway to the upstairs rooms to let Edward walk ahead of him.