(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]

"Rochester. Esme is looking forward to being so close to New York City."

Edward probably already knew that. Of course, Carlisle has no idea what kind of interactions Esme and Edward have been having since his return.

So he decides to ask. Carlisle is feeling braver, momentarily.

"Have you and she been speaking?"

[themidnightson]

Edward nodded, at picture on the floor he'd just pulled off a wall.

"Some."

(You want to know when I'm going yell at you, you mean?)



"She doesn't push."

[ofthefamily]

Meaning Carlisle is.

He goes to look for a box in the closet to fill.

[themidnightson]

It closed his eyes, tightens his fingers on cardboard in his hand, leaving him swearing in a force of expelled air that isn't a sigh is tthe smallest whisper.




"It wasn't an insult." It was a compliment to her. He can't miss anything. He can't make it quieter in his head, can't make them less easy to hear.

[ofthefamily]

"Alright."

[themidnightson]

He frowned at the crumpled card board, straightening it between his fingers. Perhaps, hopelessly. This part might need a little extra packing tape.




"If I needed you to stop, I'd tell you."


Lies. Lies as big as the sky, in highlight writing.

[ofthefamily]

You didn't the last ti--

Where is that box? Stupid, useless closet.

[themidnightson]

He doesn't wince. It's too deep, and deserving, for that.

"To the right, on the top."



The words war, as he listens to the shuffle of things. He can't and he shouldn't and some things are so deeply honest they defy thinking them no less saying them. He knows it was a lie.

He knows he wouldn't stop Carlisle.

He would let it burn him before he'd say anything.


"You have no reason to believe me."

[ofthefamily]

"I want to believe."

[themidnightson]

"I do, too."


Or wanted to want it.

He wasn't sure what to call it.

[ofthefamily]

"I wasn't a good husband to Esme," Carlisle starts. It as good a place as any.

[themidnightson]

She'd stayed. "She's still here."

That was far more than he'd managed.

And the love she felt for Carlisle...

[ofthefamily]

"I have been extremely lucky in that regard."

[themidnightson]

Small favors among the damned.



Edward taped a box.

[ofthefamily]

The room is mostly packed in short order between both Carlisle and Edward working on it.

It's easier than starting a conversation.

Especially since nothing Carlisle can think of to say seems particularly safe.

[themidnightson]

As though to say matters.










"You still think too much."

[ofthefamily]

A quiet snort. "Some things will never change. My apologies."

[themidnightson]

"Don't. You have nothing to-"

He stops himself, having not meant for those words or the near vicious specificity of them to escape him. Carlisle. Carlisle should never have to apologize about any of this.

Edward balanced back to sit for a second, reaching up to scrub his fingers in his hair and drag the palm of his hands across his cheek.

"Everything is louder. Clearer, further. What I could miss once, like a background whisper or blur, parades louder than a marching band, in perfect synchronicity."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle can nod rather clinically about this.

"I had expected as much. Your talents would be heightened on human blood. It makes sense."

It was one of the reasons why I started to think you wouldn't--

[themidnightson]

There's a wrinkle in his expression, and frown.

The flat of his palm ended on his nose, palm covering one eye, fingers still in his hair, as for even the briefest second he paid all of his attention to the maelstrom.

Everywhere lives and lights and thoughts and what they were seeing. Everything and anything, a roil that continually displaced him from himself.

And he opened his eyes, focusing on the box, then, with a glance on Carlisle. On here and now, with very direct terms.

"I won't miss it."

[ofthefamily]

"Oh."

A smile attempts to form on Carlisle's face at this, though it doesn't seem like a topic to smile about.

[themidnightson]

It's been five years. He can handle a few more months.



"It makes what you think even nearer to speech itself." All of his wonders and almost words and can't use those words, still bombarding him as though Carlisle had chosen to use them.

He set his jaw, but there's something bemused at the furthest edges. "And you do. Think a lot."

[ofthefamily]

"That must be exhausting. Especially around me."

[themidnightson]

"It was much worse in the beginning."

He hadn't missed Carlisle's voice then.

How did he explain that sometimes, now, when he sat in a chair and looked out a window or a at book, he never saw it. That he simply sat there listening to the sound of Carlisle's or Esme's thoughts. Something so simple, something so effortlessly taken for granted by them (by him).

He didn't deserve it, didn't have the right words to speak to it...and it captivated all that he was from the maelstrom and the chaos. And he gravitated toward that sound as if he could lean against it. Wrap it around himself. When such things were antithesis of what he had earned.




"It is familiar. Even if you do spend a lot of time trying to figure out what to do and not to do." As though he really needed to tell Carlisle that. Edward looked at his hands, and the boxes, trying to -- to make this easier. Then, without even justifiable reason, made himself meet Carlisle's gaze.

"You can do whatever you need, whatever you feel you want to."

[ofthefamily]

"I want to make you promise me that you'll never leave like that again."

I can't do that to anyone in this house. It's not fair to you and it's not fair to us. None of us see the future.

"I am still myself," Carlisle starts again, a different tack and bordering on rambling, "So if you left because of me you're just going to leave again."