(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]

"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."

[themidnightson]

Edward said, still and quiet, "It won't be like that again."


As much as he couldn't be that person again.
The one he'd been before they'd found him in the rain.
He really couldn't be the one who'd started that process again.


Even dealing with being more thirsty as he realigned things, "There is nothing in that world for me."

[ofthefamily]

"And there is in my world?"

Or is Edward here because he didn't have a third option?

And why doesn't Carlisle care more about the answer to that?

[themidnightson]

Edward's expression shifted. Subtly this time, something waged between red and white. His jaw faintly almost tightening to open and speak before stopping.


A good few seconds passed before his lips firmed. "You asked me to stop."

And somehow -- somehow -- that's the point of complaint, its the point of warning, because he doesn't stop. He shook his head, not looking away, keeping his words so very careful. "Of course, there is."

[ofthefamily]

He is simultaneously hopeful at the 'of course, there is' and questioning at Edward's earlier comment.

"Stop what? Apologizing? I just couldn't listen to it that night. It was too much with you back out of nowhere -- "

[themidnightson]

And now it was only words. Now he knew the damage he'd done here, too.




"Not nowhere. I couldn't--" Should he even be admitting these things? Should he just keep it all locked away and tamped down? How did he even. It was stupidly selfish to admit. "--bring myself to walk away again that night."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle's breathing hitches when he processes Edward's response.







"You'd been...here. For longer than that day."

[themidnightson]

Edward nodded, slowly, specifically.

"I wanted--" because needed is too true, too deep to understand. "--to hear your voices. Not your thoughts. Not just a sound in my head. Mixed into all the others. I thought if--"

He frowned.

"With the rain, and then I couldn't bring myself to be big enough, to just vanish. I couldn't move." That's the breath of an apology already starting. Just for staying.

For being too weak to do other.

He knows he's a monster. He knows more now, here, than he did that night. He may not understand why they keep extending everything to him, but he knows that part entirely.

[ofthefamily]

...Is he serious?

Carlisle rushes forward and lands his palms on either of Edward's cheeks, pulling his face to Carlisle's own and mouths crashing into each other. What a decade or so earlier might have been romance between them has become a need to communicate, convey what they are two mindless to deal with in words.

(Marcus would call it omertà.)

"I have ever wanted just to hear you again, my Edward." Carlisle pulls back, nearly shaking Edward's head in his hands. "Do not doubt this."

[themidnightson]

He could ignore this--

not breathe
(stay perfectly still
let in the tide of insanity
fade and fold beneath it like a ghost)

--but the force of that thought, possibly the blackest lie he's whispered to himself in this year (and there have been a few), slams him as though he'd ripped up the very center of himself. He never could ignore this.

Edward's mouth folding beneath the onslaught before his will and thoughts can even decide to do so, the same as its ending. The same as Carlisle talking -- still talking, always talking -- and it washing over him in words he can't even hear. So close.

His hands found lapels. It was always lapels, or a shirt, or something. The same things, no matter the style. Fingers digging into palms, that strained the fabric between the two as he used the strength of his sins to push Carlisle back a few inches with his curled fingers on clothing, against his chest, alone.

"I don't understand."

And yet just as suddenly the only thing that made any sense, that he understood, through the sheer insanity of it all, was that suddenly Carlisle was too far away.

And he pulled him back with the same force. Letting out a shaking breath out only when his forehead brushed Carlisle's and his nose a cheek. "Any of this. I don't understand any of this."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle is shaking his head as soon as Edward starts speaking.

"There is nothing to understand. You will never be unwelcome with me. Sun rises, sun sets. You. Stay."

It's called forgiveness, Edward.

Or love. Or family.

Whichever you need to call it.

[themidnightson]

His hands tightened on the cloth, his forehead pressing harder against Carlisle, even as he shook his head and swallowed. Almost as though he might try to merge into him with the smallest shift.

"I've done terrible things."

He can't comprehend what he's hearing. It's all over Carlisle's thoughts and it's everything he doesn't deserve on any level. After everything he's done.

After everything he's done to Carlisle, especially.

But he can't make his hands to release or himself move now.

And he looked up, tilting his head only the very minutest, with how close there faces are, adding, far quieter. "To you."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle wants to say it doesn't matter. He does.

It never comes out of his mouth into reality, though. There will be too many days in the future where Carlisle will worry when Edward comes home late or isn't home when Carlisle finishes a shift. When hunters veer too close to them while out feeding Carlisle will for a good while intentionally steer them away as he hasn't needed to do with either for some time.

We will learn. We are not short on time.