AU so very AU

[themidnightson]

It wasn't the best day--

He'd been bothered by the nearness of pretty much every single person who'd gotten within a four foot radius of him. He'd actually caught a boy's wrist in his fingers, nearly snapped it in his haste, when he'd reached over to point at part of his anatomy notes,  distracted by the pulse that shuttered and roared under his thumb, wanting to feel the wild beat of it against his lips. Before he'd had to suddenly get himself out of that room. He hadn't even listened to the teacher remonstrating his back as he ran away as slowly as possible without ruining his well constructed life of lies.

In another class he'd gotten a perfect test back, again, but he was conflicted on whether he deserved it. It was all but impossible to sit in a room full of peers taking the same test and no over hear their every little diatribatic thought about the questions and the answers to the questions. To pick out the calmest minds instead of the panicked ones, who were easier to stand, but also inevitably were focused or gleeful about having the correct answer each time.

-- so when Edward threw the door open and was greeted with the sight of a studio vertical piano it wasn't hard to just stare irritably.

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[ofthefamily]

He knew it wouldn't be a surprise, but he had been hoping for something slightly more upbeat than irritation. Carlisle's smile falters into a flat demeanor.

"I thought you would appreciate it."

[themidnightson]

Edward's brows quirked together, reluctance springing about at Carlisle's words and trying to blunt his irritation into confused about the object designed to get his attention. His hands moved normal, closing the door and lowering his bag toward the floor.

"Why?"

[ofthefamily]

"Because you were drawn to one." Simple; still flat. Carlisle's hand lay across the keys. Because I wanted to give it to you.

[themidnightson]

It's the second set of words than are harder to fight. The first ones only made him want to point out he'd been drawn to a young boy today, and would Carlisle give him one of those, too. He tried to push away the belligerent thought and the memory of the erratic pulse beat under his thumb.

It didn't want to go anymore than the piano.


"I also said it was gone."


The talent; and his soul.

Even though his gaze was settled on the thing.

[ofthefamily]

"If it were truly gone you would have never remembered it," Carlisle replies vehemently, "And if it is gone now, you have the power to regain it."

He won't falter in this. There is nothing in the world Edward couldn't have if he chose to have it. The green-eyed boy is there in the golden-eyed man.

"Won't you try?"

[themidnightson]

"I can't see why you'd think I'd want to," Edward said with a patient frown, as much at his words as one of the thoughts, clunky Debussy tuning in his recent memories.

This was part of a world he no longer belonged to except under a ruse. A cleverly, helpful, and often very educational one, but still a world that was a ruse.

[ofthefamily]

"And I can't see why you won't admit you want to."

[themidnightson]

Why would he ever want to feel that way again seated at a piano? And at a studio vertical, no less.

"Because I don't." Even if he couldn't remember what exactly right had been, he knew enough to know what felt wrong.

[ofthefamily]

"Fine."

Carlisle's voice is strong enough to sound nonchalant, or closer to pissed.

He's closer to hurt or embarrassed.

I'll bugger off, then. Or the piano will.

[themidnightson]

"I'm not him," Edward said, eyebrows furrowing at the angry tone and sensation of hurt. It wasn't something he should have to apologize for.

[ofthefamily]

"I've never assumed you were more or less than you are right now."

Carlisle moves a step towards Edward.

Do you think you -- you yourself -- has really changed all that much since Chicago?

You've controlled your vampirism, and it's clinical, hardened. Carlisle feels Edward needs this now and can't tell why --

It's time to try controlling your humanity again.

[themidnightson]

"Controlled," the word is bitter both times. "I had to abandon a class today because of my wonderful control."

His thirst flares thinking of the second, the erratic jump against his skin, the flare of fear, how fragile and easily the bones in a wrist can be broken even by another human.

"I had to run away from something that couldn't put the smallest scratch on me."

[ofthefamily]

"Oh, Edward, you ask too much of yourself -- "

[themidnightson]

There was a harder mar to his lips for those words.

"The most fundamental parts of me have changed entirely."

[ofthefamily]

Nothing changed of the soul of who you are and if you believe otherwise, Carlisle growls and why he is he so angry, both of them? Another step forward, and, You've trusted me so far and now you won't even trust me with so much as a piano?

[themidnightson]

"The likelihood of my ever dying now--" Edward said, with a ludicrous tone, as he shook of his head and looked up at the ceiling. How could he not be changed at the level of his soul. He longed to murder and devour people as the most constant thought in a day.

"It's the exchange of one eternity for another. But that," his eyes darted to the upright nearby. "Was your assumption."

[ofthefamily]

If my assumption was so wrong --

He's not getting through to Edward and Carlisle can't think of anything else. He picks up the bench without a second thought to price or worth or value. Carlisle chucks the bench at Edward's chest for him to catch.

"Tear it to shreds. It's just wood and wire and pedals and keys."

[themidnightson]

Edward caught it, frustration arcing through him, half his and half Carlisle's, and the piece of wood groaned between his hands in the hard grip which caught the top and a leg. "Just the sum of it's parts? Waiting for you to decide what you should do with it?"

Without pausing to consider it, and the most minute cringe inside, he threw it right back. "Do it yourself."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle bends and the bench clatters thunderously against the keys.

Are you even listening to yourself? Why isn't it the sum of its parts? Because you say it isn't? By that measure alone why don't you believe me when I say that you have a soul my Edward --

[themidnightson]

Why doesn't he understand? It's about all of this. It's about him--his life before, his death, his new life, his once playing and the division from that passion and that life, about the inability to be the same or to be different, all the puzzle pieces hanging by threads.

How the impetus of all decision and action is Carlisle.

He's the foundation of all of these things.

In good and in the bad and everything.

God's center, (im)perfectly still.



(Everything he's not.)




But everything goes stunning silent at my Edward and his nostrils flared, anger coming up still for the sentence before it. Space crossed without plan, fists balling in Carlisle jacket to shove him back into the piano, half through it.

[ofthefamily]

Everything is splintering around Carlisle and he doesn't even notice the ivory keys falling to the floor as they tear themselves away from the piano's frame.

(But since the first time Edward called out Just stop, he always has to try -- )

I mean it. I am serious, Edward; you have a soul -- and Carlisle felt like he might just claim Carlisle's own, the way Edward's teeth catch on Carlisle's lip as another oh, my Edward blurs Carlisle's senses.

[themidnightson]

He wants to sear the thought out his head, out of Carlisle's. No one can know, one of them has to be right and neither of them can be right, unless they die and they aren't going to die now.

God-- he thinks, one hand moving from the jacket to the back of Carlisle's head, hard and demanding, pulling only that part of him forward. --don't let there be even a chance they could die right now.

He doesn't ask.

Marks out with his mouth and the hard planes of his hands the anger that he knows he'd would have given that forsaken soul to Carlisle without hesitating for this. Even now. Especially now.

[ofthefamily]

Edward is the first thing to throw Carlisle off balance in a century. By pulling Carlisle's face close enough to Edward's to taste - touch - feel against himself, Carlisle's torso angles back enough to give him the room to strip off his jacket and shirt.

I'm not -- sorry -- Carlisle thinks, edges of his thoughts trying to become speech but not making it while he thinks of shredding the coat off Edward's back. I got -- the damn piano --

[themidnightson]

"You should be. I didn't want it," Edward snapped, shoving Carlisle shoulders, hard and suddenly at a downward angel, toward the rest of the piano. It needed to be rubble, to be gone entirely, and what better thing was there to break it on.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle leans up and into Edward's grasp, growling through a smile that Carlisle has repressed for so long it feels alien to him and

You didn't want to die either and I bring you to my life. For what? To have you judge me and tell me everything I think is wrong --