It is for Esme's sake more than anyone's. More than Carlisle, more than his own. He doesn't really care at all about whether this Rosalie Hale is impressed about his face or his bearing, or how he acts at her behest.
Nor about the other men at his side who are in alarm at his sudden switch of character and concerned for the 'poor dear girl' who has fallen before it. Like she might be a helpless woodland creature.The Poor Little Creature who was fuming at him. Inside his head. Without any realization.
"A pleasure." Is almost too trite, like ash on his tongue, when he forces his tone as close to cordial as it might go. But it also forces him to breathe in again. This room. This room full of people and blood. And he has to live with the urges he's awoken in the last half decade. "If you'll excuse me, it seems my brother-in-law needs me."
He took a second to bow his head to the obnoxious girl (with his mouth firmed into a line) and then the two men to his side. Before turning and instead of going to the left, where Carlisle and Esme were talking about the new hospital, he walked toward the door without waiting for a response.
He's not even to the door when his later excuses produce themselves for him. In the men still left standing there in his wake. One of the men, stammered, and stepped forward (as he slipped through the door) to her. "I'm sure he didn't mean it, Miss Hale. The boy is still adjusting our city and his new circumstances with us. He usually quite winning." At a loss. "Perhaps, the night was far more than he was prepared for. It is rather amazing."
Unlike the man standing at the window at the end of the hallway from the party's front door, with a hand on the sill trying very hard not to grip it enough to break it completely and forcing himself to calm.
no subject
Nor about the other men at his side who are in alarm at his sudden switch of character and concerned for the 'poor dear girl' who has fallen before it. Like she might be a helpless woodland creature.The Poor Little Creature who was fuming at him. Inside his head. Without any realization.
"A pleasure." Is almost too trite, like ash on his tongue, when he forces his tone as close to cordial as it might go. But it also forces him to breathe in again. This room. This room full of people and blood. And he has to live with the urges he's awoken in the last half decade. "If you'll excuse me, it seems my brother-in-law needs me."
He took a second to bow his head to the obnoxious girl (with his mouth firmed into a line) and then the two men to his side. Before turning and instead of going to the left, where Carlisle and Esme were talking about the new hospital, he walked toward the door without waiting for a response.
He's not even to the door when his later excuses produce themselves for him. In the men still left standing there in his wake. One of the men, stammered, and stepped forward (as he slipped through the door) to her. "I'm sure he didn't mean it, Miss Hale. The boy is still adjusting our city and his new circumstances with us. He usually quite winning." At a loss. "Perhaps, the night was far more than he was prepared for. It is rather amazing."
Unlike the man standing at the window at the end of the hallway from the party's front door, with a hand on the sill trying very hard not to grip it enough to break it completely and forcing himself to calm.