themidnightson | Forks -- March 27, 2010

Everyone knows he's coming before he hits the door.
He isn't making an effort to be quiet as he walks to the house.

And it isn't as though he misses the looks they exchange with each other. Relieved and conflicted, so many different emotions. Hands that end up in other hands. Still, when he does open the door and then close it, quietly, it's like everything pauses. Not exactly. Electronics are still on, screens making noise, but there's a static stillness.

They know where each other are.
All home. All accounted for.

It can only be him.

He walked toward the staircase, making it one step up before he has to look over.

Jasper's gaze was even elusive, already too in tune with everything he was feeling, and Alice smiled, wobbly but bright. Rose looked away, only to elbow Emmett for good measure as if she could read his mind for what he was planning to say, which earned the first sound of theirs to break the silence at a What?.

Edward meant to say something. That was what you did when everyone was waiting on something. His hand lay on the railing and he looked over them. The so many different facets, different reactions and emotions and opinions. How much damage. And the strange, uncomfortable, yet obvious, relief his presence brought them in different way without relaxing them.

There really weren't words.

He met their eyes and then headed up the stairs.
No one was all that surprised or disappointed by it.

As Edward neared the second floor, conversation started back up in the living room with Jasper commenting on vacuousness of the woman rambling about What Not To Wear still. It wasn't an easy starting line, but it worked. Especially when Alice frowned and Rose threw a pillow at his head, which he ducked and Alice had to deflect straight back to them.

The anxious tension was still there, but so was the riotous assortment of voices suddenly. Which left two. Esme was another floor above, paused in the act of sorting something, listening, and Carlisle was ---

"Seriously?" is quiet, right outside the study door.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ofthefamily

Trying to figure out how to answer the question.

That never really gets asked, really. It's an old pattern.

"I am fine?"

From:

themidnightson

He doesn't believe it. This either.

"We're done then?"

It's a complicated tone, and even faint expression. One part of him quickens for the joy of being another step closer to returning. The other almost imploring for being handed another reason to go on standing there.

Because Carlisle has decided he really doesn't need the one Edward had.

From:

ofthefamily

Not even close.

Even now, I am just wanting to help you with what you want.

From:

themidnightson

His hand shifted his shirt, fingers catching against the faceplate of the bracer on his forearm. Even without thinking of it they secured and stayed, five white bars around it, enclosing it, as his brow furrowed, very little, studying Carlisle.

"Why?"

From:

ofthefamily

Carlisle tightens his mouth somewhat, as if he is sucking something out from between his molars.

"I may have what I believe are termed 'issues'."

From:

themidnightson

Edward's mouth tugged very slightly crooked. A deviation on the straight line of his mouth. Wasn't that an understatement. For them. For himself. All of them now.

From:

ofthefamily

That works.

"I'll go back out later with Esme."

Compromise, on the original topic.

From:

themidnightson

His hand flattened, shifting, curling his fingers around his wrist, the flat of thumb-pad brushing back and forth, almost a circle, with no insistence or speed, over the the well known shapes under it before coming to rest on it.

There's a look to the trees and canopy and back to him. The fact that they were standing right there already. Very small shake of his head, but no argument in it. "You do have issues."

From:

ofthefamily

The repetitive motion catches Carlisle's eyes eventually.

He forgets, sometimes. How much it means to anyone besides himself.

It's nice. A little.

(Enough that he doesn't even reply to the mild jibe.)

From:

themidnightson

His hand tensed slightly under attention requiring his.

He glanced down, but didn't move his hand. There was a flicker of something very faint in his features, before he stood up a little straighter. Staring toward the unending brush. Listening.

From:

ofthefamily

"Are there repairs to be made?"

From:

themidnightson

His hand tightened, sudden and fierce, a icy vice, when his thought was that no one is in Volterra even touched it. Nothing did. Ever. Not this time. It never came off and it was never beaten.

It would have left this world with him.
Even in Alice's memories of pieces burning.

But in fixing and in being broken.
In repairing what was. The question.

"I don't think you could send me away so easily."

There isn't any fault. He isn't a piece of leather and metal. He can't simply be reshaped. Re-faceted. Then returned shining and new. Only to be broken in right to being bared.

Edward let go of his wrist and made a motion, as he started walking through the trees. In still the same direction they'd come this far in. Not deviating, just adding, quietly, "This way."

From:

ofthefamily

Ireallywasaskingaboutthebra--Ican'teversendyou--

Carlisle deflates, slowing down his racing thoughts of frustration and misinterpretation.

And follows. Again.

From:

themidnightson

He didn't misunderstand.

The offer. The question. The parallel.

"I'd offer to stop talking, but I'm already aware how idiotic and counter to everything you'd find that."

And he doesn't want to.

To hurt Carlisle. Or stop talking to him.

So, Edward kept walking. Toward the small sound.

From:

ofthefamily

Because Edward knows everything.

It's a snap in Carlisle's mind, but stifled by a muted curiosity of the sound.

From:

themidnightson

Which solves saying anything, doesn't it? Even when he tried to point out he knew he was being stupid and was attempting to be honest with it and pushing through it for all of this.

It's nothing all that exciting. A small stream most of a mile away from where they had been. More of a constant trickle of water than anything substantial. But it works.

Edward kneeled down by it and started to wash his hands off.

From:

ofthefamily

It's one of their necessities - he stands and waits.

Carlisle really will have to go out later.

From:

themidnightson

Edward covered his hand. His face and his chin.

Thinking too much of monsters and honesty. Bella, and Carlisle.

Once finished, he sat back, weight settling.

He ran his hands through his hair, now dripping, for whatever might have been left there from messing with it earlier, and considered that the options of one Carlisle's favorite questions only seemed to keep narrowing with each passing set of minutes.

Edited Date: 2010-12-02 06:27 pm (UTC)

From:

ofthefamily

Carlisle actually sits, picking up his pants legs slightly with a hand at each thigh before landing cross-legged on the ground.

It looks incredibly out of place.

From:

themidnightson

Edward glanced over after a quarter of a minute.
Toward his closest knee, then toward his face.

From:

ofthefamily

There's a lot that Carlisle could say.

But he doesn't. The stream is pleasant enough, and it serves to stretch the silence into something not wholly uncomfortable for Carlisle.

Until he notices Edward looking at him, and he feels like he should know. Should be able to do. His avvocation. Heal. But it's not on him anymore. He has to learn now. Not do.

It's all different.

From:

themidnightson

It is, Edward can agree in the least, all different.

Leaving them there, staring at the water, in silence. Again.

From:

ofthefamily

Roll away your stone, I’ll roll away mine
Together we can see what we can find

Carlisle exhales for a moment, untangling his legs as though they ever felt uncomfortable and stretching his feet out in front of him. It's a hard swallow into forced relaxation and his mind stuttersteps--

pale hand in the new grass, waiting for a meeting

and he winces, looking at the water again with an obscured thought.

From:

themidnightson

Edward can do silence. Far too well, after so many months. Like rooms he's used to slipping through, until something confuses him from it. Disjoints everything. The image, that causes his lips to tighten and his eyelashes to touch when his eyes almost close.

Hands. Each. Few. Memorable.
Backwards for seven months.

Bella. Alice. Aro. No one.

There is no breath because he doesn't breathe. Because this is who he was, what he did. Made the step between a thought and a happening real. Because he made it easier. Took away the impetus. Waited later to handle things that were his, as adverse to.

But what if he needs it, too?

And what are his needs now?

Can he be allowed to have them anymore?

Edward shifted off of his knees, putting him closer by another foot, and then reached out and placed his hand down. Palm up. Completely still. Not on the grass. But on Carlisle's thigh.

Edited Date: 2010-12-02 08:02 pm (UTC)