Edward-Carlise Historical OOM's Two

[themidnightson]

Time is inconsequential to them.

Time bends and breaks and folds in their different world.

There is no falling asleep, no waking up, only the times when Carlisle works or the time when they cannot be outside in the sunshine or time to hunt again. The rest is the same endless, spinning free open time, that hasn't closed since Edward opened his eyes in that small dank apartment. The same endless, spinning free open time which will be afforded to him for all of eternity.

---

Time is inconsequential to them.

They are both at the beginning of something terrifyingly and wonderfully new.

Carlisle counts the months and keeps track while Edward delights in an endless exploits of an edgeless world. They hunt wild game across the border in Canada, and aside from Carlisle showing up one last time to the hospital to resign his position and make sure Edward Masen's death certificate is never filed, they abandon Chicago entirely. There is nothing left there but dying people, and while Carlisle is still drawn to easing the burden of those suffering people, his action that night has already chosen who he will help first.

It's an entirely new world. A century had come and gone since Carlisle had anything resembling a peer and never had he had a companion who brooked no complaint at his habits, nor whom had chosen to resolutely follow them alongside him. Edward, free of all but the faintest, blurry shadows of life behind him, found himself in a leisure he'd never known.

---

Time is inconsequential to them.

Especially in those moments right after they've glutted their fill for the evening. When everything is smooth and calm, surrounded by the unquiet nature that is aware of the monsters in its midst.

Sitting on a boulder, Edward fingered the rip in his bloodied shirt, unnoticed earlier in his enthusiasm for the fight and subjugation of the now still and empty carcass of a large elk. "I think we could leave now."

Comments

[ofthefamily]

"We will still have a way to travel to get to the city," Carlisle explains. "We'll be getting off the ship in Southampton."

It's both true and an easy way to avoid answering Edward's question. He doesn't continue with another topic. The quiet is easier.

The trip across had not been comfortable even for the humans involved. Traveling to a (former) war zone should never be draped in luxury. Carlisle and Edward are able to secure transportation from Southampton to London proper with the vouchers provided by the steamer tickets, and Carlisle never speaks to Edward aloud the entire time.

[themidnightson]

It's frequently convenient to their schemes and, honestly, easier on both of them for a wide array of different reasons.

It's also because Carlisle is predisposed the closer they get. Though Edward has begun wondering if Carlisle knows he is or is doing his best to force himself not to know how focused he is on it.

Eventually, quiet enough animals couldn't hear it, Edward said, "Only a mile or two now." It's almost like a reminder, but his tone is quiet. He can see it already, flickered misshapen pictures fitting together across the thoughts brushing his.

[ofthefamily]

I remember.

The pictures Carlisle has are wrong -- or at least, years out-of-date. They're outside of the city now, bags lightly in hand and Carlisle is completely disoriented; a sensation he hasn't felt in centuries. Beyond the detritus of the barely-ended war, Carlisle's mind was trying to slip his memories of the city over the frame of the current one like an ill-fitting pillowcase. Nothing was smooth.

"I'm not going to be a good tour guide," Carlisle mumbles.

He's fallen back into an accent Edward's never heard before.

[themidnightson]

The words are as concerning as they are comforting. They caused a wary protective surge matching one of curious doubt. This could have been a mistake?

Except that they were both here, which meant seeing some of part of it out (even if he'd stop at one word from any word that sounded final from Carlisle).

"Lodgings first," Edward said after a pause, as much pretending to look around as he was actually doing so. The images is human minds were so flawed in comparison. "To get rid of these and get clean again?"

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle nods simply, waslking away towards any one of the myriad hotels in operation on the outskirts of the city. They could afford to be generous; they paid for a room twice the size of the one they actually claimed for themselves.

Carlisle is sitting stiffly at the foot of one narrow bed.

We're here for you; what do you want to see?

One of the other developments with having a travel companion is the appreciation of a little white lie. Carlisle has a hard time seeing it as a lie when Edward can see behind it regardless of what he does.

[themidnightson]

Edward, towel wrapped loose around his neck and bronze hair now a glitter with water droplets, smirked at the question as a knock sounded at the door.

[ofthefamily]

You're not as clever as you think you are, Carlisle thinks daggers at Edward, opening the door warily and finding himself presented with a 'requested' packet of information about the city including a map and newspaper.

My question still stands. He hands the packet to Edward.

[themidnightson]

Edward hadn't exactly lost the amused air even though the smile had vacated his lips. He was flipping through pages at an inhuman speed which was still slow compared to their easiest movements.

"If I knew I wouldn't have requested this."

He paused, rescanning a specific one.

[ofthefamily]

Guildhall, Carlisle peers over. The illustration on the page shows the building at a fraction of the size Carlisle remembered.

"That wouldn't be a bad place to start." Still wary.

[themidnightson]

It's better than an outright rejection.

"Guildhall it is then," he said, tossing the packet of pages toward the bed. In the time it takes it to actually land, Edward's hair is dry, his clothes are changed, and his shoes are back on.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle scoffs at Edward's enthusiasm, getting dressed to go out at a much slower pace in comparison.

The walk to Guildhall is easier than Carlisle expected it to be. The city had been rebuilt after the Fire fairly close to the original layout, and Carlisle's mind is wandering because of it.

( -- Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special Confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter -- )

He warned Edward ahead of time that he would not be the best tour guide of the city.

Guildhall is the administrative building of the City itself. I don't know how much they use it for anymore.

[themidnightson]

The two worlds layer over each other, each seen in different ways. Edward doesn't mind the lack of best tour guide or, in it's own translating, company. If Carlisle hadn't wanted it in some part they'd be elsewhere.

It's much larger in person. Of course. And Edward stood looking at it once they were facing it, his thoughts lost entirely in his quiet marvel.

[ofthefamily]

It was never as though any person off the street could possibly walk into Guildhall, even in Carlisle's time.

He's more capable now than ever of going where he wants to unnoticed.

Finding an unsecured door, Carlisle turns around to Edward. "Trespassing," he mumbles, still with an accent from a former life, "is bad."

[themidnightson]

"As compared to?" His tone was a chuckle but his eyes lingered on Carlisle's back as though keeping his eyes on him would tell him about this resurfacing.

There were worse things he'd contemplated in the last day.

Before, "We could turn back?"

Just so he's said it outloud.

[ofthefamily]

The first room they entered was once a livery hall.

Carlisle's ignoring of Edward's question is all the answer the young man gets.

"There used to be a library here somewhere."

There are people milling around in the hall itself as the two vampires move; no one stops them to question their presence. The livery hall itself is not a room Carlisle recognizes. It's too new. Carlisle moves on, trying to find the library and fighting the assumption that there might not be anything left to find that's recognizable to him.

[themidnightson]

It's no more or less than he expected.

Edward followed beside him, keeping his walk and glancing around as casual as he could. After a few seconds he said, "That way."

It was hard to tell with all the racket sometimes, but many of the words and pictures had to do with articles and the keeping of books. It wasn't so easy to pick them all apart, having to wait for repetitions of certain images or words.

"I think."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle moving through the building is disorienting. The layout is wrong, but it isn't. He has to constantly remind himself of his role as visitor.

This isn't his life anymore; hasn't been for a long while.

The library is their next stop. Carlisle smiles at the smell of the books, speaking to Edward again.

There should be a decent amount of information here about the City itself, if you're interested. I think I will take a walk around the room instead of sitting.

[themidnightson]

Edward murmured an agreement, the sound lost in the doors being gently swung open. There were Fitted huge, well maintained oak bookcases but he stopped first near a large framed map on the wall.

[ofthefamily]

The map is well-preserved, but still a replica.

A replica of a map pre-dating the Fire.

Carlisle breezes past it, trying to appear nonchalant when he points to a neighborhood in an eastern district of the city.

[themidnightson]

Edward glanced up, looking at the sector pointed to for a few longer seconds. The end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?

He studied it for a few more seconds, at least hovering long enough to make her perusal of the document seem humanly curious. Then walked along one row of the bookcases reading titles slowly. He picked up one and scanned the first two pages, glancing up halfway through to keep track of Carlisle.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle's frozen at a display case.

Altar Cross, wooden
circa 1650

Donated by M. Benifici

It's older, Carlisle thinks to himself dumbly.

[themidnightson]

A cross?

Golden glance moved his way again before looking down at the book's thin sheet of paper. His eyes studied the weave of the page as he struggled to get his thoughts to stay near the image in Carlisle's thoughts, against the loud wrinkle of surprise and....other things.

[ofthefamily]

It shouldn't be here.

Loud and factual and hard, for about a million reasons.

If it's here, the church is gone. Whether it was in the Fire or some other atrocity later, it's ashes and dust now.

Carlisle exhales forcefully as if he were trying to push away the feeling of ownership he has over his father's cross. He can't see it with the way it's situated in the case, but Carlisle wonders if his father's initials are still legible on the back.

[themidnightson]

Cataloging hands and someone speaking in another language blur through the image, but not enough to pull him from it.

"Problem?"

It's polite and quiet enough that the library would miss it.

[ofthefamily]

My father carved this. He was a priest.

Carlisle's hand falls to the nameplate, and the M. Benifici label. He succeeds in suppressing a growl, and starts humming a song to himself to shove aside thoughts of the benefactor.

It would have been mine, eventually.

"We should leave."