Ohio, 1920

[themidnightson]

There are many differences to the lifestyle in Ohio.

Chiefly among them is the inflated necessity of keeping face.



They have to appear in the right circles and the right places casually and consistently.

They have to circulate and interact, both the new private care doctor and his first year med school brother.



Tonight that is the Sesame Club, where Jazz music, frivolity, dancing and food flow freely.

Comments

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle's hands go up to the lapels of his jacket, inching him forward.

You exaggerate.

[themidnightson]

"Do I?"

Edward let his feet bring him closer, let his hand shifting until his palm instead of the pads of his fingers was against the side of Carlisle's jaw.

"Not that I have met any of them yet, but the life afforded to me by anyone else of our kind seems far different; devoid of beauty, violent, fraught and starving to be filled."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle's thinking of about a dozen things at the moment -- I would keep you from them forever -- not all beauty --

He finds himself thinking about the alley around the next corner.

There were others. Others who cared for me, in their ways. Nowhere close to the way you do. Or I do for you.

[themidnightson]

They are out in the open. And they are--their hands--Edward doesn't look away from Carlisle's eyes, but his focus wavers for a second, which shows, but the closest person not sleeping is three blocks away to the south.

Then it's gone, and he tilts his head, golden eyes intense for a different reasons suddenly. "Never? But in Italy?"

He'd assumed. The same few faces, always there, not always angry or sad.

[ofthefamily]

I was the guest at the homes of others, Carlisle explains slowly, thinking of Volterra on a map, then the buildings and tunnels devoid of humanity.

I don't regret leaving Volterra.

[themidnightson]

Three centuries -- ("There's not much to talk about.") -- utterly alone.

The sensation of it fills Edward. Time he can't comprehend with only two years into this new realm. No one seeing them could matter in this second.

His hands moved, into Carlisle's hair, bending his face forehead until their forehead are touching, the pain of that realization stark.

"I'm sorry."

He's not and he is all at once. It's so long in Carlisle's mind. It's such a steep hill and it's still what he had to go through to get to now. But Edward can hurt for that kind of truth without any will for undoing what would take him from the now.

Which comes with;

"I don't understand. How did you wait so long before--"

Before him, before trying, and why. Why finally and why everything. (Why him.)

[ofthefamily]

He can't think of saying the words aloud.

What if I hadn't had enough control? A flicker of self-denigration at his selfishness that Carlisle doesn't form into words.





Carlisle's forehead creases. Stop apologizing.

[themidnightson]

Edward disbelieving Carlisle could fail anything he truly was focused on only helped with the second set of words, snorted lightly.

"Mine isn't apologetic. It's sympathetic."

Edward pulled back, shaking his head slightly, his hands slipping from the soft blonde hair to settle alongside Carlisle's neck. "I can be sorry you spent that long alone, without someone who understood or supported or shouldered or listened beyond a superficial depth, without actually wishing it would be undone and myself with it."

And somewhere quietly, smugly, with the smaller tensing more, was the thought that if he managed to maintain getting a vote in the process Edward would make sure that never happens again.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle leads Edward towards the alleyway.

Any passersby (there aren't any to be heard or seen) wouldn't even understand their conversation. It's still too intimate for Carlisle not to feel exposed.

It takes Carlisle an interminable minute or two to get around to any sort of a response.

Thank you. I'm not sure what I did to deserve this, but thank you.

[themidnightson]

How he could ever not see it, not see that it was in his every action, his every choice made then and and then and then, every then until now. How he managed to survive, how he chose to live, the trials he'd been through, the sacrifices he made, the lifestyle, the passions he perused, the choices he left open even now, the ideals, the simplicity--

"Everything."

Edward's head ducked, but he was still looking up at Carlisle in the shadows of those newer enclosed walls, golden eyes, surrounded in thin alabaster eyelashes, unwavering in their much deeper intensity for something that defied fitting into spoken words.

"You did and have done everything."

And to Edward there is no more epic truth.

"You deserve," he held out a hand. "Everything."

[ofthefamily]

Just go --

Hands fly up to wrists, pulling them back and away, giving Carlisle all the access he might need to Edward. Carlisle catches Edward's mouth with his own.

The blond man still thinks Edward exaggerates.

[themidnightson]

It's the doubt (rippling through Carlisle into him) that drives him.

To take the hands pushed down and away, to grasp them onto lapels, that are crushed into granite fingers, as he's pulled forward into the harder kiss. Except no, it's not--and then pushed backward stumbling toward the wall.

Words are so trivial, so meaningless, so shallow and empty and devoid of what he's trying to say, what would make sense if Carlisle could just hear him. Why can't he just--

It's supposed to be a battle of faith and frustration, but the wall rebounds, possibly cracks slightly against the sudden slam of their bodies, without breaking the contact of their mouths and Edwards not sure he's wants to be thinking about it anything anymore except that.

[ofthefamily]

Why can't I just hear him?

The names of the bones under Carlisle's wandering hands accelerate when Edward crushes into him Ilium Sacrum Iliac Crest Iliac Fossa and Carlisle finally switches off when he accidentally untucks Edward's pocket chain from his vest.

Carlisle doesn't pay attention to it.

[themidnightson]

Edward can't help but pay attention to it.

Things he's newly learning in classrooms and books and Carlisle's memories, the voice he's attuned to skipping through his head analytically even against he fury, the hands that he can't stop following the path of.

There's a groan against Carlisle's lips, turning into quickly put words, even though he doesn't pull away. "Why do you do that?"

[ofthefamily]

It takes a second for Carlisle to realize he's talking about the doctor's recitation of the bones of Edward's hip and not Carlisle pulling Edward's shirttails out and anchoring him by his belt buckle.

Habit, Carlisle struggles with an answer. It'll take me forever to know you. Have to start somewhere.

[themidnightson]

There's an interesting pause in Edward for the second answer, not interesting enough that he moves away or even goes still. He shivers even though the night air has no temperature, and moves his arms to go about placing his hands palms down on the wall on either side of Carlisle's head.

"You could tire of me befor--"

Except he's not looking where his hands go.

Not thinking except to step in, to press closer.

And that means his hand doesn't hit the wall but the edge of a high stack of pallets for transporting large, back door, cargo with the careless strong ease that few human things ever are.

[ofthefamily]

Cazzo --

The pallets crash to the ground. Someone will be out to see what happened in a moment.

Oh, Edward, he thinks and his tone is so light with laughter it nearly sounds like a different man altogether, I've lived through the rise and fall of centuries. More lifetimes than I usually care to think about or remember.

I can't imagine a world where I don't want you with me, however I can keep you.

[themidnightson]

"That one-" he says, jerking his glance to a window one floor up and right above them, but he's grinning crookedly, as he grabs one of Carlisle's hands. The one still tangled in his shirt. The one that makes his skin colder once its moved away.

They could be gone before the man even manages to stumble over, pull back the curtain and throw up the window.

[ofthefamily]

They are.

Carlisle's laugh echoes in the alley.