(no subject)

[themidnightson]

It doesn't strike Edward that it's even happening at first.

He's sitting in a chair near the sunny window, reading a thick brown leather bound book that's at least three quarters his age, when the soft melody of musical notes just starts to accompany the words that are whispering through his thoughts. He pauses for certain seconds, between the words following the rise and descent and small trill and tinkle of changes, only to smoothly finish the sentence he's reading.

Comments

[themidnightson]

Edward looked confused for a moment, then there was a wave of sheepishness when he realized from the echo in Carlisle's thoughts what he was doing.

Should I say I'm sorry?

Even though he sounds far too amused.

[ofthefamily]

Never. Keep going.

[themidnightson]

Except when he says to Edward's head is completely empty of music.

The irony causes Edward to laugh out loud, raising his eyes from his book.

As though I controlled it by will alone.


But then he's thinks of the piano and his head tilts, considering Carlisle in wary, quiet fashion with an edge of curiosity flaring.

[ofthefamily]

If you want.

Carlisle's already standing, looking stronger within himself but...restless.

[themidnightson]

The book is left behind on the chair. To anyone else not of their house Edward would seem to be walking at a normal pace, but there's a small hesitation to the steps he's taking.

A very flustered feeling that doesn't readily identify itself.

But he doesn't deviate from heading to the raised concert grand.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle dumps himself in an armchair. He shifts so that his legs hang over one armrest. It makes him look younger than he is.

[themidnightson]

Edward's slid into the position he's so used to and staring at the keys, flicking through musical selections as though they were marbles in a bowl, each just slightly different on the way to something that will be right.

When was the last time I played for just you?

It's a pointless question. He knows the answer to it.

He's never played for anyone like this is what lingers in the thought.

[ofthefamily]

There's nothing to truly say, since Edward already knows.




I'm not sure you ever played truly just for me. Surprise me.

[themidnightson]

His hands are still in his lap and his eyes on the keys. There's very little dust anywhere on it anywhere because of Esme's meticulously extra upkeep of it since he's been gravitating back toward it after writing Bella's lullaby.

(Bella.)

He has been playing more, which reminds him he played in the bar. He could--

A hand raised and touched the keys gently, quiet reverence shifting his awareness of even the other thoughts crossing through his head from others. His fingers pressed as his eyes closed softly. The music isn't in notes and ledgers. It's exists in the sounds inside of him. His mind and his fingers give over to it without thinking of the action even.

It's a very slow, soft starting.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle can't focus enough to think what he would any other time, knowing that Edward is thinking of the girl he's fallen in love with. It's not quite a song he's heard before. Carlisle lets his head fall back against the chair and images drift across the front of his mind.

Oh my Edward



By the end of the piece, Carlisle's propped his chin in his hand, watching Edward at the piano.

[themidnightson]

The calm in him, elasticity, that isn't there, hasn't been all day suffuses everything. His fingers move and his body is a graceful flow forward and backward from them. His eyelids flicker a third or half open casually but he's never actually looking--at the piano or anything else anywhere even when images register.

He's looking far beyond the objects and the thoughts in the house, in the near miles. His attention is settled into the music, a place outside of her and now, of this place. The combination and complicated movements aren't even more than a milliseconds brief whisper named in the pull of the music stealing through him. He belongs to it more than as any act of making it happen belongs to him inside.





But eventually it has to come to an end, and with it comes back the sensation of himself, his body, the weight....and, of course, the watcher.

[ofthefamily]

It's been nearly 24 whole hours.

Calmly, You're a very talented man, Edward.

[themidnightson]

It's a washed mix--flamboyant pride and smugness, quiet pleasure and sheepishness, disregard and curiosity, strikingly sharp edged sadness laced with something that wasn't yet but would be anger--all against the music still shifting through his thoughts while his fingers rested just off the keys.

[ofthefamily]

It's the sadness that Carlisle picks up on first. The heaviest.

What are you sad for, Edward? It makes Carlisle tense again.

[themidnightson]

How does he put that into words or even coherent thoughts. Carlisle in his mind after eighty years, doing on every level what no person ever has and who will return to being one of the people that never can cross the threshold.

His fingers return to the keys, starting without an actual intention addressing, even though he knows what it will be the moment they make connect. It can't match his thoughts, it soothes as much as it talks without making it better.

It'll all end soon.

[ofthefamily]

Edward is getting harder to read and understand, but Carlisle can't tell if it is from the power itself fading or Edward being upset.

Satie -- we saw him in Paris. 1919?

Carlisle moves from his chair to sit next to Edward on the piano bench facing away from the keyboard itself.

Tell me you don't regret --

Carlisle was going to say me being able to hear you, but there are so many other deviations. Bella. The past 87 years. Their family. Carlisle's way of life.

[themidnightson]

Their shoulders brush as Edward's arm continues to move for the piece, divided with ease between the piece, the conversation and the awareness of the sensation both are combining to make.

There was a soft huff of breath.

"I don't," Edward said. "I couldn't."

At least he couldn't now, couldn't anymore, couldn't hold on, even with a perfect memory, to how there was a time when he had in his younger years.

This-- His life, his family, all the years since he'd woken up in that small apartment, the trials and the blessings, the ways that everything had changed and had changed him with it. One note in a stream editing itself, rising only. --is everything.

His eyes flickered closed following the music, following Carlisle's thoughts, twin currents compelling him. If I ever regret this part it'll only be because it was too short.

Because it's the first thing no one has ever been able to give him.

(Even if it ranks as the second most important one he can't have now.)

[ofthefamily]

This is everything, he said.

If I ever regret this part it'll only be because it was too short.


It's gone


Carlisle stops asking Edward questions, letting him play out the piece. He knows he doesn't have to shake his head when Edward stops, but he does anyway.

[themidnightson]

The first Gymnopedie is thankfully short, even though is his thoughts he's leaning toward another already. His fingers don't start it though, and his shoulders sag slightly. Remembering won't be enough and he'll never forget.

He lets his head tilt to rest against Carlisle's, shifting the intention.

This is the world you made. Remember it.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle lets his head rest against Edward's.

He can't hear him anymore. This is a deafness beyond all textbooks.



The blond feels Edward's hair on his cheek and smiles at nothing in particular.

[themidnightson]

Carlisle is still leaning against him and his thoughts are still heard, but he's just as suddenly gone. Completely gone. And Edward's inability to breathe invalidates the unnecessity of breathing, crawling through him with a lightening fast, blinding strength when he doesn't have to hold anything back.

The flooding relief of letting go, of all the secrets and walls and everything normal, bitterly nauseous in the screaming vacuum.




Somewhere quietly, even as a crushing sound announces there's a broken section of the piano bench splintering in his hand on the opposite side from Carlisle, he thinks it should be easier because of Bella.




But how can you compare the debilitating want of even two unprecedented months to the granted and stolen one of eighty seven years?

[ofthefamily]

Oh, my Edward. It is alright to be saddened.

Carlisle's left arm reaches across his own chest and continues, rotating so that he can reach Edward's back and he leaves his hand between Edward's shoulderblades.

Carlisle is trying to simply be grateful he had the chance to hear Edward, his family -- most of them. He hadn't been expecting the pang of loss he felt now at the curtain dropping between he and Edward again, and the curtain is heavy muted velvet. Nothing gets through that.

[themidnightson]

"Don't." It's not an order. It's too soft, the palest version of a whisper even among them. "If you-"

(Respect me

Love me

Understood

Could hear now

)


Edward closed his eyes at the touch. Carlisle can and does, the way he always had, the way it had been before, the way it will be again and forward from here. In the acute locationless ache he can't regret any second had, or briefly hating it.

"It'll be fine. It isn't as though you're gone, and you'll understand certain things better now." All of it said in a quiet simplistic that denied any hint of how much like pulling teeth it was to make himself say one logical word.

[ofthefamily]

So he doesn't speak again. The hand on his back doesn't move; it's there for Carlisle, not Edward.

[themidnightson]

A minute ago he couldn't have held this pretense, any pretense that the world both had and hadn't caved in. That it was back to the way it was all supposed to be. Supposed to be. He choked on those words, shifting against the shoulder he leaned against still.

He made silent wishes into an empty void.

Words that faded, unheard, even back by hopeless will and prayer.

[ofthefamily]

It's rare that Carlisle feels useless, or the least ill-equipped. He can only imagine what Edward is thinking now.

Which is the problem.

He has no right to ask this.

Tell me it was better for this to be too short than to have never happened --

Carlisle doesn't have the right to a lot of things in Edward's life of late.

[themidnightson]

When he scoffs there's a decidedly hard note in it and when he turns his head to look at Carlisle with dark eyes, there's sharp dismay, edging a flare of inner anger, for the fact it has to be asked.

"Of course, it was."

Edward frowned, studying that face from inches away. Close enough, close as always, to hear everything and be...curtained. It was an apt description Carlisle had chose. Close enough for Carlisle to breathe in every reaction Edward felt tearing him apart and still miss what his face hid too well after so long.

He shook his head and stood up, eying the structural integrity of his bench with detached annoyance. "You wanted five minutes to hear her in twenty four hours. It's not the same--" It is. "--but the gist is still in parallel." If one counted those minutes as a day, and the day as a century. Completely the same and not even close.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle's looking up at Edward standing from his position still on the piano bench.

He doesn't get it. Again. He hates that he is back to asking.

"...Come again?"

[themidnightson]

Edward lifts his eyebrows, mirroring the wave of hating having to explain it all. It made sense to him, but it was also flippant and possibly below the belt and possibly not even fair to compare, on multiple different levels.

He looked off, disgusted with himself as he gave himself the out to hide in.

"Esme."

[ofthefamily]

It's enough to make Carlisle mentally stutter-step. Which he guesses was Edward's plan, but he doesn't chastise him for it.

"She didn't want me to see her thoughts. You did."

[themidnightson]

Edward sighed, chagrin, and looked back. Spelling everything out was annoying after not having to explain anything. When speech had been a catch thread for direct amusement more than the ribbon holding together land masses passing.

"You wanted to hear, I wanted to be heard." He shakes his head. "It's splitting hairs now anyway."

[ofthefamily]

"No it's not." Carlisle stands finally, meeting Edward's eyes. Don't say that.

"There is something Esme thinks about that she doesn't want me to see. I don't understand, but that is fine." As fine as it will ever get. It still worried him, but Carlisle pushes that aside. "You wanted to be heard and we got that chance."

[themidnightson]

Edward doesn't say it. Specifically that Carlisle just proved he missed the point. Because Carlisle has told him not to. And he's half glad, and just tired of the room, when he doesn't.

He wants the fight (wants to scream or shake and won't) the same as he wants to fight a wall that doesn't exist and still divides what has been proven can be indivisible.




"You already know what it is."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle closes his eyes for a second. When they open again, Carlisle looks aghast.

Charles? Carlisle thinks. She thinks of him still after these years?

[themidnightson]

Edward reached up and rubbed his neck. "Just not how."

He continues his words even as though it's still the same sentence, willing Carlisle to put the pieces of the day together with what he's saying.

A puppet on parade, dancing between the lines of a truth and a promise. Not that either of them really wants his opinion on how that went out. Especially not now.

[ofthefamily]

Just not how. It didn't click over. What is Edward trying to sa--

Oh.

Carlisle would have seen. Even with Carlisle's academic knowledge of Esme's past, he would have had to see the way Esme saw, Charles' backhanded blows and worse --

Carlisle sits down on the bench again. Oh.

[themidnightson]

It hurts. Helping and seeing the collection of Esme's memories gentle against the side of his thoughts and just hearing. But its the common constant. He can let instinct and habit slip into the place where the far more numb parts of his awareness don't want to pick up the slack.

"She loves you more than anything in this whole world."

Esme would never do anything to Carlisle that would make his load heavier.

[ofthefamily]

I know.


I love her enough to have almost lost you after all


Do you know where she is?

[themidnightson]

He's got enough control right now.

Even as it hits, detonates is a better-cleaner-clearer more academically precise term his own mind interjects, and silence is all the room gets.

"Outside near the flower beds," Edward commented, then without a pause. "But she's about to head inside through the garage door."

[ofthefamily]

"I should -- I should probably -- "

He doesn't stand again. This puts Carlisle's eyes at the level of Edward's wrist. The crest he's been wearing constantly for 85 years.

[themidnightson]

"It's going to be okay."

The easiest lie is the one that is made of honesty.

"And you should. She's been fretting about it all day. She feels terrible that in protecting you she might not have been there when you needed her."



It's also the one the isn't one.

At the same time.

[ofthefamily]

Esme's concern is a common one in the Cullen household. Carlisle stands.

The void of the deafness is subsiding quickly even though the fact of it remains. He's returning to normal and it's the first moment where Carlisle feels like It's going to be okay might not be a lie.

I am always here Edward

Carlisle smiles at him before leaving. Thank you for the Satie.

[themidnightson]

"Of course."

Edward stands in the empty room, too pristinely aware. He wants to be far away. He needs to replace his piano bench. He wants to run out the doors, not stop running until whatever is going to happen does. It worked with Bella for the first month.

Bella.


He wants to be there, too. Sharp and specific.

In the only place he feels at a loss for his anxiety.

Her absence for this day, for it's needs, have been taxing.


But he's supposed to be somewhere else first.