Golden: 1819.

[ofthefamily]

An old face. Calmer, older, and yet all the same unchanged.

At least he's not running for his life, now. And he knows where he is.

For Carlisle Cullen, this is always a good start.

Comments

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle wrinkles his nose, looking out and letting his gaze fall somewhere on the toe of Edward's shoe.

"I think I prefer the lectures."

[themidnightson]

The first two urges, the one that nearly arrest his mouth and his hand from him, are tightly slammed down. At least it is not something even remotely new.


"You should definitely choose near a school then."

[ofthefamily]

"Or a medical teaching facility."

[themidnightson]

"You had chosen one of those my first time."

[ofthefamily]

Edward doesn't usually offer details of that sort.

So he just kind of looks up, wondering if Edward will elaborate.

[themidnightson]

His lips twisted a small bit crooked. Still quite refrained, and without shifting any of the rest of his features, but true. His arm shifted from his lap, to run the line of his leg, his own finger tips brushing together just in the inch of space right next to Carlisle's shoulder.

"On you? Or me? Or it?"

[ofthefamily]

"Anything."

[themidnightson]

"I was much worse at it than you. Now or then." There's something errantly smug in that. Somehow. "I was impatient for a million things."

Edward snorted, a very quite press of almost no sound, as he turned his hand over, palm up. His pinky actually accidentally brushing Carlisle's hand as he was looking at his whole palm.

At least mostly accidentally.

"It was only my second year as....since you'd found me."

[ofthefamily]

"I...I made you go into schooling so quickly?"

Carlisle sounds incredulous, and may be harboring a little bit more resentment towards the Other One than he had previously now.

[themidnightson]

"No." Edward's lips turned toward something more affectionate, without his realizing this yet, his gaze still quite certainly on the palm of his hand. "You seemed to be hoping I was going to come to my senses any day then and wait a few more years. Especially after each almost incident."

Even though he was so proud. Exquisitely so.

Edward hadn't be able to accept that reaction then.

How proud Carlisle had been. How much it meant to him. Them.

"I was...persistent and driven toward it from the first inspiration. And perhaps too aware, that unless someone died in this near inundation experiment of personal control, you wouldn't say no."

But, then, he was slowly becoming more aware that Carlisle never would.

[ofthefamily]

From the first inspiration.

"At least I didn't make you."

[themidnightson]

"You've rarely forced my hand."

It's...not honest. Everything inside him knows that.



How many things never made it to conversations?

How many times did nature or Carlisle's existence or Carlisle's choices define for him the direction of everything else that was? Like domino's falling in line, even when he rebelled against it.

[ofthefamily]

"That's a lie."

Replaying in Carlisle's mind, He needs me.

[themidnightson]

It's a decided effort, even if it doesn't show. Fingers near Carlisle's shoulder finally turning, so that his palm covers his own knee, fingers loose across his leg.

"You're smarter than that." Is too calm, too cool, to be an insult.
It's almost devoid of anything expect the sound required to speak it. "Even now."

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle doesn't reply to that.

Except for maybe, "I am glad to know you perceive me so highly?"

[themidnightson]

"Indisputably."




He needs me.

It's not wholly charitable.
Not even when he might wish it.

[ofthefamily]

"And now that I seem to constantly...well. Eventually, come back here?" To you?, Carlisle almost adds.

[themidnightson]

Edward's gaze shifted over to Carlisle's face.







"Yes."

[ofthefamily]

"Yes what?"

[themidnightson]

To everything, Carlisle.

Haven't you been paying attention?



"I'm following." Your statement, at least.

He's led more of this than so many decades of pattern.

[ofthefamily]

Not everything.

"We need a new topic."

[themidnightson]

It's never that simple. And it is. He's older now, and still new enough to Edward not to know how much it is true. How little (and by that much) it would take to twist all of this to what he'd asked for.

Edward's fingers dug into the cloth of the jean around his knee, even when his eyes didn't move from that face. "We keep saying that." He pressed, regardless, he gave up not turning himself inside out on this more than half a century ago. "And now that you constantly seem to return?"

[ofthefamily]

it's just a different kind of tease.

[themidnightson]

Edward didn't look away, in fact he didn't move. Something deep inside his eyes, troubled, still existing in a debate that had not stopped taking place there for minutes already.

"Soll ich Ihnen anbieten zu verlassen, rechts, nachdem Sie mich gebeten, für immer bleiben?"

[ofthefamily]

Almost desperate: "I don't speak German."