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.

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[themidnightson]

Edward considered the words. His lips tugged oddly crooked without it nearing a smile. It's fond and wry and even a little distant at some edges, but it's not a smile. Some odd stray reaction between Carlisle word's and Edward's memories.

"I'm not that young anymore."

He's gotten opinionated with time.

And he keeps saying he's not the same person as Carlisle at home.
"And you already stopped listening to what you shouldn't do here."

[ofthefamily]

What's one more shouldn't?

Carlisle walks back to the wall Edward is currently holding upright, for all the universe completely unsure of what goals he has.

[themidnightson]

What is one more shouldn't, indeed.



Edward held a hand out, without thinking on it.

[ofthefamily]

All this trying not to think ends with Carlisle laying his palms flat against Edward's hipbones as an anchor and enjoying the feel of him again.

"So."

[themidnightson]

His hips tilted up against Carlisle's hands, instant reaction more than a plan, when he reached up to run his hands down Carlisle's arms. The words that crowded his mouth surprised him, and he snorted with a very small shake of his head.

[ofthefamily]

"Comè?"

[themidnightson]

Edward's hands lingered at the outsides of Carlisle's. Then, with a flippant smile, he never realizes actually flits across his lips and stays, while tugging Carlisle closer as Edward shook his head, "A reference almost two centuries out of date from being understood."

[ofthefamily]

"Mmm."

Even with the closeness, a flicker of worry occurs - what if the years between them always keep the references from being understood?

[themidnightson]

It skips, always does and will. And for a moment it almost sticks. Almost. Before Edward lifted one hand from Carlisle's wrist, to tilt his chin, and he has no frame for where it comes from even. "What if it keeps everything else from being misunderstood?"

[ofthefamily]

It sounds like a partnership.

And Carlisle nods and says "Alright" for lack of anything better.

[themidnightson]

He can't be certain. He's not letting himself hope. At the most now it is minute by minute, milliseconds in bunches at the most. Up and down each rise in his mind.

If he thinks too much...but, no. Not yet at least.
Not this second, this moment, right now.


He let his head tilt barely forward as his hands shifted and the pad of his thumb drug across Carlisle's lower lip. Specifically. Purposefully. Perhaps for and against the myriad tones in his voice.

"I haven't been this impatient in years."

[ofthefamily]

"Impatient for what?"

If Edward's simply impatient, Carlisle feels like he's going to burst out of his skin.

[themidnightson]

The number of answers is not endless.
They are all to the point. Ranging.
Serious to not as serious.


Edward's lips shifted, another smile, but darker, indolently knowing, though as he watched Carlisle's lips moving, the image and the sensation of them brushing against the skin of his finger, where he gave no thought or shift as though he even considered moving away. And where he stared for a good half second, before dragging his gaze back to Carlisle's eyes.

The quiet has absolutely nothing to do with quiet.

"You are still too far away, Carlisle."

[ofthefamily]

Oh.

Carlisle inhales and moves for a kiss.

He can at the very least do this.

[themidnightson]

Edward tried not to laugh. It might not come out well. After the inexplicably Roger's & Hamerstien retort. Or the side that begged to differ after what he'd gotten Edward to agree to. It wasn't all that hard once Carlisle's lips touched his.

The rest didn't matter as much as hitch of sound that came out of him, to dragging Carlisle as close as he could manage. He could replace the wall if he had to. He didn't care about it.

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle can't muster up much empathy for the drywall at the end of the universe either. Edward is just slender enough around his shoulders that Carlisle locks his fingers through each other at the square of Edward's back in a squeeze.

"Should we -- "

[themidnightson]

"Yes," is a blunt cut off for the forming sentence. It's a cross between frustrated for the pause and pertinently pointed in his expression, as his hands settle on Carlisle's sides clenching noticeably, but not hard. "To anything that doesn't involve you letting go."

[ofthefamily]

"A room."

[themidnightson]

There is something of a smirk somewhere in the cross between mockingly pointed words, the almost frustrating not-quite-pout that really can't be so real, while there has to be some basis for where it comes from, and the expression that says there is some sense in that.


"That involves letting go."


Even if Edward is going to be unhelpful. By hooking his fingers inside the rim of Carlisle's pants, pressing them between his shirt and the belt only carefully not made to strain as he pushes them down between the two.

[ofthefamily]

"Edwar -- "

Carlisle wants to say that they have more time than this. It doesn't need to be quick.

But it can be good. And what Edward wants, as well.

[themidnightson]

There is no restraining the chuckle Carlisle earns.
It presses out against his skin unabashedly.

"How easy it is to fluster your plans..."

[ofthefamily]

"I am the thing people avoid in the streets," Carlisle hisses through the sensation of Edward's hands on him, "And you deign to touch me after a decade, and forty years before that - I am flustered."

[themidnightson]

Did he forget this feeling, even among all the things he could, can, never forget? He can't remember. Doesn't want to recount the memory of year numbers that will always be so known. He doesn't want to (want to) forget this, right now, this moment, this feeling. Even for a few seconds peace.

His fingers parade with more pressure at the hiss, between differing types of cloth, without the aim to remove it -- yet. Which is not the same as not the want. Almost as though purposely staying just those tiny millimeters from actual contact, too far to actually touch, too close not to notice.

Tracing from the rise of hip bones to the curve of lower back.

"If you could hear yourself," is given with a a glance up, shamelessness over every reaction caught up in flaring golden amber eyes.

[ofthefamily]

I am usually my own company.

Carlisle reaches one hand back to meet one of Edward's. Not moving Edward's; just meeting it. Joining --

I like your new topic.

[themidnightson]

Edward lips quirked, amused, predictable (with even some fondness) in the expression from the second thought. He did not still at the touch over him, but marginally shifted speed slower to adjust to it. Carlisle over and under him.

"I would give you my side if I could."

Which was not the same as wishing he could. That was a wish long grown all but dormant. And, for this situation specifically, he's not sure he could wish the onslaught of a million cascading and colliding reactions from them both, and from one unforgotten, on Carlisle.