Awkward is not the word for it. Awkward is not -- and he doesn't deserve sympathy. Not for his choices. Not for his sins. Not for not listening when they knew. And he really doesn't deserve Esme sobbing. And he doesn't even know what to do. He's staring at the door over her shoulder now, where Carlisle is waiting.
Looming like the shadow in a story.
Like the only light he's even known...and drowned on purpose.
He doesn't even know where he finds it in him. To raise his hand and pat her shoulderblade through the jackey, to say, very still, very slowly. "It's okay." Once. Twice. Each time only not helping, only making a noise or a reaction. Until at the third time, at odds with his whole skin, it rolls off as, "It's okay, Mom."
Oh. God. Not planned. Not meant. Maybe meant. And mumbled straight into- "I'll come inside."
Carlisle debates behind his mental curtain whether he should stand from his chair as Esme and Edward enter.
He doesn't.
"Esme, would you mind giving us a moment?" Carlisle asks in a whisper of a tone. It's in name only; she'll be able to hear everything throughout the house.
Then it is Edward.
And Carlisle.
In a room together for the first time in nearly six years.
That she shuts the door says something anyway, doesn't it?
He doesn't miss it. When as the door closes, he hears her. Hears very clearly If you hurt him again, so help me-- and knows that she means it. No matter what her reaction to 'that word' had been.
Edward stands there, making a rather good puddle very quickly.
He's not even looking in the direction of Carlisle.
Carlisle is feet from him. His voice even at a whisper is so known. But even worse it's so undeserved. He shouldn't even be allowed to stand this close, to be in this house, to be near either of them.
The force of it -- of Carlisle pushing his thoughts across suddenly -- causes Edward him to take a step backward. There's only the door there. There's nowhere else to back toward.
"No." It's not even a denial. It's not even to Carlisle.
It's a whisper, almost a whimper, at the rest of the world.
It's a refusal cloaked over confession, pleading with anything that's left out there in the universe to not have to have this in his memories when he's finally pushed back out the door. He doesn't want to live forever with Carlisle's face when he realizes the scope of what he's done.
You would come here just to torment me with no, Edwar -- ?
His mind never closes around the end of the question, stepping in the blink of an eye to Edward's toes, clamping his hand around and under Edward's jaw. This sends Edward's back to the wall.
He almost fights it. His reactions, and reflexes, are better. Better than a vampire eating animals. Monumentally. Especially today. He raises his hands only to drop them before they ever even touch Carlisle. He can't. He can't breathe to think with the weight of everything exploding through his head suddenly.
With the shock and the horror and pained-shame widening his eyes, as his head was forced back. He deserves this. It's the only thing he can think when he's forced to see what Carlisle's eyes, as well as his thoughts, have become.
Nothing. The absence that rings of their last conversation.
Nothing. The absence that rings with the words he'd used that time.
Edward closed his eyes, tilting his head up, away to one side on the door. He didn't want to see his eyes. Not through Carlisle. Not just -- His jaw tightened, teeth clenching, but he manages, small, and hoarse and almost weaker than should be possible in his physical state.
"You weren't. I was," He doesn't breathe, and still his chest rises faster. If he only gets one chance to say these things. To say them before it's all over. Since he's already pinned to a door and not fighting it, when he could. (But he knows he can't. He never could.)
It catches in his throat. "I was wrong. I thought--"
Too little, too late, and too small for how big it is.
But it's coming now. He's not even sure how he can not now.
"Do not even think it," punctuated by a tightening of his grip on Edward's jaw before Carlisle's thoughts accelerate and nearly take flight.
"I haven't heard of you in months. All the time you were gone -- " Carlisle snaps his hand back raggedly from Edward, jittery and far too off-balance for such a graceful creature as Carlisle has always been.
Before he can question himself, Carlisle reaches for Edward's left wrist with his right hand. It gives Carlisle enough leverage to launch him from the wall into his arms and oh my sweet Christ I missed you my Edward don't leave again it has been so long I could only hope that you would be safe oh my Edward
The level of Edward's bewilderment-- as he is pulled from the door, and moves with it, like a ship taken and tossed by the sea, only absently registering still being soaked and Carlisle not being, well, not being half a second ago --is not even quantifiable in words. Even when the first assumption is that it all has happened. He'd feared the last. No, not even last. It's been longer.
His hair is the right color. His hands and his height and the way he moves. The tripping changes of his tone. His voice and his thoughts. And Esme. Crying and hugging and talking.
"No, Edward. No, no, no, no," Carlisle repeats endlessly in thought and voice, consoling them both, keeping Edward pressed tightly to him with his arms and he just barely hears Esme pacing in the hallway. "No you haven't gone mad. You're here and I'm here and Esme's here. It's raining and you're alive and safe."
She could have sat still in that chair longer. And it's not as thought there is anything in the house, on their street block even, that could divert her attention from what is happening. This was their conversation, it always had been.
The silences and the sudden words, maddening distances between. The truly up ended variety of reactions that flood her while she did pace quietly.
Fear and joy and jealousy and protectiveness. Fear, and the denial of it, when he'd said no, same as when he'd said he should be here. Joy at the sound of his voice, at Carlisle talking, even when the clatter of force gave birth to some collision she couldn't see.
Jealousy and protectiveness in one. That Edward, even in the state he was in, was answering things Carlisle wasn't even saying out loud. That he was allowed to hear in Carlisle what had not been heard as clearly by her in years. Yet she was somehow grateful that suddenly Carlisle was heard
( ... )
Carlisle's voice in his ears, flooding and filtering with wide birth into the endless cacophony of the extended sloshing of lives in his head. But it's something in Esme that makes the fingers of one hand catch on Carlisle's side -- Though catch is the wrong word.
It's the kind of catch, where cloth and skin and muscle is clutched between fingers, the way drowning people reach out and hold on to something without no thought left for preservation of the object they grasp.
So completely antithesis of his thoughts.) -- when he looks at Carlisle
( ... )
Looming like the shadow in a story.
Like the only light he's even known...and drowned on purpose.
He doesn't even know where he finds it in him. To raise his hand and pat her shoulderblade through the jackey, to say, very still, very slowly. "It's okay." Once. Twice. Each time only not helping, only making a noise or a reaction. Until at the third time, at odds with his whole skin, it rolls off as, "It's okay, Mom."
Oh. God. Not planned. Not meant. Maybe meant. And mumbled straight into- "I'll come inside."
He should stand and face hell. He deserves it.
He wrought it with his own hands.
What more can be taken away.
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He's coming inside.
Carlisle debates behind his mental curtain whether he should stand from his chair as Esme and Edward enter.
He doesn't.
"Esme, would you mind giving us a moment?" Carlisle asks in a whisper of a tone. It's in name only; she'll be able to hear everything throughout the house.
Then it is Edward.
And Carlisle.
In a room together for the first time in nearly six years.
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He doesn't miss it. When as the door closes, he hears her. Hears very clearly If you hurt him again, so help me-- and knows that she means it. No matter what her reaction to 'that word' had been.
Edward stands there, making a rather good puddle very quickly.
He's not even looking in the direction of Carlisle.
Not even anywhere other than near his own shoes.
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"You came back."
Still keeping his thoughts buttressed away from Edward's talent. He doesn't get them yet.
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Any sentence. Any singular word.
His mouth opens, tongue moves.
His throat closes on him.
Carlisle is feet from him. His voice even at a whisper is so known. But even worse it's so undeserved. He shouldn't even be allowed to stand this close, to be in this house, to be near either of them.
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"No." It's not even a denial. It's not even to Carlisle.
It's a whisper, almost a whimper, at the rest of the world.
It's a refusal cloaked over confession, pleading with anything that's left out there in the universe to not have to have this in his memories when he's finally pushed back out the door. He doesn't want to live forever with Carlisle's face when he realizes the scope of what he's done.
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You would come here just to torment me with no, Edwar -- ?
His mind never closes around the end of the question, stepping in the blink of an eye to Edward's toes, clamping his hand around and under Edward's jaw. This sends Edward's back to the wall.
"Look. At me."
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With the shock and the horror and pained-shame widening his eyes, as his head was forced back. He deserves this. It's the only thing he can think when he's forced to see what Carlisle's eyes, as well as his thoughts, have become.
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You're wrong -- Carlisle remembers.
He has no reply or retort.
Carlisle just stares.
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Nothing. The absence that rings with the words he'd used that time.
Edward closed his eyes, tilting his head up, away to one side on the door. He didn't want to see his eyes. Not through Carlisle. Not just -- His jaw tightened, teeth clenching, but he manages, small, and hoarse and almost weaker than should be possible in his physical state.
"You weren't. I was," He doesn't breathe, and still his chest rises faster. If he only gets one chance to say these things. To say them before it's all over. Since he's already pinned to a door and not fighting it, when he could. (But he knows he can't. He never could.)
It catches in his throat. "I was wrong. I thought--"
Too little, too late, and too small for how big it is.
But it's coming now. He's not even sure how he can not now.
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"I haven't heard of you in months. All the time you were gone -- " Carlisle snaps his hand back raggedly from Edward, jittery and far too off-balance for such a graceful creature as Carlisle has always been.
Before he can question himself, Carlisle reaches for Edward's left wrist with his right hand. It gives Carlisle enough leverage to launch him from the wall into his arms and oh my sweet Christ I missed you my Edward don't leave again it has been so long I could only hope that you would be safe oh my Edward
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And calling him...
The level of Edward's bewilderment-- as he is pulled from the door, and moves with it, like a ship taken and tossed by the sea, only absently registering still being soaked and Carlisle not being, well, not being half a second ago
--is not even quantifiable in words. Even when the first assumption is that it all has happened. He'd feared the last. No, not even last. It's been longer.
His hair is the right color. His hands and his height and the way he moves. The tripping changes of his tone. His voice and his thoughts. And Esme. Crying and hugging and talking.
"I've finally gone mad."
The smallest whisper into that hair.
The finally is almost a sigh of relief. (Almost.)
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-- if anyone is mad here it is I --
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She could have sat still in that chair longer. And it's not as thought there is anything in the house, on their street block even, that could divert her attention from what is happening. This was their conversation, it always had been.
The silences and the sudden words, maddening distances between. The truly up ended variety of reactions that flood her while she did pace quietly.
Fear and joy and jealousy and protectiveness. Fear, and the denial of it, when he'd said no, same as when he'd said he should be here. Joy at the sound of his voice, at Carlisle talking, even when the clatter of force gave birth to some collision she couldn't see.
Jealousy and protectiveness in one. That Edward, even in the state he was in, was answering things Carlisle wasn't even saying out loud. That he was allowed to hear in Carlisle what had not been heard as clearly by her in years. Yet she was somehow grateful that suddenly Carlisle was heard ( ... )
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It's the kind of catch, where cloth and skin and muscle is clutched between fingers, the way drowning people reach out and hold on to something without no thought left for preservation of the object they grasp.
So completely antithesis of his thoughts.)
-- when he looks at Carlisle ( ... )
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