March, 1921.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

I imagine I am very politely driving Edward insane.

My eyes are still different; the minimal interaction I have had with others has been curtailed and stiff. I do a lot of writing and hunting now, and feel more...inhuman, than I have in some time.

Edward does what he can. I am grateful to him here, now, always. We are in Minnesota for no reason I can adequately discern - but it is somewhere different, Edward says, and I did promise him travel. He has a wandering soul sometimes. This may be good for him - I am unsure.

Regardless, I am here in the apartment we have rent by week and Edward is elsewhere.

I am bored.

- C.C.

Carlisle to all comers would appear asleep - sprawled across a low couch belly-down and eyes shut.

Comments

[iwouldfollowyou]

Edward's gaze turned toward the ceiling.
"I suppose it would depends where we ended up."

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

"And it's useless for me to say you have just as much a say about where we end up as I do."

[iwouldfollowyou]

Edward face turned just enough, golden eyes finding Carlisle while the edge of his lips puckered without quite pulling outward at all. Amused, almost pointedly teasing. They would go wherever Carlisle chose to work.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

A look of Carlisle's own. He'd learn to be otherwise! Really!

[iwouldfollowyou]

Edward snorted.

If not solely for the look and the sentiment -- then for the fact the last few months made an example not to be spoken of when things had turned lighter. That could wait.





Edward held out a hand toward Carlisle.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

Carlisle's fingers curl so that his fist lands gently in Edward's hand instead of their fingers interlacing. It feels like Carlisle is putting the whole of himself there for a minute and the thought makes him smile a bit errantly.

[iwouldfollowyou]

Edward's fingers, long and thin, curved around the curled hand and he stared up for only the passing of a few milliseconds. Really, only long enough for Carlisle's smile to happen.



"You are still too far away."

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

I kept my distance these months, Edward. I shouldn't have.

Carlisle gives in to Edward's gravity and the nonexistant pull of Carlisle's wrist moves him down on the couch. It takes some maneuvering but Carlisle ends up in a straddle over Edward's lap near his knees.

[iwouldfollowyou]

Edward's expression didn't change, or waver.
Luminous gold focused specifically.

"Still."

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

Still?

Is this what Edward needs? (Does this count as an apology?)

Carlisle doesn't lean closer before unbuttoning the top three buttons of his shirt so he can pull it lightly over his head.

[iwouldfollowyou]

Edward's eyebrows rose, expression turning teasingly cocky.
His hand rested on his own stomach from when Carlisle had to let go.

"Did I miss the part where I asked you to get undressed?"

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

Carlisle can't quite match the bravado, not taking the bait.

I'm here. You asked.

[iwouldfollowyou]

Edward's smirk softened, as he shook his head at the reaction that slipped into his purview. He pushed himself up, shifting Carlisle's seat on his lap, twinning a hand around Carlisle neck and pulling him closer in the space of a few milliseconds.

"You are still absurd."

It was made to be rhetorical though when Edward kissed Carlisle right after.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

I know.

It's much...slower, than Carlisle had expected. All of the changes that have come to pass in the afternoon leaves Carlisle feeling a little heady, Edward supporting him when he would have worn holes in the floor with pacing and unanswered questions before their time together.

Maybe the questions don't really need to be answered. Not right here, right now.

[iwouldfollowyou]

Edward let his hand stay where it is, fingertips only light against the back and side of his neck, when his other arm slipped around Carlisle just holding him. Not pressing for anything at all past the first kiss.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

[iwouldfollowyou]

The first response is instinctive alone. To tighten his arms and hands, even if it's not the first time he's heard it. He can't miss much. And there is no one to hurt now.

"Not that they know." Not that they'd care.
What they'd made of either of them.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

"I've thought about it, you know. I try not to where you can hear, but I think about it."

Revenge. Going to Italy even. Just to fuck with them.

[iwouldfollowyou]

Edward blunted the first response, that he wasn't alone in that fantasy, with his lips only barely moving against Carlisle's bare shoulder. "I know."

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

"It would not get us anywhere."

Carlisle's chin tucks down, nose to Edward's collarbone.

"I love you."

[iwouldfollowyou]

Even for the faint nip at his skin, light and unleading, there's a solemnness that teasing hadn't intended or been able to cover.

"You had better."

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

"I have no choice in the matter now?"

[iwouldfollowyou]

"Free will," Edward said the words deliberatingly, like testing whether the theory of such an idea was even sound, even if he didn't raise his face from where it was.

The answer in his head was far more directly precise.

Beyond the point of childishness possession.

[teachyouwhoiam.livejournal.com]

I think I'd rather have you than a will of my own.

[iwouldfollowyou]

For not being such a patient creature, human or inhuman, Edward had managed the last ten minutes (and two and half months) with what he thought he should. Tried to cling to an accepting slowness Carlisle observed with painstaking ease through out all his time -- at least before the second messenger had come.

It wasn't easy and it didn't always work. That it had taken the passing of one second, of another person's will, to take away part of his foundation. That it had, in too many instances, seemed to have taken Carlisle to a place where he could only hear him and not reach him.

To place where he'd question far more about his place in Carlisle's world.





On the heels of his already trying to bite down a response in this oddly paced not reunion, but return of sorts, it's far less than a thought on his part after Carlisle's words. His fingers balled into skin with a groan and he pulled back only enough to find Carlisle's mouth again.

This time with nothing near gentleness or ease.

Only hard and possessive agreement.