A/N: I'm supposed to be completing a lengthy essay due at 9 AM, but no. I am here. For you! I haven't written fanfiction in.. god, probably at least five years, so you're going to have to work with me here, people. I'm all yours.
Disclaimer: All characters are the intellectual property of Stephanie Meyer. And she can keep them. (I just want Carlisle. :[)
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It's sleeping that she misses most. Esme doesn't remember much about her time in the sunlight, it's a rare occasion for her to think of it, but she supposes it's natural to reflect now and then. It would be nice to eat a normal, human meal or go on a normal, human date; she misses the simplicity of happiness and the complexity of chemicals, the magic, rhythmic pumping of her heart - she can't remember what that was like, but she's fairly certain she misses it regardless. It's natural, she supposes, to long for certain vestiges of the body she was born into so many years ago, but it's the notion of sleep that twists her cold heart in quiet melancholy, in loss.
She grows weary of being forever awake, forever alert. There is never a moment when every copper curl is not in place, makeup minimal and immaculate. She is always beautiful, always functional, always ready to see to the needs of her sprawling and troublesome family, and though she would like to think it exhausting, it never is. There is no routine wear on her gentle visage. She wonders what it was like to be tired; if she found it unpleasant, if she tired often. She smiles to herself, thinking of how draining looking over her brood should be. Human mothers always seem a few hours shy of well rested.
Not that she resents the life she lives. Had Esme been given the choice, she probably would have asked Carlisle to guide her into the darkness; she can't bear the thought of him alone. Her devotion runs to the very hollows of her bones.
But sometimes she just wishes she would tire. She dimly remembers the sensation of her mortal eyelids growing heavy with the weight of a long day, the way thoughts became thick and sluggish. She sees the way Bella sways in her son's grasp when the hour grows too late, how she mumbles, how her body cries for silent reprieve. It is a natural cycle.
Esme wishes, in a very private way, that she could sway and mumble, too. She wishes she could be so vulnerable. There is something delicate and wonderful in the measured loss of consciousness. She wishes Carlisle could see the fatigue pulling at her features and smile, suggest they retire. What a wonder it would be. He would scoop her up, his darling wife, and carry her up the stairs as her arms hung limply crossed over his shoulders, eyes already drifting shut. With the utmost care, he would deposit her in their bed, the innermost cloister of their intimate life. Sacred ground. Her hair would fan and tangle over the pillow and her makeup would smudge, and he, gazing evenly into the fragile truth of his mate - imperfect, vulnerable, tired and trusting - would not mind. He would pull her close, lips against her forehead, and think her beautiful.
Sunlight would stream in through the half-open slats of their wooden blinds the next morning, dust motes floating lazily through the air. Esme would wake slowly. Her hair would be a wild mess around her, in desperate need of a brushing. With great contentment she would yawn, stretch, reluctantly acknowledging the light against her eyelids, and Carlisle would be the first thing she saw. The only thing she saw. His features would be smoothed in sleep, lines of worry and thirst disappearing all together. Their foreheads would be touching, their limbs tangled.
She would kiss him awake.
They would lay there, in stillness and honesty, smiling and murmuring as old soul mates do. The intimacy would hang low over them and Esme would drink it in. She would value every precious moment. They would gaze out from eyes fresh from rest and Esme would think, this will be a good day.
Esme tries not to think too often of what she cannot have because it seems an insult to what she does. She tries to be grateful for the little joys allowed to her by a slip of biology, tries to focus on the happy wonders of her family, and so she's happy. Content, more or less. She is forever awake, alert, and that's alright, she reasons, because she spends her eternal readiness savoring the love in her home. Edward's brightness, Rosalie's beauty. She lives to celebrate and safeguard her children, their gifts and their quirks, because she loves them so completely. She lives for Carlisle. Esme thinks it's a pretty good reason to live.
But it's natural, she tells herself, to occasionally long for what she left behind. If she could embrace any part of being human, it would be a good night's sleep. It would be worth the blasphemy to wake up with her beloved.