APPEARANCES
Author: Ebony
Characters/Pairing: Esme/Carlisle
Rating: T to make sure
Disclaimer: Twilight and all the characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.
Word Count: 2,573
Summary: About a month after moving back to Forks in 2003, Carlisle and Esme keep up appearances with one of the most basic human activities, and are reminded of one of the most basic human emotions.
Author's Note: Written for a Twilight prompt fanfic challenge over at LiveJournal, the prompt for this piece is "jealousy". Feedback is always appreciated, hope you enjoy reading!
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"What would you like for dinner tonight?"
Carlisle smiled wryly at his wife as she placed a bag of red apples in their cart that was rapidly losing free space, mirth dancing in her golden eyes.
"You know I enjoy anything you make, love," he replied devotedly, giving her a secret smile that was returned. His reply also garnered foolish, smitten smiles from the other women within hearing range taking care of their groceries by themselves. If only they knew that their true eating habits had nothing to do with meat loaf or potatoes.
"Good answer," Esme quipped quietly, laying one hand briefly on his forearm as she slipped past him to examine the tomatoes.
Today was one of Carlisle's rare days off from work. Being an immortal whom didn't require any rest, he endeavored to work as much as he could without raising suspicions. However, as the human world hadn't heard of a man so attached to his work he wouldn't take an occasional day off, nor of a doctor able to pull off two 48-hour shifts back to back with no trouble at all, Carlisle was forced to relent here and there and to stay off from the hospital. He had to be especially careful now when he'd only been working for the Forks community hospital for little less than a month.
Truthfully, it irked him quite a bit. While Carlisle was well aware he needed to keep up appearances, and would never endanger his family by being careless, the thought of leaving all those people unattended to simply sit at home when he could be helping them was extremely unpleasant.
Esme, on the other hand, was well aware of how Carlisle felt about these days of forced idleness, and always did her best to distract him, often saving some tasks that needed to be taken care of around the house for his days off. And that's why he was currently accompanying Esme to the local Thriftway; it was time for their weekly grocery shopping. After that, they were picking up some gardening supplies for Esme. Of course, Esme was more than capable of taking care of both tasks by herself, but she had insisted he come along instead of "sulking alone in the house", as she'd playfully put it. That had lead to Carlisle demonstrating what else they could be doing while alone in the house, and the impromptu "make-out session", as the kids would nowadays call it, had delayed them for good thirty minutes. Esme had, however, staunchly (if slightly reluctantly when Carlisle's lips had begun to caress the side of her neck) held her ground and insisted they take care of the groceries and her supplies today.
As it was, none of them actually needed groceries. Their sustenance couldn't exactly be bought off the store shelves; it was just another way they kept up the charade of being humans. Normal humans went to the store a few times a week, especially ones with big families. Well, Esme and Carlisle had five "teenagers" in the house, and human logic dictated they went through the pile of food steadily increasing in their cart fairly quickly. In reality, they would donate the food in portions to the local shelters, church and food drives. Whilst Carlisle would have rather spent the free morning at home engaged in much more pleasurable pastimes with Esme, he realized this was a necessary part of their chosen lifestyle that they all needed to participate in.
It was an unfortunate, distasteful fact that as vampires, humans were their intended prey. And as it was, humans often in some subconscious level recognized the presence of a superior being, leaving them frequently confused or intimidated when in the company of the Cullen family. Their flawless physical appearance did little to ease this phenomenon: if anything, this increased it. And so, acting like your everyday, fallible human being in order to make the townspeople more at ease with them – and thus less susceptible to suspicions – was vitally important, especially during the first few months in a new city. And so here he was, leisurely pushing the grocery cart along while Esme flitted about gathering the necessary items into it, playing the role of a hard-working doctor who was, at the end of the day, just another dutiful husband under the beck and call of his wife.
Not that he really needed to act for that, Carlisle mused with a fond smile as he watched Esme, stunning to him even under the unflattering fluorescent lights of the store. He did work hard, and he would gladly fulfill any whim his wife could ever come up, and they both knew it. Their kind fell in love deeply and never fell out of it. Love for a vampire was as unchanging as their bodies, and a mate was more than just a spouse. Esme was half of his very soul, and took up more than half of his heart. Despite his perfect recall and over three and half hundred years of existence, Carlisle found it difficult to remember a time when he wasn't wholly and utterly in love with Esme. The past eighty-two years of marriage had solidified her as such a constant, fundamental part of his very being he could no longer even imagine a world without her.
A splash of bright, aggressive red in his peripheral vision cut into his amorous musings, and Carlisle noted that Mrs. Newton – in her loud, red shirt that was a little too small for her frame – was back to the produce section. It was the third time within the last fifteen minutes. She seemed to be unusually interested in the green apples some distance away, the same ones that Carlisle clearly recalled she had already fetched one bag of five minutes ago. Strange, but perhaps she merely needed more of them for whatever reason.
As if on cue, Mrs. Newton tilted her head and glanced unerringly in Carlisle's direction. He gave her a polite smile and a courteous nod of recognition: he'd tended to her sprained wrist a few weeks ago. Establishing friendly relations with the local folks was never a bad thing, especially in a small place such as Forks. She blushed and turned away as if caught doing something inappropriate, fumbling with the apples.
"Alright," Esme dropped a bag of tomatoes in the cart. "Enough produce. Dairy aisle next," she paused and glanced discreetly at the very flustered Mrs. Newton, raising a brow.
"Mrs. Newton seems to need a lot of apples today," Carlisle remarked in hushed tone. To his surprise, he caught a tiny, throaty growl from Esme.
"It's not the apples she's after, Carlisle," Esme replied darkly with a narrow-eyed glance towards Mrs. Newton, muttering lowly, "Clearly she has never heard of that adage about apples and doctors."
Now it was Carlisle's turn to raise a brow, catching onto Esme's meaning. "You mean... ah."
Carlisle fell silent. Seems Mrs. Newton's interests had lain elsewhere entirely in the produce section. Esme shook her head slightly: it was both endearing and slightly frustrating how oblivious her husband was to his own appeal.
"Exactly," Esme said wryly, pausing to glance at her husband appreciatively. "Though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, especially with the way you're dressed today."
Carlisle glanced at his dark jeans and green sweater ensemble, having opted for a more casual look as he didn't need to go to the hospital today. "I assume you approve of my attire, then?"
"Mm-hm. Makes you look closer to your actual age. Very sexy," Esme almost purred, a feline smile on her lips as she stepped close to him and curled her arm about his waist, a distinctly possessive gesture that didn't go unnoticed by Carlisle – nor the suddenly discouraged Mrs. Newton, which Carlisle suspected had been Esme's intention all along.
"Easy, darling," he murmured against her temple when she drew her nails lightly against his side. "There's no call for jealousy, you know this."
"Of course I do," Esme smirked, before adding innocently, "Just making sure dear Mrs. Newton knows, as well."
Carlisle chuckled. "What happened to my sweet, kind Esme?"
"She'll be back as soon as she's done defending what's rightfully hers."
Carlisle laughed; a low, pleasant sound Esme always enjoyed hearing. Gently tucking a curling strand of hair behind her ear, he smiled lovingly down at her. "We should get on with the shopping, love. You know the children will be aghast if word gets to them that their parents were getting affectionate in the grocery store, of all places."
"Oh yes, absolutely mortified," Esme agreed with a bright smile. "But in our defense, they often seem to forget we're really only in our twenties."
"Rest assured, Mrs. Cullen," Carlisle murmured huskily, one hand softly squeezing her hip. "I have not."
Esme smiled, giving him such a heated look with her amber eyes Carlisle's renowned self-control came dangerously close to slipping. Esme could turn him upside down and inside out with just a glance or a smile, and Carlisle strongly suspected she was perfectly aware of her power over him. Luckily, she put a stop to the moment by breaking eye-contact and smoothing away a non-existent wrinkle from his sweater. Gently, she disengaged herself from his hold, but did not step further than a few feet away from him.
"Alright," she said, her tone no-nonsense but eyes glinting warmly, "Dairy aisle."
"Ever yours to command," Carlisle muttered playfully, pushing the cart along.
Esme threw him a look and an impish smile, reminding him briefly of that sixteen-year-old back in Columbus, leaves stuck in her rumpled hair. "And don't you forget it!"
They managed the rest of their shopping without too much trouble. Carlisle was mildly surprised to notice how many mothers did their groceries during the mid-morning, but supposed it only made sense considering their time in the afternoon would probably be spent looking after their children coming home from school. He tried to ignore the admiring glances several of them seemed to be throwing his way, seeing as how they at least attempted to be covert about it. However, to someone with heightened senses, they were unfortunately all too noticeable. Mrs. Newton made yet another appearance at the bake ware section and Carlisle was rather amused as Esme's hackles visibly rose: he half-expected her to growl again. Instead, she merely sidled closer to him and curled her arm around his waist again. The wordless message was clear: mine! Amused (and admittedly, flattered as well), Carlisle went along and wrapped his arm dutifully about her shoulders, holding her close as Esme compared a small container of white substance to another container that looked fairly similar to Carlisle. They did not catch a glimpse of Mrs. Newton again, thankfully.
Finally, they had everything Esme felt like acquiring and could head over to the check-out – not a moment too soon, in Carlisle's opinion. Their cashier, a twenty-something boy appeared quite stunned by them, and gawked at Esme a little too intently for Carlisle's comfort. She merely smiled politely and calmly, no doubt never even noticing the cashier's interest. In retrospect, Carlisle conceded he may have glared at the boy a little too fiercely as he handed over his credit card for the groceries, considering how the youth took three fumbling tries before he managed to swipe the card correctly in the machine.
As they were at last heading towards the entrance with their cart near-overflowing with brown paper bags, Carlisle and Esme noticed the chief of Forks police striding towards them. Recognition lit his face, and he nodded his head.
"Dr. Cullen, Mrs. Cullen," chief Swan greeted them as he drew closer.
"Good morning, chief Swan," Carlisle replied. "I trust you're doing well today?"
"Just fine, thanks," he said curtly. "Picking up some lunch for the afternoon."
Carlisle had run into the chief of police a few times before at the hospital: he was a man of few words and rather curt in his mannerisms, but despite that Charlie Swan was a good man, sincere and welcoming.
"Wow," Charlie glanced at their cart with widened eyes. "That's a, uh... are you guys having a party or something?"
"We have five kids to feed and three of them are growing boys. They have very hearty appetites," Esme explained smoothly with a small, bell-like laugh.
This wasn't exactly untrue, Carlisle thought with amusement. Emmett, in particular, had drained two large bears and a huge elk buck just yesterday.
"Huh. Suppose they would," Charlie grunted. "It must be a madhouse, growing up five teenagers. Gotta say, I don't know how you manage it."
"I confess sometimes I don't, either," Esme replied with an edge to her tone Carlisle knew from experience wasn't fake. She was still smarting over her ruined antique end-table that had fallen victim to a wrestling match between Jasper and Emmett a few days ago.
Carlisle smiled, wrapping an arm about Esme's slim shoulders. "Lots and lots of patience. That, and there is always the good old threatening, bribery and blackmail method."
Charlie chuckled. "Yeah, that oughta do it, I guess. Well, I won't hold you guys up for longer. Have a good day, now."
"You too, chief Swan," Carlisle returned.
They stepped out and under the grey, overcast sky of Forks, Washington. It was an utterly perfect location for the Cullen family, weather-wise. As they drew closer to Carlisle's black Mercedes, Esme's sharp ears caught the sigh of a haggard-looking woman in her mid-forties on the other side of the lot, unloading her grocery bags from her cart with her friend.
"God, I wish my husband made the effort sometimes to help me with the groceries."
Her friend chimed in wistfully, "And I really wish my husband looked like that."
Esme's shoulders shook with quiet laughter, and she glanced at Carlisle who looked torn between bashfulness and amusement. She knew he wasn't entirely comfortable with the female attention he tended to garner wherever he went. It was simply their lot in life to be attractive to humans. Well, in death, really.
"I don't think I should take you grocery shopping with me again," she grinned as they reached the sleek vehicle, helping Carlisle to load the bags in the trunk. "You are entirely too distracting to the poor female population of Forks."
"Honestly, my dear," Carlisle sighed in sheer relief, "I think I would rather prefer that, too."
Esme nodded. "Agreed. I can't have all these women ogling at my husband in that fashion."
Carlisle laughed, unable to resist teasing his wife a little. "And what fashion might that be, love?"
"Like they wished to... to devour you," Esme huffed, her affront returning at the memory of Mrs. Newton's unabashed stares. Carlisle could be so dense when it came to his own attractiveness.
"The poor females of Forks? Surely not," Carlisle threw Esme's words teasingly back at her.
Esme leveled him with a knowing gaze, a certain gleam in her eyes that shut him up rather quickly. "Any devouring will be done by me, thank you very much."
"You are aware," Carlisle said slowly, his tone husky, "That the house will be empty for a few more hours before the school lets out..."
Esme smirked. Gardening supplies could damn well wait. "Get in the car, Doctor. We're going home."
Grinning, Carlisle gave her a quick kiss on the lips. "Yes, Ma'am."
(fin)