Why Lovers Can Never Compete
By Mackenzie L.
This two-shot is written for the witty and wonderful MelissaMargaret for being the best support I could ask for.
*Twilight Saga and characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.
January, 1990
The snow was laying thick outside in the yard. Minutes ago tiny emerald blades of grass had been peeking out from their drowning white sea, but now they had been smothered. Deep gray clouds hung heavy and low in the sky, creating an atmosphere that would have seemed oppressive, but to two vampires hoping for an excuse to stay cooped up inside for the rest of the evening, the scenery outside that window was heavenly.
Esme watched as her husband finished calling in to check up on every one of his patients in the hospital. He leaned against the window where the snow was falling in a careful frame around his beautiful blond head, his back pressed against the glass as he stared intently at nothing in particular. His gaze, no matter how empty it might have been to anyone else, could never look that way to Esme. Carlisle's eyes were always full of an unnecessarily tender intimacy for even the tiniest spot on the wall. His gaze could melt steel without a single blink. He stared at the empty air like a man would stare at his lover, as if he were patiently waiting for the particles to turn pink under the heat of his attention.
Esme would have turned pink as well, but her cheeks were stained a pure snow white forever. Still, she often wondered if her husband knew that the warmth was very much alive underneath her skin when he looked at her, when he touched her...
She bit her lip as she approached the place where he sat in the window, the sound of his soothing voice making her knees weak as she walked. She made it just in time before collapsing gingerly into the sofa across from where he was seated.
His intense eyes shifted from nothing onto her, and she savored the delicate burst of heat that rushed from the base of her throat to her cheeks.
Still listening to the small, uncertain voice on the other line, Carlisle smiled softly at his wife, silently promising that the phone call would come to its end as soon as he could manage. Esme grinned patiently back, letting her head rest against the pillow as she continued to watch him. But this time his eyes did not leave hers to again lavish attention on nothing. This time his gaze contentedly dawdled over the features of her face, sinking into her soft skin and swimming in the liquid golden pools of her affectionate eyes.
"Have a good night," he finally murmured, drawing the telephone conversation to a polite close. He set the phone down beside him and rested both hands on his knees, tilting his head to one side to match the angle of his wife's. "Sorry I kept you waiting."
"I forgive you," she murmured with a pleasant smile.
Carlisle sighed as he drew his eyes to the frosty white window. "It looks as though we're trapped indoors for the rest of the evening, doesn't it...?"
There was a distinct note of buried glee in his tone that anyone but his wife would have missed.
Esme pouted insincerely. "What a shame."
"It's been a while since we've had virtually nothing to do," he hinted, turning back to catch her eye.
"I must say I've looked forward to this moment for such a long time," Esme announced jokingly. "Yet now that it has arrived, I'm not very pleased."
Leaning forward slightly, he asked in a low voice, "What can I do to help with that, darling?"
He was clearly expecting something provocative in response, and though giving in to such an expectation was inevitable by the evening's end, Esme decided to prolong it playfully. "Why don't we play a game?"
The way Carlisle's eyes twinkled made Esme wish she had been implying something more in the suggestion.
His lips curved into a positively sanguine smile as he asked, "What sort of a game?"
The delightful note of an unborn chuckle in his voice made Esme's heart flutter. "I was thinking of chess, my love."
His grin did not disappear as he innocently defended himself. "I was merely thinking of 'hide-and-seek', but I see our tastes differ somewhat."
"Are you saying you prefer more 'action' than I do?" she asked as she sat up from the sofa, crossing her arms over her chest.
"It has little to do with preference," he said agreeably. "I believe we're both equally skilled in either department."
"Then you'll have no objections if I challenge you to a game of chess," she posed softly.
His eyes flicked to the mentioned chessboard in the corner of the room. "I suppose that would be an amusing diversion from this weather..."
"A full game, Carlisle," Esme sighed, lifting a hand to draw his face back to her. "You know what that means: no disruptions, no phone calls, no getting up to adjust the curtains... Just one game, straight through to the very end. And this time we're actually going to finish and declare a champion."
He looked eager yet doubtful at once. "You really believe that you can sit through an entire game of chess without getting up to adjust the curtains, Esme?" he teased.
She smiled softly as she pulled out a chair. "We'll see how long you last."
Her husband smirked knowingly as he seated himself across from her, carefully making sure that there was in fact not ample space to accommodate both pairs of legs beneath table. As a fortunate side-effect, Esme's legs brushed against his with the slightest shifting in her chair. There was no point to sitting still for so long in one place if they could not somehow be touching the entire time.
The pieces stood still and statue-like on their board, mapped on marble squares, in opposing colors that oddly resembled mocha and cream. Each sculpted piece stood silently guarding its assigned square on the board. There was a quiet grandeur about the chess board when it was not being used. As if all of the pieces were always poised and waiting – two enemy armies facing each other in cold silence on a stiff, geometric battlefield of marble.
They had not touched that board in months, yet it was always waiting patiently in the background, nothing more than a pretty prop to accent the room's elaborate decor. Had they been human, their neglect would have resulted in a rusty first match after so long without practice, but being vampires, they had both maintained their nearly flawless skills since the last time they'd played.
It was often a challenge for one to declare a blatant victory over the other. Since the very first time they had played the game together, they had been similarly talented in the strategic art of chess. Esme recalled her irrepressible nervousness the first time she had sat across the board from Carlisle. It had been an entirely different experience with the doctor than it had been when she'd played against Edward. Somehow it was no longer just a friendly game to pass the time when the blond doctor stared at her from the other side. A mere game became a seductive sort of battle, a subtly flirtatious competition of wits... and the occasional accidental brushing of fingers when stealing an opponent's piece.
It was always that way with Carlisle. Never just a game.
"Look at you – we haven't even started yet and already you're wearing that look of deep concentration on your face," he broke her reverie, his low voice full of loving amusement.
"I was just remembering the first time we played chess together," Esme admitted with a wistful sigh.
Her husband's eyes grew distant, their cloudy topaz color warming as he recalled the memory. "Ah, yes. I remember it well."
"Now, remind me who won again?" she asked with a grin.
Carlisle almost managed to roll his eyes. "I've told you this a thousand times, darling: I let you win."
Esme would forever be unconvinced of this, but that did not keep her from humoring her husband every now and again. "Of course, of course."
It was an ongoing joke between them whether or not Carlisle had in fact let Esme win their first game by will. Every year it seemed, they had the same argument, and every year they failed to prove who was the true champion by never managing to finish a proper game. Hopefully this time they would rectify that once and for all.
Still cloudy eyed, Carlisle smiled reminiscently as he looked down to where his wife's hand lay on the edge of the table.
"I remember your hand was laying next to the board..." He whispered as he picked up her hand and carefully positioned it beside the board in the same place. "Right here..." His eyes glistened as he touched her fingers affectionately. "And all I wanted was to reach out and touch your hand the entire time. It was awfully distracting." He smiled.
"Well, now I know why I won," she whispered cheekily, tickling the center of his palm as he lifted his hand from hers.
He chuckled heartily. "It's not going to work this time, I'm afraid."
"I'm sure I can think of other ways to distract you."
Carlisle leaned back in his chair with a heavy sigh, betrayed by the broadness of his utterly charmed smile. "All right, then... Enough banter, don't you think?"
"Yes, you're right. Chess requires silence."
"May I at least be given permission to breathe?"
Because Esme couldn't imagine spending a full hour without the beautiful melody of her husband's steady breaths, she consented with feigned reluctance.
"I'll make an exception for you."
He arched an eyebrow as she lifted her first pawn to move a space forward, and as usual she second guessed the move before it was made.
"You're trying to trick me," she accused bluntly.
A guilty smile tugged at his lips. "I'm doing nothing of the sort."
"We're adding another rule: No silly facial expressions."
"How is this a silly expression?" he inquired innocently, rearranging his perfect eyebrow into its original arch.
"Carlisle..."
Though thoroughly agonized by the beauty of his gentle accent, Esme tried not to show just how affected she was.
He merely chuckled apologetically and bowed his head to consider his first move.
Mirroring her middle pawn forward, Carlisle set his first white piece across from her brown piece in the center of the board. Esme couldn't help but imagine the two pieces engaging in some secret conversation as they approached each other, set apart from their counterparts to negotiate peace before the battle began... Pawns looked so innocent and approachable, so reluctant to engage in combat when the brigades behind them were all but forcing them forward. Esme had always thought each piece on the board had a distinctive kind of character to it.
The King was a stiff and stoic presence in the background, quietly assessing the power of his personal army from afar. He stood tall, but if one looked closely, one could see that the King was nervous for the strategic fight yet to come. He was at risk, and he knew it.
But his Queen was not so easily threatened. She was an icy assassin, with the wit to counter any who would dare to stand in her way. The Queen was confident that she would win each and every battle.
The knight was graceful, elegant, and swift, navigating the field in shifty angles where others could not manage. The bishop, an evil genius masquerading as an honorable comrade. The rook was a silent watcher, unassuming and simplistic on the outside as he waited to strike in the moment his opponent least expected it.
To Esme, everything had a personality.
As if reading her thoughts, Carlisle gave her a wicked sort of half-smile, an unabashed gleam enchanting her from the depths of his golden eye. She smiled wryly to herself as their fingers danced gracefully across the board for several minutes, committing the same, predictable dozen or so moves that began every game. Things would get interesting later...
There was something undeniably romantic about opposing one's lover in a game of chess. It was a war, but it was a microcosmic one, planned perfectly in the safety of one's own sitting room upon a marble platform. They were entirely in control of their assigned teams – mortal enemies for this brief but thrilling time frame where they were willing to fight to the death. Though it was just a game, it felt very real for those few hours they played. The taunting seduction of not knowing what the other's plans were was strangely addicting. They were, after all, lovers who knew one another on the most intimate of terms, and yet during this game they tried to mercilessly trick each other through cunning smiles and arched eyebrows. They were unrelenting in this small-scale battle, both desiring to emerge the victor.
As their conflicting strategies slowly began to complicate, Carlisle leaned forward, setting his elbow down on the hard wood table and cradling his chin against his knuckles in an irresistibly classical expression of thought.
"I'm reminded of Auguste Rodin's great masterpiece..." Esme mused as the image of her husband sparked an uncanny resemblance of The Thinker in her artistically preoccupied mind.
"Surely I'm a bit more dynamic than that, darling," he cocked his head with a sweet look of challenge.
"A bit more charismatic as well. I'll give you credit for that."
He laughed, and into the silence they dove once again, only to whisper the occasional "Check" when the game called for such speech.
The surgeon's hand was steady as he lifted his bishop and swept it through the threatening diagonal toward his wife's vulnerable pawn. Esme sighed in dismay as Carlisle stole yet another of her valuable pieces from the board. She could always forgive him, though. The way Carlisle took those pieces was different than many others would have done it. While the naturally prideful chess master would eagerly snatch a piece from its square to claim it, Carlisle merely wrapped two gentle fingers around the head of the piece and carried it lovingly to place it upright in the box. Rather than looking like it was trapped in prison, that piece looked reluctantly content to be relieved of its duties.
Esme herself was prone to the victorious snatching method of stealing her husband's pieces from the board. Often she was simply too excited to lift each one in a delicate ascension toward heaven with the tips of two fingers. She made sure Carlisle knew that his piece was gone for good when she took it. While Carlisle's box was neatly ordered with each piece in its proper ranking, Esme's box was full of innocent white characters, laying haphazardly over each other like a slaughtered group of failed soldiers.
There was a beauty to the stark differences in the way they each approached the playful battle. But the best part of all was the tension that rose toward the last few minutes of the game – with just four or so pieces left, both their queens were in mortal danger.
For these few stressful minutes, it was no longer just a chess game – it was a matter of life or death. But somehow it was softened by the love they showed for each other in the most unassuming gestures. The most common move Carlisle favored was to gently touch his foot to Esme's beneath the table. It was just a subtle reminder – just a nudge to scatter her worries away.
Her face softened as she felt the welcome contact, and her hand returned to the board with renewed confidence.
A glint of gold caught Carlisle's eye as his wife's well-versed slender fingers crossed the squares to move her last knight. A familiar feeling of relief came upon him whenever he saw that slim golden band fitted snugly around her marriage finger. It fit her so perfectly, he couldn't help but notice it. He watched it sparkle humbly under the dim light, a satisfying tightening in his chest as her fingers moved gracefully, happily bearing the weight of his promise wherever she went.
Sometimes when he saw it begin to slip down her finger, he had to fight the urge to reach over and push it back. Often times the urge overpowered him, and before he realized what he was doing, he had already reached across the board. He took her hand as she contemplated her next move, and she narrowed her eyes at the disruption.
But she would forgive him again, as he selected her second-to-last finger and gently pressed the ring further past her knuckle. He pushed it back until it resisted him, tucked as tightly as possible around the base of her thin finger. When Carlisle lifted his eyes to look at her face, she was looking straight at him – her eyes too wide and too gold to be real. Esme's love was rich and receptive in her gaze, silently thanking him for the unnecessary reminder.
From that point on, she would discreetly twist the ring about her finger when she thought he wasn't looking. He smiled to himself when he noticed her doing it, but he pretended that it had not even crossed his attention.
Every time a piece was moved, Esme's foot might brush warningly against Carlisle's ankle beneath her chair. He felt the unpredictable nudge against his instep as he advanced toward her Queen, pleasantly startled by the delightful shudder that rushed up his leg at the brief but unexpected contact.
"I noticed your feet have been fidgeting a bit, darling," he said quietly, unable to resist. "Growing restless are we?"
"I'm not fidgeting," she argued insincerely.
He raised an eyebrow.
A telling smile crossed Esme's face against her will. "I was just getting... comfortable," she excused, settling her foot atop his beneath the table.
The doctor was unconvinced, but clever enough not to say anything on the matter. He surrendered by laying his left hand down beside the board, palm up and open, a blatant invitation for her to set her own hand perfectly within his – and an appealing one at that.
Knowing she was not expected to resist the invitation, Esme caved and slipped her hand to rest for a moment in his.
There was a sharp, almost voyeuristic gleam in his gentle eyes as his gaze fell to their joined hands – as if there were something entirely un-innocent in the innocent gesture...
If it had been distracting to watch his hand laying unfilled by the board, it was twice as worse having her hand held by his while trying to complete the game. During the most crucial last moments of the battle, Esme found that she was unable to concentrate on keeping her most valuable players protected. Before she knew it, her husband had announced the death sentence in his cotton-soft voice.
"Checkmate."
Like everything Carlisle said, he said it with tenderness, with forgivable confidence, and with the undertone of apology. The combination of conflicting flavors was utter music to her ears as it fell from his lips.
"You cheated," Esme complained, though her voice suggested everything but disappointment.
A lovingly ribald grin crossed his face as he squeezed her hand, leaning closer to her face across the table. "By holding your hand?" His voice was irritatingly innocent, causing her heart to flutter like a caged canary.
"It is against the rules to touch your opponent during a game," Esme argued pointlessly, her fingers already trembling for what she knew would soon come.
"The game is over now," Carlisle declared in a hushed voice, discarding the last chess piece to take her chin between his victorious fingers. "This means I may touch you to my heart's content, does it not?"
Without an ounce of bitterness at having lost the game, Esme surrendered. "If you say so…"
With her consent, Carlisle leaned in and kissed his wife. It was indeed the kiss of a humble vanquisher – gentle yet commanding, proud yet forgiving. He could have chosen to touch her in any way, but he had chosen to touch her mouth to mouth. And from the strength and passion of that one kiss, Esme could tell that he had been waiting to give her this since the battle had begun.
"Does this make me the champion?" he breathed against her lips.
Convincing as his victory kiss had been, Esme decided she wouldn't mind receiving another.
As she opened her eyes and reached for the box of discarded chess pieces, she whispered, "I demand a rematch."