Series Title: More Today than Yesterday and Less than Tomorrow
Ficlet Title: The End is the Beginning
Author: Lucidscreamer
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing: Edward/Carlisle
Genres: Angst/Romance
Rating: T
Prompts: (30kisses) #6 "the space between dream and reality", #22 "cradle" (Not an official claim; I'm just using the 30_kisses prompts.)
Word count: 300 (triple-drabble)

Author's Note: This is SLASH. Male/male romance. If slash is not your cuppa, please do not read on. If you do, please do not review telling me how "icky" slash is. Thank you.

ETA: Formerly posted as a part of a drabble collection. Due to the fact that I've been writing these out of chronological order (as inspiration strikes), the collection format has confused some readers. So, I'm posting these separately now.

Disclaimer: Twilight and its characters are the creation of Stephenie Meyer.


For you see, each day I love you more
Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.
- Rosemonde Gerard

-o0o-

The End is the Beginning

The most fascinating creature Carlisle has ever seen is seventeen and dying. His name is Edward and, despite the illness ravaging his body, he is beautiful.

Carlisle finds himself returning often to Edward's bedside. Hovering, anxious... knowing Edward will not recover. Fluid chokes his lungs. (He'll drown soon.) His young heart labors. (Still strong enough to force venom through dying veins?) When Carlisle catches himself staring at Edward's lips and wondering at their taste, he flees.

Days pass. He vows to stay away. (He doesn't). Edward haunts his thoughts. Carlisle tells himself he's not obsessed. (He is.)

In the space between what is and what might be, he daydreams an end to solitude: Edward as friend, companion. Lover.

Edward's mother seals his fate with her pleas. "Save him!" (Keep him. Always.)

-o0o-

Getting Edward out of the hospital is easier than Carlisle imagined. Influenza is a ravenous beast, always hungry for more. One more corpse among so many goes unremarked, and the overworked staff is too weary to care who pushes yet another gurney to the morgue. Like a thief in the night, he spirits the still-breathing "body" away.

A final time, Carlisle watches Edward sleep. So young, so human. Carlisle longs to kiss him.

Instead, he bites.

-o0o-

It takes three days for Edward to awaken. Carlisle leaves his side only once, to hunt. He knows he will need all of his strength to deal with a newborn vampire.

As the venom burns away Edward's humanity, Carlisle cradles the writhing form in his arms and attempts in vain to soothe the excruciating pain of the transformation. Edward's skin is hot against his - flame against ice, silk against stone. Despite his best efforts to the contrary, Carlisle revels in the feel of it, of holding him.

He hates himself, while Edward burns.