A/N: Huge thanks to naeleny and jessypt without whose handholding I might not have gotten through this chapter at all.


Time passed.

Samantha, with the help of her family - and no small amount of effort from Jasper - got better, stronger. Edward and Bella found out they were having a boy and decided to name him Jonathan. Jasper continued to do well with his anger management classes, and continued to impress his parole officer.

Jasper.

Despite their conversation a couple weeks before, where Carlisle specifically remembered telling him he didn't have to back off, Jasper had hardly come near him. It was frustrating.

At least the mystery of the unnamed tension between them was solved. Carlisle could now very positively identify it as sexual tension.

Unresolvedsexual tension.

It was driving Carlisle more than a little insane.

Whenever he saw the younger man, there was a perceptible shift in the atmosphere. He was hyper aware of everything - the way his clothes hugged the musculature of his chest, the way his eyes always held Carlisle's for a beat longer than necessary.

They exchanged stilted conversation, not quite comfortable; as if there was a whole other dialogue happening in the silence between words. If their hands, arms, anything brushed, Carlisle felt a spark, an awareness.

But beyond that, nothing had happened between them.

Now, Carlisle felt tense all the time, like he was waiting even when the other man wasn't with him. And the fantasies...

Carlisle had repressed his own sexual urges for so long, the fantasies were foreign to him at first. He wasn't at all used to the clandestine images, thoughts... even the memory of touch, scent. They were flashes at first, occurring when his mind was idle for a moment. But gradually they became more insistent on attention.

Gradually, they took over whole minutes of his time, distracted him.

And made him more than a little edgy.

"Dr. Cullen?"

Carlisle's head snapped up. Nurse Cope was approaching with some paperwork he'd signed just about half an hour before. "Yes?"

"I thought you might want to recheck this prescription you wrote for Mr. Varner," she said carefully.

Carlisle took the paperwork, looking over the order. He balked when he realized what he'd done.

Mr. Varner's medications had to be monitored carefully. Too much of one and his liver might give out. Too much of another and it would be his heart. The dosage Carlisle had put in for would have knocked out the man's kidneys in a matter of days.

Double checking the paperwork again, Carlisle wrote out the right prescription. He handed it back to Nurse Cope and then covered his eyes with one hand, pinching the bridge of his nose with the other.

"Are you okay, Doctor?" the nurse asked, her voice gentle. "You've seemed very stressed recently. Are your brother and his family-"

"They're fine. Just fine," Carlisle said quickly, shortly. He had no idea why he was so irritated at the poor woman. He was irritable in general.

The woman hummed. "Something with your stepson bothering you then?"

Carlisle turned her head to her so quick, the tendons of his neck snapped audibly. He winced, rubbing the sore spot. "Why would you think that?"

Nurse Cope looked at him like he was missing something obvious. "Well, he's had all those legal problems lately."

"Right." Carlisle laughed wryly, mostly at himself for being so jumpy. "All things considered, that's going well."

She studied him closely, making Carlisle want to squirm. "Something else is going on with Jasper then."

"Everything's fine," Carlisle snapped. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself when the look on the nurse's face registered shock.

"Listen, Doctor... Carlisle, it's obvious you're under some kind of stress. Everyone needs to vent now and again." She made a face. "Hopefully before you kill someone," she said as lightly as those words were capable of being said.

Carlisle stared straight forward, sightless. He ran his hands through his hair, restless and guilty. He took another measured breath. "My shift's over," he said quietly. "I'll take the weekend to get my head on straight. Thank you for the catch."

~0~

Nurse Cope's observations only made Carlisle's distraction worse.

He was not entirely oblivious to the way his staff - particularly the female portion - spoke of him. Dr. Carlisle Cullen. Young. Handsome. A family man at heart. He'd heard whispers of what a shame it was that his wife - so much older than he - couldn't give him a family of his own.

Of course, with Esme, a family had never been the point. They were two lonely people in want of love and acceptance. That Esme taught Carlisle how to love on a whole different level was just a wonderful bonus.

It occurred to him that all his adult life, Carlisle held his colleagues' opinion in the highest regard. His colleagues and his brother.

What would they think if his romantic interest was a man? If that man were his dead wife's son?

Somewhere along the line, he'd traded his want of his father's good opinion for his colleagues.

It shouldn't matter, but it did. All his thoughts, what he wanted to do in general and with Jasper in particular, made him extremely nervous.

And to top it all off, he was confused. For months, Jasper had been in his bubble space. He'd said himself he'd wanted to kiss Carlisle, though admittedly not the way it had gone down.

Yet now that the air was clearer between them, Jasper was suddenly not interested. Could it be that it was just the thrill of the chase? Or maybe Jasper had liked getting him all riled up, liked seeing him lose control. Once the ability to do that had been taken away from him...

Carlisle felt a twitch of irritation and, if he were being truthful, hurt.

He was drawn out of his thoughts when Bella put her finger between his eyebrows. When he looked up, her head was tilted, her expression mockingly glum.

"You look like Edward." She smiled at him, sitting up straighter. "What's wrong?" Before he could answer, she wagged her finger in his face. "And don't say nothing. I know that face."

Carlisle contemplated for a moment, reflecting that Bella wasn't so unlike Esme. If there was anyone who might listen without judgment, it was her.

His eyes fell on the pleasing bulge at her middle and rather than answer, he looked at her questioningly. She nodded at him, and he shaped his hand to the little protrusion. Instantly, he felt more peaceful.

What good was his anger, anyway? It was better to dwell on beautiful things like this new life growing in his dear sister's belly and his brother and niece's laughter down the hall.

"It's not important," he murmured in answer to her question. "In the scheme of things, it's not important at all." This was another reason he'd never flinched at giving up his sexuality. It seemed to only make things endlessly more complicated. He had too much to be thankful for to whine about how much he longed for a kiss, a caress.

"Nothing is important in the scheme of things." Bella studied him. "You know, Carlisle... for what it's worth, I think you'll be a great dad someday."

Carlisle smiled at her, his chest expanding at the idea. He couldn't help but remember Jasper rolling around with the children on Samantha's birthday.

It was a nice idea - the thought of having a family.

And it was one that invariably invited thoughts of intimacy - sex - one way or another.

He withdrew his hand with a sigh and smiled at his sister again. "You never know what hand fate will deal you."

~0~

Carlisle was bone weary, completely drained of energy both physically and mentally, by the time he returned home. The events of the day were weighing on him, his heavy thoughts vacillating between the man he might have killed today, the conundrum Jasper presented, and his own loneliness. The latter two made him feel all the guiltier about the former.

Desolate, he sat for nearly half an hour in the darkness of the living room, going over what patients he remembered from the last few days. The possibility of mistakes Nurse Cope hadn't caught haunted him.

He might have sat there longer except Jasper came home, flipping the lights on automatically. He threw himself down in the armchair before he noticed Carlisle sitting there. "Gah!" he exclaimed. "What the fuck are you doing sitting there in the dark?"

Instantaneously, Carlisle's anger flickered - embers on kindling. He took a long, slow breath, trying to find his calm.

Not seeming to necessitate an answer, Jasper recovered first. "So, um... how was your day?"

More stilted conversation. A breath to stoke the fire.

"I think I'm going to get something to drink." Perhaps apple cider, he thought. Something hot. Soothing. Something that would chase away the chill that had replaced the heat in his blood.

He was aware of Jasper's eyes following him across the room, aware of the calculating look on the other man's face.

So it shouldn't have been a surprise when Jasper followed him into the kitchen.

"What's the matter with you?" Jasper persisted. "I asked how your day was."

"It was fine," Carlisle answered, his tone flat.

Jasper studied him for a moment before he huffed. "What the hell happened? You kill a patient or something?"

Maybe it was because he hit so close to home or maybe it was his flippant tenor, either way, Carlisle was at the end of his rope. "How can you treat human life so carelessly?"

The other man's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

Carlisle just turned around, taking his cup out of the microwave, and walked back into the living room.

Jasper grabbed his arm to stop him. "You got something to say, you say it."

"Careful!" Carlisle hissed as Jasper's hard jerk made his scalding hot beverage splash. He set it down so it wouldn't injure either of them. "I have not had a good day," he said tightly. "I don't have the inclination to speak with you right now."

"You're pissed at me," Jasper surmised. "You don't think I deserve to know why?"

"Maybe you should think back to the last true conversation we had and maybe you can figure it out. You're a smart boy."

Again, Jasper's eyes narrowed. "You mean when you decided it wouldn't work for you to let me back off?"

There was a bitterness to his voice that gave Carlisle pause.

"Well it turns out I decided you don't get to dictate what I feel and what I do, okay?" His voice dripped with sarcasm, masking something else.

Carlisle was frozen, suddenly very sure his assumption had been way off target. "Where is this coming from?"

Jasper ran his hand through his blond hair restlessly. "I got confused about what I wanted, what I should want. I had Peter on the phone telling me he wanted to fight. To fight for me. Not to make me do all the work."

He paced a couple of steps back and forth, his words tumbling out quickly. "And I get it. I do. It's confusing as hell to begin with, not to mention the number your dad did on your head. I'm not without sympathy. But I figure you're over thirty years old. You made yourself a decent - a more than decent - guy despite what he taught you. You did well for yourself, you put yourself through med-school, became an amazing doctor, a pillar of the community and all that."

Suddenly, Jasper strode forward getting right in Carlisle's face, so close... kissably close. "So I gotta figure," Jasper continued, his words slower now, "you want something bad enough, you know how to work for it. And I know I'm worth working for."

Jasper's passionate words had all the effect of a general's rallying war cry. Adrenaline rushed through his veins, and Carlisle pressed forward, right into Jasper's personal space, pulling himself up to his full height. Jasper took a step back, his expression cautious, but Carlisle stepped with him.

Because Jasper was right: he was worth fighting for.

And dammit, whether Carlisle was ready for it or not, this was his battle to be won.

Reaching out, he gripped Jasper's shirt in both his fists, stopping the other man's retreat, pulling him forward instead, capturing him in a hard kiss.

For a moment, Carlisle was apprehensive, because wasn't this where they'd started before? Wasn't this exactly what had happened, what had set them on a destructive path?

But this kiss wasn't domineering or really aggressive. It was an insistent kiss, a serious kiss, because he was sure this was what he wanted even if he was terrified of getting it. He let his hands slip upward, cupping Jasper's face gently even though his kiss was still a little fervent.

Jasper made a little moaning noise at the back of his throat before he stumbled backward, bringing Carlisle with him. When he was pressed up against the wall, he wrapped his arms around Carlisle's neck, responding to his kisses in kind.

They kissed like this, like their lives depended on it, until the need to breathe took priority.

Carlisle lifted his head, his eyes locked with Jasper's. The adrenaline had faded, making the terror he felt harder to ignore. But Jasper was watching him, his expression somehow just as vulnerable though for different reasons.

For seconds that were eons, they panted, searching each other, breathing in their mingled hot air.

Slowly, working on an instinct that had long been dormant in him, Carlisle tilted his head down, brushing Jasper's lips with his own.

These next kisses were slow and small. They were questioning because it had not escaped Carlisle's notice that Jasper had said he didn't know what he wanted.

Is this what you want? Carlisle asked with tiny pecks.

Jasper's answering kiss echoed the question.

And because even these little kisses were pure bliss, Carlisle could answer affirmative.

Stroking his fingers along the other man's chin, he lingered, letting his tongue press lightly where their lips were joined. With a sigh, Jasper let his mouth open, and Carlisle deepened the kiss. He shivered a little, reveling in the way Jasper's fingers felt in his hair.

Pulling back a little, Carlisle kissed him soft and sweet once, twice, before he paused. Jasper's eye's opened slowly, and he blinked as if in a daze. Unable to help himself, Carlisle pecked him one more time.

"I don't know how to do this," he mumbled, his lips so near Jasper's the words vibrated against his skin.

Jasper's answering chuckle was breathy. "Oh, I don't think you have to worry about that." He swallowed and kissed Carlisle - a little kiss. "You're making an awfully persuasive argument."

With Jasper's admission, Carlisle let go of his fears, his doubts, too wrapped up anyway in how good it felt to touch the other man without guilt.

It was almost too easy then to let his base emotions take over. Carlisle's confidence grew.

Curling his hands around Jasper's waist, he pulled them off the wall. It was definitely difficult to walk backward, particularly with his eyes closed. But he also didn't want to stop kissing Jasper, so he took his chances. His legs did hit the couch a little too fast, so when he sat, he brought the other man down on him heavily, knocking himself breathless.

Jasper laughed, straddling his lap and readjusting himself. Now it was him who took Carlisle's face in his hands.

Who knew how long they stayed like this. Given over to his instincts, Carlisle found himself utterly ravenous. It took no time at all before his hands were under Jasper's shirt, pressing against the muscles of his back, tracing his spine. Jasper made the most erotic little noises in response to his touch. That and the fact the younger man was on his lap - rubbing, grinding - was working Carlisle up quick.

"Can I touch you?" Jasper asked, panting. His hand were between them, his fingers hooked into the waistline of Carlisle's slacks - which really were getting too tight.

"No."

Carlisle had to smirk when he saw Jasper's face fall.

His hands were firm around Jasper, holding him steady so that when he stood, the other man didn't tumble.

Some part of Carlisle was astounded his hands were so absolutely steady, his posture confident, even though his heart was threatening to pound right out of his chest. He reached forward, kissing Jasper as he popped open the button of his jeans. "I think," he began between kisses, "if I remember correctly. I owe you one."

Jasper muffled a whimper. He swallowed hard. "I'm not keeping score." His voice shook a little as he spoke. "And you don't have to do anything you-"

Carlisle silenced him with a kiss. "I want to," he rumbled. "If you'll let me." He pushed Jasper's jeans so they fell in a puddle on the floor and moved his hand to cup him over his boxers.

Jasper's laugh was shaky. "Um. Not going to say no."

"Good." Carlisle was a little mesmerized by the heat, the hardness under his palm. With his other hand, he pushed Jasper back down on the couch and dropped to his knees.

"Oh, Christ," the younger man moaned, lifting his hips so Carlisle could pull his boxers down.

Carlisle circled Jasper's length in both his hands, aroused by the way it felt and the little noises the other man made. He looked up, finding Jasper's eyes wide, intent, and eager on him. He reached out, running his fingers through Carlisle's hair.

As a doctor, Carlisle was sufficiently aware of the human body. As a man, he had done this before, and he remembered being fairly good at it. Though fairly good to two horny teenage boys might have been an unfair definition.

Learn by doing, though.

So Carlisle lowered his head, closing his lips around the tip of Jasper's cock.

Jasper's gasps, his whines, his nonsensical mutterings, were just as titillating as anything Carlisle was doing. Heat and want boiled in his veins, his desire at a level Carlisle couldn't remember ever feeling before. He writhed with it. He let his want dictate the movement of his lips over Jasper's cock, let his tongue communicate the filthy things he wanted to say, promise all the things he wanted to do to the younger man.

When Jasper tugged at his shirt, Carlisle backed off, keeping his hand stroking the base of his cock as he looked up.

"Off," Jasper muttered, tugging at his shirt again.

Carlisle let him pull his shirt off and then leaned back down again.

"Fuck. Babe. Your fucking mouth. Who the hell knew you would have such a talented mouth. Quiet motherfucker. It's always the quiet ones," Jasper babbled irrationally. He groaned when Carlisle passed the pad of his finger between his balls. "Ah, hell."

Jasper's hands on the bare skin of his shoulders, the way his fingers pressed into his skin with urgency, squeezing, were driving Carlisle crazy.

He sucked and stroked and when Jasper came, he swallowed.

For just a few moments, they were both still - well, Jasper was as still as his heaving chest allowed - staring at each other. The flush of Jasper's skin, his satisfied, wide grin, gave Carlisle an odd sense of pride, elation, and... yes. Pleasure. A pleasure that ran deep, that made him crave more.

That made him need it.

Panting, Jasper tugged on Carlisle's ear. When he sat beside him, Jasper attacked him with voracious, passionate kisses. Caught by surprise, Carlisle's gasp was smothered by Jasper's lips.

Time seemed to blur, or his thoughts became nonsensical. Somehow, his pants ended up around his ankles, and Jasper's nude body was rubbing against his, riding him while he kissed him breathless.

It took no time at all for him to come.

They kissed slower then and eventually meandered up the stairs, falling asleep with their legs and arms tangled up with each other.


A/N: Ahem.

AGHHGHGHGHGHGHG #)($$*%)(*()*#(%)*#($)#*$#(#$&$#&

Okay. I'm fine. I can breathe. Yeah. I'm alive. Sort of. Almost.

Ew.

Okay. Yes. Phew.

SO. Those boys suck at talking, yes?

How are we doing, lovelies?