This short one-off is inspired by the art piece I've done a while back, which you can find here: on my tumblr Meluisart tagged meluisart
In my head this now lives as 'AU where you're born with one tattoo that grows with you' and while I have ideas for all of the Cullens, I wanted to focus on Carlisle and Esme specifically because I have a lot of feelings about theirs. I wanted to write them exploring each other and the stories written across their bodies.
Trigger warning(s): Mentions of infant death, abuse and just, Esme's canonical backstory. Bodily harm brought on by the self/self-harm, but not in the traditional sense. There's some nudity, gentle and romantic but if that's not your cup of tea, by all means feel free to skip.
This fanfiction is cross-posted from my AO3, where it was originally published on March 14th 2021
Esme carries flowers and vines like a love story written out over the pale expanse of her marble skin, and like the coming of the seasons the gardens grow with her. It is the most intriguing thing to watch because it should be impossible by any and all means, and yet, it happens. Right in front of him, under the gentle caress of his fingertips, vines lazily sway as if moved by a breeze.
Everyone has a mark, like a tattoo, that they're born with. Some in black and white, some in full colour. Some only have a small mark that stays small, others -like his Esme- have so many it covers over half of their body, if not more. There are stories of people with no empty skin left, one mark overlapping the other in as if someone is simply painting over what is already there.
His markings are much less intricate and if he is to be the judge of it, compared to hers they are almost plain. It had started on the lower half of his left calf and had grown upward from there. He had been born with a plain circle, which had slowly turned into a raindrop over the course of the years.
"The Heavens weep, my boy" his father had said referring to his mark, before he had sent him into the lair of the beast, to change the course of his life forever.
After his turning his mark stayed the same for many years, making him believe it had frozen along with every other cell in his body. Though, as he saw more of life and began to venture out and decide what path he wanted to walk in his never-ending life, slowly but surely more had started to appear. A strong oak tree growing up his leg with roots around his birthmark. It's a symbol of strength, morale, resistance and knowledge. The Oak is often associated with honor, nobility, and wisdom as well thanks to its size and longevity.
There's a crescent moon on the side of his thigh, surrounded by the leaves of the Oak, that hadn't appeared up until a few days before he'd met Esme for the second time. That had been the last of it for him. Beside the occasional rustle of the leaves, his markings haven't expanded in roughly a century.
Esme on the other hand, is covered in delicate flowers and other plants that run from the axis of her neck down her arms and over her shoulders, circling her ribcage, all the way down to her midriff. They're still growing and even very recently she'd gained another flower, right above her navel.
There's not a single scientific explanation for markings, not for anyone, they just happen. No one decides what, or when or how; they simply grow with the times. Some people are convinced birthmarks determine a person's path in life, others don't read into it and refused to be defined by the print on their skin.
Esme is laying down on her front in their bed, with the back exposed and her eyes closed. She purrs quietly under his cool touch. Carlisle loves exploring her markings as if he's never seen them before, as if he doesn't know what they mean or when they'd shown up. She's told him the stories before, the feeling of a new flower growing across her skin as if alive.
His finger trails upward to what he knows to be the one she was born with. It's the linework of a Forget-Me-Not. Esme had found much meaning in her markings and had explained it all to him. Her birthmark is small but delicate, tucked away and surrounded by bigger and prouder flowers all over her shoulder blade. Renaissance romantics believed that if they wore this specific flower, their lovers would never forget them; as such the flower commonly represents true love, fidelity and deep compassion.
He smiles at that, he couldn't forget her even if he tried. It is a good thing that he can't, he doesn't want to.
The last rays of a warm sunset illuminate the illustrated expanse of her back as she steadily breathes in and out, her skin almost looking alive in the orange glow. She almost looks human. She doesn't have to breathe at all, but she's made a habit of doing so in a very humane manner after they'd found out by chance that breathing makes her markings move. It's only mere millimeters but it makes them look alive and he knows she loves looking at her gardens as much as he does when they dance.
He moves his fingers up her right shoulder, "what about these ones my love?"
Esme chuckles as he presses a few feather light kisses to ornate Foxgloves, "you should know that one, it's old English folklore."
He sits back and hushes her, "humor me?"
"Hmm..."
She waits a moment and relishes in the feeling of his skin against her own, "Foxglove or Digitalis was believed to be worn on their paws by Foxes to silence their movement, so they could stalk prey more easily. It's scientific name is Digitalis because the flowers can fit over one digit of a human finger. In art it represents things like healing but also, pain, insecurity and insincerity."
She'd told him once that it leading up to her marriage with Charles her shoulder had burned like it had been on fire and she hadn't understood why until she'd looked in the mirror the day after they had wedded. Foxgloves had grown onto the empty space beside her birthmark, a sign of much pain and hurt to come. She'd bear it for the rest of her life and when he had expressed his concern about this, she had plainly said, "it means Healing too, I can come back from this, form him."
And she had, so many times.
"What of this one?"
Esme doesn't answer him directly but patiently waits and feels where his fingers move to. They're brushing over the flowers on her upper arm, leading down to her elbow. Near her shoulders have grown Purple Coneflowers, which had later expanded down to her elbow in the form of Jasmine vines.
"Purple Coneflowers are native to Ohio, the meadow near my parent's farm was full of them. I used to run around in that meadow for hours, picking bushes of wildflowers for on the dinner table. We couldn't afford bouquets from the florist in Columbus, but father liked mine better so it was okay."
She turns her head sideways so that she's resting her right cheek against the plush white pillow, there's a quiet smile there. She's content lying here with him. To him she is the most interesting painting, more so than any centuries old masterpiece ever will be.
"They weren't painful when they came, they tickled; blooming when I first ran from him. In a way, I took a piece of home with me. Then, when I had to run again, they continued down to my shoulder like Jasmine vines."
Esme frowns lightly, smile faltering slightly as she speaks, voice a little lower.
"They always felt a bit misleading. Jasmines, delicate and pure, represent appreciation and good luck; better fortune if you will. They grew during my pregnancy and didn't stop growing right up until I went into labor in the dead of night."
It had been rough when the flowers had first proven a lie, good fortune didn't come to her. Her son died in her arms a little short of two days later. Over time she had made peace with them, appreciating the little time she'd had with him.
Carlisle hadn't known what to think when he had found her that unfateful night, led on by the faint and near-inaudible beating of her heart. Her lips blue from the lack of blood flow and her skin paler than the sheet covering her presumed-dead body. The flowers that had once stood out in gracious lines against her body had faded and wilted, dying as she did. He's thankful every day that they've survived, blossomed anew, like flowers in the desert awaiting the first drops of refreshing and nourishing rain showers.
Esme's voice halts his train of thought and is flat, almost tired-sounding when she says, "he was born with a bright orange Lupine over his heart."
She doesn't need to say much more. Carlisle hadn't ever asked her to tell him if she'd found meaning in his flower too, knowing that she most likely had, but he had brought out the encyclopedias from storage regardless. Neither of them ever mentioned it, but he knows that on occasion she'll curse his birthmark and blame it for stealing her precious angel away from her.
Lupine or Lupinus, is a Latin adjective for 'wolf'. People once believed that Lupines devoured all of the nutrients from the soil like a greedy wolf. Growing over his heart, what else was she to think.
Esme moves her arms upward and pulls them toward her body, folding her hands underneath the pillow and exposing her sides.
There is one mark that doesn't move at all, it's frozen, standing completely still in tight black lines against the white of her skin. It's the outline of a Lily in bloom, usually hidden away from prying eyes under the safety of her arm against her side.
On the entirety of her body there is only one as quiet as this one, and with good reason.
It's not uncommon at all but like a taboo it's something never spoken of, not in the human world nor in theirs. Sometimes people want their markings to expand, to signify an event, the turning of the tides in a game called life, but the markings won't move; won't grow.
They'll seek out artists in the dead of night and have ink pressed into their skin by force as if a canvas. It's not alive like the rest, it obstructs the existing markings and for some unlucky souls, the rest dies with it. Forever still.
Carlisle has treated such cases at the hospital before, more than he'd like. People reported all sorts of things after having ink forced into their skin. Numbness, graying of their skin, the feeling of being paralysed. In severe cases it would cause extreme pain instead, and with no medically correct way of removing the ink available, people would lose their limbs.
Esme had been luckier in that escapade. Sometimes he wishes she hadn't had a reason to have one put on her skin by force, but she had. That by itself had been an adventure. Edward had spawned the idea, he had found out later. Had he known before she had gone to get it done, he would have done everything to persuade her not to.
Their skin, like stone, is hard to leave a mark on. The way humans do it, with needles, is impossible for them. Once, when it had been just Edward and him, they had met a nomadic vampire with nails so sharp they may as well have been knives. Her skin had hung together like cracked patchwork, damaged and unable to heal. She'd done it to herself and prided herself on the fact that she walked around like a living experiment. She had used her nails to do the very thing humans shouldn't even be doing.
Edward had offhandedly mentioned it to Esme once, and on the tenth anniversary of her son's passing, she'd sought out said vampire. She'd stumbled back into their little country home two days later, still limping and with her gaze downcast in shame. Carlisle had been pacing for most of that day, anxiously awaiting her return. Edward had tried to keep it from him, but at his growing concern for his mate and her wellbeing, the dam had burst. She hadn't even told him but he'd known through telepathy. He had known for weeks leading up to her sudden departure.
At first she hadn't wanted Carlisle to see but when he pointed out the slight limp in her step and the way she seemed to avoid letting her arm rest against her side, she had caved. The Lily in itself had been beautiful, for something inorganic, unmoving and hard, but the skin around it had had a faded gray tint to it, and unhealed cracks marked the borders of the image.
Venom had pooled in his mouth at the sight of her like this and he had scooped her up carefully and brought her upstairs to their bedroom. He hadn't asked her why or when, knowing well from experience the meaning of the flower. Every fibre of his being had been angry and pissed off at the recklessness of this endeavor but he hadn't expressed this.
Esme had sensed it however and had let him fuss without commenting on his overbearing behavior, his venom healing the remaining cracks with ease. Her skin evened out quickly after that, gray teint fading and leaving a smooth unmoving flower behind.
While Lilies have many meanings depending on their colour and usage it hadn't taken an encyclopedia for him to figure out what this one meant to her, deciding to have it put there on her little boy's anniversary.
Carlisle remembers it from home, the few decades he had spent in Britain before moving again. In the Victorian era, where emotions in all their raw fullness were frowned upon people looked to flowers. As a solution to the problem of self-expression, a secret language of flowers called floriography was developed. The Victorians gave a meaning to every flower, so that they could communicate their feelings with a bouquet.
When words failed her Esme turned to her arts, her gardens, her flowers and found it easier to say things that way. She hadn't needed to say that receiving this mark had been painful. The cracking of their skin is a hard and searing pain, yet she hadn't mentioned it.
For her son she had plucked a white Lily. The colour of peace and serenity. The stem of the flower runs down her ribs to her side and is cut off harshly, depicting a life cut short. At times of mourning, it speaks volumes for her feelings and sheds tears for her that she can not herself.
Carlisle feels her tremble as he presses a gentle kiss against the flower, it's just once and it passes by rapidly. She'd confessed about a year after she'd gotten the mark done that she considered her son to be his as much as he is hers, refusing to acknowledge Charles altogether. This flower is how she remembers him, a gentle caress is how he greets the son he never got to meet.
After that little confession her side had itched for months as ferns had grown from the axis of her neck all the way down to surround the Lily, as if to keep it safe. Almost like a cradle to comfort and carry her wounded son. Maidenhair ferns mark most of her body, growing with the curves of her chest like waves coursing in the vast ocean.
Esme turns on her side before flipping over completely to look at him, still seated beside her. In the span of a minute they have an entire conversation in the content quiet of their shared space. He doesn't need to ask if she is alright because when their golden eyes meet she smiles up at him, the lights in her eyes dancing with mirth.
The two of them can spend hours, entire days, exploring each other's marks, skin and soft spots. On the rare occasion that the rest of their coven vacates the household, this is oftentimes what they spend doing.
She reaches up with her right hand to brush the pads of her fingers against the side of his face, mimicking his gentle touches against her ribcage. Her fingers thread into light golden hair that in the fading daylight makes him look like a painting of old, like an angel with a halo.
Lightly scratching at his scalp she puts faint pressure on the back of his neck, beckoning him down towards her. He doesn't need to be told twice because he lies down next to her, arm coming down to lie across her stomach, thumb absentmindedly brushing the underside of her breast.
She turns slightly to curl into him and he pulls her closer, fitting her into his side like the last piece of a puzzle. He nuzzles her nose and she closes the distance, smiling into his mouth as she kisses him.
Their entire lives, even before they had first met each other, had been written out in their markings, which held their love for each other inside their still hearts like an acorn holds an oak tree. Planted in the right soil, in a blossoming garden, it has set down roots and bloomed strong and proud.
They've brought each other to life.
I purposely decided to end it on that quote, because it felt right, sue me.
If you liked this, let me know! I really enjoy this idea and had a really good time drawing the art piece that goes with this to begin with.
If you want to support me, there's links in a pinned post on my tumblr! Thank you so much for reading! As always, any comments and thoughts would be welcome, they motivate greatly! Hope you enjoyed this! My tumblr (that I post my carlesme content on anyhow) is Meluisart, so feel free to hit me up there, drop me a request if it strikes you fancy 3