A/N: This is a partial follow-up to my story "safe landing" but can be read alone.
It was rare for the large house — tucked in the lush forests overlooking the Sol Duc — to ever be as peaceful as its surrounding and interior suggested it ought to be. Yet, on this unmonumental Friday morning — the blue light of dawn filtering into Carlisle Cullen's study — the house was quiet, peaceful, serene.
Twelve short days had passed since the Cullen family and company, stared down an 'army' of black hoods across a snowy field.
Two hundred and eighty-eight hours since Carlisle Cullen stared down the pale man he once, possibly naively, considered a very good friend. A death sentence hovering over his head like the sharp blade that swung over Charles I's neck, the silver ax swinging down, a bright red liquid staining fine linens, an arduous groan emerging from a lustful crowd — an execution Carlisle ought not to remember but did in crystal recall as he stood doomed to repeat the king's fate three hundred and fifty-seven years later. He was once again the petrified four-year-old, held on his aloof father's shoulders, being taught a lesson for squirming during last week's sermon, learning what happened to treacherous bastards who believed they were greater than God.
Yet, the ax did not swing. For twelve days he had been processing the fact the ax did not swing, that against all odds he was still standing and had no plans on what to do now.
Everyone in their family had been grappling with the events in their own unique ways. Rosalie had opted for physically destroying a small grove of trees and spending seven days in the woods with Emmett, out of earshot of the rest of the family. Emmett had spent his time, which was not spent making love in the wilderness, attempting to make his morose roommates smile. Jasper had been a permanent fixture in the living room for the past week and a half, silently reading on the outskirts of the chaos of the Cullen family. Alice had apologized for abandoning them all no less than fifty times, Carlisle had forgiven her even before she uttered a word. Bella and Edward retreated to each other and their daughter, proving to themselves the family they fought so hard for was worth it.
For Carlisle, the grief came in stages, as most revelations did. From commemorating the life of a woman he had known for close to two hundred years, wailing his heart out amidst the solitude of the trees, spending hours talking about everything with his best friend and first son, reading aloud to his granddaughter, to laughing with his children. It wasn't until he convinced his wife to slow down, forcing her to process the past two years she had powered through, that he was able to take his first deep breath. It wasn't until he pulled her into his side and persuaded her to relax for five mere minutes were his thoughts able to slow.
Five minutes of rest had turned into hours of stillness. Their kind could not sleep but over the centuries of constant cacophony Carlisle had found implementing certain meditative techniques helped mimic a state of rest that was as close as they would get. Thus, they lay, as they did a couple of times a year, limbs entwined, a quilt tucked around them, peacefully letting their minds go blank. Well, Esme was letting her mind go blank; head resting against Carlisle's chest, leg hooked over his hip, sandwiched between his body and the back of the antique couch which was far too small for both of them, but neither cared.
Carlisle was doing his best not to move a single muscle so as not to disturb the 'sleeping' angel. It was rare, after so many years of matrimony, for him to think of her in fantasy. The idolization of each other had caused a heap of problems in the first few decades of their relationship, the perfect mental image they held of each other prevented them from getting close to the real version of each other. He loved the real version of her enough — the one who had a tendency to ignore her problems, idealize her children, and use snark to disguise her feelings — to give up the forest-dwelling fairy who sang to birds and could never do anything wrong. Yet, here, with her caramel curls spilled around her round face, a soft cheek squished against his chest, the moonlight creating a faint sparkle on her lily-colored skin, lips posed in an unmoving pout, she was perfect.
He thought he could watch her like that, at peace, forever. It turned out that forever was only five hours and twenty-two minutes because by five hours and twenty-three minutes he was utterly bored. Not of her, of silence, of letting his mind wander desperately close to the precipice of panic.
She looked most like her son when she 'slept.' At least she looked like the thousands of pieces of art she had created of the boy, which Carlisle was confident had to be at least partially reliable. Typically the images were of the newborn sleeping, nursing, or doing both at once. They had the same thick lashes with a reddish tint, round apple cheeks, and the same dark pink lips.
Carlisle always thought of the boy. So he knew when the grandfather clock in the corner of the room rang out three chimes he knew eighty-six years ago in a small farmhouse that boy, weighing five pounds and four ounces, took a breath for the first time ever. He pictured the two Platts, nestled in their own little corner of the world, nothing but unconditional love and bliss — for less than seventy-two hours.
Carlisle thought of the boy; of what could have been. He thought of the life Esme lost, the decades as a parent, fulfilling her lifelong dream of teaching, creating the life she had deserved all along, dying with gray hair and deep laugh lines, a life well-lived. He thought about what he, himself, would have lost if the little boy had never died.
He would have missed out on eight decades. Eighty-five years with the woman whose smiles he cataloged, who dragged him around antique stores for hours, and made him make a wish on every dandelion he saw. He would give it all up — in a millisecond — if it meant she could have what could have been.
The grandfather clock chimed six times by the time Carlisle took a sharp inhale, getting a second reprieve from imagining his life in a disastrously different place. He needed a distraction.
'Edward,' Carlisle called mentally across the house. 'Paging one Edward Cullen to my study, please.'
Carlisle listened to the light patter of Edward's footsteps running across the house at lightning speed. It was a sound he was well acquainted with after almost ninety years together.
"It's not an intercom system," Edward huffed, swinging open the study door.
'Shush,' Carlisle thought. Edward's eyes darted to Esme lying motionless on his chest.
Edward was well acquainted with the quirk of his parents. He uniquely understood the necessity of regulation for Esme's overall sanity, having previously had a front-row seat to what happened when proper coping techniques weren't in place. What he did not understand, however, was why Carlisle had called him into the study, he tilted his head in question.
'May I have my book please?' Carlisle thought, batting his eyelashes in a manner he believed endearing. Or at least it was when Esme did it, or when Rosalie did it as she asked for a new Porsche, and when Edward begged for a brand new — hundreds of thousands of dollars worth — grand piano.
"I don't beg," Edward whispered with a half-grin. He passed Carlisle a mass market paperback, not the book Carlisle was hoping for. Nevertheless, Carlisle flipped it over and had to hold in a sigh. The 1984 bodice ripper his wife was fascinated by, for some inconceivable reason, stared back at him.
'I did not mean 'The Silver Devil,'' Carlisle sighed in his mind.
Edward smirked in response but did not take back the book. He did pass over another novel. "You'll be here a while," Edward shrugged before leaving the room as quietly as vampirically possible.
The cover was a white envelope on purple fabric, 'Black Silk' was scrawled in a cream script. He sighed slightly, carefully not to disturb the owner of the — trashy wasn't a kind word — accessible novels, tucked into his side.
The sun was rising for the third time since the two had laid down when a soft knock rapped on the door. Carlisle assumed it was Edward coming back to 'gift' him another romance novel. So far they were up to book sixteen.
Instead, Emmett bounded through the doorway, swinging the door open so hard it bounced off the wall. "Hey, Pops!" He beamed.
"Shush," Carlisle whispered. Emmett glanced at Esme and looked apologetic, as apologetic as Emmett could look. The two of them had a unique understanding of one another, both in love with women whose love had been abused. Which meant Esme, in one of her rare shutdowns, was one of the few sights that would make Emmett apologetic.
"I drew ya somethin," Emmett whispered, which was as loud as a normal person speaking since Emmett couldn't be quiet if he tried. He took out a folded piece of paper from his jeans pocket.
"Really? Why, thank you."
"Figured you were reading all these books," he did air quotations around the word books, "and you might be a little lost." He handed Carlisle a crudely drawn diagram of a vulva. A large red circle and arrow were drawn around a certain element that rhymed with Dolores.
"Emmett," Carlisle sighed. Emmett had favored this brand of humor over the years they'd known each other. As soon as Emmett had found out Carlisle's romantic and physical history was simply his wife's name it seemed the jokes never ceased.
"Now don't feel bad, lots of men can't find it. I betcha Ned can't either. But it really is helpful -"
"Emmett, I know what and where that is."
"Ya do?" Emmett asked earnestly.
"I'm a doctor," Carlisle sighed, swatting Emmett's hand which was pointing at the image once again. "For Christ's sake, I've been married for eighty-five years. "
"Happily married?" Emmett cocked his head with a grin.
"Get out," Carlisle sighed fondly, shoo-ing him out with one hand. "Take your picture," Carlisle called quietly after him.
"You need to study!" Emmett called clunking down the stairs.
Before the door could even close fully Alice's head peeked through the crack. "We're leaving," she whispered, so softly Carlisle could barely hear her. Before Carlisle could question who 'we' entailed, where 'we' were going, or why 'we' was leaving — all questions he now mentally screamed anytime his 'children' so much as hinted at leaving the house — Alice answered. "She'll be awake by the afternoon," Alice smiled, "so we all figured we'd go out for a little."
"You don't have to," Carlisle whispered.
Alice tilted her head in doubt, a sly smile on her face. "Edward thinks it's too early to traumatize Bella," she laughed airily.
Of course. Isn't that why he wanted her to rest in the first place? She had failed to process the events of the last two years: the violence, turmoil, almost losing her son of ninety years, the child they never thought possible, the very real belief she was going to lose her husband in a vicious display of authority. Of course, a little nap wouldn't solve that.
"Will there be tears?" Carlisle asked quietly.
"Not unless you do something wrong," Alice grinned, tossing a paperback, with a male nude model on the cover, at him and quickly disappearing.
He made it through half of the sleazy romance novel Alice had thrown at him by the time Esme 'woke' late that Monday morning.
Waking up was a slow process, just the smallest of signs she was conscious. A tiny little twitch of her head. He threaded his fingers through her hair, running them through the thick curls. Her head turned slightly, instinctively leaning into his touch. After a few moments, her legs slowly stretched out, her back arching as she needlessly stretched in the cramped space. She took in a small breath, her head tilted up to face him, eyes still closed. His hand was still on the back of her head, his free hand running up and down her arm that was slung around his waist.
"Good morning, Button," he whispered, brushing the stray curls off her forehead and placing a kiss on the now revealed skin.
Her eyes blinked open, a series of quick blinks before she finally met his gaze. She smiled, a blissful, absent-minded smile that showed the dimple in her left cheek — the very reason he called her Button. She leaned upwards and gave him a quick peck.
For just a moment he felt as human as he ever had like they were two twenty-somethings waking up together after a late night, comfortable in their relationship but still young.
"I was out the whole night?" She asked, voice somehow groggy, probably because of dried venom after days without use.
"Yeah," Carlisle said, which wasn't technically a lie. She was out the whole night, and for three more nights after it. He was running a hand up and down her back, it was an action that seemed mindless but he knew very well how critical it was to help her ground herself after escaping from her thoughts.
"Sorry for keeping you pinned all night," Esme muttered, leaning up and off his chest, although she had very little room to go on the couch.
He pulled her back down. "Are you kidding? Four days of straight cuddling. That's my dream," Carlisle grinned as she rearranged, hooking her leg over his waist and pivoting so they were chest to chest.
"Four days!" She frowned, a comical little frown that Edward once said made her look like an otter. A claim Carlisle never verbally affirmed because he valued his marriage too deeply — but yes, she did look like a disgruntled otter.
He leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss between her scrunched brows. She smiled despite herself. "Why didn't you stop me? Weren't you bored?"
"No," he smiled. "I read." He motioned to the stack of romance novels on the ground.
She peered over his chest to see the towering stack of her books. On the top of the stack, 'The Immortal Highlander' was sitting on its cracked spine, Carlisle was only a fourth of the way through the self-described 'intensely sensual, glorious, and endless love story,' and had mixed feelings on the accuracy of that claim.
Esme let out a snort seeing a dozen books he swore he would never read. A laugh that was to blame for his spontaneous unromantic proposal so many years earlier, and most of his reckless decisions since. It was a laugh that always made him grab her face and pull her in close, lips slotting together, usually a tongue running against the seam of lips. So that's what he did.
"Why didn't you wake me?" She laughed when she pulled away from the kiss.
"You seemed comfortable," Carlisle said, omitting the fact he may have enjoyed his reading more than he expected, and he was deathly worried about her mental state.
"I was. You're so soft," Esme murmured, burrowing her head back into his chest.
"That's what every man dreams of hearing," Carlisle scoffed lightly.
Esme's head lifted off his chest, eyes wide, a wide grin. "Did Carlisle Cullen just make a dick joke?"
"Did Esme Cullen just say the word dick?"
"Oh, my apologies. What would you prefer? Member? Velvet rod? Fifth limb? Cock?"
He tried not to sputter at her word choice. She rarely cursed, ever. It was usually an adorable sound after the children did something particularly egregious. But on occasion, typically once a decade or so, it was the most enticing sound.
She would lean into his side, lips barely brushing his earlobe, and whisper in a crowded room, "I need you to fuck me." She'd watch him gulp and shift, with a wide grin on those plump lips. The rest of the evening she'd work relentlessly to taunt him; sliding her hand up his thigh under a fine tablecloth, dancing with other men just a touch too closely, leaning forward in a low-cut dress to pretend she was listening but really it was a test of his eye contact. By the time they made it behind a locked door he did exactly what she asked.
He desperately tried to rid these memories, and the imagined image of her combining these two statements — Fuck me with your…
He coughed an unnecessary cough. "Fifth limb?" He asked, trying to divert his mind back to their conversation at hand, which didn't help much since it was focusing on half the situation he didn't want to think about.
"One, two," she touched either one of his arms. "Three, four," she poked either one of his thighs. "Five," she smirked, playfully grasping his… fifth limb.
"That's unfair," Carlisle muttered, slightly shifting his hips in a desperate attempt to disguise the undisguisable.
"Sorry," Esme said, quickly pulling her hand back to her body. Clearly misunderstanding his annoyance at being so easily aroused as a rescission of consent.
"I can't even disguise what one-touch does to me." He grinned, pressing a kiss to her neck as she looked down bashfully. She still got "Although in my defense I did spend this weekend consuming nothing but pornography," he motioned to the romance novels with one hand, the other one casually toying with the hem of her blouse, fingertips slipping under thin silk to brush against smooth cool skin.
"It's not pornography," Esme objected with a laugh, lightly smacking at his chest.
"I may not be on the Supreme Court, love, but I know it when I see it."
"So you didn't enjoy the reading?"
"I found it interesting. There is an inordinate amount of emphasis on… penetration."
"I know," Esme rolled her eyes. "There's a couple of books with more variety, but they're hard, no pun intended, to find."
"But aren't they largely written by women?" Carlisle asked, wasn't it common knowledge only 25% of women could finish with penetration alone.
"Published by men," Esme shrugged. Carlisle nodded. "Oh! There was a good one back in the 60s that got banned because it was too lewd. It was about a rake who was secretly courting this farmer's daughter and -"
"They snuck off into the barn, but someone walked in so he hid under her skirts, and discreetly… serviced her," Carlisle filled in.
"Yes! Didn't you love it?"
"Yes," Carlisle agreed. He caught what he had admitted to actually enjoying the sinful cheap novels and backtracked as quickly as possible. "I mean stylistically. It was descriptive, with good imagery. I liked that part of the story."
"Mhm," Esme hummed, slipping her leg over his hip, in the same motion pulling herself up so her knees were planted on either side of his hips, hiking her skirt up slightly to do so. She leaned down, her forearms holding her up on the armrest behind his head. "You didn't find the descriptions physically enticing, Doctor?" She said, low and slow, not breaking eye contact, a tone that would have had him beet red if he had any blood in his body.
"I…I might have found them — my imagination may have been intrigued," Carlisle stammered.
The logical part of his brain was telling him they needed to stop. Esme shutting down for four days, longer than any 'rest' she had ever taken before, was clearly a call for help, Carlisle logically knew he should not take advantage of her situation. The other part of his brain, however, knew this was Esme seeking comfort — how many times had Carlisle sought the comfort he couldn't verbally ask for in the same manner — an intimate embrace could lead to the conversation he knew needed to happen. Or perhaps intimacy itself would assuage Esme's fears, perhaps all she needed was a moment of connection. He had vowed to be whatever she needed, and with the way she was sucking at the base of his neck, he was more than happy to be whatever she needed.
"Oh?" She asked, fiddling with the top buttons of his shirt, slipping them open effortlessly. "What did you imagine?"
"Well, I would have used a different technique."
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
"And what would you have done?" She saw the furrow of his brow and his hesitation to answer her question. Her seductive persona dropped, her eyebrows creased. She brought down a hand and brushed the hair off his forehead so tenderly. "Carlisle?"
"I'm thinking," he said, mentally running through all the possibilities. He could slide onto the ground and hook her knees over his shoulders, or he could scoot down to the end of the couch and let her lie down the entire length of the couch. "I need to beat a salacious rake," he grinned.
"You are a strange little man," Esme laughed fondly.
"I don't know if you realize this, love, but 'soft' and 'little' are not really compliments to men in this situation."
"I can't say you're soft, right now," Esme said quietly, tilting her hips, undulating against his, certainly not soft, form. He took in a sharp inhale as her eyes fluttered close at the contact.
She leaned in closer, pressing a kiss to the base of his neck. Her teeth softly scraped against the smooth skin she just kissed, she repeated this process a few times over, moving downwards as she did so. His head fell so he got a faceful of those wild curls that smelled like honeysuckle and vanilla. She looked up at him, lips slightly wet with her own venomous saliva, her chin resting on his chest, head bobbing in time with his labored breaths.
"And no one," she said in that sultry alto, wide eyes looking up at him through her eyelashes, "would call you small." Her hips tilted down again, his pants suddenly feeling treacherously thin and far too constricting all at the same time.
He buried his nose in her hair, pulling her face up to his by her chin. She met his insistent request, her hips still staying in that irritating wonderful perfect position. Her tongue was fervent, or he was, it was difficult to tell whose mouth was who's at this point. Her hands were over his pecs.
His large palms slid over her round ass, squeezed perfectly in that tight charcoal pencil skirt he desperately wanted to rip off, preferably with his teeth.
"Are you going to show me what you'd do instead or are you just going to kiss me senseless?" Esme asked.
Carlisle moved to get out from under her — to lay her on her back and either get on the ground or at the end of the couch as he had proposed earlier — but paused mid-move. "Wait! The novels rotted my brain, come here." He grabbed the undersides of either of her thighs and pulled her forward. She stumbled slightly at the sudden motion, her chest landing on his face as she fell.
"Carlisle," she protested with a laugh when he tried to pull her further up. He was already busy with the zip in the back of her skirt, loosening it enough he could pull the fabric up to expose her hips. Her black lace garter belt served as a galling barrier between him and her underwear. It was an exquisite pair, scalloped lace, cut in a manner that he knew framed two round cheeks perfectly. It would be a pity to ruin them, it'd be an even greater pity to not be able to touch her in the next ten seconds.
As if she could read his mind she ripped the seam and tossed the lace garment to the side, running her free hand through his hair to guide him where she wanted him.
He pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh, right over the raised scar he'd left decades earlier in a frenzied attempt to save her forever, to keep her forever, he had her forever, knees hooked around his shoulders, legs twitching when his lips came in contact with her skin, he had her forever but if he didn't touch her right then he might combust.
"Carlisle," she moaned, allowing him to finally bring her hips over his shoulders and then down to his lips.
There was a familiar rhythm to their intimacy, one that had never become less astounding or surprising over the eighty-five years since they stumbled into bed together.
There were times when hips ran against each other roughly when she clenched her teeth and reminded him he couldn't break her. That she needed him to let go of his hesitations, just for a night, just for an hour, he needed to let her be the one person he let in. They could trust each other, hand over the power just for a moment, and feel the weight of the world lift off their backs. And when the world came crumbling back down they knew, without a doubt, they would be met with the tight embrace of their lover, pale yellow loving eyes, and sweet whispers that pieced them back together.
Sometimes, it was quick, frenzied; a quick hand between them, tucked into trousers, as she sat on his lap in his office. Or a face under a pleated skirt as she sketched blueprints, or two hands on a steering wheel, a car speeding down a silent highway, a face in a lap.
Other times they barrelled towards the precipice only to stay there hovering at the edge for a sinfully long time, reading each other's every muscle twitch and sigh to keep them right there. The profound trust of the act, the intimate and utter understanding which led to the anticipation and denied release was almost as exhilarating as the inevitable release itself.
Most often it's slow, steady, and gentle. A constant reassurance that they loved every inch of each other. Eyes locked in moments of complete and utter vulnerability. Names said in breathless calls. The physical culmination of the words "I love you." Sex would never be easy for them — there were far too many insecurities and a vast of history to allow for it to be an unimportant act for them— but it had always been loving. Even during their wedding night, when neither of them 'finished' but both broke down in tearless sobs, it had been a moment where they bore their soul to the other and had it accepted in full.
Their romance had never been dramatic like the salacious books scattered on Carlisle's study floor.
No matter the tone of the act, it was a land that was sacred in every sense. Carlisle was acutely aware not all marital beds were so holy, that not even all of her marriage beds had been sanctified. But their bed — or desk or shower or backseat of a Mercedes — was holy. He was certain of few things in his life, and his faith was not one of them, but this he was certain: loving Esme Cullen, neé Platt, in any form was the most unadulterated he had ever worshiped.
Carlisle nestled his face on Esme's bare chest, arms wrapped under her waist. Her hand was in his hair — which she had thoroughly tussled — the other hand ran up and down his back, nails lightly tracing his spine, her legs wrapped around his waist.
"How long has it been since we did that?" Esme half-breathed, half-panted, her chest rising and falling dramatically under his cheek. Although his breathing wasn't much better.
"Seventy-three days, eleven hours, forty-eight minutes. Not that I've been counting."
Esme laughed a little airy laugh, which Carlisle matched. It felt good to be laughing again. They lazily looked at each other, lips finding the others in a comfortable slow embrace — the kiss naturally ending a few long moments later without either thinking about it.
Esme broke the silence minutes later. "This may seem like a late question," Esme said, words slow not in nerves but in bliss.
"I'm married but she doesn't have to know," Carlisle grinned into her soft skin.
"That wasn't my question."
"I'm clean. Haven't had an STI in three hundred years."
He heard her sigh above him and felt her muscles move under his cheek as she shook her head slightly. "Our roommates aren't home right?"
"They've been demoted to roommates now?" Carlisle laughed deeply.
"If we can go six months without a murder threat they can be promoted back to our children," she said, with mock disdain in her voice.
"Six months! We'd be lucky to make it a month at this point," Carlisle laughed.
"Why is there a picture of a vagina on the ground?"
"Emmett."
"That's why you were so good this time," Esme grinned, looking back at him. "You finally figured out where it was."
A/N: A special thank you to EdwardsMate4Ever for editing this piece and encouraging me to write something out of my comfort zone.
