His children considered Esme their mother. They addressed her as such. Mother. More recently, Mom. Whatever the word might be for maternal addressal in the decade and century they lived in, they used it for her. Freely and frequently. And Esme deserved it every single time.
She knew how to be a mother. She had given birth to a child. Her body was frozen in the softness of afterbirth. She knew how to love, to care for, to reprimand her children. As the number of her children grew, so did the affection in her heart. She pulled Edward out of his self-depreciating spiral. She helped Rosalie navigate the horrors of her last human moments and the short-comings of her immortal life. She helped Emmett and his simple joys find a place among their then-strained familial ties.
And when Jasper and Alice came into their lives, she accepted them with a love that warmed and softened even their veteran son's battle-hardened heart.
She stood by Bella, welcoming the girl into their home through every hardship the poor child endured. She protected Renesmee when even Carlisle was uncertain about it.
She had earned the title of being a mother.
So they called her so.
His children considered him their father. They seldom addressed him as such.
In moments of weakness perhaps. But he was father only when they had to verbally acknowledge the relationship they shared. Even at their most affectionate, he was Carlisle. It had been ninety years since he turned Edward and Carlisle could count on one hand how many times he had been called a father or any synonym thereof.
Fatherhood was not something he sought. It was the need of a companion that prompted him to change Edward. So when their turbulent relationship, both the public cover story and the private dynamic eventually settled, he ended up as the father and Edward as the son. This relationship was sealed when Esme entered their life.
And it left Carlisle terrified.
Esme knew how to be a mother. Carlisle had absolutely no inkling how to be a father.
As a vampire, he had met coven leaders. He had met kings. He had met mates. He had met sisters. He had never met a father. What did it mean to be a father?
His human memories had been washed out by the chasm of over two and a half centuries when he first found himself filling in the shoes of fatherhood. And yet, they were the only guidance that he could work with.
He thought back to his own father. He thought back to himself as the son of that father.
Carlisle had been a child, less than eight years of age, when he had injured himself. Nothing too serious, but enough to distress his young heart. He had approached his father with the scraped knees dotted with dirt and blood. And he had been turned away. His father was working and was not to be disturbed.
And so, for the past century, the door to Carlisle's study had very seldom been locked. If his children stood at the door to his office, he would put his pen down and listen to what they had to say. If he got a call from home while he was at the hospital, he would hand over his work to the first willing colleague and rush back to the house, to his children.
Carlisle had still been a child albeit, slightly older, when he had done something. He could not quite remember what it was. Perhaps he had dropped the tray of empty dishes he had been carrying away from his father's study. Perhaps he had spilled ink over some papers. Perhaps he had done both on different occasions. The outcome was the same. He had been whipped. His father's belt left a smarting pain on his backside. Painful enough that the memory carried over into his immortal life. It happened frequently. It was not unusual given the era he was raised in. But it impacted his psych enough to fight through the fog created over the human memories by the venom and brand itself into his flawless recall.
And so, Carlisle had never raised a hand against any of his children. He could give a direct command and they could flagrantly disobey him and yet, he would never strike them.
He remembered being yelled at. That was frequent too. Sometimes it was accompanied by sharp strikes against his palm. Sometimes it carried words, of disappointment and disgrace, that whipped against his heart. His father yelled at him often. He was an impatient man, Carlisle remembered that. That came with being a busy man, but as a public figure, his impatience had no outlet save for his son.
And so, Carlisle never raised his voice. He could not yell for more than a word or two at a stretch before his lungs gave out and his body fell exhausted. He never allowed his children to be an outlet to his frustrations, be it of his own making or through their actions.
He had been fifteen. Perhaps sixteen. He had approached his father. It was the folly of youth, he could tell that now. He had approached his father and requested that he be allowed to pursue a career as a solicitor, instead of a pastor. That day Carlisle had been struck, yelled at and turned away all at once. His father had questioned the company he kept. He had questioned Carlisle's faith. And he had struck him again.
And so, Carlisle had never stopped his children from studying whatever their heart desired. Engineering. Medicine. Business. Fashion. Literature. Whatever they wished to pursue, he had given them the provisions they needed and wished them luck.
But that was what frustrated Carlisle.
His experience with his own father, so far, had only taught him what not to do. But he knew he could cover the gap between being the father-figure and being the father only after he learned what to do. Actions, not avoidance.
He picked up some traits from his human colleagues. Qualities he appreciated in them. He provided for his children. He guided them when they sought guidance. He had pacified the turbulence that arose in their family from time to time.
He remembered Edward's exasperated eye roll back in 1920s when the young boy had realized Carlisle spent his lunch time eavesdropping on his human colleagues' conversations. He would listen to stories, pick up traits he thought would be apt for a father and tried to live those out, apply them into his relationship with the brooding young child that he found himself a father to.
Carlisle had to admit, that was a habit he had not quite abandoned. He would still observe good men being good fathers and apply it in his interactions with his children. Sometimes they would be so out of place, he would have an abashed eye contact with his telepath, empath or clairvoyant child.
In the end, Carlisle knew he had to resign himself to being just that. Carlisle. He would never be Dad.
Never quite like how Esme was Mom.
He did not know how to be a father. Because he did not remember having a father.
John Cullen. Carlisle did not remember him as his father.
So, it left him abundantly perplexed as to why the painting caused him such pain.
The unidentified box had been large. So it was no surprise its content was equally huge. Emmett had carried it to Carlisle's study and relieved the content of its cardboard covering. A priceless, solid gold frame, over six feet tall. Pressed within its safe confines, the finest of all canvas fabrics to withstand the weathering of time. The highest quality of varnish to add a rather recent coat.
It was no wonder Esme had been the one to guess the content. She could identify a high quality work of art even if it came enclosed in a suspicious little box.
The art was indeed quality. It was old. And far too realistic for the era it was painted in. Carlisle's dead human memories stirred to life the longer he stared at its content.
The inside of a single-story, gray building. Blocks of stones pressed upon into a slight concave under the feet of thousands of worshipers. Dull, wooden pew. The third row from the front, on the right had a small chipped corner. Carlisle recalled that piece of wood breaking under his polishing fingers as a sixteen year old when he saw it rendered with careful detail onto the painting.
He looked at the details in the floor. He looked at the intricacy with which the stained glass windows were rendered on the canvas. The almost warm brilliance of each small flame crowning the tall candles placed strategically around the room. The cobwebs that hung on the corner of the roof. The dusty rafters.
He looked at them all. Carefully. Dedicatedly.
He looked at them, because when he did not look at the wonderful details of the place that was his old home, he saw the blood.
He saw the scarlet droplets splattering the aisle he himself had traversed thousands of times as a human. He saw the corner of the pew chipped and reddened as if someone had been thrown against it and bled. He saw the hand shaped blood stains that preceded a trail of red as if someone had tried to crawl away and had been dragged back.
A golden cross lay at the foot of the wall beyond the altar. The artist had done a painfully marvelous job of showing the glint of the candlelight reflecting off a part of it. A liquid ruby coating stopped the rest of it from shining under the holy light of the candles. The chain attached to it was piled around it, each curve strewn about with a thoughtless disregard.
It was made in pair and was his father's wedding gift to his mother, one for him, one for her.
Now one lay in a fast accumulating pool of blood on the canvas. The other hung around Carlisle's neck. His hand went to his neck, grasping the cross that still hung over his heart as his eyes protested any movement upwards of its counterpart.
Oh but how he tortured them!
He looked, if for nothing then for the sake of the painter who created this art with such excruciating detail.
The wall behind the altar was painted white. At least it was meant to be white. Carlisle remembered it being white, standing in stark contrast to the slightly yellowed form of the crucified Christ.
But in the painting it was not white. Not entirely. Not spotlessly. Nor did it have the crucified Christ that usually held its place on that wall.
It was chipped. It was cracked. It was splattered with blood. The cross was still there. Large and magnificent. But the figurine of their Lord had been ripped off. Instead, the cross held a man.
A naked, bruised, bloodied man.
Carlisle looked upon the painting with a physician's eyes and he saw horror far beyond what any other onlooker may have seen.
The man was bruised and bloodied, a testament to the scourging he had endured. Angry gashes dripping with blood ran all over his torso and arms, the source of the blood splattered all over the room. Some bruises were red, some blue. Some gashes bled freely, some had crusted over. His tortured death had been long and drawn out. Long enough for his body to fight and try to heal. It was all for naught.
He hung on the cross, his arms outstretched. His wrists were nailed to it. Carlisle looked closely at the point where the nails were driven in and his heart wept for the man. The thick, long, rusty iron nails were driven straight through the median nerve of both arms. Not only would that have put the man in excruciating pain, it would have also paralyzed his arms to an extent that they couldn't be used to support his weight. His shoulders were twisted in an unnatural way, the joint dragged out of the socket on both the side under the weight of the rest of the body. The elbows and wrists had met a similar fate. Both the arms were unnaturally lengthened under the force by a good six or seven inches.
Carlisle looked over the rest of the body, fervently searching for any evidence that the man had met a quick end. His thigh was not broken for that would have sped up the death. His side was not stabbed for that would have sped up the death. He did not have any major vessels bleeding that could have sped up the death.
Reluctantly, Carlisle accepted that this man had indeed died a long and painful death. He was nailed to the cross. He stayed in pain, for perhaps hours if the painting was accurate to the nature of injuries. He supported his weight on his chest, until his muscles would freeze up with exhaustion, locking him in a state of perpetual inhalation. He died, after hours, every muscle in his body so busy trying to hold him upright, they were not allowed to breathe.
Carlisle was a coward. For he did not look at the man's face. Not until it was the only thing in the entire painting he had not seen.
And when, at last, he looked the dead man in the face, a choked sob escaped his own throat.
A head full of hair, golden as his own, albeit longer, running down to his shoulder and sticking to his bloodied neck and cheeks. A nose not unlike his except crooked from an old injury. Half open, startling blue eyes, the way his had been three and a half centuries ago. Lines of age and agony mingled freely on the old face. The face that one day would have been Carlisle's if it hadn't frozen in eternal youth.
The fog over his human memories lifted a little. It was unnecessary. He did not need memories to know the man on the cross was John Cullen.
The phantom screams long dead echoed in the silence of the rendered room and in Carlisle's ears. His father's yells had been loud. His screams would have been louder.
The man on the cross was his father. Crucified painfully as their Lord had been.
And while the sign above their Lord's head had proclaimed his falsified crime, the words over his father's head held a promise.
In ragged, yet artful inscription, it read:
Your father died in agony. So will you.
