Dignity

Carlisle

Carlisle's head snapped towards his daughter when he heard her let out an agonizing scream. Alice lay writhing on the ground, screaming from a pain that could stem from only one thing. His eyes scanned the circle his family was enclosed within, looking for Bella.

Large hands grabbed him and he found himself being pulled away. He struck out against the hands that held him, trying to get to his granddaughter when he heard her cry out and whimper. His eyes trailed down to where she was looking and widened when he saw half of Bella's head roll to a stop at her daughter's feet.

Carlisle would like to say that was the moment he knew they had lost. That they had lost when their biggest defense had fallen. Yet that could not be farther from the truth. He knew they had lost the moment he had noted that shift in Aro's eyes. The moment Alice had given her answer. The moment Aro changed his mind.

Aro had spared his family once. More to save face than out of any goodwill of heart.

And now, in that chamber with not a single witness and only his loyal guard with him, he had no need for pretenses or reasons.

He was pulled out of the circle of guards, away from his family despite his best struggles. Alice's scream cut off abruptly and unnaturally with a sickening crunch. Carlisle's stomach heaved and his struggles intensified. But he was no match for the two guards who held him back now.

Edward did not scream, perhaps for his daughter's sake but the guttural sound of resistance from his throat was a testament to his agony.

Carlisle could not see his family anymore, surrounded as they were by cloaks of gray and black. But he could hear them, the struggles and the scream.

"Aro, stop them," Carlisle yelled out, once again struggling against the restraints. His golden eyes met Aro's red ones. He saw the playful delight in the orbs of red and a sinking feeling developed in the pit of his stomach. "Please," he whispered.

Aro looked at the sight before him in mirth, and with a subtle indication that Carlisle missed, Alec was at work. And while his family's senses died down, the fight in them didn't. They thrashed, clawing out at enemies they could neither see, nor hear, nor smell, nor feel.

The circle of guards cleared out, and Carlisle took a desperate stock of his family.

Bella's body lay on the ground, her head a few feet away. Rosalie had been torn to pieces too, both her limbs, legs and head separated from the rest of her body. Alice had been decapitated. So was Jasper.

Two guards each held Emmett, Edward, Renesmee and Esme. A third guard joined in to hold back Emmett.

All three of his daughters lay dead on the ground before him.

One of his sons was gone.

Tears streamed down Renesmee's red face. Edward, perhaps still able to read minds, continued the fight. As did Emmett. Esme, on the other hand, had her face contorted with fear and confusion. She stood still, her face turning this way and that, trying to shake off the cloud of senselessness that would not let go of its grasp on her.

"Please," Carlisle whispered again, his own struggles dying.

For the first time in centuries, Carlisle felt the closest he ever could be, to tired.

His eyes roamed the hall. Caius looked amused, a grin too sinister to be called a smile graced his face as he looked at his children's still, tattered form. Marcus looked on to everything with a dull disinterest. And Aro?

Aro looked at him.

When their eyes met, Aro gave a small shake of his head. An unspoken cue that stirred all other present into motion. Most of the guards filed out of the hall. A few remained back, including Jane and Alec and Renata, along with the ones holding his family down.

Caius left, his retinue following him.

Marcus stood up and held his hand out for Aro who held it for a moment before he gave a small bow. The next instant, Marcus was gone too.

Only the closest, most loyal, the most gifted Volturi guards stayed back. Ones not likely to talk about what happens in the room now.

In the two decades that he had spent in Volterra, Carlisle had come to know that much of Aro's commands and communications were relayed through almost imperceptible gestures so that the guards would know what to do even if Aro could not vocalize his orders in front of the visitors he was entertaining.

Carlisle wished he had paid closer attention to it, learned it. All so that he could get an idea about what was in store for his family now. But he hadn't, and there was no undoing that.

"Carlisle," Aro glided over to him, his smile artfully covering whatever emotion lay underneath. "Perhaps the petrification is getting to my ears. I didn't quite hear what you were saying over this little ruckus your family had created."

Every single person in the room had heard him. Aro knew that. As did Carlisle.

But the younger, blond vampire was long past the point of pride.

"Please, Aro," Carlisle looked up at the man he once considered a great friend. A man Carlisle had hoped, even in the midst of their last meeting, that he would be able to reconcile with and call a friend once again. Someone he could invite over to his house and once again share a robust discussion about everything and nothing.

Aro stepped closer to him, uncomfortably closer. The dusty musk odor hit Carlisle full in the face and their nose almost touched, held down by the guards as he was. He raised a finger, tracing the side of Carlisle's face with his nail.

It was sharp, but it did not break his skin. Instead, it rang in his ears, like nails scratching on a blackboard or comb on a bed-sheet. Much too loud and unpleasant, sending a shiver down his spine. Carlisle's shudder did not go unnoticed by Aro, who gave the barest hint of a smile before turning his finger ever so slightly that their skin was in contact.

"Fair dreams, you hold my dear," Aro answered his thoughts. "I saw you as a friend too. But you, and yours, have put me in a position to reconsider my belief. So, pardon me if I put your possible invite on hold for a while."

Aro stepped away, gliding around the room to the center, where his guards held the remaining Cullens. Emmett was still struggling, Aro dwarfed before the large vampire. Renata slinked closer to her master, her hands almost touching his shoulder.

"You were my guest, Carlisle. Beloved to me more than any visitor Volterra had hosted before. I made you stand with me, in our library, in your room, as an equal, an honor very few receive. Yet you spat at the equality I offered, and instead, chose insurgency."

Carlisle could remember every single moment Aro referred to, every single second of the nearly 6.5 million that he spent in Volterra etched clear as a crystal in his memory. Sitting in front of the window in their room, looking at the flow of people below on the street, discussing politics, morals, art, literature and anything that had come to his mind. The older vampire had looked at the younger one, indulgently, taught him laws and languages, history and science. Together they had sat and experimented upon frogs, and chemicals, studied gifts and immortal children. Every endeavor Aro undertook, Carlisle had been welcome to join him.

"I am no insurgent Aro," Carlisle said. "Nor is my family. We have no wish to go against the law, nor against those who have carried out the task of enforcing it for centuries. You studied each one of us yesterday. You know it. We just wish to live our life in peace."

Aro turned to him with a raised eyebrow. His pretense was gone, the ever present smile on his face dissolved in the thin press of his lips. "You speak with a misplaced confidence, Carlisle. I have looked into your coven's minds. They follow the law because you tell them it should be followed. They abstain from their natural diet because you tell them it's the right thing to do. An unnatural bond exists between you all. One that binds them to each other, and to you. This is an army at your command. And in every single mind I touched yesterday, there is only one enemy…"

Stepping back, Aro looked around at his guards, the Volturi present in the room, and whispered, "…us. My loved ones, and I. The Volturi."

There was no reaction, no sound. Yet the shift in the atmosphere was palpable to Carlisle. These were guards bound to Aro with a slave-like devotion. Carlisle's eyes darted momentarily to Chelsea standing at the other end of the room. Tall tales about unnatural bonds, huh?

Carlisle never voiced the snarky comment but he knew it would come back to haunt him soon enough. But he was also, to an extent, used to Aro eavesdropping on his thoughts. So, he blinked past all of that and addressed him again.

"What can I do, Aro?" he asked and in an instant, the man was before him, standing a step too close once again. "How can I prove to you that I have, at no point of time, ever harbored the desire to move against the Volturi? That I have always considered myself subservient to the laws of our kind?"

Aro took another step closer to Carlisle at the last part.

"Subservient?" Aro smiled. "Oh my dear friend, I have found you strange, unnatural, enticing, insolent, exasperating. I have found you to be many things, Carlisle Cullen. Subservient has never been one of those."

The older vampire took yet another step towards him and Carlisle wondered how that was even possible given their proximity. Aro shifted his face, just a little and his lips were on Carlisle's ears.

The silky voice and the heady odor froze Carlisle on the spot. "Tell me Carlisle, one instance of subservience during your time in Volterra and I will let you and your family go."

In matters of seconds, Carlisle had gone through the twenty years he had spent in the castle and he had no answer.

Save for Caius and Marcus and perhaps the wives, everyone else had stood before Aro. Jane and Alec. Chelsea. Renata. Every single guard. They had presented themselves to him. He had held their hands, given his command and they had all gone to carry out their duty or resumed their place within the guard.

Not Carlisle though.

No, Carlisle had always found himself beside this strange but all too alluring creature. They had stood side by side, sometimes less than an inch apart, sometimes Carlisle a couple of feet away. They had sat side by side, worked, and ran and explored. Aro had preached and he had listened. And when it was his turn, Carlisle had spoken and Aro had listened with rapt attention.

"When the world bowed before me, you refused a place by my side." Aro's voice was so low, Carlisle knew that even the other vampires in the room would not be able to hear him. The two guards holding him perhaps. But that was it.

"Fear not, my dear Carlisle," Aro continued, his voice now just loud enough for the vampire occupants of the room. "I will ensure your subservience is witnessed by all. And then, we will have no reason to be at odds."

Carlisle had no idea where Aro was going with this. And yet, he gave a minuscule nod of his head. His ears brushed against Aro's lips and with a chill Carlisle felt every single red eye in the room on him.

Aro's lips, however, did not leave his skin. Instead, they fluttered over his ears and Carlisle's stomach knotted. Aro shifted, bending his head just a little further towards him, and Carlisle stilled when Aro left a trail of warm wetness just behind his ears.

He clenched his eyes shut and let go of every remaining struggle in him to the point that he felt the guards holding him loosen their grip. Aro moved his mouth from behind his ears for a second before he dove in again, his movements getting bolder with each passing second.

Carlisle quashed all shivers that threatened to make his discomfort known.

Unquestioned obedience.

Even as every instinct in him screamed at him to push away the perverse disregard for his consent, Carlisle stood rooted to a spot. His eyes, closed that they might be, could still see his daughters and son's torn form.

If this was what it took to save his family, Carlisle would do it.

Subservience.

Carlisle was willing to give a lot more than that if, only if, he could have the assurance that his family would walk out of this city alive. That they would not be hunted and persecuted at the first opportunity.

As Aro's mouth trailed lower, onto his neck, Carlisle found himself weakening.

Aro had been nothing but good to him, right? He had tried and failed to think of even a single instance ever since their friendship started where Aro had treated him as anything less. His lips were trailing under his jaw now and Carlisle tilted his head a little to the side giving him better access.

His hands, that had stayed by his side all this while, reached out and touched each of Carlisle's shoulders. The guards let go of him. But Carlisle did not move. Dared not move.

He could live like this, right? It was good, right?

Aro's hands trailed down from his shoulder, their fingers almost touching. But when they entwined, it was not Aro, but Carlisle who initiated it. Aro's kiss deepened, making their way higher up his chin. As did his hands, rubbing softly, from behind his palm, all the way up his forearm till the rolled up sleeves just below his elbows.

Aro's lips explored every inch of his face and Carlisle wondered at the idiocy of any who theorized that patience was Carlisle's gift in this new life. Truly he did, for the growl that rumbled deep within his chest and escaped through his lips belonged to a man who was neither patient nor pious.

The sound was cut off within seconds of its origination, silenced by the ancient vampire's all too experienced lips. He could feel the tug of mirth in Aro's lips as his hands went exploring the body that he had never been permitted to touch.

It was good. It could all work out.

Aro was good.

A good person.
A good leader.
A good lover.

His children would come to see it. They would, he was certain of that.

Almost as certain as the hands that languidly made their way up and down his back. His fingers lowered, and came to the front, between the two. The tiny space they took, it angered Carlisle. They were in between him and Aro and that was not acceptable to Carlisle. But the older man, and his ministrations once again calmed the relatively younger vampire's restlessness.

Perhaps this would be a nice change too. At almost four centuries, he was by far the oldest in his family, his age adding on as many responsibilities to his shoulder as his position as their leader did. But here, in Volterra, in the arms of the man who was ten times his age and hundred times as learned, Carlisle could let go of all those burdens. He could be free.

Carlisle sucked in a breath when Aro's fingers made quick work of his shirt's buttons and and came in contact with his skin. They knew what they were doing, Aro's fingers. They trailed, and touched and lingered at all the right places. His fingers brushed over his nipples, traced the underside of his hard chest.

His touch, they were, in a way, like Esme's…

They traced the small area below his navel and Carlisle froze.

They were not, in a way, like Esme's.

They were exactly like Esme's.

Carlisle's eyes flew open in horror.

From across the room, he saw Chelsea and Corin, their smug faces smiling directly at him.