Thank you to: silentmayhem, JosieNightOwl, Momochan77, Guest (Oh, don't tempt me! He will be on a personal mission to annoy Carlisle though!), madigeek, SkittyBug, BMBMDooDoo-Doo-Doo-Doo, and derniermom for your reviews!
Blue Moon, Chapter 6
Carlisle and Carys POV - Thursday Evening
Carys was woken by a strange feeling - the startled awareness that kicks in an instant before your blood runs ice cold. She flung out her arms, searching for Carlisle in the large bed only to find him missing.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark of the bedroom, she noticed the door was ajar and through it she could hear hissing. Vampiric hissing.
Throwing caution to the wind before she realised she was doing so, Carys threw off the covers and raced to the doorway, peeking out into the hallway beyond. The lights of the main hall were on; they lit the area just enough and there was nothing there as far as she could see.
Her heart was beating so fast against her ribs, her blood pumping so heavily through her, that whatever threat had come to their door would undoubtedly have registered her humanity already.
There was nowhere to hide.
The sound rose again, echoing up through the house from the wide hall downstairs.
Carys' heart stuttered.
The sound cut off abruptly.
Down in the main hall, Carlisle retained his crouch, his fingers curled, teeth bared. He could hear Carys was awake. He could hear her fear. He could all but scent it. The need to protect her intensified, the need to race to her as much as to hold his ground.
The being opposite him continued to circle and Carlisle continued to mark his every slow, sweeping step with one of his own. This being – Matt – was practically vampiric, yet his mere presence set Carlisle into a tailspin unlike he'd ever encountered because Matt wasn't a vampire. He was something else.
A dhampir, the rational part of Carlisle's brain whispered again, as it had when he had opened the door – confused and horrified that the librarian had stalked them to their home – and watched as Matt transformed before his very eyes.
Matt's eyes were no longer green, they were burnished, bright, molten silver. His teeth gleamed as white as Carlisle's and just as razor sharp. His features and skin had hardened. On top of it all, Matt had grown taller and broader; rather than a couple of inches taller than six foot, the dhampir crouched opposite Carlisle easily cleared six feet four inches and had the breadth to go with it.
Matt might not have the same intense muscularity as Emmett, but instincts deep in Carlisle told him that if Matt wanted to kill him, Carlisle would have to put up the fight of his life.
"Calm yourself, you fuck," Matt hissed. His voice was hypnotic, low, deep and growling. It set Carlisle's teeth on edge. "You're scaring yourself and Carys over nothing."
"Nothing?" Carlisle spat. He hardly recognised his own voice. He redoubled his efforts to take control of himself as he mirrored Matt's movements, blocking the foot of the stairs. This wasn't like Carlisle and he knew it. "What are you doing to me?"
"I'm doing nothing," Matt replied. "You're reacting to your natural predator. Push past it. Recognise me before one of us breaks. I can't promise I won't kill you if you continue to threaten me like this."
"Threaten you?" Carlisle nearly laughed - a panicked laugh.
Matt sneered, baring his teeth on a snarl. "Recognise me, you fool," he said again. Those were the words he'd used before he changed. "Search your human memories if you have any of them left. You're waving a red flag at a fucking bull and expecting it to stay precisely where it is."
Carlisle hissed again. Matt's eye twitched.
"I'll help you," the dhampir said.
A fog descended over Carlisle. He felt heady, strange, his body itched and bucked against the intrusion. He ought to fight it; something in him told him that he could if he truly wanted to, but his mind followed it without question, searching back just as Matt told him to.
The memories were fuzzy, hard to follow as they always were, but then - in the midst of one the day of his death - a face sharpened. A form emerged so clearly that he wondered how he could ever have forgotten it. The man's hair and eyes were different, but there was no mistaking the features or snippets of his voice.
"Matteo?" Carlisle whispered. "Matteo d'H–"
"Yeah, let's not hash up ridiculous old surnames," Matt said and the fog holding Carlisle in thrall disappeared. "You remember?"
Carlisle tipped his head to the side, regarding Matt.
He did remember.
From the flashes had come clarity.
Matteo ... A warning that he shouldn't look for vampires, an argument he could see rather than hear, a flash of realisation in the midst of the excruciating change. The way his mind found solace in other memories as he lay dying, preserving those instead of allowing himself to feel the pain of losing a friend in his last moments.
It didn't quite seem real and yet Carlisle knew somehow that these weren't fabrications. He had known this man.
The more he accepted that – whether he could recall anything of what was said between them, whether he could remind himself of their relationship in any way other than the familiarity in which they'd spoken on that fateful day – the less he felt the need to protect himself.
Slowly, Carlisle nodded. Matt responded by assuring him that he has nothing to fear.
"I'm here to talk," he said. "If I'd wanted you dead, you would be dead. I tried to help you once before. I'm determined to do so now, fat lot of good it'll do me."
Millimetre by millimetre, Carlisle unfurled himself from his crouch. Matt mirrored his movements. By the time they had risen to stand opposite each other, Carlisle was in control enough that he could flex his hands.
Familiar calm came over him. Matt watched him for half a second and then he, too, calmed, his muscles relaxing as his teeth disappeared behind his lips.
Above them, fifty yards down the first hallway of the first floor, Carys took a tentative step into the hall.
Carlisle sighed.
"Inquisitive?" Matt asked, glancing up. He sounded affectionate and, when Carlisle growled a little in response, his gaze flickered to him and held. He grinned. "Don't worry, I'm not going to steal your wife." He tipped his head from side to side, thinking it over as the footsteps inched towards them. "Intentionally."
What was it with supernatural men and threatening to steal Carys away from Carlisle? Garrett and Matt – Matteo – knew precisely which buttons to push.
Carlisle took one step forward. "Carys is my mate–" Clearing his throat, he tried again without the unfamiliar growl. "Carys is my mate. I'd like to see you try."
"Excellent." Matt was sarcastic as he clapped his hands together. "That makes this a little easier at least. You'll stay with her and I won't have to kill you."
"You wouldn't have been able to kill me even if you wanted to," Carlisle said, surprising himself again. This time it was over how ... jovial he sounded. As if he'd slipped into something long forgotten. As if an ease had come over him. Almost as soon as he registered the thought he knew he was no longer as afraid as he had been. "We really do know each other, don't we?"
Matt nodded, his expression turning grim. "We were practically brothers for five years before you fucked off."
"Is that what we're calling my death?" Carlisle asked.
"It's better than telling you what I really think about it," Matt replied easily, "I know how you feel about swearing and I'm trying to keep us both in line for now. Do you still do the thing where you cross yourself and pray every time you swear about someone?"
"He does," Carys replied from the top of the stairs. She had poked her head around the corner and was watching them warily, her face pale. She squinted at Matt for a few seconds. "Is it safe?"
Carlisle caught the responding nod from his periphery. Carys glanced between them and edged out a little more.
"I thought you guys were going to kill each other," she said. She hid her fear well, but it hitched her words and pounded her blood. Her gaze caught and held on Carlisle. "Do we not like dhampirs?"
Matt inhaled sharply.
"We do not," Carlisle replied gently, calling up just loudly enough for her to hear him. "Not when they're angry."
He angled himself between the pair. Not all of his uncomfortable reaction had passed just yet and he wanted to be in a position to intercept Matt if anything should provoke him. Apart from that ... he didn't trust Matt yet, but he felt more himself and ... he trusted what the dhampir said about wanting to talk.
Carys nodded thoughtfully.
"You heard all of that?" Matt asked as if astonished. "Or did you guess what I was before now?"
Carys blushed. "I could tell you what I'll say in the future, or I could be honest," she murmured.
"Honesty suits me just fine," Matt replied.
"I had no idea." Carys shrugged, glancing at Carlisle again. "I just figured you look less human now, but you were human before, and it's the only thing that makes sense." She looked at Matt. "Carlisle doesn't get all hissy for no reason ... what's changed now?"
Matt answered. "Carlisle just needed to remember a little something and realise he wasn't being threatened. Dhampirs become hostile when vampires are hostile, and vampires tend to become so when they think we're threatening them. It was my fault, I suppose; Carlisle didn't know he had a predator, I was pissed at the situation, and I shifted when he didn't react too kindly to being followed home."
"You followed us?" Carys asked. Her breath was becoming slightly more unsteady but she was visibly trying to fight it.
Carlisle turned so that he faced Matt dead on as he took long steps back and up the stairs, hopping the last fifteen to Carys' side. She slipped into his embrace, tucking herself against his side, beginning to relax almost immediately.
"Not exactly," Matt replied from down below. "I..." He shared a look with Carlisle, who nodded. "I knew Carlisle when he was a human–"
"YOU WHAT?" Carys cried, pulling away enough to stare her wide-eyed shock at them both. "You knew a dhampir!?"
"He knew me in my human form," Matt corrected. "And I had brown hair and blue eyes back then."
Carys blinked at them both, rubbing at her shoulder.
She couldn't be sure if she was still asleep and dreaming this, or if she had died at some point along the way and hadn't realised it.
Of course, if she'd died and Carlisle was right, that would suggest that this was either heaven or hell, or purgatory, and as she reeled and ran over the options, she couldn't work out why any of the three options would have led her to be stuck in a house with Carlisle and a dodgy – but undeniably handsome – librarian.
So it was either that all of this was real and Carlisle had managed to do as a human what he did as a vampire – break down barriers and convince beings of all supernatural and human kinds to trust him when their nature went against it – or she was asleep.
The problem she had with believing she was dead reared its head to tell her that she probably wouldn't have dreamed that Matt was a dhampir, that the dhampir would know Carlisle from his human life, or that she would be having a conversation with the two of them in the middle of the main hall.
Which could only mean that she was very much awake.
"Would you like a cup of tea or coffee or something?" she heard herself ask politely, and felt her face grow hot from embarrassment.
Carlisle and Matt grinned – one down at her, one up – and shared a look as if to say: ah, how human. Carys straightened her spine and levelled them both with the best glare that she could muster under the circumstances. She doubted it was very effective because if anything it made their expressions deepen.
"It's a normal enough question. You're in my house in the middle of the night. Do you want one or not?" she all but humphed, crossing her arms to pull her dressing gown tighter around herself.
A snort-like sound came from down below, but when she looked at Matt he had an entirely innocent expression plastered on his pale, angular face. Carys wasn't sure if his jaw was always as square as it was now. If it had been, she'd not noticed it. There was something different about him, above the obvious. He seemed larger somehow, more imposing, and his eyes weren't as bright green as they had been.
It might have been the light.
Carlisle accepted the offer first and led Carys down the first few steps before Matt added his acceptance.
Carys needed Carlisle's presence. Each step brought her closer to Matt, and she had yet to properly ascertain his reason for being there. She kicked herself because that was the first thing she should have done. She hoped he wanted to tell them about what they were facing, but he might just as well have been there because he expected Carlisle would put two and two together.
What if he was covering his tracks? What if he was planning on killing them?
As soon as she thought it, she dismissed it. The closer she came, the more she began to have to remind herself to be scared of Matt. There was something warm and safe about his presence.
Matt took a couple of steps back, widening the considerable gap between them as they reached the foot of the stairs.
The urge to inch sideways rose within Carys, but before she could think much more Carlisle had twitched her to the other side of him.
He half-turned and walked like a shield behind her. It made her smile as much as wince. It was a little awkward. A glance over her shoulder told her that Matt found it amusing.
He followed after them with loose limbed confidence, grinning knowingly at Carlisle. He must have spoken at one point, because when Carys darted another glance at them Carlisle was glaring, his lips blurring.
Matt's response was nothing short of dazzling. Smug and dazzling.
His eyes were different, Carys hadn't imagined that part.
In the kitchen, Carys headed straight for the kettle to give her shaking hands something to do. Filling it, she set it and left it to boil as she turned to watch the pair.
They had returned to something of a stand-off now that they were in a smaller room, staring each other dead in the eye. There wasn't too much animosity she could see though, which was good. They were having a conversation and it was too quiet for her to hear. That irked her.
She busied herself with setting out three mugs. Matt could have decaf coffee like her and Carlisle. She heaped teaspoons of instant granules into each mug, added sugar to them all, and didn't bother to add milk once she'd filled them with boiling water, stirring them before she carried the lot to the table and set them down.
"You two can stop excluding me now," she said. "If you have something to say, surely I should hear it?"
"Don't you dare," Carlisle said to Matt in his calm, steady cadence.
Matt pulled out a seat and sat. "Thank you for this," he said, grabbing one of the mugs and pulling it towards him. He waited until Carys and Carlisle had sat opposite and then addressed Carys genially. "I was just saying it's nice to know some things never change."
"The kitchen?" Carys asked, remembering Carlisle telling her that he'd tried to preserve as much of the room as possible.
Had Matt seen it? It was still unbelievable that they'd known each other. Such an odd notion.
"Yes," Carlisle replied.
Matt's eyes twinkled. He saluted Carys with his mug. "His taste in women."
Carys spluttered and Carlisle glared.
"Why'd you make him coffee?" Matt asked, ignoring their reactions. "If I hadn't been honour bound to help you both, I'd be tempted to out myself just because the question's been running around my mind all week. You got him three a day, even when you switched to chamomile."
Carys winced. She hated chamomile tea but it was all that looked good on Wednesday afternoon. She'd regretted her decision almost immediately, but Matt had already turned a blind eye to her twice that day and she hadn't wanted to cause a fuss.
"What do you mean his taste in women hasn't changed?" she asked.
Carlisle froze. "I don't think we need to–"
"He..." Matt touched his tongue to his back teeth and met Carlisle's gaze as he said, "Never acted upon his interest before." His words rang of truth. "But he'd stare at one or two along the way."
"One or two what?" Carys demanded.
"Pretty humans with brown eyes and long dark hair," Matt supplied. He took a deep inhale of the steam swirling from his coffee. "Care to respond to my question now?"
Carlisle explained, running through their courtship quickly, missing quite a lot out. When he was done, Matt grimaced and spoke around the rim of his cup.
"'Course it was going to be fucking adorable."
Carys giggled when Matt sent her a wink.
Carlisle didn't like this. He didn't like this one bit. Matt had somehow managed to diffuse the entire situation in a matter of minutes and here he was making Carys giggle while he told her about things Carlisle couldn't remember the truth of.
"That doesn't mean I don't still think you're one of the most stupid beings to ever walk this land," Matt added, eyeing him.
"Hmm," Carlisle responded dryly. "Don't think I didn't pick up on your comment. You're honour bound to us? Because of the dhampir?"
Matt snorted. "Hell no. Because whether you remember it or not, I swore to protect your wife and children."
Carys gasped, her eyes growing round. They shimmered under the lights. "Wife and children?" she whined. "Carlisle was married?"
Matt shook his head vehemently. "Nope, but then again when you're as smashed as we were you tend to forget what limbs you have, let alone family members."
"I'm sorry," Carys said slowly, leaning forward while Carlisle grappled with the knowledge that he'd once been drunk. "Carlisle was what now?"
"Smashed," Matt said. "Sloshed. Well into his cups. Legless. Bladdered. Pissed as a newt. Half-cut. Rat-arsed–"
Carlisle cut him off. "We don't need the whole thesaurus, we understand what you mean," he said. "What I – and I think I speak for us both when I say this – don't understand is what you mean by I was any of those things."
Matt laughed, resting his elbows on the table, his mug clasped in one hand which he waved for emphasis.
"Oak Apple Day, 1660. Also known as King Charles II's triumphant return to London–"
"And his birthday," Carlisle filled in.
Matt nodded and turned to Carys. "Roaring celebrations all over the place. This one" – he indicated Carlisle with a nod – "told his father he was off to preach the good word. And he preached, alright. Preached his way through the better half of a cask of wine and five pints of ale before he was done."
"He didn't?" Carys gasped, looking between them.
"Oh, he did," Matt said honestly, if not a little gleefully. "And when it occurred to him that his father might find out and do away with him for it, he insisted I looked after his family. 'Course I was just as sloshed as he was. Wasn't until I woke up the next day in a heap on the floor of the pub with Carlisle still singing–"
"It would have been a while since that was last allowed," Carys breathed.
Matt didn't appear to mind the interruption.
"Nineteen years," he and Carlisle said together.
Matt continued: "It wasn't until then that I realised what I'd done. My word is my word." He took a gulp of his coffee, surprising Carlisle. "Never proved an issue before, but now... Yeah, now it is, so thanks a fucking lot for that, Carlisle, you've all but signed my death warrant."
Carlisle frowned at that but a quick glance told him it was something they would talk about after the pleasantries were over.
"You're drinking?" Carlisle said, nodding at the mug.
"I'm half human," Matt said, as if Carlisle was stupid. "Unlike you, I have a working digestive system. Why? Jealous?"
"I'm sorry," Carys said before Carlisle could summon a response, "I just can't get over the fact that Carlisle got hammered. This is Carlisle Cullen you're talking about? My Carlisle? The clergyman?"
"Well, he wasn't quite a clergyman yet," Matt said, far more teasingly. "He was twenty and he had a lot of ... how d'you say? Pent up feelings he needed to lose in the bottom of a barrel. It best have been him, otherwise I'd have gone against my word to whichever poor sod I thought was him."
Carlisle narrowed his eyes. "How exactly am I to believe this really happened?" he asked.
Matt shrugged. "I remember it, so it happened."
"But you're saying you got drunk as well," Carlisle prompted.
"You forget." Matt lifted a hand and circled his head with his index finger. "Working digestive system and I can shift. It takes a lot more to get me there but I can manage it if needs be."
"And alcohol doesn't affect the shifting?"
"Not if it's a rare occurrence and I've been human for long enough that I'm not at risk of an accident. We'd known each other for two years by then and I hadn't shifted for longer."
"Just to be clear ... When you say shifted...?" Carys asked, letting the sentence hang in the air.
"Transformed into a human-esque form," Matt supplied.
Carys' lips formed a small "o" and she raised her mug to her lips, taking a tentative sip while she thought over the information.
"You're saying dhampirs can be fully human?" Carlisle asked.
"Not really," Matt said. "We're still immortal. When I do it, I tend to do ten years if there's war, twenty-five if there's not, then disappear for a bit to get back on form."
"You can be human for twenty-five years?"
"Like I said: sort of. And most can't manage it for that long. I push the limits. Most have to give up after a couple of years; seven is the sweet spot. Every time you shift," he explained, "you kind of reset. So long as you're in a human form, you can sort of age in a way. It's not really aging, is more ... slowly petrifying, I suppose. Most can't bear it so they shift and then they have to move and start all over again. There's the issue of living your life as a human for too long as well, which is messy in itself."
Carys sucked in a breath. "Why are you telling us all of this? Why so much at once? Surely these are secrets or something? Carlisle didn't even know you existed into recently and tonight you come here and out yourself and your secrets."
Matt raised a solitary eyebrow. "Do you really think I've told you anything?"
"Well, yes." Carys hesitated with the attention of both men on her. She would think of them as men, it made it easier. "You've told us about your ability to shift into human form, and how long you do it, and how often you do it, and about your digestive system for a start."
Matt leaned back in his chair. "In for a penny, in for a pound and all that. You're having one, you should know what you're getting yourself into. Besides, as you said, vampires don't know we exist. No matter how much I tell you right now, it's not going to help you find us if we don't want to be found. I'm pretty fucked off that Carlisle of all people can't leave stuff well alone, but it's not like any of you have done much to us since the last cull, so–"
"Hold on. Cull!?" Carys asked, her voice as shrill as Carlisle felt inside.
A cull would suggest...
"Cull," Matt responded.
Tipping his mug back, he downed the last of it and snatched out a hand, taking Carlisle's from the centre of the table and getting started on that, too.
"A cull," he said, "is something you do when–"
"We know what a cull is," Carlisle said.
Matt grinned. "'Course you do, Cullen. Haven't you wondered why there aren't any vampires older than about three and a half thousand or so?"
Carys' face drained. She felt dizzy and sick to her stomach.
"You ... you killed..."
"Not all of them were up to me," said Matt. "I took down my fair share but believe me, it was warranted. It wasn't us who started the war. Not like what those Volturi fuckers did to half the covens. You don't mind me swearing, do you?" he belatedly asked Carys.
She shook her head dully.
"Good. Well, not like those Volturi fuckers. We know when to leave you lot to your own devices and when we need to step in. Fuck knows what's going to happen this time. It's been over two thousand years since the last vampire made one of us and that was an easy clean up; this won't be."
Carlisle was silent beside Carys. She wasn't entirely sure, but she thought he might be in shock. She couldn't be sure she wasn't in shock as well when, past the buzzing in her ears, she heard herself ask:
"How old are you, Matt?"
"Older than I look," he said slyly. His smile dropped. "You need sun."
"What?" Carys exclaimed.
"You need sun," he repeated seriously. "More than you're getting here. It'll make you feel better." Turning to Carlisle, he added casually, "And I think we could both do with a hunt in the meantime. It'll bond us a bit and stop me wanting to rip your head off for idiocy."
"Carlisle doesn't drink human blood," Carys whispered.
"Good, neither do I. I have to be honest with you, I'm proud of you, Carlisle. Good on you for sticking with it. I think it'll ingratiate you with the dhampirs."
Carys stared at the side of Carlisle's face. She wished he would move, breathe, blink. Say something, anything at all. This was moving too fast. The revelations were coming too fast.
"Lovely?" she whispered to Carlisle while Matt finished off his second coffee.
"A mate and a vegetarian. One's rare enough but the other? Last time there was a mated situation was before my time. Fuck knows what's going to happen when the others find out. I'll try to stop a war, but–"
Matt continued talking but neither Carys nor Carlisle were truly listening.
Carlisle broke himself from his reverie to stare into Carys' eyes as he said one word, loud and clear:
"Goddamn."
It stopped Matt in his tracks. Tipping his head back, he roared with laughter, attracting the attention of the pair. It was a dark, humourless sort of laugh.
"Oh, Carlisle," he wheezed. "You don't know the half of it."
A/N: I know that Amun is older than 3500 but that'll be explained as we go along.
P.s. colour me mortified, there was a line where Matt said "Last time we had a mate was before my time" and I honestly didn't think about the connotations. I've edited that now! He was talking about the last time there was a mated pair.
