Scars

Early December 2020
Ashland, WI

This was a part of their relationship Esme had not foreseen.

At the beginning she had concluded it would satisfy her for an eternity for them even to couple at all. Their first time had been fiery and irrepressible—a kiss which turned into hands in hair, which turned into her dress off her shoulders, which turned into his hands being there. She still remembered the feel of him through his trousers, and recalled the exact note his suspenders sounded when her fingers had frantically released them, somehow knowing what to do even though in her past life, she had no memory of ever being allowed to undress her husband.

They hadn't been married then. Their actual wedding night not long thereafter had been different; the stakes raised, both of them too nervous. After two abortive attempts, they had spent the night reading love poetry and talking instead, learning the simple eroticism of being comfortable unclothed together. Later, they would learn the rhythms of each other's bodies, becoming fluent in the unique dialect of the other's sighs, whimpers, and moans. "Languid" was a word that seemed invented for the way Carlisle Cullen made love; every movement of his was slow, worshipful, designed to bring her pleasure and to make his eyes go alight as he watched. And it had been that way for years: careful, loving, showers of kisses and stroking of torsos, until that one day when she'd accidentally trapped his arms behind his back and the sudden helplessness had pushed him instantly to completion.

They had both been so shocked they'd been unable to continue. Her husband had sputtered, breathless, as she had apologized and he just shook his head in a lustful awe. And so slowly, this, too had blossomed. The right amount of force, meted out and carefully controlled, was a turn-on for them both.

Outside the house, the wind whipped against the old siding. A winter storm had dropped six inches of snow inside a few hours earlier in the day, making her husband's commute home more strenuous than usual. This had been why she'd made a fire in the first place, and the scent of the burning embers hung in the air, wafting up from the living room where her jeans and Carlisle's scrubs had been feverishly discarded when winter cuddling had turned suddenly more primal. They had scampered needily to the nearly-finished bedroom.

She had him by his wrists now, both of them trapped in her hands and pressed to the newly-purchased mattress, pinning his arms over his head so that the dark golden hair in his underarms was fully revealed. This position, with her kneeling, her legs astride his muscular thighs—it felt so oddly powerful, controlling whether their bodies were joined to the hilt or conversely denying him all but the shallowest of entry.

Between the wind and the crackle of embers from downstairs, the sounds of the house were coupled with the ragged gasps and whimpers that were the music of his arousal and the sound of which lit a fire deep in the pit of her belly. It was a well-practiced rhythm; fullness, then emptiness, his sharp inhalation, her gentle sigh. She closed her eyes as she brought their bodies together again and again, losing her grip on his wrists, unthinkingly sliding her hand down his arm.

It was because they knew each other's responses so well that she could even notice what had happened; the staccato falsetto fraction-of-a-second yelp. Not pain—they were so careful never to cause each other real pain—but surprise and shock. Both their eyes flew open, and she stopped moving in time to see him throw his head back and roll his eyes before closing them and dropping his right wrist to his forehead and let out a single word sigh:

"Shit."

So very human, she thought, the way he buried his face in the down pillow as he withdrew and rolled onto his side away from her. It felt strange, the sudden disunion; the absence of Carlisle's body within hers. Careful not to repeat her prior action, she pressed her entire body against his, her nipples grazing the broad expanse of skin between his shoulder blades.

"I'm sorry," he muttered. "That hasn't happened since—where were we? Prague?"

The memory came at once in its perfect, vampiric clarity. It had been a blissful year; a culmination of the better part of a decade helping raise their newly-adult granddaughter. As they were now, they had been without their children then as they traveled the world together, rekindling fires which had gone unstoked too long. The flat had been a Christmas present from him; a stone's throw from the banks of the Vltava. Like she had now, she had stroked her way down his arm, an action which these days, he could tolerate now more often than not, but which every now and then short-circuited his thinking and brought this abrupt end to their lovemaking. In the perfection of her memory, she saw again the way he'd put his head in his hands, swinging himself upright to be seated on the mattress. The way his hair had glinted gold in the midmorning sun as he thrust his fingers through it.

She pressed her lips to his neck. "You have nothing to apologize for, Sweetheart. I wasn't thinking."

He let out a frustrated grunt, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. "Nevertheless. It shouldn't happen. "

It was nearly dawn, and just a hint of orange morning light faintly illuminated his bare shoulders as he stood, strode to the dresser, and removed a fresh pair of scrub pants. He slid them on, hiking them over his hips and tying the drawstring without saying a word.

Pulling the sheet over her body, she started at him. "Don't you run from me."

"I'm not," came his immediate reply.

"Don't lie to me either. I just watched you put on pants. We've been married a hundred years. You think I don't know when you're running? You're going to go downstairs, poke at the fire for four hours, go to work, and come home and pretend like that didn't just happen."

He grunted again, staring vacantly at the door. "Only ninety-nine," he replied.

"As if that makes any of the rest of what I just said incorrect." The wind continued whipping at the siding of the house—a slightly arrhythmic ping told her that one of the pieces would need to be reattached.

"Do you remember that first time?" she said quietly when he hadn't moved. "When I couldn't finish, and you just stopped, and wrapped me in the quilt, and then spent all night reading to me?"

Her husband nodded, still turned away from her.

"And you remember what you said to me, when I worried about you? You said—"

"—You owe me nothing" they repeated together.

He took another step toward the door, then rocked back on the balls of his feet. "It's not the same," he muttered, and she recognized the flex of his jaw, heard the subtle sound that was his back teeth clenching. "I should be able to…"

He balled his fist instead of finishing his sentence. For a long moment he stared out the window, then turned back toward the bed, his brow furrowed.

"Yours don't bother you," he said frustratedly.

Her hand floated almost unthinkingly to her neck, where his teeth had sliced so hastily a hundred years before. Unlike his, her scars were signs of how very much he loved her; how he had worried for her; how swiftly he had acted out of panic. When his lips were there, she found it erotic and intense. His, in contrast, were uncareful, unplanned, littered down his arm, ending at his palm, evidence of the brutal attack which had ended his life. And still—

"It's not as though we've never stopped because of me," she offered.

He grunted again in response. When he spoke, his voice was strained and higher in pitch.

"It makes sense for you," he said. "What that…monster…did," he said. "You were beaten, and you were hurt, and you were—"

The deep swallow cut off the word that both of them, even after a hundred years, found difficult to say. Beneath her, the mattress gently compressed as she rocked back on her heels, still wrapped in the sheet.

"And you were murdered."

His expression first flashed dark, but softened quickly. He hung his head. It wasn't the first time she had uttered the words but it had been a long time since he had needed the reminder. He stood, frozen, until she spoke again.

"Don't you dare make me out to be the only broken person in this relationship, Carlisle."

At first, the expression hardened, the square jaw flexed, the fingers curled themselves even tighter into the palm. But as she watched him carefully from her vantage point on the bed, slowly, the balled fist opened to a hand flat against the scrub pants; the tensed jaw relaxed. She patted the mattress and stared at him expectantly. It took him another moment to crawl back into their huge bed. He met her eyes with a flaxen gaze that seemed to strip her even more bare as he looked.

"There you are," she said quietly. She stroked a hand through his hair and down his face, cupping his chin.

He shook his head, squeezing his eyes closed. "It's just so hard right now."

And it was, she knew. He had fought her so strenuously when she had insisted she join him. But she had insisted that she be at his side for whatever this year would throw at them. It was nothing like Bergamo, which she knew only by secondhand account, but this was a new kind of hell, with numbers ramping back up at the same time that he thought he might be freed. None of them had ever seen this; none of them knew him at this level of exhaustion and fervor. The only one who could have even an inkling of a memory was Edward, and his memories were clouded with haze.

None of them knew what it was like to watch Carlisle trying so valiantly not to crumble. She was the only one who had even an inkling, with the times this had gone badly for them—his aloofness, the irony of his weak desperation to escape the embarrassment of being anything but strong. Her stubborn, sweet, implacable husband, always trying to lead, even when his own mind dropped him to his knees. Esme wrapped her arm over her husband's neck, careful not to touch his arm as she brought him closer.

"You owe me nothing," she said gently, pulling his lips to hers. The kiss was long and searching: her hands finding his hair, his voice groaning in quiet appreciation. It would take him a good while to want to continue, she knew. For now, it was comforting just to be together, skin to skin up the length of their torsos, reveling in the fact that this part of them, too, was perfect in its imperfection.

~x~

Thanks to spanishinfluenza for a good bit of the headcanon here.