AN: Two chapters in a day... took a slow day at work and 20 oz. of Redbull to get it done. By the time this story winds up I will have consumed my weight in energy drinks. I swear, but playing around in Carlisle's head can wear me out. I'm starting to think I've made him too complex. o.O
Carlisle's mind raced as he ran from his home to find refuge in the surrounding wilderness. What he had feared most had finally happened and there would be no return to his blissful charade of a life. He had stumbled across that invisible line to plunge head first into the abyss from where there was no possibility of escape. For the first time in a century or more, Carlisle no longer knew who he was. He could no longer picture himself as the cornerstone of his beloved family. He had struggled for so long to be a good man but he knew now that was something he had never truly accomplished. He had never and would never genuinely be good. A good man would not have lost his temper. A good man does not incite fear in his family members. A good honorable man never hurts his child but that is exactly what I have done.
The patriarch stopped in a small clearing. With his hands rested on his hips, he paced like a caged animal as he silently berated himself. This should never have happened. How is it that I lost so much control? He kept his eyes averted as regret and guilt washed over him like a tidal wave. Carlisle rubbed his hand over his face but as it fell away he noticed that his knuckles were sticky with his son's venom. The blood tinted smear was a very real reminder of how brutally he had treated his son.
With a groan of disgust, Carlisle balled up his fist and punched the nearest tree sending shards of wood flying as his knuckles shattered. He hissed through gritted teeth as pain shot up his arm. Physical pain was a familiar friend who had always visited him whenever he had done wrong in his life. There was something that felt right at having it return to him now. Physical pain was something he knew he could handle; it was the mental and emotional torment that he feared most.
Carlisle turned, pressing his back against the rough bark of the tree as he bounced his head off the hard surface in frustration. The coven leader closed his eyes to block out the world then, gritting his teeth against the sharp pain, he ran his hands through his hair until his fingers stiffly laced together at the base of his skull. His knees buckled, sending him sliding down the tree until he rested nestled among its ancient roots.
The thought that quietly yet persistently plagued him since he ran like a coward from his family began to scream in his mind. He loosened his fingers allowing his hands to fall until they rested on his bent knees. Again his dark eyes focused on the venom that stained his now swollen knuckles. He had struck his son in anger and here was the indisputable proof. It hadn't been an act of self defense nor one of disciplinary action carried out by the hands of a caring father. No, it had been a violent attack on his near innocent son.
Carlisle's chest tightened as a piece of his soul died when he realized that he could no longer ignore the facts. He, Doctor Carlisle Cullen, the compassionate pacifist, the tireless healer, the monster who tried so desperately to put aside his nature and who cherished kindness and humanity above all else, was now the thing he hated most. Carlisle Cullen was an abuser. He was undeniably his father's son.
His tortured soul cried out loudly devastating the peaceful silence of the forest as his disgust with himself grew. As if it wasn't enough to abuse his son, he had gone a step further and had held the boy's very life in his hands while he teetered on the brink. Tears of remorse filled his eyes as he realized how close he had come to killing his boy. No matter how many years he may still have in this existence he knew that he would never be able to erase the image of Jasper's terror filled eyes from his memory. That sight would remain to torment him forever. Carlisle cradled his bowed head in his hands, his elbows propped on his knees, while his shoulders shook with ragged sobs.
He had known that sort of fear in his youth. It had been his father who had put that hated emotion into him. Countless nights he had laid in his bed, bruised and bleeding, crying himself into exhaustion after one of his father's lessons. Carlisle had always wanted to be a good boy. He really did. He wanted to follow his father's rules thereby gaining the vicar's acceptance and love, but his best had just never been good enough.
Over the years, Carlisle had grown to understand that the treatment he had suffered at his father's hands stemmed from the man's belief that his son was the cause of his wretched loneliness. His wife had died in childbirth, leaving her suffering husband behind to raise their only child alone. The fair haired bright eyed boy was meant to have been their hope but instead he served as the constant reminder of what had been lost, becoming his father's living reminder of hell.
As unjust as his father's reasoning had been, Carlisle knew that grief held strange and often terrible sway over a man. He couldn't bring himself to honestly hate his father for his warped views. Over time, he came to forgive and pity the man. All the vicar had wanted was love but he was too blinded by lost to see that the target of his resentment was only too willing to provide that love unconditionally.
Because of his father's religious rhetoric, as a child Carlisle had seen himself as an imperfect vessel completely unworthy of love or to be called his father's son. The senior Cullen had taken every opportunity to establish that belief in the boy and Carlisle learned it far too well. His father claimed he was acting out of love as he tried to temper his son's sinful ways with the sting of the lash. He regularly beat the boy, safe in the knowledge that he was doing God's will by punishing the body to save the soul. Carlisle's suffering would purge his everlasting soul of iniquity, placing him on the path of righteousness, but the clergy man's son proved to be pathetic and weak.
Carlisle had wanted to take his punishments like the man his father wanted him to be but without fail he would breakdown before his father's displeasure had been spent. His father took his tears as either weakness or, on occasions when the boy's sins had been particularly heinous, as an attempt to manipulate the minister's sympathies. It would be then that Carlisle would be forced to endure the most severe beatings, leaving him racked with pain and nearly unable to move the next day.
Through it all he had striven to keep to the commandment to honor his father. He would often remind himself that his suffering was his own fault. If he could only have been a better son then his father wouldn't have been forced to punish him so harshly. Carlisle had been aware that there were other children who suffered worse fates. There were boys and girls alike in his village who lived in fear that their drunken fathers would take a whip to them simply because of a bad day at work or in the fields. At least his father had reasons that were just. He often reminded the boy that the he was only looking out for the security of his soul in the afterlife. The bite of the whip was only meant to turn him from his sinful ways so he would grow into a righteous man.
A loud anguished wail suddenly reverberated through the clearing as the memories of his childhood melded with the memory of how he had treated his son. Jasper was a good man, far better then Carlisle could ever hope to be. Regardless of his transgressions, he never deserved to be treated as unjustly as Carlisle had treated him. The fear on his son's face was proof enough that his father's lessons had failed miserably. Carlisle was as loathsome as his father had always claimed him to be. His soul was lost to Satan's claws and redemption was nothing more then an empty promise from the man who had used a whip claiming to be securing that same soul for God all those years ago.
"You failed, father and now I have followed in your footsteps. I have harmed a boy whom I am not worthy to call my son."
Carlisle's hands covered his face as his tears freely flowed. Yes, father, tears are for the weak. You have bred a son who doesn't have the strength to control his anger. I am too weak to protect my family from myself.
"I am a vile despicable weak abomination from hell who thought if he just wanted it bad enough he could overcome his station in life to become a better man." A bitter humorless laugh erupted from his hoarse throat at the thought that a black souled creature like himself could ever entertaining such a ludicrous dream. "I know that I am unworthy of redemption but a merciful God would have never allowed me to experience the love I've felt from my family. Now my soul will surely be destroyed at loves loss. Is that what passes for righteous justice? Is my very existence a sin so great that I must be made to suffer so?"
"How can you believe that our love is conditional? Don't you know your family better then that, Carlisle Cullen?"
At the sound of the gentle voice, Carlisle slid his hands down his face until his eyes were once again uncovered. There, standing so very still in the clearing illuminated by the multiple hues of the setting sun, was a vision of an angel sent by God to surely save him from damnation.