Work Text:
Autumn 1921
It has been four days, two hours and eighteen minutes since Esme’s throat was blessed with animal blood. It has been one day and ten hours since she caught a glimpse of his snow-white clavicle peeking out of his cotton shirt. For inexplicable reasons - ones Esme vehemently tried to ignore - she yearned more for the latter. A mid-Victorian window in the southernmost part of their house offered a resplendent view of the forest.
Thanks to its deciduous nature, the leaves were now dancing with warm colours of ochre, mustard yellow, rust, and her deep red eyes fascinatingly analysed the microscopic changes. The slow dying of nature has never looked so wonderful before; only now, she could fully appreciate this season.
Esme was glued to the window that morning, the sorrow of withering trees was strangely alluring as if it reflected the heaviness hiding beneath her ribcage. Nature observation was such a good distraction from the twofold thirst. A sigh, a tap on the glass and her hand squeezed her neck, trying to repel the shards forming inside.
The last time Edward took her hunting, it worked well for her. Not so much for him. Bless the boy. The blood did something to her. She has been a newborn for a few months now, but only now has she begun to fully comprehend how her soul and body shift into an animal-like creature. A vampire indeed. Yet, the blood not only triggers the primal predatory instincts to kill, but it also seems to unlock and unfilter all the carnal desires, not meant to be acknowledged. Let alone overheard by a telepathic teenager who happened to be her housemate. Hunting with him was so much easier than with Carlisle.
With Edward, she couldn't care less about growls escaping her lips while she was poised in the ferns. Neither was she holding back the blissful purrs while gulping warm red from a slain fawn’s neck.
When Carlisle accompanied her, she grew not only self-conscious of her instincts, but witnessing the doctor hunt was even more excruciating for her lustful, hopeless heart. So, yes. It worked well for her. Edward made sure to let her know he did not share the same sense of contentment. Her thoughts were the main culprit. Somehow, the bliss from thirst-quenching, the thrill of the hunt, made her mind conjure wild imagery of the enigmatic surgeon who had bitten her into this new life. Imagery she had not dared to revisit or willingly imagine, yet during hunting, Esme couldn’t help herself.
However, on this faithful Monday morning, Edward was absent to accompany the restless newborn woman occupying their house, and Esme realised the seriousness of the situation. Although she has been successfully preoccupied with the opulent view from her favourite window, the soft sounds of turning pages from another room tempted her in an almost seductive manner.
Carlisle has been in his study for a few hours now, ever since he returned from a night shift, and she could not bring herself to greet him. Not today, when she was on the verge of attacking this poor man. This deliciously innocent, yet mysterious being. What would he think of her if he knew the extent to which her mind is riddled with sin?
“Esme? Do you have a spare minute to join me, please?”
The sound of his voice carried like a gentle, warm breeze you feel during Indian summer. It was unreasonably warm outside, or was it just her body reacting to his voice? The initial silky tones gave way to a painful aftermath. Her throat was now aflame. Her eyes briefly darted to the mirror on her vanity table, and she bit her lip as she nervously tucked a thick caramel tendril behind her ear.
She gave her own reflection a fierce look to boost her courage, and with that, her bare feet carried her to the forbidden universe of his study. After polite knocking, she slipped behind the sturdy oak door, which had a slightly darker colour than the rest of the doors in their house. That is because this door was hiding a unique specimen of a vampire, frustratingly saint-like. What a pathetic oxymoron, she thought for herself. And there he was. Sitting behind the massive wooden desk, nonchalantly holding a small paperback book, which was relatively petite in comparison to his hand.
The golden pools of his gaze penetrated her very soul as soon as their eyes met. Why did he do this to her? Why was he so unbearably attractive even when doing something so casual? She swallowed, the sound awkwardly loud in the silence, and obviously Carlisle noticed. He frowned, and a strange shadow of concern permeated his face before it abruptly disappeared into a gentle smile.
“I wanted to show you this penny dreadful… it felt like a fitting piece for gloomy morning… but also…”
He didn’t finish; somehow, he was inspecting her as if she were some injured, dangerous animal. She could not pinpoint any of that, why he didn’t finish the sentence, but also… was he diagnosing her? His cautious stare was sensual yet intrusive, almost medical. The pain, hammering the inner walls of her throat, seemed to spread into her shoulders; somehow, he made her feel agitated. Her facial expression must have given her away.
Carlisle swiftly stood up, put the book on the desk and in a second closed the distance between them. His slender finger gently wrapped both of her shoulders, and she tensed in response. His face was so beautiful, stricken by a mix of confusion and panic, but it was the intense scent and the realness of his tall body so close to her. Her knees weakened when their bodies were separated by mere inches. The annoyingly seductive sandalwood surely tested her self-control, and the fact that she was so close to his sharp jaw did not help. She wanted to reassure him that she was fine, just a bit thirsty, but was she actually fine?
“What is it?” He whispered frighteningly.
He was worried about her. Of course, he was. The ever-so-compassionate doctor Cullen. It made her body quiver, but that sweet question was nothing but oil to her internal flames. He stared down at her, his gentle grip, like a beautiful momentary prison, swimming in her eyes; she enjoyed it a bit too much.
What is it you ask? Can you not feel how my heart aches? Did your bible study and medical literature make you oblivious to my pinning? Or am I succumbing to madness at last? You’re the medical expert here, Carlisle. You tell me!
The amalgamation of rage and the fluttering nestled in the pit of her stomach resulted in twisted emotional vertigo.
Just when she opened her lips to explain that she was actually fine, she tried to suppress the dizziness. Because Esme is a trooper, she will do anything but hunt alongside this divine man. No matter how young a vampire she happened to be, adamant to prove herself, thirsty is better than salivating over him during the hunt. Suddenly, Carlisle made a strange little noise, like a frustrated whimper.
“Your eyes, they are like onyx, and you’re trembling” Upon hearing those words, she let her eyelids succumb to savour the honey-coated depth of his voice. She knew what was wrong. He was the source of her internal battle. Yes, she wanted blood, but mainly she wanted him. Perhaps him covered in blood - so she could run her tongue across the chiselled neck and the clavicle she observed furtively, enjoying both the pleasure of the sweet liquid and exploring the new taste of his marble skin. Some other words about her thirst strangely echoed in the back of her mind, all unaware that she had not realised they were coming out of his thin lips.
“I must take you, now!”
“Yes, please,” she breathed out in a shocked whisper, her voice so faint that Esme was not sure if she had actually said these words out loud or if they were a figment of her dissolute imagination. She kept her eyes tightly shut and did not dare to look into Carlisle’s face. She would crumble in shame.
In the wildest, unimaginable spur of events, Carlisle’s lips desperately collided with her soft jaw, sliding down her throat. Was he trying to extinguish the flames from within? His large palms gently framed her waist and continued to her wide hips, as if framing her body. Ensuring she was real, pressing and kneading, free and curious hands. She wanted them everywhere, but especially under the fabric.
So, he was serious about taking her, right here, in the sanctuary of his dark wooden office.
Visceral moans escaped her lips, while Carlisle hungrily kissed the valleys of her collar bones. Seized by the whirlwind of movement, touches, and growls, she barely noticed that his strong arms lifted her off the ground with a fleeting ease. While Carlisle deliriously splayed her clothed body onto the work desk, she had different intentions. Her hands swiftly grabbed the collar of his sky-blue shirt; the long-lost newborn strength flowed through her limbs, tickling the tips of her fingers. Without hesitation, she tackled Carlisle to the floor. He did not protest, yet her ears did catch a heavy sigh of surprise. There on the floor under the misty covers of an autumn morning in Wisconsin, they made love breathlessly.
“Esme, please, let me take you for a hunt.”
The raspiness of his voice startled her, and Esme blinked in confusion. It was the way he pronounced her name, so deliciously tantalising. It was enough to wake her up from an unbelievably vivid daydream. In a matter of seconds, they both ran out of the house, speeding across the mossy forest floor. She did not dare to revisit what just played out under her closed eyes, at this point she was in no position to reject his suggestion, because if she didn’t get blood into her mouth soon. Her mouth might be looking for a different target.
100 years later
Esme caught a glimpse of her husband sitting behind the desk through the ajar office door. His grey woollen turtleneck tightly framed his torso and neck; in the dim light of the oil lamp and monitor screen, Carlisle’s skin turned into a marbly texture, which made him look more vampire than ever. Esme shook her head; she told him not to wear grey for online meetings and that damn lamp; his sentimental habits were unreal.
The movement of her caramel locks stirred the air. He lifted his eyes from the screen to meet hers. She shuddered. His gaze was ever so loving yet so intense. The tension must have transcended the dimensions and become palpable among his online peers. Carlisle smoothly transitioned, suddenly his eyes fixed back on the screen as he answered a question about patients’ consent. Esme boldly opened the door a bit further and dreamily leaned against the door frame. He casually took off the glasses he tended to wear to appear older and rubbed his nose bridge, subtly adopting a tired mannerism, and began to end the meeting. Oh, how she adored his human theatrics. Her husband was just about to stand up to cover her body in a warm embrace, as was his endearing habit, she was reminded of one bizarre moment.
“Do you remember our first autumn together?” Her eyes glistening with sensual nostalgia and excitement, her impeccable vampire memory serving as an archive of moments like this particular one.
Carlisle chuckled, his facial expression softened by his wife’s sweet reminiscing.
“Yes, are we thinking about anything specific?”
Esme began to laugh vigorously, and he was left confused.
“Oh no, was it something embarrassing I did while we were courting?”
“No, no… I never told you that. It was me.” She professed in a fit of light laughter, which made the air softer, and the whole mood of the room shifted. He obviously demanded to know and gently squeezed her in a tight embrace, placing small kisses on her hair. Esme struggled to be coherent at first as the giggles were taking over, but then she managed to share that one particular hunting episode. Trying to justify it with vivid contextualisation of the longing and thirst, naturally, but then sharing the daydream still felt strangely awkward after all these years. After all the intimacy, even after all the obscene letters Carlisle has written to her over those decades.
“You’ve always been such a hopeless romantic.” He murmured into her ear; she could hear the smile playing on his lips in that split moment, and just when she wanted to turn to face him, Carlisle gently locked her in a tight embrace from behind. He gently nudged his nose across the nape of her neck and asked if she was okay. She nodded, slowly falling into the delirium of his ministrations.
“Perhaps it’s time we materialise that daydream. Apologies for the delay.”