Work Text:
1997
A re-run of the previous night’s Seinfeld episode was playing on the living room television. Emmett was only partly paying attention, instead focused on the elaborate volcano he was building on the coffee table. What had started as a half-hearted homework project for a basic science class had turned into a three-foot nearly perfect replica of Mount Vesuvius. A replica he was desperately trying to finish before Esme walked into the living room and saw the item likely to erupt on her wallpapered ceilings.
He could hear the hum of a fine-turned engine grow closer as a car barreled down the half-mile driveway, Carlisle returning home from work. Emmett pulled the throw quilt draped over the back of the couch and covered his project. Emmett knew Carlisle may not fully understand why Esme wallpapered a ceiling — or the current design phase she was going through — but he was smart enough to know he ought to be mad on her behalf if anything threatened her house.
“I have made a grave mistake,” Carlisle said, appearing in the living room doorway, making it from his car in the driveway into the house in what had to be record time.
“What’s my new sibling’s name?” Emmett laughed.
“This is far worse than that,” Carlisle said gravely, taking a seat on the couch, paying no mind to the suspicious mound of a coffee table.
“What did you do?” Emmett muted the television, turning to give Carlisle his full attention.
“I may have… possibly, completely unintentionally suggested that I was interested in a woman in a… sexual manner.”
“Any chance that woman your wife?”
“Unfortunately no,” Carlisle sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Wait, how do you accidentally express you’re interested in a woman? I’ve seen you flirt with Esme, you’re not good at it.”
“I asked my coworker how she liked her eggs,” Carlisle winced.
“Oof,” Emmett grimaced, it was his best attempt to suppress a laugh at the mere image Carlisle described. “I take it you thought it meant something else?”
“I was under the impression it was simply a question you asked to get to know someone better. I was making polite small talk or so I thought. Apparently, it implies you are asking because you intend to be serving breakfast after having… relations.” Carlisle was anxiously twisting his wedding ring around his finger.
“You call it relations? And Esme still lets you have relations?” Emmett laughed.
“She asked that I stop calling it coitus.”
“I would too.”
Carlisle rolled his eyes at this comment, a movement that made him look like the twenty-something he was. It was a look so rare for the man who seemed ancient most days. “I call it making love, or being intimate when I speak to her but that seemed far too personal to admit to you.”
“Did the woman realize you were flirting?” Emmett asked. There was a fair chance she thought he was merely awkward. Emmett had once heard Carlisle tell Esme she reminded him of a rock they saw on a hunt. An ordinary, grey, plain rock. The mind-baffling part was it had worked.
“Yes. As did my boss who loudly asked if I was still married to that “lovely wife” of mine.”
“Oh, this is bad.”
“It is.”
“It’s also hilarious.”
“Do you think you could convince Rosalie we need to move?” Carlisle asked. Rosalie, was by far the one most reluctant to frequently moving, transporting her garage took a full box truck and three days of complete dedication. She had only just found a tool bench arrangement she found satisfactory, a month after they moved in.
“If I tell her you’re cheating on Esme?” Emmett grinned. “You might never move again.”
“I did not cheat on my wife,” Carlisle frowned, gaze focused on his wedding ring. He glanced up at Emmett. “Will you convince her though?”
“Absolutely. It’ll be nice to move for something that wasn’t my fault this time.”
“Thank you,” Carlisle smiled, a tight-lipped smile, hesitance at the light-hearted reference to multiple murders. “What’s under the quilt?” He motioned to the coffee table.
“How are you going to tell Esme?” Emmett asked, a lazy completely transparent attempt to change the subject.
“I am not going to tell Esme.”
“Tell Esme what?” Esme asked from the living room doorway, a basket of soiled rags on her hip, stained with paint and smelling of linseed oil.
“I thought I asked you to stop letting those sit?” Carlisle asked, turning to watch her walk into the room.
“Worry wart,” Esme sighed rolling her eyes, pressing a kiss to her husband’s cheek.
The Fire of ’21, as they both had referred to it, was before Emmett lived with them, but he had heard the story many times. Her rags used for oil painting had spontaneously combusted. ‘One of the most frightening days of my life,’ Carlisle had said. ‘He worries too much,’ Esme had said.
“Loving husband,” Carlisle said, wrapping an arm around her waist. He angled his head up to look at her properly, she placed a kiss on his lips, an embrace Carlisle met more than willingly.
“Get a room,” Emmett complained.
“This is our house,” Carlisle said.
“You are one to talk,” Esme huffed. Her attention turned back to her husband. “Tell Esme what?”
“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world,” Carlisle beamed.
“You think you’re quite cute,” Esme sighed, lacing their hands together. “What is under the quilt?” She asked, attention focused on the coffee table.
“Carlisle has something to tell you,” Emmett blurted out.
Carlisle’s eyes widened in surprise, and quickly narrowed in frustration, then looked up to Esme. “I was hoping to keep this a surprise, but would you object to your husband whisking you away for a month or two?”
“You darling man,” Esme smiled, kissing his hand that was clasped around hers. “Of course not. But do you have the vacation time, we just moved here?”
“Anything for you.”
“Then let’s make it three,” she beamed, leaning to press a kiss to his lips, a quick peck before she kissed his cheek and then the corner of his jaw. Before she leaned up, she whispered, “I like my eggs poached, for reference.”
She let go of his hand, and walked out of the room with a soft laugh. Laughter that was soon joined by Emmett’s loud laughter. Carlisle just stared at the doorway his wife had walked out of with wide eyes and a slack jaw.
Before Emmett could make a smart comment, which he had many, a fizzing began to sound from the mound on the coffee table, a quick warning before baking soda and vinegar coated the living room.
“I have made a grave mistake,” Emmett said, wiping foam out of his eyes.