SLASH BACKSLASH ONE-SHOT CONTEST

Story Name: A Portrait Of the Physican As a Young Man
Pen name: Winterstale Betaed by: Viola Cornuta and Rosmarina
Pairing: Carlisle and Jasper
Disclaimer: All copyrights, trademarked items, or recognizable characters, plots, etc. mentioned herein belong to their respective owners. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without their express written authorization.
To see other entries in the "SLASH BACKSLASH" contest, please visit the C2: http:/www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/c2/68069/3/0/1/

~This story couldn't have happened without my fabulous betas, and even better friends, Vi and Rosmarina. I always consider what goes under my name a true collaboration between the three of us but this story, especially, is a result of their guidance and incredible creativity. Love you both. xoJ ~

..~*~..

"Would you care for a cup of tea while you wait? The stairs are a bit difficult for him on days like today, but he won't be a moment."

The young man smiled easily, began to decline and then, remembering where he was, accepted with a nod.

"That would be nice, thank you," he replied and glanced around the dimly lit sitting room. It was so typically English, right down to its ancient leather club chairs, chintz-covered sofas, myriad engravings and landscapes, not to mention each available surface scattered with personal artifacts. She motioned him toward a set of chairs aligned in front of a bay window overlooking the drizzly terraced garden and the mist-cloaked brook beyond. The young visitor looked out the window in the direction she indicated, half-expecting to see a pair of swans nodding lazily beyond the willow's languid branches.

"I'll just put the kettle on, then. My brother and I don't entertain as we once did and find staff a bit over the top for our simple needs." The frail woman, or lady because her generation would have taken exception to the difference, gestured again; even her simple movement was delicate, regal.

Jasper Whitlock placed his messenger bag aside the lesser-used looking of the two tobacco leather covered armchairs and sunk into its depths, his long legs automatically crossing as he sat. Suddenly, his eyes widened with the realization this was wrong. He should stand. They always stood until they were greeted, right? The sister had let him in, but he wasn't there for her, he was waiting on her brother, so – yeah, right, he should stand.

As he was contemplating appropriate manners in the presence of a class and age of people with whom he had little familiarity, his attention was drawn to slow, hitching steps bumping softly on the ancient Persian runner in the corridor. He sprang from the chair, smoothing hair, plaid cotton button down and trouser fronts, suddenly wishing he'd worn a jacket. He didn't own one, but should. Maybe he should have one made on Jermyn Street? Or something more modern from Paul Smith? Navy with a thinnish lapel, Academy buttons as was his right. Might come in handy depending on how long he was here, and if he was able to score a few more of these –

His meandering thoughts drew in, and his head snapped up with a tumble of bangs the color of heather honey as the substantial oak door creaked slightly, announcing the man's arrival. Jasper passed one final tidying hand over his appearance and stood tall, clasping his hands lightly behind his back.

"Ah, Mr. Whitlock. Good afternoon."

If ever a man could embody the connotation of 'English Gentleman', Jasper certainly faced him now, moving towards him with halting but still elegant carriage, head tilted just so, ascot perfectly crisp at his thready neck.

"Dr. Cullen, good afternoon." Jasper responded, suddenly very aware of his central Texas drawl, even wincing slightly at it. He was a confident man, but this patrician old-world environment - one he'd read of and, in all candor, romantically cast himself in as he studied English Lit - was beyond even his own grandmother's genteel manners. As he arrived at Jasper's side, Cullen hooked a silver-handled cane, most likely mahogany from the warm sheen of the wood, over his forearm and offered his hand, giving a firm, simple shake before withdrawing appropriately.

"How kind of you to call, Mr. Whitlock. I gather my sister's impertinent meddling has brought you out this afternoon to speak with me regarding my education?"

Jasper caught the 'uh' before it escaped his lips, inclining his head in the elderly physician's direction instead.

"Yes, I spoke with Miss Cullen regarding your days at St. Cuthbert's and in the Medical Corps, but also regarding… your history, any experiences…"

Cullen's eyebrows lifted and he smiled mildly, chuckling as he supported himself on his cane again. "I really can't imagine whatever a young reporter such as you might find worthy in my quiet time on this Earth. I am aware of the respected periodical that employs you, after all." He laughed once again, more indulgently this time. "Do please sit, Mr. Whitlock."

"Ah… well, Dr. Cullen, I…" the young blond sat, glanced at his messenger bag again, shifted slightly as he rose and sat once more in his chair, then swallowed thickly, all as a faint blush spread under the button-down collar of his rumpled shirt. Carlisle smiled, affecting kindly ease, but truthfully enjoying a glimpse of this lovely young man flushed and a bit out of sorts. A brief vision of a beautiful boy was all he might savor these days. The doctor knew his years made him appear asexual, untouchable. A lovely thing like Jasper Whitlock might consider him respectfully, like a grandfather, but would never imagine Carlisle Cullen's eye might be caught by a long, well-muscled thigh straining the indigo cotton of denim trousers or strong well-groomed gentleman's hands that seemingly begged to slide lazily across one's hipbone. Old men were just old men. One didn't remain queer into the golden years, did one?

He'll think you're a raving chicken chaser. Do control yourself.

The doctor tidily closed down his appraisal of his guest and nodded encouragingly.

"Dr. Cullen, sir, your sister didn't mention my… personal history?"

"Why of course, Mr. Whitlock, and I must say I do commend you for your courageous stance. You see, in my day, homosexuals in the armed forces were shot. Directly. No questions. Abandoning your duty. An affront to His Majesty's service."

"Keeping secrets that aren't really secrets is just as bad in my estimation, sir."

"Ah, well, I rather think secret-keeping is preferable to a firing squad."

Time to face the firing squad.

"Hobbes, please let Headmaster know I'm on my way. Thank you." Carlisle waved the breathless fourth year away, affecting an air of distraction over a volume of Yeats in order to cloak his true reaction. It was akin to breathing, this carefully constructed veil of evenness, scholarly distraction, and unwavering pleasantries for any and all who might cross his path. Even now in his last year at St. Cuthbert's, exempt from the wicked hazing of older boys, even with the relative power and privacy afforded him as Head Boy with a single room and governance over the other students, Carlisle Cullen spent his days at school simmering in fear. Others like him might allow themselves clandestine rendezvous in a dusty corner of the unused south turret room or behind the library's collection of rare Amazonian beetle specimens. A boy such as this (such as Carlisle in fact, although he was still unconscious of it) might be tapped for prefect, then groomed, raising hope against hope he might be selected as a Chosen. That elite group of lads became the supposed happy recipients of Headmaster's favors.

Inclusion among The Chosen afforded much to recommend it: dinners in Headmaster's apartments with a glass of fine claret, a warm, soft bed on occasion, no retribution for giving way to the occasional boyish prank or even diminishing marks. The Chosen were, without fail, groomed by Headmaster in the image of Platonic ideals. Relations between men were considered natural; Chosen lads took lovers amongst themselves quite openly and without the difficulties other young men faced while living at school. Rather than furtive groping as you both looked over your shoulder at the field house geyser's door, praying you'd come off without getting caught in the act, for The Chosen there was freedom to have it off with your lover over long lazy afternoons in Headmaster's private apartments.

Of course, there was a price: among these favors were Headmaster's thin, beakish lips and slim, probing hands descending upon taut bodies that hovered with impending manhood.

But they were Chosen. And in truth, far better off than even the Head Boy.

This was public school in Britain in 1927. Lads will be lads, that was common knowledge, and even the working classes knew what their betters left unspoken. But what of those broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced workingmen, really? This was not their world. They only toiled for those that had gone before as part of an accepted system. What did they know of Platonic ideals, the veneration of physical passion between men idealized by poets like Corey and philosophers like Pater, the Don of Oxford himself?

Carlisle adjusted his top hat and morning coat as he rambled easily down the stairs of River House, his quaking, clammy hands resting in the pockets of his striped trousers so they might appear still and dry by the time he reached Headmaster's office. He exited his dormitory, nodding with a certain patrician geniality to his fellow schoolmates.

He had been summoned to Headmaster's office rather than his personal apartments, and the errand still cloaked him in anxiety. Even if he must endure a nauseating series of looks and innocent-seeming touches, Cullen feared drawing Caius Langley-Sutton's too close appraisal; that such scrutiny might bloom into unwanted interest frightened Carlisle to physical sickness. The prospect of any intimate interlude with either sex or his own person, frankly, set Head Boy Cullen's guts to rumbling, knotted agony. The seventeen-year-old did not dwell in the physical realm, never chose to even visit. While his fellow students turned their soaring hormones and sudden realizations of the transcendent pleasure available from their own hand to a girl from the nearby village if lucky, or, more frequently than acknowledged, each other, Carlisle bustled on, advancing his intellect and attending to his fellow students as their elected leader.

"Gone before us, always Cuthberthians" read the script wrapped around the sandstone obelisk at the center of the quad. As Carlisle passed the monument to Cuthies lost in The Great War when summoned to Headmaster's office or apartments, he often envied those boys. Their 'happy time' at school was mercifully ended by a needy nation when called into the King's service as mere children. At some schools, entire years of houses were fallen in the mud and muck of France, choking blindly from gas, strung up on barbed wire as they went over in another futile assault on German trenches.

They died miserably. And as Carlisle climbed the stairs to Headmaster's office, he envied them.

"Ah, Cullen," Langley-Sutton purred as Carlisle was ushered into his office. "Do sit."

"Thank you, Headmaster," Carlisle replied smoothly, removing his top hat and adjusting his black tails. As he settled in front of the gleaming Jacobean desk, he caught peripheral sight of another figure in the room. Before he was able to discern any details, however, Headmaster's aristocratic murmur cut off his appraisal.

"Cullen, we have a new student, mid-term arrival. Of course - unusual…" his serpentine eyes glittered as they focused over Carlisle's shoulder. "Do come forward, Grant and meet the Head Boy." His attention shifted once again to Carlisle as the third presence in the room joined them. "Grant, Cullen. Mr. Grant was… ill and unable to join us at the start of term."

Carlisle turned as he stood, his hands setting aside his shining sealskin topper. Suddenly, he was reacting without conscious thought, pushed from one realization to the next, for every synapse and impulse and piece of awareness was overflowing with the sight of the new student standing before him.

Black Irish, they called it. Dark, swarthy, belying some foreign sire in his long-ago lineage and, in the case of this Grant, wearing a scowl to match. Carlisle's usually placid watery blue eyes darkened slightly as they rose, taking in the full measure of this Grant, and he experienced, for the first time in his life, a visceral, immediate reaction emanating from somewhere other than his mind. Gutted, rendered mute, and in danger of a sigh passing his lips, he floundered under the grim scrutiny of the new boy. Fractions of seconds passed, nothing unusual or outside of propriety. However, in that moment, so enormous and monumental within his own perception, Carlisle Cullen became completely and unchangeably aware that the flesh of another man would be the only he would ever desire for all of his days.

This tall, heavy-limbed, inky-haired boy drew his shady brows in, his right eye twitching ever so slightly at the corner as his heft shifted almost imperceptibly from one foot to another. Amid his deepening scowl, his eyes went from brittle to soft; peaty pools made even more brilliantly mossy by the rosy flush rising from his neck to the sharp planes of his face.

Carlisle stepped forward, offering his hand, willing his voice to be steady as he spoke, reminding himself of his personal credo: Never, ever let the side down in front of Headmaster… ever.

"Good Afternoon, Grant, 'tis a pleas-"

"It's not Grant. It's O'Shaughnessey. Liam O'Shaughnessey." came the boy's curt interjection in a voice far deeper and richly nuanced than any Carlisle had ever encountered. The timbre, mixed with his smoothed brogue, caused Cullen's stomach to burn and twist, shooting prickling, iridescent trails to his tightening thighs and a suddenly taut Johnson.

"O'Shaughness-" Carlisle began as their hands collided, grasped, thumbs aligning, the tips brushing, testing and surreptitious with it. Behind them, Headmaster cleared his throat, drawing both boys' attentions to his sulfurous glare.

"You're registered here and have been admitted at the behest of your grandfather, Lord Grant, with your proper English name. Stephen Grant. This is how you will be addressed; this is the name to which you will answer. Am I understood, Grant?"

With the force of the moment of their touch and the realization Langley-Sutton was, indeed, witnessing the entire event, both young men had turned swiftly, still paralyzed in the moment before, both boys staring wide-eyed at the man who held absolute power over them.

"Yes, perfe'tly, Headmaster, Sir," Liam assented. Carlisle looked up at the boy, his heart constricting at the sight of him shamed for something so simple, yet so all-encompassing, as his heritage. Then, he looked down and felt his entire being re-orient itself.

Their hands were still locked together, looking as if they'd always been that way, and surely should remain so, come what may.

.

"Dr. Cullen, I am in the UK to do an article on D-Day, focusing on the stories of men who served without any sort of fanfare. I'm looking for the everyday stories that will give our readers an idea of what that time was like."

Carlisle's head shifted slightly, considering Whitlock and his earnest statement. Given his publication's focus, and his own very public persona, there was certainly more to his appearance at the Cullen home than a historically slanted magazine article on the everyday combat physician, now closing out his life in polite suburban domesticity.

"Ah, yes, it is that time, isn't it? Fifty years on, what have we learned, what really happened, where are they now – something of that flavor, I presume." The elderly man leaned forward, leveled his eyes pointedly at Jasper and smiled encouragingly. "But there's more, isn't there?"

"Yes, sir." Jasper inhaled, gathering his courage. This question was never easy for him. It was akin to asking one of his grandparents for details of their private lives and felt inherently disrespectful. He also knew the somewhat myopic world view of his own generation. Gays and lesbians had always existed; the hows of their existence were the difference, and Jasper passionately believed the generations before his contemporaries deserved attention, respect, and above all protection and care in their waning years. Even without the current generation's intense protests, Pride parades and re-appropriation of the Pink Triangle, Jasper believed people like Carlisle Cullen had paved the way for women and men like himself. "I would like to focus on the experiences of gay men who served in World War II."

The silence in the room was, as the cliché so aptly described, deafening.

Jasper swallowed once more, wising for the arrival of that promised tea, his thumb absently riding the seam of his khaki trousers. Just as the initial stir of panic began to pit his stomach, Dr. Cullen shocked his young guest profoundly.

He laughed; a melodious, richly timbred, indulgent laugh: utterly sincere and full of real humor. Jasper looked on, a bit befuddled and toyed with an idle fear or two for the elderly Doctor's mental faculties.

"Oh my dear Mr. Whitlock," Carlisle responded finally, amused music still apparent in his voice. "You young queers are indeed so earnest." He extracted a perfectly pressed linen handkerchief from his coat pocket, still chuckling as he dabbed at his watering eyes.

"Earnest? Wh – well, I… there… Sir, there's no disrespect implied, Sir. It's just-"

"Oh, no, of course… perfectly understandable. Not to worry, Mr. Whitlock. It was, of course a different age. We English were vastly different people then, especially those of a certain society. There was no question of service to the country, you see. The young men of my station, and most certainly after the Great War, were expected to be in service of His Majesty. It was… what was done, you see."

"You mean World War I?"

"Ah, yes – to you it would be, wouldn't it? Yes, World War I. It consumed an entire generation. We were reminded of it constantly, as boys… and as a nation. You see, Mr. Whitlock, the Second World War brought the horrors home to us. We all suffered here in England. Scotland and… Ireland as well. But the Great War… it was the last romantic war but also the first one of modern horrors."

Jasper leaned forward, listening intently. Of course he had heard these statements many times in history classes and even at the elbow of his own relatives. Carlisle Cullen, however, had more than academic knowledge of World War I and its aftermath. He lived it.

"So young men were schooled toward military service even in the twenties?" Whitlock inquired.

"Well, yes of course. Again, it was what was done, you see. But we were taught something else at school, Mr. Whitlock." Carlisle sat back a bit gingerly, his faded blue eyes drifting from his guest's face to the bucolic scene outside. He inhaled sharply, eyebrows rising at a thought unshared with his companion, and continued softly. "You see, Jasper… we were also taught silence."

"From what I've heard, his mother ran off with an Irishman. Damn near killed her old man, the Earl."

Carlisle inhaled slightly, steeling his spine in sympathy for the new lad, Stephen.

Liam.

The Irish boy.

The insufferable Mollies could smell gossip as if it were Sunday roast. Lounging against the fountain surrounding the Memorial Obelisk were Marcus Tyndale and Umberto Carigaro – known to his fellow Cuthberthians as simply Aro. Both sons of minor aristocrats, Tyndale English and Carigaro Italian, the two were the most vocal and, in Carlisle's private opinion, the most vile, of The Chosen. The two made no effort to disguise their sexual relations, nor were they discriminating about who might feel the sting of their adder-like gossips' tongues. Professors, students, even the local Vicar, were all fair marks for the pointed commentary delivered by the pair.

Somehow, they knew O'Shaughnessey's entire story. Carlisle was certain of it. Most likely, Headmaster had entertained them with it as they lolled about in his personal rooms some recent afternoon. The thought of the three vipers discussing him, taking this Liam apart, social ill by social ill, infuriated Cullen. However, the physical effect of his outrage was different, his natural instinct to defend and care for those injured in some form constricted his chest in a way he couldn't comprehend. Pointedly ignoring the pair across the way, Carlisle adjusted his topper once more, straightened his coat, and affected an air of disinterest as waited for the unfortunate young man to finish descending the stair and join him for the short walk to River House.

"If it's not bad enough that he's an Irish, I've heard he's a Papist," Tyndale added with an offended sniff, producing peal of giggles from his companion.

"Well, darling, I am Catholic as well, and I've not seen it offend your delicate sensibilities thus." If Marcus Tyndale exuded icy British superiority to perfection, his mate, Aro simpered with a distinctly Mediterranean heatedness. "I daresay, quite useful, The Church. All of those priests do manage to keep the chaff tamped down and teach the prettiest boys willingness." The two giggled indulgently as Liam exited the Teachers' Hall and somewhat stiffly joined Carlisle.

"O'Shaughnessey." Even as Cullen nodded to the taller boy, taking pains to project warmth and a sense of calm acceptance, he was unable to wrest his eyes from Liam's narrowing ones. He knew he was being discussed, already felt like a shameful secret the Grant family obviously was attempting to put some sort of gloss over. While Carlisle instinctively remained immersed in a more cerebral inner-world, he always was intensely empathetic to those at a disadvantage, even as a small boy. He stayed aloof out of self-protection, not because he was unaware of or unaffected by unjust behavior. It offended him deeply, in fact. His usual method of dealing with The Chosen was to avoid them, pay them no heed. As Head Boy, when he witnessed such conversations directed at another student, he would merely take up his own discourse with the object of Marcus and Aro's venom and blithely escort them in the other direction.

There was no other direction this time. The two were primed with poor O'Shaughnessey's story, redolent of adult-worthy gossip and glinting with details that would truly hurt to hear repeated in a schoolyard.

Carlisle shifted his head slightly, hoping the young man before him noticed the slight twitch of a smile playing across his mouth, could appreciate the slightly warmer and somewhat conspiratorial tone in his voice.

"Here at St. Cuthbert's, we have an official motto 'Is penetro per a vestis mens quod peto intellego'. How is your Latin?"

"'He comes with a clean mind and hopes to understand.'" Liam translated flawlessly. "Of course, it is a distillation of Ovid: He sets his mind to unknown arts'"

"Quite good, O'Shaughnessey, well done." Carlisle smiled more broadly than usual; his interest in Liam's physical assets suddenly were intensified by his companion's obvious intellect.

"Ta-ra," came Liam's wry retort, his brows lifting with guarded humor.

"I will share with you, O'Shaughnessey, that I have my own motto that I have found to be a great compass for navigating unfriendly waters," Cullen said, indicating the two Chosen who still lazed at the Memorial Fountain, watching their interaction with intense, almost giddy interest. "I remind myself, frequently, to not let the side down."

"Hey?" Liam asked, his voice in that single utterance finally sounding as broad as the Irish countryside

"Do not let the side down – let them see inside. Remain steadfast and dignified above all."

"Aye. To be sure, Cullen. Ta-ra." He set his sealskin hat atop his sooty curls jauntily. "Coupla' wee craics won't send me to my pillow sobbin' like a Molly"

Molly.

Queer.

In that moment, Carlisle's feelings of protection and fraternity toward this new Cuthberthian evaporated, replaced by awkward self-doubt. What did he think when they shook hands? How did he…did he know? Was he aware what had happened to Carlisle's suddenly wayward body when their hands touched? Why, now, on the Quad and in full view of Marcus and Aro, did Carlisle want nothing more than to skim his fingers over Liam's jaw, already dark with a shadow of beard and follow just below with his tongue?

He inhaled bracingly and stood tall as possible beside the considerably taller O'Shaughnessey.

"Right, then. Shall we?"

They crossed the Quad with purpose but did not walk quickly. This was not letting the side down.

"It has been said that his mother ran off in the night with the Irishman – the family disowned her until they realized this Mick was now the only male heir to the title."

Liam's eyes focused ahead, blank. This, too, was not letting the side down.

"Was the sire some sort of domestic?"

"No, supposedly fancied himself some manner of academic, although an Irish intellectual is rather a contradiction in terms, isn't it, darling?"

Carlisle felt his companion's breath coming somewhat irregularly and let his own escape slowly, as an attempt to soothe the beautiful, angry Irish boy and bathe his jangled senses. Liam: he didn't let on. He did not let the side down.

"It's of no consequence now, Marcus. I gather the sire has found his final rest."

"Ah, I see. Well, then, bully, say I. Besides tending the hedges and laying roads, what good is an Irishman but in his grave?" Aro's effected effeminate cackle echoed around the quad like a countenance in a mirror, distorting more with each new reflection.

Neither Carlisle nor Liam acknowledged each others' presence or the laughs that followed them to the River common room door.

They did not let The Chosen in.

But they did not let each other in either.

The boys parted wordlessly at the door of Liam's new room. The moss and oak colored eyes that Carlisle found himself quickly, almost desperately memorizing did not meet his own. They hovered, just beyond Cullen's shoulder, out of reach, shining slightly more than normal under a fringe of black lashes.

Carlisle stood at the gleaming black paneled door, impotent, desperate for some sort of extension of goodwill, possibly even a new conversation that could lead to further interaction. He stood by, helpless and wretched over it, watched Liam enter the dorm room and cursed himself as words bloomed and died on his lips again and again. Head Boy Carlisle Cullen's shoulders sagged with defeat as the future Earl of Dysnart, Count Grant-Whalen, formerly Liam Stephen O'Shaughnessey, closed the door in his face.

The side was well and truly not breached.

"Was the atmosphere at St. Cuthbert's permissive?"

Dr. Cullen's head tilted slightly again, a gesture Jasper was coming to associate with the elder man considering something seriously.

"Hm… permissive." Carlisle repeated, almost savoring the word, clearly cataloging a series of events or images some seventy years distant. Jasper's breath slowed, then stopped without his conscious knowledge. He was rapt, hoping this could be the moment the physician's pleasant but obvious façade broke open. Cullen regarded him then with a slightly hovering eyebrow, a sardonic smile and Jasper knew immediately the defenses had held. "No. I shouldn't say the environment at any school where boys are sent for their education is permissive. You see boys, Mr. Whitlock, will be boys, no matter the environment."

The elderly man's eyes drifted once again to the rain-swept scene in the back garden, considering.

"You no doubt are familiar with hierarchies, Whitlock? I imagine your West Point hasn't been so over-run with conservativism that they are no longer teaching basic scientific principles?"

Jasper laughed in spite of the rattles of closeted skeletons hovering quite tangibly between him and his subject. "Of course. Things aren't that bad." He wondered idly which of them he was trying to convince.

"If you understand hierarchy, you understand the English public school."

"You mean private? What we call boarding school…"

"Yes, of course…another one of those oddities with our mutual abuse of the same language. I'd imagine it somewhat the same in the States. Those who play the game to their best advantage, fall in step most convincingly, are the victors. To the victors go the spoils."

"To Rivers!"

"Well done, lads!"

"Blues!"

Startled by the noise from the River House common room, Carlisle sat straight, rolling his sore shoulder and pushing the heavy anatomy book away as he rubbed wearily at his eyes. Of course: the cup. And he'd been so absorbed in study he'd missed it. He glanced at his door, imagining the common room beyond. From the commotion erupting there, it would seem the Barnard Cup had gone to River House for the first time in years and a grand celebration was underway. Rugby was the sport of choice at St. Cuthbert's, and the school had produced numerous boys who went on to play at University, even a few were called to play for England. That year, River House had found itself the beneficiary of an unexpected boon. The untouchable, unmentionable Irish boy known to all but Carlisle as Stephen Grant was, frankly, a wing of demonic skill and proportion. The hulking lad's finesse on the rugby pitch was so great that he almost carried the house team on his broad shoulders. His very apparent ability, not to mention his calculatedly thorough predation of his opponents, was the stuff of school legend in the making.

Those old stories surely would obscure the fact that away from the field, Liam spent his time completely disengaged from his fellow Cuthies. Partially of his own will, as well as the school's reaction to the now oft-repeated information about his parentage and the scandalous air around it, O'Shaughnessey trudged to classes, dined, and attended to his lessons alone. Carlisle often wondered if it was this very air of separateness that caused the stoic Irish boy to invade so many of his waking – and especially of late, nocturnal – thoughts. After a few weeks of careful observation, Carlisle could predict Liam's movements around the school with ease, even as he chided himself for his fascination with O'Shaughnessey's movements. He tried to convince himself he was merely concerned as part of his duties as Head Boy, rationalized that he must keep an eye on the newest Cuthie, even if his painfully fumbled attempts at dialogue were rebuffed. When Carlisle fell back into the crowd, relegated to mere observation and no longer able to justify further interaction with Liam, the dreams began.

He woke nightly, humiliated and drenched in perspiration – and to his horror other bodily fluids – panting, his seventeen-year old body aching from the images his mind could not keep at bay as he slept. Before Liam, Carlisle had made a few cursory explorations of his body, intrigued with the sensations he heard his fellow Rivers discuss in the common room between eruptions of knowing laughter. Before Liam's nightly assault on his psyche, Carlisle had frankly wondered what all the fuss was about.

Often it began with his hands; broad, capable, insistent and traveling over Carlisle's body. Liam's dream-touch wasn't like the hesitant feminine ones Carlisle read about in the 'blue books' he regularly confiscated from shamed-faced fifth years. Those large calloused hands kneaded and stroked almost harshly, moving from splenius cervicus to rhomboid and then circling his trembling fasciae latae, finally closing around his aching prick. There were no gentle kisses or doe-eyed embraces between them. They were too full of need for each other to put on a glamor of niceties; they were primal, like rutting animals, snorting and thrusting against each other. Carlisle heard his own moans as he reached behind, searching with clumsy fingers across a chiseled rectus abdominus, trailing down to a coarse thatch of black hair, finally clasping beautiful, fierce Liam's own cock. The dream returned nightly and, when he woke covered in his own sticky seed, reduced Carlisle to muffle his humiliated sobs into his pillow, even as his hips still tremored with the force of his dream encounter.

One night as he finished cleaning himself, a series of shouts and then pounding at his door interrupted his usual self-chastising litanies.

"Cullen! I say, Cullen! Hallo? Cullen!" a frenzied voice shouted at his door. Carlisle tied his robe around himself quickly and staggered to the door, blinking at the harsh light illuminating the corridor.

"Yes, yes… for God's sake -" he began, only to be cut off by a wild-eyed Hobbes.

"Do come on, Cullen, straight away – it's a row! A terrible one, blood everywhere!" The fourteen-year old looked absolutely mad with excitement over a real fight in his own house.

"Dear God…" Carlisle muttered. "Right, off we go, Hobbes. Show me."

They ascended one level to the sixth years' floor, populated, it appeared, with the entire residency of River House.

"Coming through! Head Boy's here! Make way for Cullen!" Hobbes shouted over the throng, his almost hysterical voice breaking as it attempted to rise over the din.

As he passed the parting gaggle of boys, Carlisle's heart constricted. The last few Rivers stepped aside silently, watching his approach with morbid fascination. His faculties, still reeling from his nightly dream-coupling with Liam, threatened to overload. Dumbfounded, he blinked, first at the sight of Marcus Tyndale; his pyjama pants wound tightly around his knees, his face and torso already a purpling tapestry of blood and contusion. The vision across the room, however, ground at his nerves to the point of mindlessness. Liam was pressed against the far wall, his face a mixture of terror and anger, as his big hand awkwardly clutched the remnants of his pyjama bottoms to his shaking frame. A bruise sat above a row of well-defined scratches marring the sharp planes of his face. His jaw clenched valiantly at the wells of moisture threatening to spill from his eyes.

'Wh… Whatever is going on here?" Carlisle managed to utter over the quickly assembling stew of jealousy, revulsion, and fear collecting in his gut.

Both Liam and Marcus remained silent, as did the mass of Rivers closing ranks behind Carlisle. Sickened, he realized there were now first and second years present, some rubbing at their drowsy child's eyes with fists and yawning heavily. He turned on his heel, searching for Winston and Clarke, the house prefects, and nodded curtly to them.

"Prefects, get the house back in rooms." Carlisle almost snarled through gritted teeth. The stunned crowd made no move to obey him. Once again his voice rang out over the assembly, this time with a dictatorial edge never witnessed from the normally mild Head Boy. "Rivers, all of you, back to rooms at once!"

Carlisle stepped into Liam's room and slammed the door in the faces of the house prefects.

"Tyndale, why are you not in your own house?"

Marcus righted his pyjama bottoms, then turned with his usual arrogant glare and sat up gingerly.

"Do go on, Culley. Even a monk the likes of you knows exactly what I'm doing here." He spat blood on the floor and leant against one of the beds. "Bit of fresh Irish meat to… hmmm… cleanse the palate."

"Y' feckin' dilly shite…" Liam growled and started for Marcus, his rage overcoming his apparent horror. Carlisle threw himself at the bigger boy, his bare feet sliding for purchase as the enraged lad went after Tyndale.

"Stop! I say stop at once!" Carlisle barked, pushing his shoulder against Liam with all the force his lean body could muster. Even in such a desperate state, some part of his mind marked the solid mass of Liam pushing against him as he panted with rage.

Managing to catch his eye, Carlisle set his hands upon Liam's expansive shoulders and stopped his progress toward Marcus.

"Grant… enough!" he said, evincing his elected authority. Then lowering his voice, he narrowed his eyes and continued softly, "You'll be sent down, Liam. I… I can't protect you."

O'Shaughnessey stopped, still as marble, his peat-colored eyes hard but hinting at confusion as well.

"D'ye think I care? Why would I?"

Carlisle marshaled every bit of courage in his seventeen-year old psyche and boldly held the gaze of the boy who had stirred his heart and body from its life-long slumber. Liam's softening features, the diminishing breath, as he still leant into Carlisle's grasp caused the space around them to almost solidify. Cullen knew at that moment with a certainty rooted into his bones that Liam felt the same for him.

"Tyndale, go back to your house." Carlisle murmured icily, his eyes still locked with Liam's.

"I say, Cullen, do… d'you think you have… any right… at all to order me about?"

"I am Head Boy, Tyndale. Discipline of all students is my concern. Out. You will be called to Headmaster's office tomorrow morning"

"Have you gone mad?" Marcus sputtered, pushing himself to his feet. " He called me here you know, we've been having it off for weeks."

"What?" Liam roared, pushing himself toward Marcus again.

"He's had us all: Aro, me, every other Chosen." The voice behind Carlisle resumed its typical sneer "This Mick's quite good with his mouth."

"Tyndale, you've ten seconds to return to your house. If you choose to ignore the direct order of your Head Boy I will suddenly be quite unable to restrain O'Sh-. Grant's understandable rage at such a grievous accusation. Am I quite clear, Tyndale?"

"As a Waterford goblet, Cullen." Marcus leaned into Carlisle's shoulder, his voice thick with toxic warning. "You'll regret this, Culley. My uncle is a Don at Oxford, as I'm sure you recall."

Jasper allowed himself a long look out the garden window. Dr, Cullen was charming, happy to answer general questions about his service, even the places he saw action, but resorted to cryptic non-answers when asked about his personal life. There was a story there, Jasper could feel it, and most likely one Cullen ached to tell. He decided to change course again.

"Doctor, after you finished at Cambridge you went North, is that correct?"

"Ah, yes. I'd found myself at Cambridge as something of a surprise, but it was a very positive step for me. I met my mentor, Dr. Rothesay, and assisted his research into childhood nutrition for several years until he passed away unexpectedly. I felt the best step was to put our findings into action."

"And that's when you went back to Tyne and Wear?"

" Ah, well at the time St. Cuthbert's was located in County Durham. Esme and I were appalled at the conditions the children faced in Newcastle during the Great Depression…"

"My research says the clinic you and your sister established may have saved thousands of children."

"Hm…" Carlisle considered this statement for a moment, "You know, at the time the ruling class thought those shipbuilders actually caused their own poverty? That they starved here in England, the greatest nation on Earth, you know – Sun never setting on the Empire as it were – it was somehow the fault of the people themselves. Those of us with conscience and means did what we could."

"And you remained there… just the two of you?"

"Yes, until we returned South in 1939. I felt Esme would be safer with friends than on her own in the city."

"And you volunteered?"

"Of course," Carlisle smiled softly.

"Of course" Jasper replied, adding a small chuckle. They sat in silence for a moment until he sat forward slightly, his voice soft. " Can you tell me about D-day?"

"Naturally, I wasn't in the forward groups. I was behind in Dover, waiting to set up a combat hospital…" Cullen's voice, so rich and sure all afternoon, constricted a little. "I do recall one of the first units over… Irish regiment. Good lads."

Jasper watched Carlisle's face carefully, trying to settle on one emotion apparent there. Finally, he sat back, sighing internally. Carlisle Cullen would provide anecdotes, verify items that were public knowledge, even partially allude to admissions of his personal experiences but would never share what was behind that genteel fortress.

"Headmaster, I must implore you – " Carlisle stood, driven to his feet finally by the sheer injustice of what he had just heard.

"Cullen, you really are out of bounds." Langley-Sutton drawled, his color rising slightly over his collar. "If you feel such a sense of fraternitas with this rogue, then by all means continue. However, I can assure you that will be the end of your days at this school."

"You…" Carlisle sneered, his hands twisted with rage. "You…"

"Yes, Cullen… out with it if you must," Headmaster sneered. " If you have the stones."

"I have them, indeed, Headmaster." Carlisle replied, a mask of icy control sliding easily over his features. "However, I won't give you the pleasure of thinking you own my stones as you do your little group of Chosen."

Turning on his heel, he marched from the office, swallowing back the bile rising in his throat at the sound of Caius Langley-Sutton's laughter. Carlisle held himself in check until he reached the edge of the school proper and finally, out of the sight of others, broke into a full run across the cricket grounds, over the rugby pitch and into the dim silence of the school's field house.

Certain he was alone, he screamed with his rage, pounding again and again at one of the lockers meant to hold the team's personal items. As he was assaulted again and again by Headmaster's words, angry tears spilled down his cheeks.

They won. Headmaster and his Chosen. Carlisle was Head Boy, selected by his fellow students because he was considered to be fair, honest, worthy of every Cuthberthian's respect but also capable of giving any of the lads his protection if needed.

He had told the story to Headmaster simply and without the amateur theatrics with which Tyndale surely embellished his own version. Marcus, like all Chosen, was in possession of a Key to River House as one of Headmaster's indulgences. He went to Liam's room, dismissed the boy who shared the small space, and let himself into Liam's bed.

"Well, Cullen," Headmaster had sighed lightly as Carlisle finished his brief report regarding the altercation. "You see, Grant was quite pleased to welcome another student into his bed last night. It would seem he believed his bedmate to be you."

"Wh- are you… how dare -?" Carlisle stammered.

"Do you deny the two of you had been together just minutes before in your own room? Tyndale heard you most clearly calling out Grant's Irish moniker in quite an impassioned manner."

Cullen gaped, stunned: His dreams. Tyndale heard. The sniveling little Molly heard him, and it would be Liam's downfall… and possibly his own.

"But…why would Tyndale be in River House? He is a resident of Oriole House."

"Ah well, Cullen, for some time I have had reason to question your… shall we say ability to lead this school; your moral compass, as it were. So Tyndale has been looking after your duties in shadow all term. After this incident, I really have no choice but to remove you from your position. Marcus will replace you immediately; you will trade rooms this afternoon." Headmaster Langley-Sutton's voice had curled around his Chosen's Christian name like a serpent's tongue.

Since he had arrived at St. Cuthbert's as a lanky eight-year-old first year, River House had been Carlisle's digs. It was as familiar to him as his own family's Sussex home.

Sutton-Langley was moving him to Oriole, which housed the full compliment of Chosen. Away from his home. Away from his friends, his routine.

Away from Liam.

Almost as if he heard Carlisle's thoughts, Headmaster had interrupted, looking even more pleased.

"Of course the Irish boy has been sent down."

As Carlisle pounded his hands against the lockers, Headmaster's voice rang in his ears. Gone. Liam would be gone in hours, if not already. Because of him.

"Hallo?" called out a deep voice, shocking Carlisle from his tirade. "Cullen? Ar' y'there?"

"I…" he tried to smooth hands over his hair and face in an effort to make himself presentable. He looked up and found Liam before him, his face finally free of the strain of living at St. Cuthbert's biggest outcast. Before he could make sense of his appearance, they both moved, uncertain and then rushing, falling together. Liam and Carlisle clutched at each other, the only sound punctuating the dressing room was their breath coming at fevered huffs until the bigger boy broke the silence.

"I should have come for you," Liam whispered.

"How could you… amid all that?" Carlisle stammered, the sudden recall of the scene in Liam's room lighting his rage again. "He… He attacked you, and they've sent you down because of it – and me."

"No, b'fore. I should've come for ye months ago, Carlisle." He shrugged, a grim smile playing across his face, "I knew it wouldn't be long for me here, I was only let in due to m' mother's connections. I should have come to you sooner, meebe the first day. "

"Are you – are you saying you...?" Cullen was completely struck for expression, unsure how to even put the past months' confusion, assumed rejection, and self-doubt into simple words.

He barely understood how to name what he felt for the first time. How was he to speak of his affections to another man?

Liam looked up and toward the fieldhouse door, his eyebrows knitting into one sooty line drawn tight over his russet-green eyes.

"They've come for me, I'm meant to go straight away. I'm sorry, Carlisle. Don't let them get you, don't let the side down again, hey?"

With that, Liam passed a broad thumb over Carlisle's lips, strode to the door, and was gone.

Jasper turned once again to the back garden, now giving way to a misty early evening typical of the first days of spring in England. The old man was fading fast, his voice becoming softer and halting over more details as the afternoon's light died away.

It was time to go.

Dr. Cullen led him, with some effort, toward the front hall, his gait now stiff from sitting through the hours of their conversation.

As they reached the front door, soft classical music began to play from a room toward the back of the house. Cullen sighed a little, a peaceful smile smoothing his features.

"Your sister plays beautifully," Jasper said as he shouldered his messenger bag and stepped through the open door.

"Oh, goodness, no. Esme couldn't carry a tune if she were asked by the Queen Herself, bless." The Doctor chuckled with a lilt of his thin eyebrows. "No, I've a dear friend who comes in the afternoon quite often and favors us with a bit of something on Mother's piano before we have tea. Dear old friend I've had for years, he lives just round the corner."

The two shook hands warmly, Jasper expressing sincere gratitude again for the afternoon's interview. As he made his way to Hampstead High Street, he rounded the brick wall separating the Cullens' property from the sidewalk. In the evening half-light he paused and could just make out the silhouettes of three figures through the French doors. Laughing ruefully, he considered the afternoon's conversation. He had enough for a fine article, ground-breaking even, just not the one he wanted to write for The Advocate. With a final wistful smile, Jasper adjusted the heft of his bag and once again turned for Golders' Green Tube station.

For reasons he was unable to ever understand, even after years of pondering the Doctor and their afternoon together, the image of a Celtic knot garden would always come to the journalist, its' hedges groomed precisely to show no beginning or end. The notes he'd taken revealed no real beginning or end either. Nothing more, really, than a softly whispered account, just beyond Jasper's abilities of perception, of Carlisle Cullen's quiet life.

~Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and make it a soul? A Place where the heart must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways! Not merely is the Heart a Hornbook, it is the Minds Bible, it is the Minds experience~

John Keats (1795 - 1821)