A PINK CARNATION AND A PICK-UP TRUCK

PAIRING: Edward/Carlisle

RATING: A warm and cuddly T, just barely.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This series of vignettes was commissioned by a dear friend, Pace is the Trick, as part of fandomaid's campaign to fight famine in Somalia. She requested that I write a series of sweet little moments between Edward and Carlisle, taking place between 1950 and the present day. Furthermore, we decided that each vignette would have the general theme of Americana. I'm Canadian, so I definitely might have chosen many of the more cliched aspects of my neighbours to the south to write about. For that, I apologize.

These stories occur in her preferred alternate universe interpretation of canon: Carlisle only turned Edward, meaning that the other Cullens do not exist.

The title of this fic is, of course, taken from the song 'Bye, Bye Miss American Pie' by Don McLean.

1951: It's not Thanksgiving without pie

Thanksgiving had always painted Carlisle's mind with deep ambivalence. Before Edward had stumbled into his life with all of the precision and tidiness of an automobile accident, he had spent the day lost in thought, trying to assign names to everything he was grateful for, and rarely succeeding.

It had become easier. Now, all he had to think of was the play of sunlight on bronze while pale fingers picked out the notes of a stubborn sonata, and his heart was suffused with heat and passionate thanks to anyone who would listen.

"Carlisle!"

His reverie was shattered by his mate, who looked at him critically.

"Yes, Edward?" he asked, his mouth softened by a smile as it shaped the consonants of his lover's name.

"You need to put on your tie. Eleazar and Carmen will be arriving soon."

The doctor nodded. His dear friends from Alaska were the only company they were expecting, but the apartment had been polished to an unnatural state of cleanliness nonetheless.

"Very soon," the copper-haired boy added.

"You are counting down the minutes until Tanya gets here, aren't you?" Carlisle laughed, remembering the jagged relationship that Edward had somehow managed to develop with the pretty succubus from Denali. A little tension crept into his mate's voice at the very memory of her, and the promise of a visit was likely even more terrifying.

"Have I mentioned that she's my favourite?"

"Your favourite what, precisely?" Carlisle asked with a grin.

Edward glared.

[-]

"Happy Thanksgiving!" Irina sang. She was terribly pretty, with her pale hair caught in curls and her mouth a bright and sinful crimson.

"We brought you pie. Do people normally eat pie for Thanksgiving?" Kate offered Carlisle a jumble of cherry and crust in a box. It had not quite survived the journey.

"Oh, our brothers are so handsome!" Tanya said brightly. The three sisters had always made a point to announce that Carlisle and Edward were their siblings, thank you very much, whenever they visited, just loud enough for the neighbours to hear. It tended to put the rumours to rest.

"My little brother doesn't want to give me a hug!" she continued, feigning a pout.

Edward flinched, but did not flee. He considered that quite an accomplishment.

"Give Edward a little air," Carmen said gently, appearing behind her fair-haired coven-mates. Her smile was soothing as the sea. "I don't know if he is accustomed to company quite like yours."

The thin young man gave her a grateful nod before shaking Eleazar's hand in greeting.

[-]

It was only a matter of time until Tanya cornered him in the kitchen, Edward decided. Remarkably, it had taken her less than half an hour.

He had never really understood the leader of the Denali coven. She was an I-Love-Lucy redhead, too eager to push and prod with those ruby-tipped fingers of hers, until something exploded into a messy aftermath. Then, she would laugh and laugh, delighting in the chaos. The last time he had seen her, she had made her intentions towards him painfully clear.

While he was in love with Carlisle.

Thoroughly indecent. Being a succubus was no excuse.

"Hello, Tanya. How are you?" he murmured, looking firmly at his feet and avoiding the scandalous cacophony of her mind.

"Quite well. And yourself, Edward?"

She could be remarkably polite when she wanted to be, he'd give her that.

"Just fine."

Awkward silence. She took the pie out of its box and examined her sticky fingers worriedly.

"Should we put it in the oven? I notice your apartment is the only one that doesn't smell of cooking," she suggested, kneeling in front of the appliance. "You're going to need to help me with this."

He did, adjusting the temperature so it was just high enough to heat the battered pastry without burning it.

"You know that I don't bite," she said conversationally, leaning back against the counter. "Previous encounters notwithstanding."

Her dress was vivid, splotched with flowers in shades of violet and turquoise. It was impossible to look anywhere else.

"You were...quite overwhelming," Edward said, stiffly courteous.

"And you were scared, infatuated and a little self-righteous. Can you blame me for finding that irresistible?" she crooned, so low that only he could hear it. Her laughter, strangely deep, filled the space between them.

Such honesty, bordering on bluntness, never failed to shock him into silence.

"You were no-one's mate," she mused. "You can hardly accuse me of trying to instigate adultery."

Edward turned that statement over cautiously in his thoughts. "And now that I do have a mate—?" he wondered.

"You and Carlisle are almost nauseatingly perfect together," Tanya said, eyeing her nails, her mouth a bloody smirk. "I wouldn't dare interfere."

"Really?"

"The martyr and the melancholist. It's poetic."

It was then that Edward realized that there was nothing unkind in her mind. Whimsical, maybe. A little mocking, certainly. Good-natured nonetheless.

"You surprise me, Tanya," he said, his concession grudging.

"I can't think why."

She ruffled his hair, wincing at the brilliantine and murmuring something about stupid mortal fashions before sashaying out of the kitchen, to rejoin her sisters in their dizzying knot of blonde curls and exquisite smiles.

[-]

"Tanya thinks we're perfect," Edward murmured in Carlisle's ear, more breathlessly than he would have liked, after their guests had departed, leaving only the echoes of merriment and a few disordered couch cushions in their wake.

"Does she now?" the older man said, smiling a little and twining a casual arm around his mate's waist. The kiss he pressed to the underside of his chin, where his pulse would have once nestled, was honey-sweet in its devotion. "It's good to have a second opinion."

Edward rolled his eyes, although he was unable to suppress a gleeful grin.

"Thank God a succubus has given her approval of our relationship."