1 - 20 of 67 Works in Charles Rowland-centric (DCU)
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Charles takes a step back and appreciates the life him and his partner have built for themselves
AKA: Author binge watched DBD like a week ago and has so many goddamn feelings that if they aren't put into fanfiction he will EXPLODE
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When he’s six, he gets a book about music on his birthday. He’s not too good at reading, but it’s so rare for him to get anything he treasures it anyway, and desperately tries to improve his skills. When his father is out, he asks his mum to read to him, and then he attempts to follow after her. There is a chapter on key instruments in it which he’s re-read so many times he knows it by heart now.
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A panoramic view on the life of one Charles Rowland, as told by the keys of a piano.
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Learning By Heart by Ice_Elf, Lundlaeva (Black_Crystal_Dragon)
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
31 Oct 2025
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Charles wakes up in the hospital after the incident with his mates and everything is—well, pretty aces actually. His dad’s being nice to him, his mates—former, now—have either been kicked out of school or are staying away from him, and he’s got a new roommate.
Edwin is kind and funny and really clever, and, best of all, he seems to think Charles is pretty great too. So what if he’s sometimes a little bit weird? Charles is still determined to get to know him better.
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There's a flash of hurt in Edwin's eyes and Charles knows that he's managed to fuck up again like he always does, like the piece of shit he knows he is.
Woah.
That was an intense thought.
However, when he tries to take one of those famous calming breaths, he realizes with dawning horror that it's not working anymore.
~ * * * ~
In which Charles is hit with a spell that makes the target lose control of the emotion they're ashamed of most.Written for Payneland Pumpkinfest 2025 Day 4: Spells and Potions
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i'm real in your arms, that's enough for now by quietdetective for muirgen_lys
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
03 Oct 2025
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Charles Rowland was quite proud of himself.
Edwin had been doing a lot better, and the school and his parents were none the wiser about Charles' cat.
Of course, that was until Charles let his guard down.
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what should have been the worst day of my life, you kept me safe, and warm by quietdetective for muirgen_lys
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
02 Oct 2025
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Charles Rowland was found after nearly dying in an old, cold, attic. He should've succumb to hypothermia hours ago.
It's only when he wakes, and shares that a cat had helped keep him warm through the night, do things start to make more sense.
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you stayed with me, even as everything froze by quietdetective for muirgen_lys
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
30 Sep 2025
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Charles Rowland had found himself slowly freezing to death in an old attic.
He would've died alone, if a little friend hadn't come to keep him company.
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Most ghosts didn’t celebrate their birthdays.
But Charles Rowland wasn’t ‘most ghosts’.
Indeed, Charles’ birthday was a high point of the year, a guaranteed day of fun for himself and Edwin. The fun always helped to push down the unvoiced emotions below: the loss, the unresolved pain of his death, the feelings of failure and inadequacy. Charles saw no reason why this state of affairs shouldn’t continue forever.
But then he turned fifty.
Or:
How a medieval poem changed Charles’ afterlife forever.
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"So let me get this straight," said Crystal. "This guy dies and gets selective amnesia, but just about the identity of the person he murdered?"
"Well, he also forgot when or where or why it happened," provided Charles.
"But he remembers everything else! His name, family, how he died himself. That's weird, that's not how it works."
"And what exactly qualifies you to decide how it works?" tossed Edwin from his place, pacing around the office. "You get amnesia one time and it turns you into an expert?"
or: an amnesiac murderer knocks on the office door seeking to find the person he killed. charles, edwin and crystal find that the case is hitting them a little too close to home.
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You Look Like My Sweetest Dream (Wake Up I Beg You Please) by UneducatedAuthor
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
03 Aug 2025
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Charles lived a pretty normal life, and he could never understand why that almost felt like a surprise to him.
He had breakfast, studied hard, hung out with his mates, and all of it was so precious, because he knows how much you have to appreciate Living.
It's just... It feels like there's dreams, at the corner of his eyes. Feels like the two girls, Niko and Crystal he met by accident know more about him then they should. Feels like someone is supposed to be at his side and isn't.
It feels like he's missing something.
(Charles is cursed to live as a human, with no memories of his afterlife and unable to interact with the paranormal world. The Dead Boy Detective Agency need him back.)
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When We Burn Together, We Begin To Understand The Smoke by UneducatedAuthor for PantryJesus
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV), The Sandman (TV 2022)
03 Aug 2025
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He's the one who left and the one who returns. He's full of questions in the face of certainty, and believes in humans more than anyone Charles has ever met. He makes Charles think that maybe love isn’t what saves you. Maybe it’s what lets you stop trying to be saved.
Or, the one where Charles meets Destruction. They talk about names, and fathers, and what it means to try to be something else. There are no easy answers. But it’s okay. They’re still trying.
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- Part 2 of The Beginning And The Endless
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In which Charles grapples with the fact that Edwin loves him, and realises he's never felt worthy of love at all.
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“You – you don’t get it,” Charles sobs, vowels stuttered and consonants broken. Edwin fixes him with that same inquisitive glare; brows drown, mouth slightly agape. He looks the epitome of heartbreak.
“Don’t get what, Charles? I don’t understand!” Edwin cries in return. The air between them feels static. Alive. The moment after a lightning strike, the silence after dusk.
“You can’t love me!” Are the words that come tumbling from Charles’ mouth. Unbidden. Unwritten. Raw, from the soul. Edwin stumbles back.
“What?” The boy gasps, clutching his lapelled chest like a lifeline.
“You can’t,” Charles yelps, shoulders hunching in, bottom lip quivering into something unfixable. “Because if you do, I’ll destroy you. Just like everything else.”
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The first inclination she’d had of being dead was the young woman sitting next to her. It was a Sunday, her husband was out of the house at a talk for trainee joiners now that he’d retired and had the time, and Mary had been sat watching Coronation Street while waiting for him to get back. The ads were on. The light of the screen reflected back at her in this woman’s eyes and for a moment Mary wondered how she’d got in without the sound of the door opening.
It was the soft smile and the sympathy in her gaze that told Mary she was dead.
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A reunion: for a mother that failed to protect her son, and a son that failed to stand up and save her.
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"I would be remiss if I did not explain further why I encouraged you to go with Death earlier," his new friend says.
"Yeah?" Charles fits a smile on his face and nods at the ghost. His fellow ghost, now. Edwin. He tried to get Charles to push off, and that has Charles a little nervous. But before that, Edwin said he wished they could be friends for longer, and he stayed with Charles all night, so he must like him at least a little. Charles can work with that. Everyone likes him eventually.
Everyone gets sick of him eventually as well, but before that, he can usually stretch things out a while.
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Little Charlie, ages 5 to 12, knows that boys don't cry. His dad taught him well.
Charlie, ages 13 to 16, knows how to take a hit and lie about it. Else they'll take him away from his mum.
Charles, 16 years alive and a few days dead, starts to believe that maybe he's met someone who actually wants him to stick around.
Still, he can't tell Edwin about the ugly cracks and the rage burning hot in his now-buried bones.
___Or, the many skeletons in Charles' closet and the start of his journey to dust off the cobwebs.
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Part of Charles wished he could say it was a case gone wrong. In reality, it was almost entirely unrelated to the case. Maybe that was why no one else seemed to notice he was gone.
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Something goes wrong during a case, leaving Charles invisible to everyone and unable to stop a mysterious shapeshifter from taking over his own life
Series
- Part 3 of dbda works
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Indelible by sixbynine
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV), The Dead Boy Detectives (DC Comics)
06 May 2025
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Charles thinks that sounds quite nice.
To still be considered useful even if your whole is shattered and thinly stuck together and to maybe find a little bit of beauty in that.
But Edwin doesn’t look like he agrees.***
Fixing shouldn't mean erasing the breakage.
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I just wanna let you know (I hate you dad) by MOODKILL3R
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
17 Mar 2025
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Charles Rowland is checking in on his parents when his dad falls over. However, it turns out to be something more serious than that.
Title from "I Love U Dad" by Powfu
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The Miseducation of Charles Rowland by hobbitsdoitbetter
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
19 Feb 2025
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He doesn’t know what to do about it, really. It’s… Like, it’s not a problem, y’know?
It’s not a thing he feels like he has to solve.
He loves Edwin, and Edwin loves him. Nothing else matters… At least, it doesn’t anymore.
Charles Rowland, Queerness and accepting who you are and what you want.
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Charles and Edwin are safe, they are part of the Lost & Found Department and they will never have to run away from death again, they have eternity on their fingertips. However, Charles feels uneasy. He loves his best mate to hell and back, but since Edwin's confession his world seems to get even more confusing. He loves him back in the best mates kind of way, but he would give anything to be able to properly love him like a boyfriend would.
After they receive a mission involving an Irish guy sacrificed in an Antinous gay cult, Edwin starts romantically seeing the guy, Charles has to come with terms with his emotions — something he usually avoids to do — and notice his romantic feelings for his best mate before he loses his chance for good.
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Dead Boy Detectives new cases, trouble and adventures. Charles slowly realises that he loves Edwin back and he is trying his best to confess his feelings for his best mate. In his place, Edwin seems to want to spend more time with the guy he just met and avoid Charles. Crystal is also there, pissed because her best mates are too oblivious about their feelings for each other to do anything and one of the guys in question is her current boyfriend.