Chapter Text
There was always an inevitable feeling of absolute dread and terror that loomed over Edgar’s shoulders whenever he did something. Especially whenever he created a new story or piece of art work.
The deadline for his next book would be the next day and he was almost done, but then someone ( probably Rampo, it was always Rampo ) and then he’d have to rush the final chapters. Only to get criticized by his editor for having a shitty, shitty ending.
No one would give him a break. He’d be sleep deprived and writing until 3AM in the morning, barely able to stay awake, and refusing to drink any coffee or energy drink .
( he hated the fucking drinks and the flavours more often then not, tasted like shit ).
( one time Dazai gave him half an energy drink, black cherry flavoured, and then crashed several hours later with no memory of what happened after drinking and waking up from the crash ).
Not only did his novels to write and produce at very strict times, but he had to write the detective novels for Rampo.
The novels would had a lot of grammatical errors and one or two plot holes, but his editors and beta readers where mostly happy with the results and pointed out a couple errors he needed to rewrite.
Rampo would of course solve the detective novels rather quickly, but lately it’s been taking longer and longer for him to solve his novels. Maybe that was him being a little hopeful, but who knew.
Lately, even though he’d been trying his hardest, writing and getting his work done had begun to pile and pile upon each other for some fucking reason.
He’d been getting all his drafts done at the correct time, he’d been getting his art drafts done at their time, he had been getting the detective stories for Rampo done and done.
For some fucking reason, all his deadlines had started to stack themselves upon each other like building blocks.
He had to finish an ink drawing the day after finishing the final draft for his novel. He did, and got it finished with a couple of hours to spare and relax for a couple seconds.
The ink drawing was of Karl, well, it was of a raccoon but Karl was used as the model. He used no base sketch and it looked at good as he could get it without messing up the ink which was great.
The final draft was done around 23:37 at night, which was way earlier than when he normally went to bed, which gave him more hours to sleep and fix his ungodly sleep schedule.
He got about, maybe 2 hours of nap time, before Karl pounced on him because his alarm went off.
He checked his phone and the alarm read “ Rampo’s novel due date tomorrow .”
Edgar then had a mini stroke and ended up accidentally launching Karl across his bedroom in order to reach his desk.
He quickly got the last couple of chapters done as fast as he could.
But this was Rampo, the greatest detective in the world, it needed to be perfect. Rampo needed a challenge and it was only a matter of time before Rampo grew bored of him and cut off all communication.
Because that’s what you do to things you have no interest in anymore, you discard them.
Edgar ended up, slightly, rewriting the entire novel in order to provide an extra challenge for Rampo. He was pleased with the results and went to go deliver the book to Rampo.
The emptiness on his shoulders didn’t help to soothe his anxiety of entering the ADA at all. In fact, it only made his anxiety worse. He didn’t have his best friend to support him or give him comfort for, technically, being in an enemy building.
But that was totally understandable! Edgar did launch, said best friend, across their room in order to get something done for another friends.
It was totally obvious that he was kinda prioritizing his rival over his friend. It was totally justifiable! Totally understandable!
It was totally fine. Fine fine fine fine!
He held the novel close to his chest and quietly walked into the detective building. Luckily, on this specific day, there was nobody in the office.
He still peeked his head through door, like a scared child, to make sure there was nobody there. He didn’t want for all eyes to be on him.
He was tall, and lanky, he kept his hair in front of his eyes to make sure no one would make eye contact with him. His clothing was weird and attracted all kinds of attention he did not want, despite dressing in dark clothing to attract as little attention as physically possible.
In the office, there was only Rampo, the blonde boy, and the redhead. If he remembered correctly, their names were Kenji and Tanizaki respectively.
They weren’t paying any attention to him, which was good. Kenji was preoccupied with his plants and Tanizaki was typing away on a laptop, probably getting his office work done.
“ Poe-kun! Glad to see you could make it again !”
Edgar almost felt his soul leave his body.
Rampo, you’re cool and everything, but I wish you could remain subtle for once. Please, be subtle for once.
He double checked to see if the other occupants of the office were paying any attention, and thank go they weren’t.
Maybe they had gotten used to Edgar’s occasional visits and no longer paid any mind to him. Maybe they had just found it completely useless to protest his presence when Rampo just kept on inviting him over once and awhile.
( maybe they were just good at masking their annoyance and bitterness towards him. he was is their enemy after all. the Guild did almost destroy Yokohama after all ).
( even though he wanted no part in destroying a city, finding it pointless and killing innocent people was not right, he was still Guild. no matter how low are high was in the ranks, he was Guild, therefore responsible for almost destroying Yokohama ).
( no matter what angle you looked at it, he was a bad person ).
“ Hi Rampo-san. I-I brought you your novel .”
Edgar placed the manuscript on Rampo’s desk and patiently waited for him to read through it and figure out who the killer was and what to motivation why they did it and it was super cool to watch Rampo flick his classes in an effortless way and then place them on his face.
He read the book and figured out who the killer was.
In 30 seconds.
“ It was the child. Their family wasn’t accepting of them, so they killed them, as a way to finally be free of their abuse .”
That, didn’t take as long as Edgar thought it would.
“ You figured it out that quickly huh ?”
“ Yup! I always do! I am the greatest detective in the world after all! Poe-kun, this one was way easier than the others, are you okay ?”
That struck a chord inside Edgar and he felt like an unfinished tapestry that was only a couple strings away from completely unraveling.
But, he had survived worse and had to weave himself back together tighter and harder than before to keep himself from completely falling apart.
He shook his head to rearrange his fringe and cover his eyes more thickly and secure.
“ N-No Rampo-san. I’m perf-fectly fine. But thank you for asking .”
Rampo pursed his lips, removed his glasses and squinted his eyes at Edgar.
Edgar did not like being put under the firm gaze of Rampo. He felt like he was a piece of prey and was being hunted. It was like he was being examined from under a microscope and he did not like it at all.
( you see, in reality, Edgar was not fine. he was secretly lying to himself. his lying was so good he even had himself fooled. he managed to fool himself and now he was going to pay the price for it in the future ).
( he was always going to pay the price for lying, no matter how minor and how nice he was trying to be ).
( lying always came with horrible consequences, no matter how bad the lie was ).
“ If you say so, but Edgar, this isn’t up to par with your usual work .”
I know that Rampo. But I really thought this one would be challenging for you.
Maybe I shouldn’t have taken the time to rewrite it a little bit.
“ I know Rampo-san. I know I can do better than this .”
“ We both know this Poe-kun. This isn’t like you, I expect another book in the next two weeks .”
No.
That’s not possible.
Edgar looked into Rampo’s eyes, but instead of feeling the sharp warmth in his chest that came with being the rival of the world’s greatest detective, he just felt fear.
Writing a draft, let alone a whole book, in a two week time period was not possible in the slightest.
He felt himself get ready to decline Rampo and ask for a longer time period on the tip of his tongue, but Rampo’s piercing green eye bore into him. Like light becoming hotter and more focussed under a magnifying glass.
There was no way a book that could challenged Rampo’s intellect could get finished in a two week time period.
Say no, say no, say no.
Say no, you fucking fool.
( but you see, )
“ Sure thing Rampo-kun! I think I can get something like that done in the time period .”
( Edgar could not say no to Rampo ).
“ Good good! I hope you don’t mind staying here while you get started! I do like your company after all .”
He did mind. He minded a lot.
Lately, he could hear things in his ears that were so loud and so overwhelming, he could still hear them hours, days, afterward. Even in a completely silent room.
Every little noise would get to him and he would feel like scratching at his wrists until the noise went away.
( or until he removed himself from his desk ).
( he was starting to lose trust in himself around that area ).
( especially since we widdled his pencils instead of using a hand or electric pencil sharpener ).
The ADA was kind, far kinder than the Guild and way more stable and light, but everyone at the ADA was loud. Different vary degrees of loud, but still loud no less.
He would get overwhelmed by their brightness and then hear their voices at random times when working, causing him to question himself even more than he already did.
Hearing their voices ringing in his ears would lead him to question his own sanity, and he didn’t want his own mind and mental stability to be another thing he would end up questioning.
He really didn’t want to stay at the ADA for the next couple hours when the rest of the staff came back from whatever job.
But then again :
He could not say no to Rampo.
So he ended up staying at the ADA the entire day, even though they were slightly overwhelming and his anxiety was getting to him.
Luckily, Rampo did stay by his side for the majority of the time! So he didn’t completely go off the deep end!
( he did go off the deep end and it sucked ).
( nobody noticed, which was great )!
( Rampo probably did. he knows everything after all ).
That night Poe went home without any interruptions which was great!! He had nothing planned, nothing scheduled!!
He could work on Rampo’s book no problem! He could get his outline done and everything! Maybe even the first draft!
While sitting one the couch, brainstorming up ideas for Rampo’s book, doodling a little bit on the side to ease his chaotic mess of a thought process, when he got a call.
He read the number and fuck…
It was his editor.
His editor was saying that there were a lot of errors with the final draft that could not be published, it was so bad.
The call ended with the editor saying he wanted revisions done in about a two weeks time span.
Before Edgar could protest, he hung up.
The stress of work was slowly starting to stack up on each other and Edgar felt himself start to crack a little.
“ It’s okay. It’s fine. You can do this. If you manage your time correctly, everything will turn out okay. This is fine .”
Everything was not fine.
Even though Edgar managed his time extremely well, he was forever cursed to be followed with misery and misfortune.
More often than not, he would forget to eat something or bathe trying to keep up with the schedule he carefully crafted for himself. Resulting in him wearing the same clothes for several day in a row and not eating until he felt like he was going to vomit or collapse in exhaustion.
Sometimes, if he accidentally starved himself for long periods of time, and only drank water, he could feel liquids in his stomach move. Those times though, it felt like his stomach was trying to claw its way out of his body and become sentient.
Then he would forcefully make himself eat something, and then feel sick afterward, but not starving anymore.
Even right now, it felt like his stomach was going to fucking burst out of his body like the chest burster aliens.
Edgar’s luck was always the worst.
Whenever he felt like something good was happening for once in his life, the universe had to go and throw a curve ball at him to make everything for him way more difficult than it had to be.
Within the final week of his deadlines, Rampo got a call about a case that required him to leave Yokohama and stay within Tokyo for a day or two.
That wasn’t an issue, until it was.
Rampo did not want to go alone, so he request that he take Edgar with him for the case to make it go over smoothly.
This was something Edgar did not have the time or patience to deal with.
Rampo’s deadline was the day after they were thought to come back, and the dealing for the revised book was in the middle of when the case would be ongoing.
Edgar wanted to decline, he really did, but like always :
He could not say no to Rampo.
Against his better judgement and his own conscious, he went to accompany Rampo in Tokyo.
He forgot about his deadlines completely because he was having a good time with Rampo. The case was going over smoothly. There were a lot more moving pieces to it than he thought and there was a solid reason why they called Rampo over.
The deadlines for his book had completely slipped his mind until Rampo reminded him of them.
“ Do you have anything you need to get done by the time we get back home ?”
Edgar suddenly remembered everything.
The deadline for the revision.
Rampo’s detective novel.
He checked his phone and there in bright white letters were the dates “ RAMPO ,” and “ REVISIONS .”
How could he have forgotten about those things? Those were vital to him. He couldn’t miss them.
He felt himself slowly chip apart as he begrudgingly said, “ Yeah, I have things I need to complete when we get back to Yokohama .”
He turned away from Rampo and hung his head in shame that he forgot about those things. He set a calendar date and several alarms about when specifically he had to get things done.
And he still, fucking, forgot.
Rampo didn’t say anything. He just hummed and went on through the day.
All Edgar could think about was how he disappointed Rampo for failing to keep up with him and how his editors are going to tear him apart for missing something so incredibly important.
For once in his life, he did not want to go back home.
But as they say, luck was not on his side.
After that, the case went by way faster and by the time he got home to his apartment, his email and messages were blown up with crude saying about how he fucked up and was on thin ice for messed up.
Rampo did not speak to him for the entire train ride back, and that’s how Edgar knew Rampo no longer wanted anything to do with him.
Even though the train was full of people talking and the sound of wind howling outside, it was so silent with Rampo filling in their conversations with mindless chatter.
He was so close to crying, so close to just completely breaking down.
Rampo had not spoken to him for the past couple days, and when he did, it felt so negative and only confirmed what he already knew.
Rampo no longer wanted anything to do with him.
And that was fine, Edgar failed to keep up with Rampo, so it was only fair that he was discarded.
Because that’s what you did when something no longer entertains you,
you fucking discard it.
He didn’t look at his phone anymore. He was scared that someone was going to call him call tell him how big of a failure he was. How they no longer wanted him around and how he was nothing but a burden in their lives.
That was fine. He rarely used his phone outside of work and listening to music.
He changed into his comfort clothes and accidentally caught himself in the mirror.
He saw how his chest looked. The somewhat jagged scars across his chest from a purposefully botched surgery. The faint scars across his face and forearms from so long ago, they had almost completely faded away.
( the scars reminded him of how he really, truly, did not exist ).
( as much as he wanted to believe it true, Edgar did not exist and he never will. he was just the result of a huge collective figment of everyone’s imagination ).
( no matter how much someone tried to convince him otherwise, he just couldn’t see himself as real. after all, if his own family did see him a real person, why should anyone else )?
He threw on his comfort clothes, trying his damn hardest to erase what he saw in his mind.
He had been avoiding his reflection for the longest amount of time.
Even though he had gotten the surgeries and now felt like he belonged in his own skin, there were still moments where he would look at himself and see nothing but that little girl who went to military school.
Sometimes he just felt like he didn’t belong in his own body, even if it felt the most correct in years.
( just one more thing ).
( one more thing, and the glass would shatter ).
( one more thing, and the glass would shatter ).
His phone started to buzz and ring and he was terrified to pick it up. He didn’t want to see whoever was calling him, he didn’t deserve to be talked to.
He failed his friend, his rival, his beloved, and didn’t deserve to be talked to.
It went to voicemail, and that was it.
The final straw.
The caller, and the voice belonged to him.
Rampo.
“ Poe-kun…!”
That was it.
He had been trying so hard to keep himself together, trying so hard to just stay sane and stay grounded.
But hearing Rampo’s voice was the final crack in the dam, and he fell apart.
His breathing picked up the the walls started to spin. He was no longer in his house , but just sinking in the ocean of panic and dread.
There wasn’t anything to ground himself, he couldn’t find his favourite sweater to protect himself from the world, he couldn’t find Karl to hug and keep warm
( he hadn’t seen Karl in a couple days now. maybe Karl had finally grown tired of him too and went go find someone who would treat him better than Edgar ever could ) ,
he couldn’t find the hand warmers his aunt made especially for him.
He couldn’t find anything.
Edgar just started to scream and cry, hoping that someone, anyone, would come and just save him.
He was drowning and no one was there to save him from it.
The one thing is did find though, was the knife he used to widdled his pencils and his quills.
He couldn’t find any other of the things to ground him. This was the one thing he had left, the only thing he found. His last option.
( he swore off using this as a way to ground himself long ago ).
( it brought him nothing but pain and misery instead of the sweet relief he so desperately needed in his life back then ).
( but when you also swore off to use other things and other people to take out your stress frustration anxiety dread, on what other option do you have but yourself ).
His movements were janky and unpracticed, having not done this in several years, but it was old familiar territory.
When was the last time he went through this territory?
5 years ago? Maybe 6? Somewhere around that time frame. It had been awhile.
But unlike before, it gave him the release he so desperately needed.
He didn’t stop until his arms were shredded and blood was dripping down his arms. Blood was on his hands and the widdler.
It was blood, but at least it wasn’t anyone else’s but his own.
The next few minutes? hours? were a blur, but the one thing he could remember clearly was someone creaking into his house, a worried voice, and something chirping at him.
It was just his brain hallucinating the sounds of people he held dear to himself again.
Nobody would come and visit him anymore. Nobody cared about him anymore.
Not Rampo, not Karl. No one.
Nothing felt real anymore. Nothing was real anymore
So why did the hands holding his face feel so warm? So why did the furry thing caressing his fingers feel so achingly soft?
Why did they both feel so real?
Maybe he really had finally gone off the deep and and started to hallucinate so badly he just came up with something to comfort himself in his lonely stupor.
He didn’t fight against it.
His vision was blurry from crying so much and the tear tracks on his face had dried out not too long ago.
He didn’t try to fight against these hallucinations that looked and felt so much like Rampo and Karl.
He leaned into the touches and feelings. Hoping that if he pushed against them hard enough, they would eventually become as real as they felt.
“ I know this is all a hallucination, because Karl and Rampo are both gone, but stay for a little while. Don’t fade away just yet. I’m so lonely and even if you’re not real, I just want some kind of company .”
Edgar held on to these hallucinations as much as he could, know they’d eventually fade away and leave him alone.
“ E-Edgar. Why? Why do you think I’m a hallucination, when I’m right here in front of you ?”
“ Rampo left me because I wasn’t good enough for him. He left me because I wasn’t good enough for him. Karl left me because I didn’t give him the love he deserved .”
Edgar closed his eyes and started to tip forward.
“ They both left me because I didn’t earn their love and that’s okay. I don’t deserve to be loved .”
He fell forward and landed in the lap of the hallucination of Rampo and something warm and wet fell on his face.
That wasn’t right. Hallucinations weren’t solid and they didn’t cry. Even though the warmth from them was fake and provided from his memory, they weren’t solid and they didn’t cry.
So why was Rampo and Karl solid? Why was he crying?
He looked at the supposed hallucination at Rampo and saw emerald eyes staring back at him, full of tears and with Karl on shoulders.
“ Ed. I’m not a hallucination, I’m real. Karl and I are real, you aren’t hallucinating .”
Oh.