Chapter Text
London, 11:45 pm
Prologue
It had been five months and three days since Edwin Payne second escape from hell, five months and one day since Niko Sasaki’s untimely passing and exactly five months and 17 days since Edwin had realized that he was unequivocally and irrevocably in love with his 16 and a half year old best friend of 30 years.
This bitter realization had dawned on the young Edwardian ghost as he was listening to the faint giggles of said best friend and the newfound addition to their agency, one Crystal Palace Surname-Von Hoverkraft. Crystal and Charles had started officially dating four months ago and even though Edwin had assured Charles that this was perfectly fine, adequate really, he was in fact, not fine. Truth be told, Edwin was miserable.
“Oh, stop it,” he’d chided the new couple everytime they shied away from showing affection around him. “I am not made of glass and I am perfectly capable of handling my feelings. Do kiss, for heavens sake! This stone or that will not break me.”
But all they ever did was leave the room. This made Edwin feel even lonelier, than if they’d just had the damn decency of “snogging” in front of him, where he could simply look away to avoid the cold shock it sent through his body. At least they'd have been be there.
As it was, the only untainted company Edwin kept these days were his books, which weren’t real company at all, for they only talked in his head and only said what the author had written and sometimes the proverbial bell jar he felt trapped under made him so desperate he almost considered keeping the Cat King company.
Edwin missed Niko and he missed the safety of the past and he missed having Charles to himself, even though thinking this made him feel heartless. But as it was and as funny old death commanded, Edwin was heart-less. He was a bloody ghost after all and all these new and modern feelings scared him a much greater deal than he’d like to admit.
The giggling had stopped in the room across and Edwin was jolted back into reality. The door across him swung open and he sat up.
“I’m gonna order a pizza,” Crystal announced and swung her feet over the side of the agency’s small settee.
“I want pepperoni,” Charles added and pinched Crystal in the side.
“Ghost pepper?” she asked and pinched him back.
“God no, I havent sunk that low,” laughed Charles.
And just like that, and despite Charles’ best efforts to include Edwin, who just shook his head with a small smile, the world disappeared and it was just Charles and Crystal, Charles and Crystal, Charles and Crystal. Their bell jar clinked against his and it made an awful scratching noise in Edwin’s head, and god he really missed Niko.
It occured then to Edwin, as he forcibly smiled along to their banter, hands folded neatly on the gilded cover of his book, that he must, despite his lack of blood and breath, truly have the loneliest heart in all of London.
When a familiar lump started forming in his throat, he stood up and left. Surely there was mail to sort, he assured Charles, who grabbed Edwin by the hand in concern. Always concerned, that one. It was wonderful, really, comforting. But Edwin was beyond that now. What he really needed was a time machine.
That night he wrote the first letter.