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Edwin is absolutely fine. Charles had been there and seen it all, so he knows there’s someone who understands now. They’d both lived. Someone had come to get him.
But he can’t stop shaking. Which is illogical because he doesn’t even have a nervous system anymore. Not that it would make sense to be shaking anyway. He’s fine. He’s safe. He had been gone less than 12 hours, Niko tells them. It had felt like a week.
He can’t stop shaking no matter what he tells himself, so he goes out onto the rooftop where no one can see him. There’s a little corner where the balcony wall meets the building, and Edwin sits there, trying very hard not to curl up into a full ball.
“Edwin?” Charles calls, poking his head through the door.
“Over here,” he says, too quietly. Like he thinks that monster will hear him. It took him a long while after leaving Hell to feel comfortable making too much noise. Charles had helped with that. He’d needed someone to talk to him when he was newly dead.
“Over where,” Charles says, and then drops his gaze. “Shit, mate.” He starts over to him
“I’m fine,” he says, and Charles rolls his eyes. His head tilts, just a little, and it makes the light catch on his earring. Edwin’s heart squeezes.
“Don’t start,” he says, and drops next to him. He takes his hand, easy as anything.
Edwin wouldn’t have reached out. Couldn’t have, because of his—crush, Niko’d called it, and propriety, and the fact that he doesn’t know how to do any of this properly—but now that he’s holding Charles’s hand, Edwin can’t drop it. He squeezes it tight, even though it feels like solid air, the temperature of everything else around them. His shoulder knocks against Charles’s with his trembling.
“Fuck, Edwin,” Charles breathes. “You could’ve come got me, you know?”
Edwin doesn’t know what to say to that. He would be fine, soon. Not really worth bothering anybody. He just shakes his head and curls up tighter.
“You’re alright,” Charles says. He wraps an arm around him. Then his face changes, into something like determination, and he pushes Edwin’s head onto his shoulder. “You’re alright, mate.”
It’s odd, because even though he can’t feel his warmth, it’s comforting. It’s also mortifying, to have to be coddled. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes and he takes a sharp breath to dispel them. He tries to pick his head up but Charles flicks him on the forehead when he tries.
“Isn’t this too…romantic?” Edwin says. His whole body prickles with the unusual closeness.
“Nah,” Charles says, easy. “This is something you can do for your mates. It’s helping, isn’t it?”
Edwin’s trembling is slowing down. He nods, suddenly exhausted. He tucks his head further into Charles’s neck, feeling ridiculous.
Edwin wishes, for one of the few times in his undeath, that he could sleep. Usually, it was an advantage to be able to work all night. Learn languages. Pick up hobbies. Talk with Charles in their office and watch the sun rise. Right now, he wants to be able to rest for a few hours, safe, held, not thinking.
He says some of this to Charles—less sentimentally—and Charles hums.
“There’s always meditation. I bet one of the girls knows something about that.”
The clomping of platform boots comes towards them, and Edwin starts to uncurl, not willing to be seen like this in front of someone else. Charles lets him sit up but keeps his arm around him.
“It’s just Crystal,” he says.
“One of the girls will know something about what?” she says, holding a fuzzy yellow blanket.
“Meditation,” Charles says, cheerful. “Can’t sleep. It’s a real fucker sometimes.”
Crystal makes a face. “Not me. Maybe Niko, but it’ll probably be half bullshit,” she says, fondly. “Or maybe Jenny, actually, if she doesn’t evict us for the whole demon possession. Thing.”
Edwin moves a little, to better be able to stand if he needs.
“Do you need us? Is she raising a fuss?”
Crystal raises an eyebrow and he can see the exact moment she chooses not to tease him for his word choice. She shrugs.
“Honestly, less of a ‘fuss’ than I would raise. And I don’t think seeing you two would help right now anyway. Just came to give you this.”
She throws the blanket at Charles, who catches it one handed.
“From Niko. She’s asleep. I’m headed back in but let me know if you need,” she says, and waves her hands in the air. “Something.”
“Oh, and,” she says, and then darts in to kiss them both on the cheek. “Glad you’re not dead.”
Then she’s running back through the door, letting it clank closed behind her.
Edwin sits there a moment, head feeling too heavy for his shoulders, and then Charles tugs lightly on the back of his shirt and pulls him back to be shoulder to shoulder with Charles again. Slowly, Edwin rests his head back on Charles’s shoulder. Charles spreads the blanket over them.
“It’s ridiculous,” Edwin says. “It makes no difference.” He pauses.
“But?”
“But I can feel it here, just like you said,” Edwin says, and taps his cheek. He runs a hand over the blanket.
“What did you do the first time you escaped?” Charles asks, after a moment of silence.
Edwin laughs. “I was so relieved that I was free. I walked around London. I sat in the grass. I read a book.” This was all true. He also looked over his shoulder all the time. He didn’t make noise. He hid from other ghosts.
“Which one?”
“Some history of the last 70 years, which was so wretched I put it down and picked up Alice in Wonderland.”
Charles laughs. “You were holding out on me in the attic! Old detective stories when you could have read me that.”
“It was childish,” Edwin says. “My mum used to read it to me. I didn’t think you’d like it.”
“Of course I would’ve,” Charles says. “But then you just…went back?”
Edwin pauses. “I didn’t know where else to go. And I thought—at least I can help. If it happens again.”
“And you did,” Charles says. If they were alive, his breath would ruffle Edwin’s hair.
“I hate being dead,” he says, suddenly.
“Edwin,” Charles says.
“Do you ever think about how if I had lived, and we had met anyway, I would’ve been an old man by the time you were even born?”
“Sometimes,” Charles says, small and tired.
“What did you smell like?” Edwin asks before thinking, sharp and impudent with anger. And then he swallows. “You don’t have to answer that—”
“I smoked, sometimes,” Charles says. “And wore too much cologne, probably. Wore a leather jacket sometimes, so like that, and denim.” He shifted so his nose was pressed back into Edwin’s hair. If he moved his lips, he would be kissing him. “What did you smell like?”
“Massacar oil,” he says, absently. “For my hair. And starch, and grass. And probably sweat; we wore these clothes in the heat of the summer.”
Charles hummed.
“It’s unfair,” Edwin says. “I should know that about you. And you should know that my hands were always cold, and that I was horribly ticklish and didn’t care much for fish.” There’s a yawning grief in him that he mostly doesn’t acknowledge, but Hell ripped that open just like it had ripped open his chest.
“I know it is,” Charles says. “Believe me, I’m usually the one who’s mad about it. But right now, I’m just happy to have you back.”
“Thank you for reminding me of another thing I’m furious about,” Edwin says. “If that creature had caught you, it would have torn me to pieces in front of you, and then you to pieces in front of me, over and over until we both lost our minds.”
“But that didn’t happen,” Charles says firmly.
“It could have,” Edwin says, and sits up again to look Charles in the eye.
“Look, mate,” Charles says, flat. “You can yell at me all you like, but I’m not sorry I went.”
“You cannot do it again,” Edwin says. “You cannot .”
“I will.” Charles won’t stop looking at him. Edwin ducks his head and Charles flicks his chin to get him to look back at him. “You read to me while I was dying. I don’t know if I’ve ever properly thanked you for that before.”
Edwin ducks his head again. “I didn’t even expect you to be able to see me.”
“But I did, and you stayed with me while I was alone and scared. I’ll never leave you alone and scared. I swear. Not a thing you can do about it.”
“Why are you even still here, after what I said?”
“Told you, mate. I love you. Just not sure how.”
Edwin looks at him for a long moment, and Charles looks back, unflinching.
“Alright,” Edwin whispers.
Charles pats his lap.
Edwin stares at him.
“You can’t sleep, but you can at least lie down.” Edwin doesn’t move, so Charles pouts theatrically. “Sorry it’s not a four poster bed.” As if that’s the reason Edwin isn’t doing it. It’s too far. His brain pictures it, the two of them together like a couple at a picnic, and catches on the image, stuck.
“Edwin,” Charles says. His voice sounds a little strangled. “Humor me?”
He can’t say no to that. And he thinks about what it would feel like if Charles were the one going to Hell for him. He lies down, looking up at Charles’s chin. Charles is looking straight ahead, not looking at Edwin. His hands land in Edwin’s hair. It’s nice to have your hair played with, Edwin learns. It makes him want to cry again, that he didn’t get to do this when he was alive. He swallows hard.
“You know I wouldn’t want to be here without you,” Charles says, softly.
“So you keep telling me,” Edwin says. They haven’t discussed it much these last thirty years, besides keeping Edwin from Hell. Edwin lays a hand on Charles’s arm. Charles startles and looks down at him.
“Heaven, Charles. I wouldn’t blame you.”
“You also wouldn’t blame me for leaving you in hell, you absolute bastard,” Charles says, and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. Oh. He’s made him cry.
“That’s not your fault.”
“Or yours,” Charles spits. “It’s like,” Charles says. “It’s like life. Everything sucks. We’re dead. I won’t ever get to touch you, or Crystal, or Niko properly. I’m always cold. I’m always scared of you going back to Hell.” His hand smooths over Edwin’s hair again.
“But there’s Crystal, and Niko, and you. Just like there was football and tea with my mum and eyeliner back when I was alive.” He cracks a smile. “It’s worth it. But I won’t do this without you. Leaving you in Hell? I would rather go back to my dad’s house.”
A tear finally rolls down Edwin’s cheek.
“Have you considered,” he says, “that it might be the same for me?”
“Then it’s back to the old plan,” Charles says. “Together.”
“Together,” Edwin says. Charles has started stroking his hair, and Edwin’s eyes fall closed.
“I keep seeing Hell,” Edwin whispers.
“Me too,” Charles says. “I keep thinking about—70 years—”
“Shh,” Edwin says. “Let’s just rest a while.” Edwin’s mind is screaming at him to be still and quiet so the monster doesn’t hear him, but Charles is here. They’re safe. “Would you sing something?” he asks.
Charles laughs, a little wet. “Yeah, mate. Any requests?”
“Whatever you like.”
“So generous,” he teases, and his other hand covers Edwin’s, and he starts to sing.