Chapter Text
“You really are fucking traumatized, aren’t you?”
At the way the words roll so effortlessly from Crystal’s tongue, accompanied by her very own bright chuckle, Edwin almost misses it— her joke, that is.
In fact, without missing a beat, Edwin allows an automatic half-smile to creep onto his lips in response. He’s able to quickly contextualize her question within the undercurrent of humor that has guided their banter thus far, and that is almost enough to dissuade the bubbling defensiveness in Edwin’s chest.
Almost .
His fingers twitch against the pages of the novel perched in his lap, shielded from Crystal’s view as she lounges on the arm of the small couch just across from him. The desk acts as a barrier, one Edwin rests his crossed ankles on as he reclines into their office chair. His shoes are off, of course, he has his wits about him— but his manners seem to slip his mind as he intentionally conceals Crystal’s form further behind his socked feet. From this angle, Edwin can almost pretend that he’s alone.
Distantly, a thud reverberates through the floor, followed by a steady stream of rapid swears tinged with annoyance.
A jolt of panic, akin to something like a shock, reverberates up Edwin’s spine in an instant. Something crinkles against his palm, and before he can stop himself, the page he’d been just about to finish reading is wrinkled beneath the force of his desperate grasp.
Whatever remark Crystal had fired up dies on her tongue, and Edwin can hardly bear to catch her eye as a newfound curiosity sits between them.
“Should... was that Charles?”
Edwin, suddenly wrongfooted for a reason he can’t seem to place, finds his words caught in the back of his throat. He can only hum in confirmation, before mustering up an unassuming nod towards the door as his eyes meet Crystal’s again.
She holds his gaze for a moment, and Edwin chokes on a small cough. Questions dance behind the girl’s eyes, as plain as day, and Edwin decides that he’s had enough of this game. He allows his gaze to drift back to his book, as unassumingly as possible, and forgoes the idea that he may seem rude in doing so.
“I’ll uh, go check on him,” Crystal pushes, the lilt of her voice allowing the words to come out as more of a question, an invitation.
Edwin only nods, sinking further into the chair’s leather. His eyes remain glued to the wrinkles on the page in front of him.
The telltale click of the office door is a sound that Edwin has yet to become accustomed to. It has never been a noise he’s deemed memorable, anyway, until the slow introduction of the living into their office space. Truthfully, he’s still not used to their whole knocking thing either— not that it wasn’t a manner Edwin had used when alive, but it’s one of the many habits he’s dropped during the thirty odd years he’s spent in Charles’ company.
Knocking is useless, anyhow, when you’re used to spending every waking moment with the person on the other side of the door.
He listens for the noise now, though, and the second the old oak door latches, Edwin feels himself deflate like a punctured balloon.
It’s safe to say that, with unfortunately conclusive evidence, Edwin is jumpy.
He has been jumpy, for weeks. It didn’t quite bother him at first, as he poured his energy into the events following his… dramatic flee from Hell, but this new development has been slowly grating away at his nerves. Detectives don’t get jumpy . They should be non-reactive, a steady stream of calm and collected energy in scenes of otherwise great chaos. A solid shoulder to lean on, a well-calloused hand to pull a victim from their grief, a steady mind that will do anything to close a case.
Edwin doesn’t get jumpy.
Faintly, he can register the linen of his shirt sliding between his pointer finger and thumb, one of his hands now fidgeting with the cuff of his opposite sleeve.
This, frankly, is not a feeling Edwin is very accustomed to. Whatever this is, it’s uncomfortable, but more importantly, it’s distracting. It’s a massive roadblock in his work.
Edwin doesn’t get distracted .
A heavy fatigue settles at the forefront of his mind, then, one that startles him with its almost-real intensity. It isn’t quite real; he can’t actually feel tired. It’s almost a reliving of a memory, the physicality of it all just an arms length away. But it’s there now, and it’s agitating. He lowers his chin to his chest, eyes fluttering shut.
Agitated . Add that to the growing list of adjectives Edwin can now comfortably use to describe himself.
“Edwin?”
Edwin’s breath— his unnecessary breath, what a waste of his waning energy— hitches in his throat. His eyes snap open, ungloved hands freezing automatically in their fidgeting. He fights the urge to further loosen his tie, because it’s suddenly too tight, somehow, and it’s all he can focus on.
“Are you alright, mate?”
Charles folds his arms over his chest, rocking slightly back and forth on his feet in front of the desk. The movement is oddly mesmerizing, and Edwin finds himself drawn to the way Charles’ (hypothetical) weight shifts from his heels to the balls of his feet. Eyes drifting, Edwin catches himself watching the rising and falling of the former’s chest, allowing himself a moment to steady his own breath. Slowly, the hefty book feels lighter in his lap, his tie less constricting about his neck.
He blinks up at Charles, only now registering that his friend is probably waiting for some sort of response.
A grim smile tugs at the corners of his mouth, and it doesn’t feel entirely untruthful. The inquisitive glint in Charles’ eyes briefly reminds Edwin of the passionate spark that ignites in its place while they are in the midst of a complicated case, or chasing a promising lead, and that memory alone is enough to summon a small grin. But it’s surely not a wholehearted smile, and he instantly regrets even trying for one when Charles doesn’t seem to buy it.
“Just fine, Charles,” Edwin chirps, smoothing out the creases in the fabric of his sleeves, pointedly keeping his eyes on the off-white of his shirt. The repetitive motion feels like some sort of physical reset, and the gears slowly start turning in his head again, dissipating a bit of the fog that had settled there. He lies the novel face-down on the desk in front of him, with a mental note to try and fix that vandalized page later.
Charles’ eyes dart between his own, and it leaves Edwin feeling too open, too exposed.
“Just fine, yeah?”
“Yes,” Edwin forces out much too quickly. Even he can hear a twinge of discomfort in the syllable despite his attempt to mask it. “Just catching up on some reading, is all.”
For a moment, Charles says nothing, his eyes continuing to flit between Edwin’s left and right. Just pick one, he finds himself wishing to snap at the former, but swallows the remark.
Instead, he jumps at the opportunity to shift the spotlight away from himself.
“Are you?”
“Hm?” Charles hums distractedly, finally tearing his gaze from Edwin to the small sofa on his right. Edwin’s left. Whatever.
“The– you… the noise,” Edwin recalls, and surely the office is growing smaller as they talk. The walls loom almost hauntingly in Edwin’s peripherals, and he twitches, refusing to pay these mind tricks any mind.
“Oh, yeah, just bumped into our favorite redheaded secretary in the hallway. Scattered her books ‘n shit everywhere. She made a huge deal about it,” Charles continues, taking a slow stride or two towards his perch on the arm of their couch, just as Crystal had earlier. Because, obviously, no one would sit normally on the actual cushions.
But of course. It’s obvious to Edwin, now, that there wasn’t a threat. Charles would tell him if something was wrong, and that simple fact glimmers like a dim light in the fog clouding his senses. A lifeline.
He ignores the way his hands tremble in his lap.
“Edwin, how long have I known you?”
Edwin gapes at the question. The look Charles is giving him feels so intentional , like he can see right through him. Metaphorically, of course.
“You… forget?” Edwin finds himself asking, words dripping with something thick and emotional that stirs uncomfortably in his empty chest. The possibility of Charles forgetting something so significant makes his head spin.
“No— mate, it’s one of those leading questions, yeah? It means…”
Charles pauses, here, punctuating his words slowly.
“It means I know you, very well, and I can tell when something is up.”
Edwin’s eyes must have drifted from Charles’ at some point, now flitting between his two hands in his lap as his fingers continue to shake. He almost misses the way Charles leans forward in his perch, craning his neck to catch a glimpse at whatever has caught Edwin’s attention.
Edwin frowns, and he’s standing before he realizes, clasping his hands with a sound much louder than intended.
“I really must get some fresh air,” he manages, reaching for his nearest coat. His feet slip easily into his boots.
There’s a buzzing at the base of Edwin’s neck, and his fists clench around the fabric in his hands.
Charles only watches him, eyes as wide as saucers, the beginning of an objection forming against his lips— something about Edwin being a ghost, and not needing fresh air, he’s sure. But in that moment, that logic would do nothing to help the way the edges of Edwin’s vision blur with some unknown force. His gaze falls somewhere past Charles, past the front door, just out and away .
Throwing one arm into the sleeve of his coat, Edwin crosses the length of the office in two strides. His other hand reaches for the brass doorknob.
Edwin hesitates, and the silence that lingers there nearly drags him to his knees. He can feel the way Charles’ eyes bore into the back of his head, a sensation he’s never found quite so uncomfortable.
Shouldering his other arm through its sleeve, Edwin phases through the front door, and doesn’t look back.
They dance this dance for the next few days. Long, arduous, painstakingly awkward days.
The steps to this dance go as follows:
Edwin and Charles, as they do, exist fully and entirely in each other's company. They don’t sleep, and they don’t eat, which eliminates at least a few excuses for Edwin to escape the latter’s presence— something he’s never fully considered until recently. Crystal and Jenny, the loose ends of their business in Port Townsend, attending to Niko’s things; plenty of other opportunities arise for Edwin to fully throw himself into, giving him an outlet to exacerbate his anxious energy.
Charles, of course, is present for all of these events. Lending a helping hand where he can, quipping half-baked jokes at Edwin as he typically does, filling every empty beat of conversation with a wickedly charming smile.
But then, something will shift just a little too quickly, or make just enough of a sudden noise, or be a little too much of a reminder, and that familiar claw will wrap its way around Edwin’s throat in an instant. He’ll struggle inwardly, managing as composed of an external reaction as possible, and pray to God that his reaction has flown under the radar.
Then, Charles will throw him one of these looks . And Edwin will always catch it, because he’s always aware of whatever Charles is doing when they’re together, especially when it’s something so abnormal.
How could Edwin ignore them? He feels miniscule under those looks , the ones that have Charles’ eyes pooling with something sorrowful and worrisome. As if Edwin is some helpless dog, kicked to the curb, unknowingly demanding attention with his mere existence as a stray.
This, in turn, grates further against Edwin’s thinning patience. Now, on top of keeping an eye on his sporadic and undesirable behavior, he has to remain fully presentable to make sure that Charles never looks at him like that ever again.
By this point in their tango, Edwin usually manages another ten minutes before he has to find some reason to excuse himself. To panic, to cry, to gather himself, and to return with a practiced smile that he prays reaches his eyes.
Charles doesn’t ask if he’s okay again. Edwin is not sure how to feel about that.
“So he just, what– left? Like, walked through the door?”
Charles presses the base of his palms against his eyes, and misses the stars that the action used to paint against the back of his eyelids.
It’s all bleak now, and it only ticks up his frustration.
“Come on Crystal, do I need to demonstrate it for you?” Charles bites, retracting his palms so he can glare at Crystal.
There’s a frenzy to his words that he distantly clocks as unusual, but really, this is all a bit unusual , and Edwin is being unusual . So his own sudden shift in mannerisms doesn’t really jump to the top of his list of priorities.
Crystal gapes at him from the couch, arms wound around one of her knees that’s pulled tightly to her chest. From his position on the middle of the office floor, Charles throws another hasty glance at the mirror, still expecting Edwin to already be wandering through it. Although he’d just been with him maybe half an hour earlier, Edwin had lingered behind when Charles returned to the office through Niko’s mirror, and still hasn’t come through.
He’s been doing that lately, lingering behind. And Charles hasn’t pushed it. Just like he hasn't pushed him on any of his odd behavior.
Of course he hasn’t.
“Okay, asshole, just— run it by me one more time.”
The encounter sits fresh on the tip of Charles’ tongue, even if a few days old, and retelling the bizarre events comes easily.
“Right, well, I went into the office after bumping into Charlie, ‘cause I figured Edwin would get a kick out of that little run-in like I did. And, it’s late, so I just assumed he was reading or doing something Edwin-y, yeah?”
Crystal blinks at him, unamused.
“Edwin-y? What does that even—”
“You know, like, productive!” Charles snaps, because it really doesn’t matter. He doesn’t wait for Crystal to continue.
“And usually, right, he looks up when I come in the door, or at least says hey. I didn’t sneak up on him, I just walked in, and he didn’t even look at me. And you know he’s been fucking weird lately, and without thinking, I just— I just asked if he’s okay! That’s it.”
He gestures wildly about, as if he can demonstrate the oddity of Edwin’s behaviors through the movements.
“And he said he’s fine , in his chuffed little— ‘ Oh, I’m Edwin, and everything is just fine!’ voice. Which I know is bullshit, and ‘course you know by now is—”
“Is bullshit, yeah, yeah, I know. And that’s it?”
He pauses at this. That really was it, right? He had just tried to check up on his best mate, as he’s been unsuccessfully trying to do for weeks, and this time, he got properly turned down.
Charles flinches inwardly at his choice of words. They sting a little more than he’d like to admit.
“He… yeah,” Charles manages, lips pressed together in thought. “Just got up, grabbed my jacket, and left.”
Crystal moves for the first time in ages, shifting in her seat. Her mouth opens a few times, and shuts, as if she can’t find the right words to say. The silence itches at his skin as something shifts in Crystal’s expression.
Right, he’s had enough of this.
“Mate, Crystal, you look just about like a fish out of wa—”
“You didn’t mention the jacket?”
Again, Charles finds himself biting back a rude remark at her interruption. Why does it matter ?
His expression must convey his sudden turmoil, because Crystal moves for the first time in ages, pulling her other leg into her lap until she’s sat with her legs crossed. She perches her elbows on either knee, supporting her chin, and finally gives Charles her attention.
His legs suddenly ache from the awkward way they’re bent underneath him, and similarly, with a desperation to get up, maybe stretch, and go after Edwin. It’s a desire that could well knock the wind out of a living boy’s chest.
“Charles?”
“Yeah?”
“Do…” Crystal coughs, visibly backtracking in her train of thought.
“Did therapy exist in the ‘20s?”
Charles blinks. He blinks again.
Crystal stares.
“It… ‘course it did,” Charles mumbles, stumped. “Or, no. Um.”
Something knowing shifts in Crystal’s eyes, in the way it usually does, and Charles wishes he had enough concentration to float through the floor.
She must have an idea, then, her lips parting in an inaudible breath. It’s always amazed Charles that, for someone so secretive, Crystal’s physical reactions to things inside of her head are so telling, so human.
Crystal stands abruptly, as if the whirlwind of their conversation wasn’t startling to Charles enough, and snags her purse from the floor in one swift movement. It takes a moment for his brain to catch up, but when it does, he makes some quick noise of protest.
“Wh– where are you going?”
A familiar jingle rings out as Crystal fishes the keys to her flat from her pocket, spinning them around her finger.
“ You stay here. I’m going to go find the answer to our question.”
Antsy .
Another synonym. Because, frankly, Edwin is getting sick of chastising himself for being too jumpy .
Perhaps, his mind supplies, it’s a reaction similar to the animalistic one he’s often studied in their more creature-resembling encounters. His mind easily sorts through the snips of information he’s gathered while studying up for a few of their previous cases. Specifically, the characteristic in mind, the behavior coined “ fight - or - flight.”
It boils down to a simple chain of events, Edwin hypothesizes. There’s a main event, usually a danger, and the creature is genetically hardwired to prompt itself with two options— fight the perceived threat, or flee.
The familiarity of this idea makes Edwin’s stomach churn. But logic, as it does, is quick to rescue him from the spiral.
Those are animals , he reminds himself easily. You’re not. You’re not even alive.
Plus, he’s not in danger. He’s just… easily startled. By very normal, non-dangerous things.
Honestly, that terminology has always stumped him.
Suddenly eager for a distraction, Edwin shifts towards their closet door, his mind readily providing the location of a much calmer book he’s been meaning to pick up for some time.
The sun, roughly five minutes below the horizon, scatters its last light against the bustling city of London. The office tends to catch many of these dying colors as they fade into the late evening skies, filling the room with a very dim, ethereal essence. It’s surely long past the socially acceptable hour to be switching the lamps on, but Edwin doesn’t mind. In fact, the emptiness of the office paired with the dim pink haze brings a peaceful energy to the room that Edwin would bathe in if he could.
Something constricts in Edwin's chest when, for the second time in the past few hours, a remark about the evening sky's beauty dies on his tongue. Because Charles isn't here to hear it, and his absence is growing increasingly obvious as the minutes ticks by. Certainly, he'll be back soon— but in the past seventy two hours, the office of the Dead Boy Detectives has grown considerably quieter, Charles often disappearing with hardly an announcement of his departure. That same gut-wrenching feeling in Edwin's chest doesn't hesitate to notice the timing of this developing behavior, Charles having disappeared from the office just the following morning after Edwin's... time of conflicting emotions, and has continued to do so since.
Shaking his head of observations, Edwin continues towards their closet, passing through the open doorway and into the space. His hand finds the cord to the overhead light easily, eyes spotting the book in question, and by now, his earlier emotional distress has already begun to wash away in anticipation of his read.
Distant laughter rings out from behind the office door, and despite Edwin’s best efforts, a phantom nausea overcomes him in an instant. It’s charming, hearing Charles’ jingle blend so easily with their new friend’s, and something deep within him leans into the idea of joining them eagerly. But then, there’s that blasted wall he can’t seem to get through, every spectral nerve in Edwin’s body alight and tense and anxious by nature.
He’s not quite ready to tend to the awkward air that’s found itself a home between him and his partner yet, anyways— and while the addition of Crystal might help alleviate some of that, the mere idea makes his head swim.
Before he can help it, Edwin’s hand flies to the handle of the closet’s door, shutting the thing behind him.
With that physical barrier up, Edwin easily shifts his attention back to the warped bookshelf, and he tenderly picks up the shorter novel, fingers trailing the edges of its fading cover.
A low buzz begins to hum somewhere in the small room, and Edwin blinks, shaking his head again.
He ignores the way his heart sinks further when the sound of his partner’s voice trails easily into the office, rambling off about something hardly intelligible from the closet. In fact, the idea of leaving suddenly seems very tempting.
Stepping towards the closet’s far wall, fully intending to pass through it into some other room that isn’t accompanied by his friends, Edwin stills.
One of his books is missing.
It’s an observation that hits him like a slap in the face, because once he sees the gap in his collection, it’s impossible to imagine that it took him so long to notice it. His head continues to swim, confusion and worry meddling into something much too powerful.
Edwin, as he is, has an innate sense of where his valuables are at all times. It’s a skill he believes to have gained naturally, but as his years of experience (both in life and the afterlife) have played out, he can now recognize it as a bit of an oddity. Specifically with his books, although organized and reorganized hundreds of times, Edwin can pinpoint their usual location in an instant.
Charles chuckles at something, low and amusedly, just on the other side of the door.
Edwin’s fingers graze the unsanded wood of the empty space on his shelf.
So why can’t he remember what book belongs here, or where it went?
If his head was swimming before, he must be drowning now. The lack of an answer that he usually can so readily provide grinds Edwin’s gears to a halt. And that damned buzzing, like flies incinerating against a frosted bulb takes over his senses, only growing in volume—
The small light above Edwin’s head fizzles and pops, bathing the closet in an acute darkness.
It’s quite rapid, how things happen next.
Edwin jumps, spinning to face the light, and his back hits the bookshelf behind him rather than phasing through it. The contact almost hurts , and he stifles a cry as the motion causes a few of his books to dislodge from the shelf and fall to the floor.
In one breath, the sudden chaos has Edwin sinking to his knees, that familiar emotional mess in his throat rendering him speechless. In the next, the room around him is bathed in an eerie, green light.
One that’s all too familiar, and Edwin finds himself falling entirely lost to it.
It’s faint, hardly audible, but it’s there. A soft cooing, giggling — one that lacks the warmth of Charles’ that Edwin now so desperately misses. It’s cold, and multiplying, and horrible.
At some point, his hands must fly to his ears, the resounding noise the motion makes against his head only further rattling him. It’s too loud, everything is too loud , and his knees are to his chest and he has no room to breathe and he’s frozen and it’s there. And Edwin is scared .
“ --win? Edwin?”
Edwin’s eyes fly open, and in a millisecond, everything is gone.
A steady lavender haze pools through the office door, now ajar, and Charles is there.
He’s saying something, and Edwin hardly cares, because Charles is there, and Edwin is not where he was , and his favorite evening light is bathing the shelves and floor around him.
Edwin’s chest lurches where his heart would rest, practically begging his body to move, to stand and approach his partner and throw himself into his arms as they’ve done only a few times before. He can practically feel the ghost of Charles’ arms around his shoulders, and something pointedly pricks behind his eyes.
But as soon as the desire is there, it’s swarmed– no, trampled– by something much deeper and much uglier.
A white-hot shame flashes through Edwin so viscerally that his body is instantly freed from its frozen state. He’s never felt, to as full of an extent as his afterlife will allow, something so simply wrong with him.
Nothing happened to spur him into such an unreasonable state. There is no present threat.
He must look properly pathetic.
Charles extends a hand, something complicated but highly distressed in his eyes. Edwin cowers like a dog, microscopic under Charles’ worry.
In one swift motion, Edwin is shoving past Charles’ solid shoulder, past a bewildered Crystal, and phasing out of the office.
Again.