Archive of Our Own

i. the case down memory lane

It's never great when the entirety of the information the client has for them is, "I woke up standing over my own corpse with no memory of who I am or how I died."

Crystal's trying not to be irritated about it, she genuinely is, especially because Edwin is transparently irritated enough for the both of them, but John Doe has been absolutely no fucking help. Edwin has done nothing but ask very valid questions ("Can you tell us where your corpse is?", "How fresh was your body?", and "Did it even occur to you to look through your pockets for a form of identification?"), and in return has gotten answers that are worse than useless ("I wasn't paying attention to where I was, just to where I was going," "I don't know, I couldn't exactly stick a thermometer up my ass, could I?", and "How was I supposed to know I could do that? I thought ghosts couldn't touch anything!").

Edwin is rubbing his temples against what seems to be an incipient metaphysical headache when he glances at Crystal and they share A Very Bitchy Look. It's a thing they've started doing recently – basically whenever the circumstances around them clearly call for it but Charles and Niko are being too good for this world, too pure, to react in an appropriate (i.e. very bitchy) way.

"Well," Charles jumps in, clearly trying to be helpful, "you actually can touch things, yeah? Like how you knocked on the door when you got here."

John Doe, an early twentysomething wearing a tailored suit and a general air of being too rich for something like this to inconvenience him, looks dumbfounded. "Oh," he says. "I guess you're right."

"What did your body look like?" Crystal asks him, to at least try to keep things on a constructive track. "Like, did it look like you were sleeping, or...?"

John Doe scoffs. "No, it didn't look like I was sleeping. Sleeping people usually don't have a chunk of their head missing and blood all over them!"

Edwin's pen pauses over his little notebook. "Blood?" he says. "Was it dry?"

"No, there were, like, puddles of it," John Doe says, wrinkling his nose in distaste. "I was afraid I was going to get some on my shoes before I realized I was a ghost. Do you know how much these cost? They're Italian leather."

"Were Italian leather," Edwin mutters, quiet enough that John Doe can't hear, but Crystal has to duck her head to hide another smile.

"Wait," Charles says, frowning. "You can't remember your name, where you died, or anything else that would be helpful, but you remember how much your shoes cost?"

"They're Ferragamo," John Doe says, affronted.

"That's expensive," Crystal tells Charles. "Like, a-thousand-dollars-for-a-pair expensive."

"That suggests a motive for the murder," Edwin says, though he's frowning thoughtfully.

"Bad taste?" Niko says, baffled.

"No, money," Charles says, and successfully schools the amused smile off his face before turning to John Doe. "No offense, mate, but if you're throwing around that much for shoes, you probably had enough in the bank for someone to kill you for it, yeah?"

"Whatever the reason," Edwin interrupts, abruptly snapping his notebook shut and standing, "if the memory loss co-occurred with the death, that suggests avenues to reverse it."

"It does?" John Doe says hopefully.

"Doing magic on the living is quite different to doing magic on the dead," Edwin informs him, already headed towards their makeshift bookcase. He confidently pulls a book from it, so apparently it has what they need despite being, as Edwin never hesitated to point out, nowhere near as organized as the one back in London. "That narrows the possibilities considerably. We shall focus on a cleansing ritual based in witchcraft and natural magic rather than necromancy. Crystal? I'll need your assistance."

Crystal heads over to him while Niko and Charles take care of John Doe. "Usually you need Niko for the book part," Crystal mutters to him.

"Yes," Edwin admits, and gives her a sidelong glance. "However, you seem as deeply frustrated with our John Doe's personality as I am. I thought you could use a break. And, honestly, I will need you momentarily; you're much better than I am at sorting spell components by aura."

"Vibes," Crystal corrects, and when Edwin's tart expression turns to her, she just raises an eyebrow at him. "I'm the one who can feel them, right? They want to be called vibes."

They don't. They're inanimate objects that happen to put some unique energies into the world, and those unique energies are also inanimate. But there's something so delightful about the way Edwin closes his eyes in defeat, shakes his head just a tiny little bit, and says, sounding pained, "Please just sort them."

So she takes the tray of components with an extra-big smile.

She can't really feel ghosts the way she can feel other people – and the way she would use to manipulate those other people. She used to revel in the neat perfection of teeing up an interaction and getting exactly the reaction she expected; it kept things controlled, kept her feeling powerful. Also kept her kind of an asshole.

But she gets flashes, every once in a while, of Edwin and Charles. Okay, mostly Charles, because Edwin's mind is as buttoned-up as the rest of him. But sometimes, in moments like these, as she holds up a geode and whispers just loud enough for Edwin and only Edwin to hear her, "Oh, geode, reveal thy vibes," she gets a trace of exasperation, yes, but also amusement.

Crystal's pretty sure that under that staid, controlled exterior, there's layer of pure piss and vinegar. But under that, there's a really silly teenager who does things like squeak when he's uncomfortably surprised by the boy he's in a situationship with, or become obsessed with Scooby-Fucking-Doo, or make stupid Hell-based puns.

It doesn't take long for them to set up the ritual: chalk circle, appropriate runes, strategically placed spell components with appropriate vibes.

"If you would stand here, please." Edwin points to where he wants their John Doe, who eyes the chalk suspiciously.

"Is that just, like, normal chalk? Nothing toxic or degrading?"

Charles comes up behind him, puts his hands on John Doe's shoulders, and begins moving him with gentle pushes. "Your shoes are intangible now, mate. They're beyond chalk. Let's go, get a wiggle on."

Edwin, looking back down at his book, smiles the smug little half-smile he really only gets when Charles gets uppity like this. Crystal has to school her face to not show the same smile, honestly. It's great when Charles smiles, but it's also pretty great when he gets a little mean.

"Now," Edwin says, leafing through a book, "if you'll all stand back, this should be fairly straightforward."

He starts chanting long syllables that Crystal's pretty sure are Latin. She expects a light show, or like fireworks or something, so it's pretty underwhelming when he finishes and, for a long moment, nothing happens.

Then Crystal's ears pop, and her sinuses bounce like particularly stubborn bubble wrap, and a loud crack fills the apartment, like a car backfiring.

"Oh, Jesus!" Crystal says, reflexively.

"Was that supposed to happen?" Niko says, her fingers in her ears.

Edwin just stands in the circle, blinking blankly at the book in his hand.

"Well?" Charles says, looking to John Doe.

John Doe waits a second, expectantly wide eyes, and then shakes his head. "I thought you guys were supposed to be professionals!"

Even Charles lets out a short sigh of exasperation. "We are, mate, I promise. We'll figure it out. Won't we, Edwin?"

The general attention in the room turns to Edwin, who's pulled back his previously-outstretched hand and is holding it fisted close to his chest, like a kid being extra careful to avoid a hot stove. He's staring with an expression of vague confusion into the middle distance.

"Edwin?" Niko prompts, when Edwin doesn't respond.

Edwin looks up, and Crystal can immediately tell something is off, because his face shows an emotion. And not, like, smugness or irritation or – and Crystal still has no idea how this ended up on his Approved List of Emotions for Edwardian Prudes – abject despair and horror, but the transparent, clueless anxiety of someone who's bad with people having to do something with people.

"I'm," he starts, and hesitates, which is also not like him. "I'm terribly sorry," he says. Even his voice sounds different. Wobblier, maybe? No - nervous, and obvious about it to boot. "Am I to understand that...that is to say, am I Edwin?"

After a second, Niko says, "What?"

"I seem to find myself at a bit of a disadvantage," Edwin continues earnestly, "in that I cannot remember my name or who I am or what I am doing here. I don't mean to be a bother," he adds quickly.

Charles is the first one to move, stepping in close to Edwin to lift the book from his hands, but Edwin starts at the proximity, shying away as he lets the book go. Charles hesitates as Edwin looks not-quite-at-him, his eyes staying just below Charles's face the same way someone would look just to the side of the Sun on a clear day.

"Yeah, mate, you're Edwin," Charles says, slowly. "You don't...you don't remember anything?"

Edwin opens his mouth, finally looking directly at Charles, and for a second no sound comes out as his jaw goes a little slack, his eyes widening as they take in his face, his cheekbones, his jawline. Then he blinks a few times and finally manages to repeat, his voice choked and almost wonderstruck, "I'm – so terribly sorry."

Now Charles is the one staring, like a bereft puppy, as Edwin manages to tear his gaze away, looking at Charles's jacket, his earring, the chain dangling from his neck and the little hollow at the base of his throat that barely peeks over the top of his shirt.

"Edwin," Niko says, stepping in, too, and when she puts a hand on Edwin's arm he doesn't so much as flinch, turning his attention to her with a speed that belies gratitude, "it's going to be okay."

"Yeah," Crystal agrees, and when she reaches out to put another soothing hand on Edwin's other shoulder he draws back, just a little, his mouth opening to protest before his manners apparently get the better of him. But Crystal's get the better of her, too, and she pulls back, plastering a smile on her face that's as comforting as she can make it. "Hey, I had amnesia once, too, and you guys were the ones who helped me through it. So we're going to make sure everything's okay, okay?"

"And you're not the only one with amnesia here, either," Niko adds quickly. "This all started because we were trying to fix our John Doe, here, so not only are we on the case, we have a head start!"

"Oh," Edwin says, and takes a deep, bracing breath. He looks at Charles, who's still standing directly in front of him, and for a moment he seems to forget what he's trying to say. Then he shakes his head a little bit and gets back on track. "I've been terribly rude not to introduce myself. I am, apparently, Edwin. Are you John?"

And then, squaring his shoulders, he sticks his goddamn hand out to shake Charles's hand.

The hand is trembling, ever so slightly.

Charles's mouth opens with a little puff of air, just subtle enough not to officially count as a pained gasp, and he stares at Edwin's offered hand. His expression is unusually unreadable, which immediately sets off alarm bells in Crystal's head.

"He's not the goddamn John Doe," John Doe interrupts from outside the rune circle, "I am! Or did you forget that this is all about me?"

"God forbid anyone forget that," Crystal snaps over her shoulder. "Also, yes, he forgot literally everything so just give us a sec, okay?"

"Yeah," Charles says, shaking his head a little. He takes and shakes Edwin's hand, quick and perfunctory, and then lifts and shakes the book with all the panicked sincerity of a bullfighter waving a red cape. "No, he's – he's John. I'm Charles and I'm just – I'm gonna – "

And then Charles, the fucking coward, walks out through the door.

"Oh," Niko says, very, very quietly.

Edwin brings his hand back in, once again curling it against his sternum. "I've – clearly done something wrong. Or interrupted something important," he says, glancing down at the rune circle. "You have my deepest apologies – "

"You," Crystal tells him, "have nothing to apologize for. He's just – " She breaks off with an exasperated sigh, looking after Charles.

"He's your best friend, and you're his," Niko tells Edwin. "I don't think he's used to working cases alone."

"He's not alone," Crystal says grimly. She turns back to Niko. "You've got Edwin?"

Niko nods, and takes Edwin by the elbow. "C'mon, let's sit down."

"What about me?" laments John Doe.

"You can wait two fucking seconds," Crystal hisses at him, and storms past him. Unlike Charles's swift exit, Crystal has to actually open the door, like a sucker.

Charles hasn't gone too far, though. Crystal didn't expect him to. He's in Niko's room, pacing in front of her bed, holding the leather spine of the ancient wizened grimoire in one hand and slapping the cover anxiously against the palm of the other.

"I know, I know," Charles says before Crystal can get a word in, "I'll get back in there and we'll get down to the case, I just – I need a sec, yeah?"

"Look," Crystal begins, "I know that it's weird that he's forgotten you, but – c'mon, cut him some slack, he's forgotten everything, and we all know how powerful memory shit can be."

"But he hasn't, though, has he," Charles says, stopping his pacing to square up with Crystal. "He let Niko touch him. Comfort him. When you reached out, sure, he pulled back, but he wasn't – " He cuts himself off, like the end of the sentence pains him already.

Crystal sighs. "Wasn't what?"

"Scared," Charles bites out. "He was scared of me, Crystal. That's how he was right when he got out of Hell – skittish, yeah? And we came so far, but now it's all just gone, and for some reason there's some little bit of him, whether it's memory or habit or whatever you want to call it, that still remembers you and Niko except it's telling him I'm dangerous."

"The fuck?" The words spill out of Crystal's mouth before she can stop them. "He is not afraid of you."

Charles gives her a look of flat disbelief. "He wouldn't look me in the eye. He'd look anywhere else – his hand was fucking shaking, what am I supposed to do with that?"

"Oh my god," Crystal groans, putting her face in her hands. "Do I seriously have to explain this?" She takes a bracing breath, clapping her hands together half to emphasize her point and half to pray for patience. "Charles. You are incredibly hot."

He stares at her like she just told him the sky is orange. "Thanks? I guess? But I really don't think this is the time – "

"You are hot," Crystal repeats firmly, "and for the first time, Edwin is looking at you and not reacting to Charles Rowland, his best friend and spooky business partner of thirty years. He is looking at you and reacting to your perfect bone structure and broad shoulders. He is panicking, because you are a hot boy, and he is attracted to you."

Either Charles doesn't believe her or it's taking a bit to sink in, because he shakes his head minutely. "That's not – that can't – Edwin doesn't do this!" he bursts out, his voice suddenly approaching a mournful wail. "I'm the one who gets distracted by girls and whatever's in front of me and just distracted, like generally, and he's the one who stays right on target."

"Well," Crystal says, throwing her arms up, "maybe we're getting a glimpse of, like, nature versus nurture here. There's all the stuff he does because he learned to do it, because it was helpful and got him through Hell or whatever, and then there's this, who he is when everything else is stripped away, which means..." She sighs. "I guess it means he's only mean to cover up how socially awkward he is."

"Well. I could've told you that," Charles admits.

"And how deeply repressed and horny," Crystal adds, partially to see Charles squirm. He doesn't disappoint her, his face screwing up into a wince. "That version of him has known you for two seconds and he's full-on crushing. I was looking for a fainting couch in case he swooned."

"Okay, I get the point," Charles says wearily, letting the grimoire drop on Niko's bed.

"I'm impressed he managed to say anything, really," Crystal continues relentlessly. "I half-expected him to go full-on cartoon dog, with steam coming out his ears and his eyes popping out and going awooga, awooga - "

"That's my best mate you're talking about, yeah?" Charles interrupts hotly. "So stop taking the piss!"

"Yeah, that is your best mate." Crystal lets that sit for a second. "So do you think you're ready to go in there and be the same supportive presence you were for me when I was the one struggling with big-time amnesia?"

Charles sighs. "This is unusually nice of you, at least when it comes to Edwin. Should I be worried?"

"We're gonna get his memories back, and then I'm going to rub his face in the fact that I have the moral high ground," Crystal tells him.

That gets a small smile out of Charles. "Yeah, that's more like it. I'm glad he's got Niko, at any rate."

"Yeah," Crystal drawls, "I have to ask – have you guys literally never had anything like this happen before? Not amnesia specifically, but neither of you have ever been out of commission for a case?"

"There's not much that hurts ghosts, is there," Charles says, shaking his head. "Sometimes we'll, like, work separately, but it's always me out looking at abandoned buildings or setting fires or whatever while he's going through the books. There was this one time, though – but it was really early days, like really early, when we were just two ghosts running around and we hadn't even made the agency yet. It was a cursed necklace and it turned him into this..." Charles considers for a moment, wrinkling his nose in thought. "It was kind of like an egg, but huge? And mostly black, with these streaks of gold that weren't hard like the rest of it, but sort of...gooey and pulsing? It's hard to describe – did you ever see that film Alien?"

"Okay, can you skip to the punchline?"

Charles winces. "Well. Early days, right? So I sort of, uh. Panicked? And whacked the egg until it broke. Luckily that released Edwin, but...yeah. There's a reason he's the brains."

"That...makes sense," Crystal says. "Well, right now he's not the brains. Or at least, he's not the...memories, I guess? My point is, he doesn't need brawn, he just needs his best friend. Just like I needed you guys."

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right." He takes a deep breath, squaring up. "We got this." He grabs the grimoire off the bed and follows Crystal back to the other room.

Niko and Edwin are sitting on the end of the bed, Edwin looking only slightly less fight-or-flight than he had when they left. Niko has her arm threaded through Edwin's, which seems to be helping. John Doe, probably because even with no memory he's proven to be the worst, is skulking by the window on the other side of the rune circle.

When Edwin sees Crystal and Charles enter he shoots to his feet, his hands twisting together in front of his stomach. "Charles, I must apologize for mistaking you – "

Charles is already shaking his head, setting the book on the ironing board slash desk as he approaches. He puts his hands on Edwin's shoulders and says, as serious and as warm as Crystal's ever heard him, "You've got nothing to apologize for. I'm the one who freaked out, and I'm sorry. I'm just so used to you being the one with the answers – you're the brains and I'm the brawn, right?"

Edwin swallows heavily, his gaze skipping down to the aforementioned brawn. "Your," he begins, his voice choked. "Your body is – it's certainly very – " For a second he looks like he's going to faint, or possibly puke, but he gathers himself and finishes with a weak and helpless, "I shall take your word for it."

"My point is," Charles says firmly, "we got you, okay? Everything's gonna be fine. Niko and Crystal can fill in for the book stuff, and we're gonna take care of you." He squeezes Edwin's shoulders and leans in a bit closer. "You're not alone. None of us are. We're in this together."

Crystal doesn't expect to get choked up at that. Maybe she's just realizing it now, having helped her friend help her friend, but she's all tangled up not just in the supernatural shit but in them. She's used to her friends. She knows them. She knows how Niko's feeling from her body language as she holds onto Edwin's sleeve for moral support, knows what it means that Charles moves his head to stay in Edwin's eyeline so Edwin knows he's serious, knows –

Well, Edwin isn't hard to read right now at all, because he's gazing so adoringly at Charles that the only apt description is "heart-eyes."

Until Niko stands up, still holding onto Edwin's sleeve, and says, "I had an idea about that actually! Not about the alone stuff, but about the brains stuff." She leans over so that John Doe is in her sightline. "John Doe, do you remember buying your shoes?"

John Doe rolls his eyes. "No. Obviously. I don't remember anything."

"But you remember they're expensive Italian leather?" Niko presses.

With the most well-actually tilt to his head Crystal's ever seen, John Doe opens his mouth – and then stops. "Yeah," he says after a second. "Yeah, I guess I do."

"Oh, I get it," Crystal murmurs, and turns her attention to John Doe. "Do you know who Elon Musk is?"

"Uh, obviously," John Doe scoffs. "He's a genius. He's out here inventing the future. He's gonna take us to Mars."

"Uh-huh. And if I asked you which cryptocurrency to invest in...?"

"Well, if you're looking for just a solid rate-of-return, Bitcoin is still your best bet, but I'm, like, ninety percent sure Dogecoin is going to have a resurgence. It's still top-ten in market capitalization!"

"See?" Niko says to Crystal.

"He still knows all the wrong, douchey stuff he knew when he was alive," Crystal says, ignoring John Doe's noise of protest. "Edwin – if you take a look at this circle, do you know what it is?"

"Oh," Edwin says, finally tearing his gaze away from Charles long enough to inspect the rune circle. "That is quite curious. It looks like a nature-based cleansing ritual, drawing on elements of goetia and white witchcraft. If I had to guess," he adds, and then frowns. "Niko, you said my amnesia was caused by attempting to cure..." He looks around the room and his gaze settles on John Doe. "You?"

"Oh, someone finally remembers I'm here," John Doe says.

"You are a ghost as well, I take it?" Edwin continues, frowning.

John Doe nods, though his expression remains peevish. "Woke up dead and standing over my own fresh corpse."

Edwin nods decisively. "Yes, that would tend to suggest the memory alteration occurred while you were alive and carried over to your ghostly form, as altering the memories of living beings is much simpler than direct spirit magic. However, we now additionally know that the effect is capable of taking root in a ghost – that is, myself – which points to necromancy. Which," Edwin continues, now looking back at Charles with a faint flush of enthusiasm, because apparently he's still a fucking nerd even when he's got amnesia, "is inimical to the material-based approach of witchcraft, and a cleansing ritual such as this would cause the initial effect to rebound on the caster."

"Erasing your memory," Charles finishes for him, a smile growing on his face.

"And so a necromantic cleansing on both of us ought to cure it!" Edwin finishes triumphantly.

Charles claps a hand on Edwin's shoulder, now grinning broadly. "Knew you were in there, mate."

Crystal steps in close to them, so only they and Niko can hear her, and says, "That's super great. Could we maybe do it soon so John Douche can move on and we don't have to deal with him anymore?"

Charles turns his grin on her. "Let's get to work," he says. "Oh, and – Crystal? Thanks."

ii. the case of the unexpected body

"We've got to get him a curry," Charles says, watching Niko hold up Crystal's collection of oversized sweatshirts to Edwin's inexplicably corporeal chest. "A good, proper curry. Not as hot as I liked 'em, obviously, but he's never had a curry. Oh God, or a kebab. Did they have kebabs in London in the 1900s?"

"You know, I recall you saying you missed spaghetti the most," Crystal says, not turning away from the impromptu fashion show before them. Edwin had appeared – corporeated? incorporated? whatever – in his suit and bowtie when the exorcism at the pawn shop went wrong, and though they had luckily been there after hours (exorcisms not usually being acceptable pawn shop activities), everyone had silently and immediately agreed that getting him into contemporary clothes was the highest priority.

"I do miss spaghetti," Charles says. "But if I think about watching my best mate eat my favorite food while I can't, I might weep."

"Or," Crystal says, turning towards Charles and at least pitching her voice low, "maybe instead we take this opportunity to get him laid."

Charles snorts out a laugh. "Think he'd prefer the curry, honestly."

Edwin isn't complaining as Niko helps him pull the hoodie over his head, which is either a very good sign or a very bad sign. Charles can't quite tell, because about ninety-nine percent of his ability to read Edwin comes from them sharing Looks, and whatever state Edwin's in right now is apparently close enough to living that he can't see Charles, which Charles is telling himself he's fine with because this is a great opportunity for his best friend.

"I think we've got to do something about his hair, too," Crystal says, her voice louder so that Niko can hear it.

"Please," Edwin says through gritted teeth, "do not touch my head."

Niko steps back to survey her work. "We can put the hood up, if we really need to."

She's not wrong. Edwin's skinny as a beanpole but way taller than Crystal, so the hoodie at least covers everything and doesn't seem to be cutting off any circulation. It fits a little odd across the chest and ends probably an inch or two higher than it's supposed to, but it's close enough to normal that passers-by will probably assume Edwin just has weird taste. They'd had to snip the elastic of the ankle hems of Niko's Grey Wake Academy sweatpants so that it wouldn't be as obvious that they're not nearly long enough, but luckily the waistband was drawstring.

"Has Charles gone to get the books yet?" Edwin says, his eyes scanning the room.

That's the weirdest part of this whole thing. Charles is so used to Edwin knowing where he is, what he's doing, what he's handing him, how he's feeling, what he's thinking – they've been basically inseparable for thirty sleepless years, and now Edwin is here but Charles is somehow...absent from him, almost.

"Tell him not yet," Charles says.

"He says not yet," Crystal says dutifully, and mutters, "Man, I forgot how annoying this was."

"When he does," Edwin says, "ask him to bring The Key of Solomon. The Mathers translation, not the Skinner and Rankine."

"Oi, I can hear you!" Charles protests.

"Yeah, but he can't hear you," Crystal reminds him.

"Is he saying something?" Edwin asks, his entire body turning into purpose as he looks around uselessly.

Crystal groans, putting her head in her hands.

"He says he can hear you," Niko chimes in.

"Yes, I know that," Edwin says, frowning slightly.

"Then why did you tell them to tell me?" Charles demands.

"He wants to know why you told us to tell him," Niko says.

"I," Edwin says, and stops, blinking. "I suppose I did, didn't I."

Now this is a mood Charles can read even without eye contact. From the set of Edwin's shoulders to the tightness in his jaw, everything about him radiates irritation and displeasure. Admittedly, when Edwin's avoided eye contact before, it's usually been because something's wrong – like the rare occasions Edwin's been forced to admit he doesn't know something, or the jealousy when Crystal joined them – and although Charles knows that Edwin literally can't see him to make eye contact right now, part of his brain is convinced that that's what's going on.

Also, Edwin's stomach suddenly growls. He stares down at it with shock.

"Oh, now we're talking," Charles says, rubbing his hands together gleefully. "There is a curry shop here in Port Townsend, right? Somewhere?"

"Did that just – " Edwin begins, still glaring at his own abdomen.

"You're hungry," Niko tells him. "Charles is pretty insistent on getting you some Indian food. Is that okay?"

"...right," Edwin says, putting a hand over his stomach. He takes a deep, bracing breath. "I had forgotten it would do that."

"That it would growl, or that it would get hungry?" Crystal asks blandly.

"That it would be so..." Edwin presses his lips together, fluttering his fingers over his torso. "Visceral."

"Hmm," Crystal says, frowning. "Edwin, have you ever had Indian food before? Or anything spicy, for that matter? I don't want to stereotype about British food, but did you eat anything other than, like, Yorkshire pudding and spotted dick? Because if the answer is 'no,' then visceral is what it's going to be in about twelve hours if the first thing you eat in a hundred years is Indian food for the first time."

"Hey!" Charles says. "This is you not stereotyping? Just get him a tikka masala, that's not spicy at all."

"It's not the spice level," Crystal retorts, "it's flavor. I'm worried that the presence of anything other than salt and pepper will burn his mouth off. I mean, what is he going to do with food that wasn't boiled?"

"There's that ramen place," Niko suggests. "That's what I always have when I'm sick, and it'll help keep him hydrated, too."

"Oh, shit," Crystal says. "Edwin, have you had any water since you got..." She wrinkles her nose. "Bodied? Is that what we'll call it?"

Edwin stares at her, and, uh-oh, that's his completely-overwhelmed-and-out-of-his-depth look. Charles has seen it only a couple times, on their toughest cases and also the Great Chewing Gum Debacle of '06.

"Yeah, get him some water, he could probably use it," Charles says, because, well, it can't hurt.

"Why do I have to get him water?" Crystal hisses at him.

"I'll get it," Niko says, and slips over to the kitchenette.

"You said it!" Charles retorts.

"Could I have a word with Charles?" Edwin says abruptly – and loudly. "Privately?"

"Uh," Charles says, frowning. "Ask him how he wants to do that?"

Crystal closes her eyes in frustration, but opens them again and says, "Charles wants to know how you want to do that."

"In our office," Edwin says, looking like he just sucked on a lemon, "in the closet, there is a..." He fully grimaces now. "A Ouija board."

"You hate that Ouija board!" Charles says, a little delighted, because he's the reason they have it. He always knew it would come in handy someday, and, well, this isn't how he thought it would go, but he'll keep this in his back pocket for years for every time Edwin gets insufferable.

"It's far from ideal," Edwin continues, "but if it's quite the same to you, I would appreciate the opportunity to speak with him."

Niko comes back with a glass of water, and says, "You could always have him write stuff down?"

Charles snorts. "Yeah, I don't think that's gonna fly."

"Spoken," Edwin says delicately, "like someone who has never seen the chicken scratch that Charles considers penmanship."

"Hey, it's not my fault they don't teach calligraphy anymore."

Crystal, now rubbing her temples, says, "Charles, maybe just go get the Ouija board so we can stop repeating everything you say like the world's dumbest improv exercise?"

"I had forgotten," Edwin murmurs to the glass of water in his hands, "that improvisational comedy existed outside the sixth circle of Hell."

That gets stares out of Crystal and Niko for as long as Charles can hold back his laugh, which admittedly isn't long.

"He's messing with you," he tells them. "We had to exorcise a comedy club one time. It's a long story."

"He has ruined my joke, hasn't he," Edwin says sourly.

Crystal gives Charles a flat look. "Just go get the fucking Ouija board."

So Charles does.

He takes a second for himself in the office, though. He's not used to being here without Edwin, even if only with most of Edwin except one hand. But planes are a thing – they get around just fine with Crystal and Niko, after all, so it would be no hardship if Edwin...

It's just so fucking unfair sometimes. Not just the all of it of it all, but Charles has known Edwin long enough to know that there are some topics Edwin won't touch, and those are the ones that hurt like hell. Charles knows basically nothing about when Edwin was alive except the circumstances of his death, which was at sixteen. That's just too young. At least Charles got to kiss people and go to dances and dress up exactly how he wanted to. What a sepia-tinted misery Edwin's life must've been.

So Charles takes his time in the office, gathering up the books – including, yes, The Key of Solomon, the Mathers translation - and the Ouija board. They spent so much of their afterlives in this office, and Charles still doesn't know what it feels like, not really. He doesn't know the texture of the couch's upholstery or whether it smells. There are some days he'd do just about anything to get those senses back.

And he'd be a fucking selfish bastard if he kept them from his best friend.

By the time he goes back through the mirror, a whole meal is arrayed on the ironing board: small trays of sushi rolls, a greased-paper bag of tempura, plastic pint containers of noodles and broth.

"Just start with the soup," Niko is telling Edwin, who doesn't react even as Charles steps through the mirror.

"Curry," Charles says, despondent.

"We're starting with soup," Crystal says, rolling her eyes. "I got outvoted."

Edwin's body tightens like a dog on alert for a thrown ball. "Is Charles back?"

"Right here, mate," Charles says.

"Oh my god, he still can't hear you," Crystal moans, putting down her chopsticks to more efficiently place her head in her hands.

"Yes, he's back," Niko tells Edwin, and then says to Charles, "Edwin's doing really well remembering how to eat after a century of, you know. Not eating."

"Oh, shit," Charles says, dropping the bag-of-tricks backpack next to the empty chair and plopping himself in it. "I completely forgot that bit."

Edwin drops his plastic spoon into his bowl of soup. Since it's plastic, it doesn't make the dramatic plonk that Edwin no doubt hoped it would. "Charles? To Niko's room, perhaps?"

"Okay, you do have to eat, though," Crystal points out.

"I can..." Edwin's lip curls in disgust as he finishes, "eat when we return."

Edwin may have forgotten how to eat, but apparently his manners are even more deeply ingrained because he pats his lips with a napkin and crisply folds it beside his bowl before standing.

"Well," Charles says, as Edwin strides towards the door, "I guess we'll be right – "

A solid thunk reverberates through the room as Edwin walks into the door.

"Holy shit, are you all right?" Charles demands, rushing to Edwin's side. Edwin clasps his knee, jaw tight, and Charles realizes that Edwin's precise Edwardian posture probably led him knee-first into the door and saved him from a concussion.

"Are you okay?" Crystal says, rushing to Edwin's other side followed closely by Niko, who had had the disadvantage of sitting on the far end of the ironing board.

"Fine," Edwin says tightly, and Charles remembers, yet again, that Edwin can't hear him.

Edwin wrenches the doorknob and keeps going.

"Jesus," Crystal mutters, and gives Charles a friendly slap on the back. "Well, good luck with that."

Edwin is already setting out the Ouija board when Charles walks through the door. It isn't an expensive one, but nor is it the cheapest: neither cardboard nor inlay but printed wood, with a wooden planchette set with an actual glass lens. It had been cursed for a while, before Charles and Edwin had gotten to it; now it's just tacky.

When it's ready, Edwin sets his fingertips on the planchette and, with his mouth set in just the pissiest little line, says, "Charles? Are you with me?"

Charles bites down on a smile but sits down across from Edwin and puts his hands on the planchette, too, moving it onto the

Yes

Edwin sighs again, this time with relief, and manages to drop some tension from his shoulders without losing even a bit of his posture.

Charles lets the grin out, now, and moves the planchette again, to one letter and then another.

H-I

"Hello to you too," Edwin says. His eyes cast around the room, right through Charles. "I wish I could see you," Edwin admits. "I know you're here, obviously, but – I would prefer if I could see you."

The planchette slides smoothly across the varnished wood.

S-A-M-E

"Are you all right?" Edwin asks.

"Are you all right, he asks," Charles mutters, shaking his head. "When he's the one who got all magicked..."

F-I-N-E

Then, after a moment's hesitation, he adds,

Y-O-U

There's no question mark, which feels like an oversight now, and for a second Charles contemplates spelling out the words question mark, but his spelling is atrocious and –

And Edwin doesn't need it, because Edwin knows exactly what Charles means, just like he always does. "I," he says gravely, "am holding up as well as can be expected. I'll need the books from you, of course. The key point is finding a way to revert me to my ghostly form without alerting Death. There are some spells we can use to ascertain whether this form is a life-mimicking construct, technically undead, or fully living again – "

The scrape of wood on wood stops him as Charles moves the planchette, repeating

Y-O-U

"You can be bloody transparent when you're changing the subject," Charles mutters, and remembers, once again, that Edwin can't hear him.

Edwin clears his throat, glancing away from the board. His fingers, lingering on the planchette, are trembling ever so slightly; the motion transfers through the wood and manifests in Charles's own hands, to the extent he can feel them.

"I don't know what to say," Edwin says eventually, quietly. "It is...overwhelming."

There's so much going on in that head of his, Charles can tell. But he hasn't got a fucking clue what any of it is. If he could talk – like, really talk, talk at the speed of his own voice and not how fast he can spell shit out on a Ouija board – he'd be able to wheedle more information out of Edwin, but, well. He can't, can he.

Which is, Charles reminds himself, good, because Edwin is alive again, possibly. And Edwin can't see Charles, meaning Charles can't plant his hands on Edwin's shoulders so Edwin will understand what he means when he says the next thing he's going to say – can't make sure there's absolutely no way Edwin will think this is a rejection of some kind, but there's no getting around it.

So after a long moment's hesitation, Charles moves the planchette again.

L-I-V-E

Edwin rolls his eyes. "Yes, Charles. It had not escaped my notice that I am, indeed, currently among the living, in at least some colloquial senses of the word."

Even though he knows Edwin won't see it, Charles gives him a bit of a glare.

No

"I know that," Edwin says, with light irritation. "But we must first discern whether once again rendering me incorporeal will attract Death's attention. We're already under more scrutiny than I would like – "

Charles shakes the planchette, and Edwin frowns.

"What, then?"

Charles repeats:

L-I-V-E

And he watches Edwin's face. He can see the moment Edwin understands, as his shoulders slump a tiny bit. Edwin looks around the empty room again.

"Are you telling me," he says, his voice heavy, "that you think I ought to live?"

Charles lets out a breath. He hadn't realized he'd been holding it, especially since it doesn't really do anything for ghosts anyway. He takes a moment to let his eyes close; lets himself inhabit this, the moment that he trades away the best thing that ever happened to him so that an even better thing can happen to Edwin.

Then he shifts the planchette.

Yes

Edwin stares at the planchette sitting on the yes answer. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows, and Charles tries not to notice that the rims of his eyes are going red and shiny.

"I fear we might need an interpreter for this particular conversation," Edwin says quietly.

Charles lets out an "Ugh!" and moves the planchette again.

No

He shakes it a few times for emphasis.

"How do you expect me to speak to you about this when I can't even see your face?" Edwin asks, but his exasperation is mixed with something more desperate. He takes his hands away from the planchette entirely, which Charles knows Edwin knows won't make a lick of difference. "If – if you see this as an opportunity of some sort, or being in the Detective Agency has become distasteful to you – "

"Oh, fuck off," Charles mutters, shaking the planchette over the no with even more vehemence.

"Then," Edwin begins, but his voice cracks. He swallows and tries again. "Then why?"

Admittedly, with complex ideas and longer words like this, Charles can understand why Edwin might not want to do this through the Ouija board. But he grits his teeth and gets on with it.

D-E-S-E-R-V-E

"You think it's what I deserve?" Edwin says, his tone so light that no emotion comes through it, so just in case Edwin doesn't get it, he keeps going.

L-I-F-E

And for good measure,

G-O-O-D

"You think I deserve to live, because I deserve good things," Edwin repeats, still in that way that's halfway between colorless and completely strangled.

But Charles shoves the planchette anyway.

Yes

"Hm," Edwin says, barely a moment's hum. He's staring right at the Ouija board, not even trying to guess where Charles might be sitting. He takes a deep breath. "I...appreciate, Charles, that you want what you think is best for me. Truly, I do. And appreciate not only in the sense that I understand that that is what you're trying to do, but I am gratified for it. But – perhaps it's for the best that I can't see you right now." Another breath, this one shakier. "I'm not sure you've ever misunderstood me more thoroughly."

"Oh, come on!" Charles yells, his hands coming off the planchette to grab at the air. "Come on, Edwin, you've got to be fucking kidding me, you have a second chance at life and a bunch of friends, living and dead, who can support you through it! It doesn't have to be the shitshow it was the first time around, you can – you can eat curries and kebabs and go out for a pint and get laid, you can do it all! That's what you deserve, mate, you deserve every last fucking good thing there is, and it's being served up to you on a platter and you're seriously counting down the minutes until you can throw it away?"

Charles stares at Edwin, breathing heavily. One corner of Edwin's mouth tugs inward in a rueful half-frown as the seconds tick by.

Eventually Edwin looks around the room and says, gently and plaintively, "Charles, I cannot hear you."

"Fuck," Charles mutters letting his head drop into his hands. After a second he scrubs his face and grabs the planchette.

2-N-D-C-H-A-N-C-E

"It isn't, though," Edwin says, his voice still quiet. "What has happened to me will always have happened, whether I'm alive in its aftermath or not. I genuinely regret that – that I was the one to become corporeal and not you."

"God, shut up," Charles groans, prodding the planchette once again.

No

"Yes," Edwin counters instantly. "I know that you value the experiences you had while you were alive. And," he adds, his eyebrows flicking the way they do when he's about to get a bit saucy, "over the years I have heard you speak, at length, about how much you miss spaghetti."

Charles shoves his face in his hands and mutters, because he doesn't really know what else to say, "It's just so good."

"However. The last few decades since I escaped from Hell have been a welcome respite from..." Edwin shakes his head a little, trying to find a word, and based on the little wrinkle to his nose as he continues he doesn't find it. "From decades of endless physical pain, frankly."

"But you're a - " Charles cuts himself off as the nauseous realization creeps into his stomach.

Because Edwin couldn't have been a ghost in Hell, could he? Physical torture would mean next to nothing to a ghost, so of course Edwin must have had a physical body – all the sensation returned to him so he could feel every last creative agony. Everything Edwin told him about Hell was background – layout, threats, thirdhand anecdotes, and Charles had absolutely noticed that Edwin never told any stories that began with the word "I." And frankly the descriptions had been awful enough, but of course they'd add pain to that, wouldn't they? Seeing as it was Hell.

And Charles has even seen some of the aftermath. Not in physical scars, but the ease with which Edwin holds iron, the inattention he gives to the rare occasions he suffers a magical injury, the distinct lack of concern for his own ability to defend himself. There are plenty of things that will startle or even scare Edwin, but he's never been afraid of hurting. Edwin must have had a body in Hell, and Charles can barely scrape the surface of the terrible things that must have happened to it.

And he knows, or he should know, after what they've been through and what they've seen, but somehow it just didn't...click.

"You noticed, once," Edwin continues, bringing his fists in front of his stomach and pressing them against each other, knuckle to knuckle. What little color there was in his face has gone. "This little gesture that I do. I find it...comforting, as a ghost. A reminder that all I feel is a vague sense of pressure. But now – " His voice cracks again, and he draws in a wet breath. Charles can see his shoulders flex as he presses harder, his knuckles going white. "Now I feel the contour of each knuckle bone pressing in. I feel the heat of my own skin. I even feel the muscles in my arms as they provide the force to press, and I feel the – the slight breeze of the air against my skin as I move and I hate it, Charles, because each sensation is a reminder of what could await me at any moment."

Charles tries to interrupt. "I told you, you're never, ever going back there – "

"No reprieve will ever feel permanent enough, no pardon final enough, to change the way my skin crawls every moment I can feel it," Edwin continues, oblivious. "I was there longer than you have existed, alive and dead combined, and no number of additional heartbeats will erase that.

"And I am glad," he says, with such sudden vehemence that Charles jumps a bit, "to have had today. The – the soup and the sushi and the soft sweaters – "

"Sweatshirts," Charles corrects in a thoughtless mumble, too entranced by Edwin's point to even notice he's doing it.

" – because, frankly, the idea of physical sensations being pleasant, or even all right, has become entirely foreign to me." Edwin presses his lips together, casting a watery gaze once more across the room. "This has been an unexpected gift, and it's thanks to you and Niko and Crystal that I have been able to extract any enjoyment whatsoever, let alone as much as I have." He shakes his head slowly. "But I cannot live like this. Not when I know that there is an alternative. An alternative that I am proud of, that I – " His expression lands somewhere between a helpless grimace and a helpless smile. "That I love."

He waits for a moment, and then ventures, "Charles? Are you still here?"

For a second – just long enough to remind him that he's a right bastard sometimes – Charles considers pretending he's not. He considers just waiting and seeing what Edwin will say when he thinks he's alone. To get that one extra bit of insight into Edwin's head, into what makes him tick, or at least put off actually having to deal with this situation for another two seconds –

But instead Charles swipes at his cheeks and flicks at the planchette, causing it to shake over the Yes.

Edwin lets out a breath and a relieved smile. "And you, Charles," he says, his voice stronger. "You are the best friend I have ever, ever had. I know that, to you, it feels like I'm making a choice between life again or death again. But we both know that death is no ending. I have no intention of ceasing to exist, and given a choice of existence with you or without – that simply isn't a choice. It is you. It will always be you."

"Yeah," Charles whispers. "You too, mate."

"I – " Edwin says, and stops. "With all that said, could I...make a request of you?"

Charles nods, and remembers yet again that Edwin can't see him. So he turns to the Ouija board and takes the time to spell out his answer, so Edwin knows he really means it.

A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G

Edwin nods, taking this in, and then takes another moment to compose his thoughts. "This may be...odd," he says, a little haltingly, "but we've known each other for so long, yet I don't..." He casts another look around the room, through Charles. "Would you hold my hand? Just for a moment?"

"Jesus, of course," Charles says, holding his own hand out. Edwin doesn't move, and after a second Charles rolls his eyes, reaching out to tap Edwin's elbow lightly.

"Oh – yes," Edwin says, providing his own hand.

Charles takes it. He feels it as much as he ever feels anything as a ghost, which is to say a vague sense of pressure and the memory of warmth. He puts his palm to Edwin's, letting his fingers curl around the blade of Edwin's hand, and squeezes for good measure.

Edwin huffs out a wonderstruck laugh, lifting their hands. His eyes are wide and wet as he surveys their hands – no, his hand, Charles suddenly realizes, only his own hand, because Edwin can't see him.

"It's soft," Edwin says quietly, with such affection that Charles can't imagine a higher compliment.

There's a lot Charles wants to say, all at once, about how he's here and Edwin is here and nothing else matters, how this moment can stretch from one end of the horizon to the other and be the whole of existence for all he cares, how he's going to keep this memory and use it to replace food, replace water, replace oxygen, because certainly the stuff on which ghosts subside is this: knowing that his hand and Edwin's have met, and that Edwin has found him soft enough.

He wants to say it but the words are crowding each other out, and at any rate Edwin wouldn't be able to hear it, so instead Charles tugs on their clasped hands. He knees the Ouija board out of the way, watching confusion bloom on Edwin's face until Charles's other hand touches his upper arm, and then Edwin pulls on Charles's hand right back. Charles leans into the hug, skimming his hand around Edwin's shoulder and across his back until he can pull Edwin close, their hands trapped between their chests, and Charles is practically in Edwin's lap, his own knees shoved to one side, but he doesn't care.

Neither does Edwin, from the way Edwin's forearm clamps across the nape of Charles's neck. Edwin even rests his head against Charles's shoulder, and Charles wishes he could feel, proper feel, Edwin's breath against him, just once. There's something about breathing, Charles realizes, that he underestimated his whole life, and the shushing of Edwin's breath sounds like a reminder that Edwin is real, real, real.

Obviously Edwin was real before, but a part of Charles maybe sort of thought of him as a person who sprang into existence whole-cloth, the ageless, confident, prickly ghost who knows everything. (Edwin doesn't know everything, obviously, but the few times early on that it became really obvious, Edwin just about lost it; Charles doesn't think Edwin knows that Charles knows, though. Edwin didn't see the desperate terror in his own eyes, blotting out Edwin himself and giving Charles the slightest glimpse of what seventy years in Hell might do to a person, so Charles just played dumb and reassured Edwin and eventually Edwin got better at dealing with uncertainty like a person. Well – mostly better.)

The Edwin that's in Charles's arms now is breathing. He has a pulse. He has skin and muscles and sinew, veins and blood and bones. This is an Edwin who grew, who was a child once, who ran in the grass and slept beneath blankets and had opinions about tea and brushed his teeth. (Did teeth-brushing exist back then? Charles never asked.) Edwin is a stark reminder, given that they've been basically inseparable for thirty years, that he is a full person even when Charles isn't there to observe him, an illustration colored in right to the lines and maybe a bit beyond.

God, what a brilliant thing Edwin Payne is. And how lucky Charles is to have met him.

Eventually Edwin disentangles his hand from Charles's, still pinned between them, and Charles begins to lean back to release him. But Edwin just flings his now-free arm around Charles's waist to hold him tighter. Charles follows his lead, grasping him right back.

"Thank you, Charles," Edwin murmurs, his voice thick. "Thank you so much, for everything."

"Could say the same, couldn't I," Charles mutters, giving Edwin a squeeze, and they stay like that until Edwin, voice creaky, breaks the silence.

"Can I try curry tonight?"

iii. the case of the day that never was

Edwin has grown used to many indications that Crystal and Niko have begun their days, but this morning, as he and Charles sit in Crystal's room (reading and reorganizing the bag-of-tricks backpack respectively), he finds himself surprised by novelty as Crystal sits bolt upright and shouts, with great passion, "Fuck!"

Edwin nearly drops his book. Charles does drop the jar of bees in his hands, although only into his lap, leaving it blissfully unshattered.

"Crystal?" Charles says immediately, going to her bedside with Edwin close on his heels. "Crystal, is everything okay? What – "

The door to Crystal's room slams open. Niko stands there, disheveled and in her pyjamas, bracing herself against the doorframe as though she intends to break into a sprint at any moment.

"We," Niko wails, "were so close!"

"Niko," Edwin says, and hesitates only for a moment. Charles clearly is seeing to Crystal, so Edwin instead makes for Niko. "What on Earth is – "

"God damn it!" Crystal says, shoving her face in her hands. "God fucking damn it!"

"Will you tell us what is – " Edwin begins, but shuts his mouth abruptly when Niko glares at him.

When Niko glares at him.

It is quite an articulate glare. It contains not only fury, and that in abundance, but despair and betrayal and no small amount of incredulity. Altogether, it is an arrangement of her features, and her emotions, that shocks Edwin into silence.

"Niko," Crystal snaps, a warning lilt to her voice, and Niko closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and schools her expression to neutrality.

Edwin, as a matter of course, does not panic. He thinks, and he strategizes, and he consults his books when necessary, and he always - always - reaches a satisfactory closure. Admittedly, this occasionally requires recalibrating one's definition of "satisfactory," but after seventy years in Hell Edwin discovered that there is really quite a lot that he can tolerate.

Niko glaring at him is so unexpected that, for a moment, it is absolutely panic that flares in him.

He hardly knows what to do with it; although he is certainly accustomed to the predictable consequences of his generally off putting nature, Niko has so far proven to be immune to him, much the way Charles is. So the fact of the glare at all is disconcerting, but, additionally, that it came on so suddenly -

"We're stuck in a time loop," Niko says, derailing Edwin's internal escalation.

"A – " Edwin begins, but Crystal interrupts.

"Not like some people or ghosts are stuck doing the same thing over and over again," she says, "but, like, one-hundred-percent genuine, Groundhog Day, the day is literally repeating time loop."

Niko points at Edwin, which at least is emotionally neutral. "It's not Stone Tape Theory, psychometry, sympathetic magic – "

" – prophetic visions," Crystal continues, "false memories, memory alteration, or any kind of persistent delusion. I cannot stress this enough: it's a time loop."

In Edwin's peripheral vision, he sees Charles open his mouth, but now Crystal is pointing as well.

"You want proof," she informs Charles, although that is hardly an unexpected response. "Sure thing. You," she says, rounding on Edwin as she pulls herself out of her bed, "told us that, and I quote, putting aside matters of life and death, the greatest injustice you've seen in the modern age is that Hercule Poirot is worshiped while Carrados the blind detective is forgotten."

"I was not the one who asked for proof!" Edwin protests, the unexpected accuracy of her statement causing panic to ripple through him once more.

"No," Crystal agrees, "but you never do because you just start gathering it, and if we don't convince you ASAP then you fixate on the idea that it's prophetic visions or folie a deux or some other unhelpful shit and, by the way, did I mention that you realized one loop that your first crush was on Sir Percy Blakeney from the Scarlet Pimpernel?"

Charles muffles a snort as Edwin gapes.

"And you, Charles," Niko says, "you just lied to us! Flat-out lied! Every time! You said the right lies would be more convincing than the truth and then said you met Princess Diana one time."

"And you definitely," Crystal adds, "weren't an extra in the Tim Burton Batman."

"And you don't know five different styles of sword fighting," Niko finishes.

"But – " Edwin begins, although his mind is still caught, just slightly, on Sir Percy Blakeney. Certainly he had read and reread those stories tirelessly, and imagined what it would be like to be part of Sir Percy's merry band, and had perhaps thought about him while attempting to fall asleep on difficult nights, letting Sir Percy's charm and devotion and intelligence serve as a balm to his soul, but just because he still has the intensely vivid memory of how his breath caught the first time he read the scene where Sir Percy kisses each of Marguerite's footfalls in the snow doesn't mean he has a crush -

"Oh, do you need another?" Crystal asks, one eyebrow raised. "You think Charles's ears are shaped weird."

"Wait, what?" Charles says, suddenly affronted.

"Not bad-weird," Niko assures him, "just weird-weird. 'Cause they're kind of pointy, but they're flat on top, so they almost point back?" She makes some complex gesture with both hands simultaneously by her ears. In and of itself it elucidates nothing, but Edwin knows precisely what she means, because it is indeed his thought.

"Oh no," he breathes. "We're in a time loop."

"One down, one to go," Crystal says, rubbing her hands together. "Charles, c'mere."

"I didn't say anything!" Charles protests. "I believe you!"

"You mostly believe us," Niko corrects him. "You eighty-percent believe us. But you have to absolutely, completely, no-buts-about-it believe us if we want any chance of getting out of this thing."

Crystal crooks a finger, beckoning him closer.

"You're not just gonna...say this one?" Charles asks, looking a bit nervous.

"If you both hear it, you're useless for the rest of the loop," Crystal says, and leans over to cup her hand around his ear.

As she whispers, Edwin glances at Niko. Niko is not looking at him. Niko is in fact looking, in the most suspiciously nonchalant way possible, in the exact opposite direction of him.

"Niko – " Edwin begins, but is interrupted by Charles jerking away from Crystal with a stare.

"Yep," Crystal tells him with a shrug. "That's what you said."

"What?" Edwin says, looking between the two of them. "What did she say?"

"Uh," Charles says, and Edwin instantly knows whatever was said was something about Edwin himself from the way he blinks. "It doesn't – never mind. Don't worry about it. It's not important, just – caught me off guard, yeah?"

Edwin tries not to let his displeasure show in his expression, but based on Charles's sheepish glance away, he does not succeed.

"So now," Niko breaks in, "Charles and Crystal go shopping for spell components to separate the ghost from the doll – "

Edwin goes cold. "Doll?"

"Oh, God, we almost skipped that part," Crystal mutters, rubbing her face. "Yeah, there's a haunted doll."

"It's not a baby doll," Niko says quickly, and her glance almost reaches Edwin. Almost.

"It's..." Crystal sighs. "Okay, so it's like a racist doll? Like, full minstrel, and it's possessed by the ghost of the whitest Karen you can imagine."

"We think the day is restarting," Niko chimes in, "because the garage sale – that's like a rummage sale – " she adds, once again looking towards but not at Edwin – "is being held by her granddaughter, who's getting rid of stuff to move in her with black boyfriend."

"So," Charles says slowly, parsing this, "it's not that the doll itself is racist, but the ghost is racist?"

"No, the doll is also racist," Niko assures him.

"I had to look it up on Wikipedia because I'd never heard of it," Crystal adds, and gives Edwin a thin-lipped mean-spirited smile. "But apparently it's a thing in Japan, and also, Edwin had? It's called a Golliwog."

Ah.

The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwog was quite a popular book for children when Edwin was young. It was also, he can now recognize, exceedingly racist. And, yes, Edwin had been educated at a public school in the height of the British Empire, surrounded by Sir Francis Galton's books on eugenics and racial hygiene. However, Edwin then spent seventy years in Hell, and while he now has a better understanding of the requirements for ending up in Hell (i.e. one must, in fact, believe in it, at least on some level), he nevertheless found himself surrounded by the very breeding Galton insisted should result in moral rectitude and intellectual vigor.

And, of course, that same breeding had produced five youths who had inadvertently sacrificed Edwin to a demon.

Charles had also helped explain quite a bit, later on. The first occupants of his bag-of-tricks backpack had been an entire set of encyclopedias, which they had specifically traveled back to St. Hilarion's to purloin in a fit of teenage pique. Edwin had read through them religiously, asking Charles for clarification when needed – and Charles had, of course, provided additional context regarding the latest pastime among St. Hilarion's students at the time of Charles's death: so-called "Paki-bashing."

And yet Edwin has not thought of the Golliwog for – well, for over a century. The memory remains clear, with the same preserved-in-amber changelessness of all his memories from life, as if his ability to forget had died with him. The Golliwog's caricature was so commonplace in Edwin's time that it had hardly registered to him, painted as it was even on jam jars: the black skin so dark the illustrations frequently rendered it in blue, the ridiculous red lips, the minstrel-show coat and tails.

"Oh," Edwin says faintly, and grimaces. "Yes, that is...quite racist."

"From what we've been able to figure out," Crystal continues, "that's why the Karen-ghost – "

"Her name is actually Betty," Niko adds.

" – but fuck her, she's a Karen at heart. That's why she had the doll – it was a family heirloom, apparently, and when she was dying she made a deal with a demon – "

"There is a demon?" Edwin bursts out.

" – to keep her soul in the doll so she could watch over the purity of her family," Crystal continues, undeterred. "And now her granddaughter's selling the doll to move in with a black guy and the ghost is flipping her shit, which is probably why she's repeating the day. Yes, Edwin, there's a demon."

Niko silently raises one fist and extends her index finger.

"There's also the ghost," Crystal says, and Niko raises her middle finger, "and the doll." Niko holds up three fingers, and helpfully taps each fingertip with her other hand to emphasize the point. "We have to deal with all three to break the loop. The demon has to be expelled from its host, the ghost has to pass on, and the cursed doll has to be burned. Two out of three won't cut it, and close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades."

"What?" Edwin says, more to give voice to his astonishment and bafflement than to functionally pose any question.

"So what we do now," Niko says, neatly cutting in, "is Charles and Crystal go to Tragic Mick's to get what we need for a spell to separate the ghost from the doll in case we don't get a chance to burn the doll first. Edwin and I," she says, still not looking at Edwin, "stay here and draw about a million small warding runes to put in strategic locations, so that we can funnel the demon through the back door of the butcher shop, where we'll put the exorcism rune circle."

Edwin is not unfamiliar with investigations such as this unraveling at a lightning pace. However, it is much more usual for him to be the one speeding along with Charles – and now Crystal and Niko – in his wake, and with the roles reversed he finds himself having difficulty keeping up. He is usually the one winnowing down options, not having pre-winnowed options presented to him with no choice in the matter.

So Charles and Crystal go to Tragic Mick's, while Niko removes a stack of blank paper from her printer, hands Edwin a marker, and provides him with an example warding rune. It is vaguely familiar to Edwin, and so it was likely one of his contributions from an earlier loop, but there is no way for Edwin to know for certain and the not-knowing runs beneath his unfeeling skin like a phalanx of ants.

"And," Edwin ventures, three runes in, because he's unable to help himself, "are we absolutely sure that these runs will be effective?"

Niko slaps another copy of the rune on top of the combined stack she and Edwin are contributing to. "They have every other loop we've used them," she says. Her voice carries an edge that Edwin has heard before, but never directed at him: it invites no further conversation.

"Understood," Edwin says, but can only manage to stay silent for four more runes. "How many...loops...have you been through?"

Niko presses her marker down on the paper before her hard enough that when she moves it to the stack of completed runes, echoes of it have blotted onto the paper below. She lets out a noise of frustration, setting the besmirched paper aside. "We stopped counting."

Edwin swallows hard, staring at Niko's stack. How many loops would it take for Niko and Crystal to stop counting? Ten seems manageable, as does twenty – few enough to be able to differentiate them. Surely by thirty events would begin to blur, but 'stopping counting' isn't quite so straightforward as it might seem. The memory of what was counted lingers for a few more loops, an easy way to catalog and get to the correct number even if one is no longer counting, per se; one might not think to oneself that this is one's thirty-third time being killed by a demon, for instance, but the knowledge of having stopped counting three deaths ago is close at hand.

To pick a hypothetical.

"Edwin?" Niko says, and Edwin forcibly returns his attention to her, realizing that his marker has remained hovering above his own paper as he has thought. She is looking at him now, at least, although there remains something wary in her gaze, as though she isn't confident of what he will do.

"This must be very difficult," Edwin says, because it's all he can think of to say. "The looping."

Niko looks away and shrugs. "I guess the last one was – hard," she allows.

"What happened?" Edwin asks.

With a small shake of her head, Niko collects herself. "It doesn't matter."

"It doesn't?"

Niko steadies herself with a deep sigh. "Look," she says, and looks Edwin straight in the eye. "Crystal and I agreed early on, like loop number five tops, that we were only going to use what we know from previous loops to try to break the loop, unless we're specifically told otherwise. It's not fair to you, you know? Because you don't know what the previous-you did or said, and also it technically never happened, so you kind of aren't even really that person. That person never really existed. So we're not holding previous loops against you."

"Oh," Edwin says, blinking. After a moment of contemplating the best phrasing, he ventures, gently, "And you think you are...doing that? Successfully?"

The marker pauses halfway through a rune, black ink spreading from it like darkness emanating from a snuffed-out lantern. "There are some things you guys told us because you knew you wouldn't have to remember it," she says, and it does not escape Edwin that that is not an answer to his question.

But Niko knows him too well, and he cannot help but ask, "Like what?"

"You told me about your family," Niko says.

Edwin's breath – such as it is – catches in his throat. He knows that Charles thinks his family life, while he was living, was at best cold and at worst neglectful and that that is why Edwin has never spoken of his family. The truth is much less dramatic: Edwin wants very deeply to share his memories of his family because they are, by and large, happy ones. They are so happy, in fact, that he cannot speak or even think of them without becoming a driveling, tearful mess. Even the vaguest remembrances of his mother, his father, his brothers and his sisters make something clench in the incorporeal space where his heart should be.

And Edwin has, in point of fact, attempted to tell Charles before. Charles does not know this, because each time he tried, Edwin's throat knotted so tightly with grief that he became literally unable to speak.

"You said," Niko continues, her voice gentling into something genuine, "that you liked the idea of someone else knowing about them. That it would – how did you put it? Bring the memory of them into the present."

"That – " Edwin's voice wavers, and he clears his throat. Niko is blatantly changing the subject, and he knows that she is blatantly changing the subject, and, seeing as she has more than two brain cells to rub together, she surely knows that he knows, but nevertheless – "That does sound appealing, yes."

"We don't have to talk about it," Niko adds. "I just wanted you to know that I know."

Eventually Edwin manages to say, "Thank you."

They make it through several pages of runes before Edwin is able to speak again.

"May I ask what a...typical loop consists of?"

Niko's gaze flashes towards him, sharp with suspicion. "Why?"

He blinks. "Because I want to know what to expect?" he says. Which is true, if a bit of an understatement.

With a sigh, Niko relents. "It starts with us waking up, obviously. Crystal first, and she usually comes to wake me up, although a couple times she's let me sleep. We've taken a few loops off, just for mental health. But it's not like it makes much of a difference, though, because as soon as I wake up I know about the loop and it's like, boom! Adrenaline. The first time through, the mail came, and then again the second and third times, but then weirdly it stopped? And the ghost mailman seemed to know we were in the loop? It was weird."

"Wait," Edwin says, frowning. "The postman was aware of the loop?"

"He was really cryptic, but pretty definitely, yeah. And he brought us a flyer for the garage sale – that's American," she adds confidingly, "for 'rummage sale.'"

She specified it earlier, but no doubt the middle of a time loop is not the easiest time to remember what she has or has not already done. Besides, it's oddly touching that, even though it obviously was a point of clarification in at least one of the previous loops, Niko takes the time to translate it for him.

"That's where we found the doll," Niko continues. "Or, I guess, where the doll found us. It didn't like us. Probably because it's racist and we're, you know."

"But..." Edwin tries to think of a way to phrase his point delicately. "The ghost ought to have been able to see Charles as well, and yet – "

Niko puts her hands to her cheeks. "Oh my god, okay, we've talked about this a lot, like a lot, because it doesn't make sense, right? But we think Crystal and I avoided the loop by being alive and being in the middle of stuff when the loop started, not because of the racism thing. Because, like, we're not the target of the loop? We're just caught in it. Betty is trying to keep her granddaughter from moving in with her Black boyfriend. That's the point of the loop. And, like, the first couple times, she tried to do it by pitching just a huge hissyfit at the garage sale, but then she realized that she'd have to deal with the four of us first, but that still doesn't explain why Crystal and I are free of it. If it's just that Betty is trying to make us suffer because we're, y'know, not white..." She gives an exaggerated grimace. "So Crystal had this idea and the more I think about it, the more I think she might be right. We think Betty is bad at being racist and doesn't realize that Charles is half-Indian and not just ethnically ambiguous."

Edwin opens his mouth, and then closes it again. "I think," he says carefully, "I am perhaps the least qualified entity on this Earth to speak about this subject." He clears his throat. "Is Betty aware of the loop?"

"Betty is," Niko confirms. "Weirdly, the demon isn't? Which is really convenient for us, even though it's pretty confusing."

"So the demon is unaware of the loop," Edwin muses slowly. "That might suggest points of intervention. What if I – "

But Niko interrupts, the uncharacteristic sharpness springing back into her voice. "No! Trust me, we've tried everything. Whatever you're thinking of, you've thought of it before and it didn't work. But this did work so we're going to do this instead, and if you go off-book or try to get creative, it's just going to make things worse, okay?"

Edwin tries not to gape. It feels unpleasantly as though a hand is gripping his throat and slowly squeezing as he watches his metaphorical options narrow before him like an unending hallway, possibly lined with doll heads.

Because this is Edwin Payne's best kept secret: he is quite given to panic. He is also very good at avoiding situations where he might panic, and he has become immune to much of what may have caused him to panic when he was alive. As long as he stays within his script, the carefully-carved pantomime of detective work that he and Charles have built around them, he knows what he must do: identify the problem, research the problem, determine the solution, implement the solution. Within those steps, he does not panic.

This is not within those steps. This has the potential to cause panic, and panic has the potential to cause impulsivity, which, as with his panic, he is very good at hiding. He certainly pretends at all times that he knows everything and can solve any problem, but the truth of the matter is that he makes snap decisions far more frequently than he would care to admit. He is simply very good at rapidly justifying those snap decisions, both to himself and to others.

But it is difficult, to say the least, to justify decisions when one has no information on which to make decisions at all. The absence of knowing, those inferred loops that are utterly empty of memory for Edwin but not for Niko or Crystal, eats away at him. More than anything else, that is what Edwin does, when he feels a need for control: he gathers information. And when he can't do that...well.

"What is going on?" he demands. "You are acting exceedingly odd, and while I understand that the strain of the time loop may be causing some distress, this is entirely unprecedented!"

Niko crosses her arms, and her stubbornness, at least, is familiar. "Well, it turns out that the same twelve hours repeating over and over and over again with random variations really shows you how well you know the people around you – or don't. So maybe I'm not the one who started acting unprecedented...ly...first!"

There it is again: the faint allusion to a mysterious something-or-other that she refuses to share, the prospect of control, or even the slightest bit of understanding, dangled before Edwin and snatched from his grasp. "Then tell me!"

"We swore," Niko says. "We said we wouldn't hold anything against anyone!"

"But I am asking you," Edwin says, trying not to fall prey to desperation. "Perhaps there is something I can clarify, or explain!"

Honestly, that is the other part of Edwin's insistence: he has the burning, bubbling need to do something, to act, to find a solution, to be the one who knows what to do. If it were simply the time loop beyond his control, he thinks he would likely be able to rein himself in; but the addition of Crystal and Niko's behavior is simply unbearable.

Niko thins her lips with skepticism. "How can you explain it if you weren't there?"

"I don't know," Edwin admits, "but I certainly can't explain it if I do not even know what it is!"

Niko closes her eyes, then sighs, then tips her head forward into her hands.

Her obvious despair is what tips Edwin over the edge. His voice softens as he says, "Please?"

Niko's shoulders slump, losing their tension. "We were so close," she says, her voice muffled by her hands. She drops them to look at Edwin, although the expression stops short of the glare she had earlier. "We were right at the end of the loop. Like, within a couple minutes of everything just starting over. But the demon was expelled, we separated the ghost from the doll, and all we had to do was burn the doll except..." She closes her eyes in defeat. "We separated the ghost from the doll. The hole to Hell was open and everything, and there were these awful reaching things, but she just kept avoiding them, and if she managed to last until the end of the loop – "

"Then the loop would not, in fact, end," Edwin says quietly.

Niko nods. "Even if we burned the doll. And it was, you know, pretty chaotic! What with the pit of Hell right there, and there was screaming, and you were halfway through the incantation to burn the doll when I think you realized she hadn't gone in?" The corners of Niko's mouth tuck inward, in what Edwin at first thinks might be barely-restrained grief. "So you dropped the doll, stopped chanting, and full-body tackled the other ghost into Hell."

Edwin stares at her. "I...what?"

"Yeah, it surprised us too," Niko says ruefully. "And it just didn't really make sense! Because - did you think we would just let the loop end with you in Hell? Which was never an option, by the way. But the only reason to get the ghost into Hell would be to end the loop, which would trap you in Hell, but if you were in Hell, we wouldn't end the loop, so - why? What were you thinking?"

"From the sound of it," Edwin says, "I likely was not. Thinking, that is," he adds at Niko's incredulous look.

"It was just one more loop!" Niko says, her voice slipping with anguish. "We've been through so many already, what does one more even matter?"

"It matters," Edwin says immediately, numbly. He doesn't mean to; it slips out, as do the words after. "Of course it matters, Niko, it – if one loop doesn't matter, then what about two? What about five? What about all the loops? If the loops don't matter, what does anything matter? What do our cases matter, the people we help, what does any of it matter if your suffering doesn't?" His voice, he realizes, is getting louder, but he can't manage to stop it. "If your pain can be dismissed because it was just one more loop, if the only things that make something matter are scars and consequences, then why not just lie down and let Death take you – why bother with any of it?"

His breath comes heavy. What an indignity, that even being dead over a century has not spared him from the physical effects of an emotional outburst.

"Um," Niko says quietly. "That escalated kind of quickly."

Edwin does not respond.

"That was a full existential crisis," Niko continues. Her voice is gentle as always, but relentless. "It didn't seem like it was just about the time loop. So...do you want to talk about it?"

Edwin swallows, hard, and swallows again. He does not want to talk about it. He does not think he has much of a choice. "In...in Hell," he begins, "there is a paradox. How can one perform infinite torture on a finite body?" He lifts his hand, although he has no more demonstration than that. "Anything...removed...is rendered unavailable for the future. And so they simply..." A third swallow. "They make the bodies infinite as well. Even Hell, it seems, must tidy up from time to time in order to make new messes."

"Oh," Niko says, very quietly.

"That," Edwin says, feeling curiously detached from the words, "creates a queer sort of helplessness. There is no end to it. Any damage will be reversed, any pain transformed into only a memory, nothing more. Like the time loop." He finally dares to look at Niko, although he can only bring himself to raise his gaze as far as her lap. "It was not my keen analytical mind or my meticulous planning that allowed me to escape Hell. It was that one day, I saw an opportunity to act and I took it. I was caught almost immediately, of course," he adds, "but from then on I knew that change was possible. I had...hope."

Niko says, with a wobbly voice, "And then it was your keen analytical mind and meticulous planning."

That startles a laugh out of Edwin, even if it is only the bare huff of one. "Yes, precisely." And he meets Niko's gaze.

She is weeping slightly. This does not surprise Edwin, since he thinks he may be as well. But she looks at him steadily, unabashed.

"I do not like," Edwin says, unsteady now, "the thought that you and Crystal may lose hope."

Niko's smile is teary, but she reaches out and takes his hand in hers. The feeling is, as always, muffled, as though both their hands are ensconced in heavy gloves, but he clings to it. "That's the difference," she tells him. "We're not alone. We both remember the loops, so we have each other, and we've figured out how to convince you and Charles pretty fast, so we have you two, too. When you're not," she adds, "tackling ghosts into the pits of Hell."

"I am still rather surprised it worked," Edwin confesses. "Charles has very strong opinions about my physical prowess. Unnecessarily strong, I think, seeing as I spend most of my time incorporeal."

"Oh, I know how strong Charles's opinions are," Niko says, and Edwin frowns. But Niko just shakes her head. "My point is – you were in Hell alone. Now you're not in Hell, and neither are we, and none of us are alone. But just so you know, Crystal said if you pull a stunt like that again, she's going to find iron shoes so she can literally kick your ass."

Edwin thins his lips in a likely-unsuccessful smile. "I suppose it is warranted."

"And I know you don't think so," Niko adds, squeezing his hand, "but the time loop really isn't that bad. It's been kind of nice, actually. Sometimes. I liked hearing about your family."

Edwin squeezes her hand back. "I always thought," he says slowly, "that trying to speak about them would..." But his voice falters. He clears his throat and tries again, although he thinks he knows the answer before he even asks the question. "Did I manage to remain at all dignified?"

"Not even a little," Niko says immediately, and Edwin winces. Niko, though, leans against him, tipping her head onto his shoulder with ease. "It was sweet, though."

Edwin swallows past the lump in his throat. "Have there been other good parts?"

Niko hums a 'mm-hmm' of assent. "It's kind of weird to say it, but. You know how I spent all those months being a shut-in and being afraid of everyone and everything because I always thought the worst thing would happen? It turns out when the worst thing happens to you over and over and over again but you just keep going, sometimes it can remind you that the worst thing isn't always all that bad. Like, obviously the ones where we all died weren't great," she adds hurriedly.

"The what - "

"But even the ones where I had to talk to strangers to get information, or pick a fight at the garage sale to distract the demon – it was uncomfortable, sure, but..." She shrugs, her shoulder rubbing against Edwin's. "It was also kind of fine. The more I did it, the less scary it was. And now there have been so many loops with so much stuff that doesn't seem scary at all anymore. Like being angry with you for tackling that ghost! Before the time loop started, I never would've let you know that I was angry with you."

Edwin frowns. "You did still try to hide it."

"Yeah, but that was because of the pact Crystal and I made, and not because I was afraid you'd decide you hated me forever and I wasn't worth the effort to be friends with and you shouldn't have bothered saving me from the dandelion sprites."

"I could never hate you," Edwin says, aghast. "And I'm exceedingly glad, every day, that we saved you. You are worth every effort, Niko."

She tilts her head up to beam at him. "See? Now I can be angry at you whenever I want, because I know that's how you feel."

Edwin may have miscalculated. He sighs, leaning his own head against Niko's. After a moment he says, "Niko? May I ask you something?"

"Okay, but we'll probably have to get back to drawing the runes soon," Niko tells him.

Oh. Yes. The runes. Edwin, buoyed by the emotional catharsis of their talk, had possibly forgotten that the time loop was still an active situation. "Later, then."

Niko pokes his arm. "No, tell me now! You're not the only one who likes to know stuff."

Edwin smiles at that. "At some later point, would you like to...tell me about your father? The way I told you about – about my family?" He swallows. "What you said about carrying memories into the future...I think I would like to know about him, if you are amenable."

Niko squeezes his hand one more time. Her voice quavers, just a little, as she says, "I would like that."

iv. the case of the giggles

Niko isn't usually the sneaky one. She can do incognito when she has to, as long as the incognito is still pretty cognito and bright colors are okay, but she just generally isn't used to sneaking around. She's especially not used to sneaking around the Tongue and Tail at night, especially with the lights off and especially holding a box of wine under her arm that's honestly way heavier than she expected.

So when Jenny clears her throat and snaps on the lights, Niko yelps and freezes.

"Niko," Jenny says slowly. Not the angry kind of slow, but the blue-screen-of-death kind of slow that just can't compute what's going on. "Why...are you," she waves her hand in a circle like she's cleaning an invisible window to indicate Niko's whole deal before continuing with increasing indignation, "stealing alcohol?"

The fact of the matter is, Niko is stealing alcohol because Edwin and Charles accidentally got ghost-high. There was a whole thing with a case and a carnivorous plant demon and a high schooler growing all kinds of weird stuff (including, obviously, the carnivorous plant demon), and while they solved everything, they did all also get sprayed with a weird supernatural pollen that, well, got Edwin and Charles high.

And this, to Niko, is an opportunity.

"I've never actually been to a party," she blurts out. "So I thought...you know...maybe me and Crystal could..."

Well, her and Crystal and Edwin and Charles. But she's not outright lying, which makes a difference to her, at least a little bit.

"You want," Jenny says slowly, "to have...a two-person party. With Crystal. And a box of wine."

"Well, Crystal doesn't know yet, but I'm sure she will!" Niko clutches the box of wine to her chest. "Please, Jenny? You know that we're super responsible."

Jenny raises an eyebrow. "She says, while literally stealing a box of wine."

Niko keeps talking. "I want to just, like, hang out, and drink alcohol that we're not supposed to have out of red plastic cups, and maybe play truth or dare, or dance on a table like in The Breakfast Club, or have breakfast like in The Breakfast Club, or maybe we could just watch The Breakfast Club? I've never actually seen The Breakfast Club."

After a moment of staring, Jenny sighs. "Give me the box, Niko."

"But – "

"The box, Niko."

Niko mournfully holds out the box, and Jenny snatches it by the handle out of Niko's hand. "Stay here," Jenny tells her, and disappears with the box to one of the business-related rooms that Niko never really bothered to care about.

She's gone long enough that Niko is starting to worry, but Jenny finally returns and, with one last roll of her eyes, holds out a bottle to Niko with four red plastic cups hung over the top.

"What's this?" Niko ventures.

"It's a twelve-dollar bottle of wine with a high enough ABV to get you and Crystal buzzed without me having to worry about fishing you out of your own vomit, but make sure you alternate with water," Jenny says. "Also, it won't taste like shit and won't give you as bad a hangover as that three-buck chuck, as long as, I can't emphasize this enough, you keep drinking water. That box wine is the shit I cook with. This? This is worth drinking."

Niko takes the bottle reverently. "I can't take your good wine!" she protests.

"That is not my good wine," Jenny informs her. "That was bought at the drug store while I was picking up migraine medication to help me cope with all the teenage shit you and Crystal have brought into my life. So go lock yourselves upstairs where I won't have to deal with you for the rest of the night, and make sure you drink a lot of water."

Niko doesn't give her any time to potentially change her mind.

When she gets upstairs and knocks on Crystal's door, it opens immediately.

"Way to leave me to babysit," Crystal grumbles, and then her eyes see the wine. "Niko! Did you steal booze from an authority figure?"

"No," Niko admits. "I tried to steal booze from an authority figure, but then I got caught and she gave me better booze and told me to be responsible."

"Is that Niko?" comes Charles's voice.

"I thought we could all party together," Niko says, and wiggles the bottle. "Jenny even gave me red plastic cups!"

"Parties are super overrated," Crystal says, opening the door further and stepping back to let Niko in.

Charles is lying on the floor on his stomach, his arms out in front of him and his hands folded flat on top of each other just in front of his chin – the angle of his head doesn't look comfortable, but, then again, he's a ghost, so he probably doesn't have to worry about his spine. Edwin is sitting on the edge of Crystal's bed, with perfect posture and his hands in his lap. He looks absolutely normal, actually, until he turns his head to look in her direction. The motion is slow and overly-controlled, and his head even wobbles a little like it keeps forgetting which way is up. When he looks at her, his gaze alternates between excessively wide eyes and syrupy-slow blinks.

"Ayyyyy, Niko!" Charles calls out happily from the floor.

"Hello, Niko," Edwin says, about twice as slow as he usually talks. "I," he continues, his diction extra-crisp even though the effort of sitting and talking at the same time has him swaying a bit, "am not making a fool of myself."

"Well," Niko tells him, brandishing the bottle, "We can fix that, since Crystal and I are about to get drunk so we can all party!"

"A rager for four," Crystal says, but it lands more as a gentle razz than actually shutting it down. "Sounds like fun."

"We are going to have fun," Niko informs her, tipping the cups off the bottle and onto the ironing board that doubles as the Official Desk of the Official Port Townsend Satellite Headquarters of the Dead Boy Detective Agency. "We're going to do silly teenage stuff like you guys never got to do when you were alive, and I never got to do just because."

Edwin seems caught a few conversational points back. Still enunciating, he says, "You...want me to make a fool of myself?"

"We're all going to make fools of ourselves," Niko tells him. "Crystal and I are going to drink this bottle of wine – wait." She looks around. "Do we have a bottle opener?"

"I, uh," Crystal says, and winces. "I think I know how to open it without one. Give it here."

"This is brills!" Charles says, grinning up from the floor. "A right, proper party, yeah?"

"Spoon, spoon, spoon," Crystal mutters to herself, taking the bottle to the kitchenette.

"Aww, Jenny gave us extra cups," Niko tells Charles, unstacking them on the ironing board. "I think she wanted us to use them for water. She was very insistent about hydrating. But instead you two can hold onto them and it'll be like we're all partying together!"

"Can't help you with the hydration bit," Charles says, and rolls onto his back, tucking his hands behind his head. "Or I guess we could get you water when you need it? I'm pretty sure my balance is fine. Feels fine, at any rate."

"How can you tell? Since you're lying on the floor," Niko asks.

Charles grins at her. "Confidence!"

"Is the foolishness," Edwin says, blinking molasses-slow at Niko, "strictly mandatory?"

"Yes," say Niko and Charles at the same time.

Charles levers himself up, a complex motion that ends with him overbalancing and stumbling into Crystal's bed as Edwin watches him with a frown of concentration.

"Okay, might've overestimated the balance," Charles admits, and breaks into giggles. "Edwin," he says, "you've gotta admit, this is pretty fun, right?"

Edwin opens his mouth to answer, but a short pop echoes through the room, causing him to honest-to-god squeak. He slaps a hand over his mouth, and everyone looks towards the kitchenette, where Crystal is holding the now-open bottle of wine in one hand and a lighter in the other. The cork lands on the floor, bouncing a few times.

"I couldn't find a spoon to push the cork in," she says, as if that's an explanation. "Here, give me the cups."

Charles sinks down back onto the floor, leaning back against the bed frame as Crystal pours.

"How," Edwin says, still in slow tones, "did the lighter open the bottle?"

"Dunno," Charles says, unconcerned. "Physics or something, probably."

"Well," Crystal says, handing one cup to Niko and keeping one for herself. "Cheers?"

Niko looks at the cup, which she ascribes a totally normal amount of significance to and definitely doesn't consider to be a symbol of the teenagerdom that she missed out on while being a shut-in, and steels herself with a deep breath. She taps it against Crystal's with a sound that isn't nearly as impressive as she expected. "Kanpai!" she says, and drinks.

Niko has, actually, gone to one party and had an alcohol before. It just wasn't fun. It was in a dorm room, because Grey Wake is a boarding school, and there were also some cigarettes and some thick, stubby rolls of paper filled with other things that she's pretty sure wasn't tobacco. Niko had about two sips of an unidentified alcohol, tried not to cough, and spent the whole night pretending that she was still drinking when actually she was trying to get the aftertaste out of her sinuses while standing up against a wall and telling herself she would talk to someone, anyone, any second now, definitely.

So she doesn't really consider it going to a party, as such.

But it at least means, even putting aside all the normal drinking she's done, like the sips to celebrate the New Year back home, the burn isn't really a surprise. She doesn't know a lot about wine, but as she sips, she definitely gets notes of alcohol, and grapes, and burning.

The thing that Niko underestimated about red plastic cups is that the mouths are so big that she can't really see anything around the cup as she sips, so it's a little bit of a surprise when she brings the cup back down again and still sees the bottom of Crystal's cup, slowly angling further upwards.

"Wait, are you chugging?" Niko asks. "Was I supposed to chug?"

Crystal doesn't respond, her throat bobbing as she drinks, but Charles begins determinedly chanting, "Chug! Chug! Chug!"

Crystal's concentration breaks in a wet snort and she pulls the cup away, bringing her other hand to her face, which is suddenly covered in wine.

"Got her!" Charles crows triumphantly, flipping onto his back so he can raise his arms like a sprinter crossing the finish line.

It takes Niko a second to register the bubbling laughter, and another second to realize it's coming from Edwin. It's spilling through his fingers, still clapped against his mouth, but he can't seem to keep it in.

"Okay," Crystal sputters, wiping the underside of her jaw with the back of her hand. "It wasn't that funny."

"I cannot seem to stop," Edwin says, still through helpless giggles. His precise elocution has fallen away, letting the syllables bleed into each other. "It just – it took me by surprise, that's all. I know it has a new meaning now, but to suddenly hear Charles imitating a train – "

"Wait," Charles says, trying and failing to tip his head back far enough to look at Edwin on the bed, "is that where it comes from? Drinking on trains?"

"We're not drunk enough for this yet," Crystal informs Niko.

"Is that where it comes from?" Niko asks, but drinks anyway.

"I'm not drunk enough for this yet," Crystal corrects herself. "You're just not drunk enough generally."

Within an hour, the wine is gone and Niko is definitely drunk enough. She's pretty sure. She's never actually been drunk so she isn't sure how much drunker she could be, but the room is spinning and her head is buzzing and she doesn't entirely remember how they all ended up on Crystal's bed. Edwin is at the head of the bed, leaning his back against the side of one of the built-in shelves that the bed is nestled between, with his legs curled up and his arms around his knees. Niko is curled up next to him, having at some point toppled gently over against his shins to lean her head on his arms. Crystal and Charles are both lying down, Charles on his side with his feet tucked under Edwin for ghost-warmth or something and Crystal on her stomach using the dry-erase marker from their caseboard to give Niko's toes temporary nail polish.

"What do people," Charles says, "even do at parties these days, anyway? Don't you lot watch stuff? I thought it was all watching stuff these days."

"You sound like an old man yelling at a cloud," Crystal tells him.

Charles grins up – down? sideways? he's technically looking down his own body but towards Crystal and Niko – at her. "Nah. That's Edwin."

Edwin, staring vacantly at the end of the bed where Crystal is intermittently tapping her heels together, nods half-hearted agreement.

Niko gives a thoughtful hum. "I don't think this is what the internet had in mind when it came up with Netflix-and-chill."

"Because they're cowards," Crystal mutters. "What did you do at parties, Charles? What was it like in the 1980s counterculture?"

"Oh, it was loads of fun," Charles says. "Parties, protests, political statements, the works. At least, that's what I heard. Couldn't exactly go out and join the riots from St. Hilarion's, could I? Not exactly a hotbed of rudeboy culture."

"We played quite a bit of cards," Edwin says fuzzily. "I used to be quite skilled at beggar-my-neighbor."

Crystal looks up from Niko's toes. "Do you ever think he just makes shit up to mess with us, when he says things like that?"

"Beggar-my-neighbor, if you must know," Edwin says, sounding slightly sharper, "is still played to this day, though with additional rules. It came up in the Case of..." He frowns. "Charles, you remember the case, don't you?"

Charles levers himself up on one elbow and props his head up on his hand. "Case of the Queen of Spades, yeah?"

"The Case of the Queen of Spades," Edwin finishes. "There was a haunted deck of playing cards and we had to defeat a ghost by winning a game of Egyptian Ratfuck."

Crystal and Charles both burst out laughing, Charles so hard his head falls off his hand and he has to roll onto his back, and even Niko has to hide her giggles.

"Ratscrew, Edwin," he gasps out. "Egyptian Ratscrew."

"How is that better?" Edwin says, baffled.

"Oh my god, your brain just went straight to ratfuck, huh," Crystal says, wiping the corners of her eyes. "I knew you had a love of four-letter words under that starched Victorian exterior."

"Edwardian," Edwin says primly. "And I'll have you know that I've largely refrained from oaths entirely since the ones that come naturally to me seem to have a counterproductive effect these days."

"Is that why I haven't heard you say 'blooming' in, like, ten years?" Charles demands. "Hang on, was it the ghost of that teenage girl from the Case of the Livid Library who called you a – "

"A lazy attempt at Dickensian class commentary brought to life?" Edwin bites out, and sullenly resettles his shoulders like a bristling peacock. "That had nothing to do with it."

Charles guffaws. "You liar!"

"A ghost called you that?" Niko asks. "Of a teenage girl?"

"She'd been trapped in that library for quite some time," Edwin tells her. "There were a lot of books. Seeing as it was a library."

"Oh, yeah," Niko says. "That makes sense."

"Hmm," Crystal says, decisively snapping the cap back on the dry erase marker. "Hmmmmm. That gives me an idea."

"God help us," Edwin says immediately.

"We should play truth or dare," Crystal says.

Niko gasps. "Oh my god, yes!"

"Truth or dare?" Edwin repeats, frowning.

"It's when someone asks you truth or dare," Charles explains, the picture of patience, "and if you say truth, you have to answer a question honestly, and if you say dare, then you have to do a dare."

"Oh, you mean questions and commands?"

"Sure, that," Crystal says, rolling her eyes, "but from the past hundred years."

"I'm going first!" Niko says, and claps her hands together. "Crystal! Truth or dare?"

Crystal takes a second to think about it. "You know," she says, "normally I'd say dare, but...I'm not sure what kind of dares would actually be fun for us, you know? Who would we prank call, Jenny? Who's downstairs and literally gave us the wine?"

"I did also promise we'd be responsible and not go anywhere," Niko adds.

Crystal rolls her eyes. "Fine. Truth, I guess."

Niko leans far enough forward to plant her elbows on the bed. "Okay, you weren't actually going to kill the dandelion sprites, right?"

"Oh, I absolutely was," Crystal says instantly. "For sure. They sucked. Niko, they tried to literally explode you!"

Niko protests, "But if we go around killing everything that tries to make someone explode, what does that make us?"

"Dead Boy Detectives," Charles murmurs, and when Niko stares at him, he shrugs. "What? That's just literally what we do. We get ghosts to move on, we get evil things to stop being evil, and sometimes that means...you know."

"From a certain point of view," Edwin muses, a thoughtful but largely unconcerned furrow to his brow, "you could consider us serial murderers, if you discount the fact that our quote-unquote victims are largely already dead. Or murderers themselves."

"Also," Charles adds, "it's usually not clear if, like, the things that aren't ghosts or witches or whatever are actually sentient. Or alive."

"The dandelion sprites are!" Niko says.

"Again," Crystal says, "they tried to explode you, and they pretty definitely will try again if given half a chance."

"But that doesn't mean that – "

"Okay, nope, truth or dare is not about the ethics of ghost hunting," Crystal says. "Charles! Truth or dare?"

Charles lights up. "Me?"

"He'll pick dare," Edwin says immediately.

"Oi!" Charles says, and then, pointedly, "Truth."

"Gonna go traditional for this one," Crystal says. "Who was your first kiss?"

"Easy – Jennifer Nelson in year four. Funny enough – " He grins over at Crystal. "It was a dare. Now, here's what's gonna happen next. I'm gonna ask Edwin truth or dare – "

"Why me?" Edwin protests.

" – and he's gonna say dare, because he never talks about himself."

Edwin crosses his arms. "Fine. I choose a question."

"Truth," Niko murmurs.

"Right, yes, truth, you know what I mean."

Charles fully sits up, folding his legs criss-cross-applesauce and rubbing his hands together with delight. "Oh, brills - okay, nothing too bad, we can ease into it. Hmm." He narrows his eyes, looking Edwin over with an analytical gaze. "All right. Is this your first time being drunk? Or high on ghostweed, I guess. You know what I mean. Altered state of consciousness or whatever."

"Oh," Edwin says, blinking with surprise. "That is a good question, actually." He squints in thought. "No? No. It is not my first time. I have been drunk before."

"Wait, what?" Charles demands, brightening with delight. He props himself up on his elbows. "C'mon, spill!"

"The question," Edwin says peevishly, "was not to describe - "

"Fine, then," Charles interrupts, rolling his eyes theatrically, "Edwin, can you describe - "

"Fine, but you'll all be underwhelmed. It was a Christmas Eve when I was quite young. Ten years old, perhaps? And my brother thought it would be quite a treat to sneak me some of Father's brandy. It tasted awful, I felt so dizzy I quite thought I would be sick, and I spent the entire evening terrified that my parents would notice."

Charles blinks a few times, and Niko watches his mouth silently trace the word brother...? But after a moment, he shakes his head and asks, almost shying away from his own question, "And, uh. Did they? Notice?"

"Oh yes," Edwin says instantly. "They found it hilariously charming, and Father offered me a glass each Christmas Eve thereafter, which was even more embarrassing than if they had been upset."

"Didn't you go to a private school?" Crystal asks. "Or – public? Whichever's the fancy one in England. Were they super boring a hundred years ago? No debauchery at all?"

"Some of the other boys would drink, of course," Edwin says with a shrug. "The professors knew but looked the other way. It was very traditional. The upper-classmen would hide bottles of beer out in the woods or sink them in the pond, and every Friday night they would gaily send their fags out to fetch them."

Niko's brain stops for a moment.

"Uh - what?" Crystal demands.

"Yeah, two of those words don't mean what you think they mean anymore," Charles drawls.

"Oh – yes, of course. They would merrily send their fags out to fetch them." Edwin frowns at Charles. "Wait, which is the other word?"

"Fag means cigarette now," Charles tells him.

"I knew that," Edwin says irritably. "But is fagging no longer common practice at schools?"

Charles begins, "I mean, maybe at some really old fashioned boys' schools – "

"What the fuck," Crystal interrupts, "are you talking about?"

"Fagging," Edwin repeats, as though it's obvious. "The practice of older schoolboys, the fag-masters, instructing younger schoolboys, the fags, to fag for them by doing small errands such as blacking boots, making the bed, and, as we were discussing, fetching beer from the woods."

Niko has no idea what to say to that, so she looks to Crystal.

After a second, Crystal asks the boys earnestly, "Are you fucking with us? It's fine if you are, but like...tell us? Just so we don't know you're running around Port Townsend using that word as literally every part of speech."

Charles snorts. "Saying it to who? Basically everyone we know in town is in this building. Except for a few animals," he adds.

"It just," Niko breaks in, wincing. "It doesn't mean that here. Which is fine for England, I guess! But maybe be more careful about saying...that."

"Charles," Edwin says slowly, his eyes narrowing, "have you noticed that..."

"That they aren't saying the word itself?" Charles finishes, now also frowning. "Yeah, that's a bit ominous."

"You would know," Edwin says suddenly, turning to Charles, "if there had been some sort of, I don't know, Fag War, wouldn't you?"

"What the fuck," Crystal repeats despondently.

"Look, don't blame him," Charles says to her, "the last conversation we had like this was when I was telling him that the Great War was actually the First World War."

"We also," Edwin adds grimly, "called it 'the war to end wars,' which. Well. Clearly doesn't stand up to scrutiny in hindsight."

"No, absolutely not, what the fuck is wrong with you two, how do you keep making this depressing," Crystal says, pushing herself off the bed to stand up. "Sorry, Niko, but this game of truth or dare – yeah, remember we were playing that? – has gone off the rails, so it's time for a different kind of party. Niko, I'm gonna go borrow your speakers."

"Oh, okay," Niko says to Crystal's back. "I guess that's happening."

Edwin says, "Did she just steal your party, Niko?"

"It's probably better than talking about World War Two," Niko says with a shrug. "Besides, it's not like any of us have any experience with parties to do better."

"Can't argue with that," Charles says with a wistful air to his voice.

"Why are you so fixated," Edwin asks, looking from Charles to Niko and back a few times, "on the notion of a party? Is it not enough to have an enjoyable time?"

Charles shoots back, "Are you enjoying yourself?"

"When we're simply talking? Yes," Edwin says. "When I am made to feel as though this is some sort of social exam that I failed to sufficiently prepare for? Much less so."

"For what it's worth," Niko tells him, perching her chin on his knee, "I think you're getting a really good grade in Party."

"If I am being graded, I would at least like to know what the rules are," Edwin says sourly.

"Just the one rule," Charles says. "Have fun!"

The door opens again, and Crystal sets Niko's Bluetooth speakers down on the ironing board.

"Okay!" she says, pulling her phone out of her pocket. "Niko, can you come help me set this up? We've done the drinking part, we've done the truth or dare part, so I think it's time for the music and dancing part."

Niko hauls herself off the bed with a groan, taking a moment to steady herself against the shelves.

"Hey Edwin," Charles says, reaching out to poke the side of Edwin's knee, "remember when you taught me how to waltz? I think I still remember how. Should we show the girls what we've got?"

"I'm fairly sure," Edwin tells him, quite seriously, "that if I move wrong, the entire move will fall over." He frowns. "No. The entire – the room will move over. Fall over."

Even though Charles is only talking to Edwin, Niko can hear what he says as she goes over to the ironing board. "That's the point, though, innit? Get silly, have fun."

But Edwin's reply is lost as Crystal grabs Niko's wrist.

"Okay, you've gotta help me," Crystal tells her, voice low and urgent.

Panic spikes in Niko, but she keeps her voice low back. "Oh, god, has something gone horribly wrong?"

"What," Crystal asks desperately, "the fuck would these dumb boys actually dance to?"

After a second, Niko says, "What?"

"I just want this to be fun!" Crystal says despondently. "I think, maybe, you guys might be...my first actual friends? And aside from solving supernatural mysteries and fighting supernatural threats, I don't actually get that many chances to do something nice for you guys, and it feels like this is something I should be good at since I'm the normal one, and it's something I want to be good at, and, oh my God, how is my tolerance this low?" She wipes beneath her eyes with quick, furious motions. "Am I a weepy drunk? Am I drunk already? Jesus Christ, it was half a bottle of wine, I don't know why this feels like such a big deal – "

Niko puts an arm around Crystal's shoulders, tugging Crystal close and laying her head on Crystal's shoulder. "It's okay for it to be a big deal. It's okay for it to be no deal. Nothing has to be perfect and you don't need to get an A in Party."

"Oh, God, that's exactly what I'm doing," Crystal says, miserable. "I'm trying to get an A in Party. This may be the least cool thing I've ever done."

Niko gives Crystal's shoulders another squeeze. "Don't worry about it! Edwin's doing the same thing."

Crystal groans. "That's so much worse!" Then she glances over at Edwin. "Wait. How is he trying to get a good grade in Party? He's not even doing anything."

"I think he's weirded out because he can't figure out what the assignment is."

"Oh," Crystal says, and frowns. "Well maybe then he just...needs an assignment."

"I don't think dancing is going to be a good assignment for him," Niko tells her. "Although Charles did say he knows how to waltz."

"Right," Crystal says slowly. "Because those old-timey dances were all about doing the same thing over and over again, right? Like the Bridgerton line dances or whatever? So maybe...maybe he needs something where he can know exactly what to do. Edwin!"

Niko jumps a little as Crystal suddenly shouts, and Edwin lets out a squeaky little shriek.

"Come here," Crystal commands, and points at him. "We're teaching you the Electric Slide."

After a second, Edwin says, "No, thank you."

Crystal starts scrolling through music on her phone. "Suck it up, you're dancing."

"I certainly am not."

"Mmm, okay. Edwin – truth or dare?"

"He's gonna pick truth this time," Charles says, too obviously loud for plausible deniability. "Just you wait."

Edwin grimaces, showing teeth. "I see what you are doing here."

"Truth," Crystal repeats, putting her phone down to glare at him, "or dare."

"Why does it matter so much to you that I dance?" Edwin demands.

"Why does it matter so much to you that you don't?" Crystal shoots back.

Edwin lets out a breath through his nose, like a bull about to rush. He plants one elbow against the wall behind him and scrabbles with his other hand until he catches the side of the built-in bookcase, levering himself until he's standing on the bed. "I accept," he says, steadying himself against the wall, "your challenge. Charles, help me down."

Charles snickers, but offers Edwin his hand to help counterbalance him as he steps around and off the bed. Edwin waits for a second, then glances at Charles when it becomes apparent he's not moving. "Charles, are you not also going to dance this...Electrical Slide?"

Crystal mutters to Niko, "It's gotta be deliberate, right?"

"I've been known to cut a rug or two in my day," Charles admits. "Although I gotta admit...I don't know this one. Also, I really want to watch this and I can't do that if I'm also trying to dance."

"What?" Crystal demands. "Are you kidding? It's the Electric Slide!"

Charles shrugs. "Must've been after my time."

"But it's old?" Crystal shakes her head. "Okay, fine. Niko?"

"Um," Niko says.

"Oh my God, have none of you ever been to a Black wedding?" She pauses. "Have I ever been to a Black wedding? You know what, never mind."

Charles turns himself on the bed and flops back, dangling his feet off the end and tucking one arm under his head so he can watch.

Niko presses her fingers against Crystal's elbow to get her attention. "I'm pretty sure if I move too much I'm going to be sick and also I feel like Charles and I need to referee so you and Edwin don't murder each other so I'm also not going to dance, okay? You're gonna do great!"

She skitters away before Crystal can object too much. She's also not lying about the moving-too-much thing, but she is feeling floaty enough that she thinks she might fall over if she doesn't lie down as soon as possible, so she lets the side of the bed catch the back of her knees so she can look down Charles's body and also use his chest as a pillow.

"Cowards," Edwin tells them.

"Traitors," Crystal agrees.

"It's electric!" cries the music booming out suddenly through the speakers, causing both Crystal and Edwin to jump.

"Oh, this is gonna be good," Charles says, his arm and chest flexing beneath the back of Niko's head. Then his forearm settles across her ribcage, and a quick glance above her shows that he switched which arm was under his head so he could hold her.

"That doesn't tickle, does it?" Niko asks.

"No, it's over and back," Crystal says, demonstrating to Edwin, who barely keeps from falling over.

"Nope," Charles tells Niko. "Ghost, remember? Ghosts don't get ticklish."

Crystal says, "And then you just kind of lean forward, then back, then kick - "

Edwin says, "Why is this so blooming intricate?"

"I guess that's one advantage of being a ghost," Niko says, putting her arm over his to keep him from moving it. "Do you still like cuddling?" Niko likes cuddling. She wouldn't have guessed she'd be cuddling with Charles, but now that she is, it's pretty nice.

Edwin says, "And you expect me to do this on the beat? How can I hear the beat and listen to you at the same time? I'm a detective, not a metronome!"

Crystal says, "That doesn't even make any sense – "

"Fucking love cuddling," Charles tells Niko, turning his hand over to interlace his fingers with hers. "Even without being able to, like, feel. It's nice to know that I'm close to someone, yeah? Not just metaphorically."

"Well, you can cuddle me whenever you want," Niko says, nestling her head against his chest. "I'm always available for cuddles. I know Edwin has his whole thing about touching and Crystal can be pretty prickly."

Crystal says, "Okay, maybe try clapping with your hands so that you can keep track of – wow, you sure found those ones and threes. We're just reinforcing all kinds of stereotypes today, aren't we."

"It's just...complicated," Charles says, but it comes out without any indication of protest. "I dunno. It was just me and Edwin for so long and now there's you, and Crystal, and it's like we've got to start everything over, but in a good way? Sometimes it feels urgent, 'cause the two of you are alive, but sometimes it just feels like we've got all the time in the world."

Edwin says, "I'd like to see you try to waltz, or, better yet, do one of the ridiculous fashionable animal dances from when I was alive!"

Crystal says, "Wow, I didn't know you had it in you to refer to something more than thirty years old that isn't Hell!"

Edwin says, "This is so ridiculous, I almost would rather be – all right, no, I can concede that this is at least marginally preferable to Hell. And, fine, the margin is substantial."

"Because you're a ghost," Niko says sagely.

"Because I'm happy," Charles says, not disagreeing, and smiles. It's not his usual big, toothy smile, but something small and warm, like he doesn't even realize he's doing it: it's just how his face arranges itself in response to how he's feeling. "I mean, look at them. Edwin likes rules, Crystal likes bossing people around. I knew they'd be friends if they just got past the whole not-wanting-to-be-friends thing."

"Yeah." Niko nods. "That can be difficult to overcome in a friendship."

Crystal says, "Edwin, that's...actually almost sweet, coming from you?"

Edwin says, "Believe it or not, I genuinely am trying. My brain simply cannot process what you are instructing me to do, and make my body do it, and pay attention to the music I am meant to do it to all at the same time. Most likely because I am quite inebriated. Frankly, I'm very impressed with myself for standing and speaking at the same time."

"I'm so glad we did this," Charles continues, and looks down at Niko, giving her a squeeze. "This was such a great idea, Niko. You're so smart. This is brills."

Crystal says, "You know what? I think I have another idea."

Charles looks up as the music suddenly cuts off. "Did you give up on the Electric Slide?" he asks.

"We're trying something different," Crystal says, attention on her phone. "We're gonna do one of the dance songs where it literally tells you what to do."

"Those exist?" Edwin demands. "Why did we not start with those?"

"Okay, here we go," Crystal says, looking back at Edwin. "This one is really straightforward, okay? Just listen to the DJ – singer, I guess, my brain keeps telling me I only hear these things at weddings – and do what he says."

"I think this is good for them," Niko says to Charles as they watch Crystal and Edwin slide to the right.

"God, I've been trying for thirty years to get Edwin to be okay with change," Charles says, shaking his head.

"Change is terrifying," Niko says.

Edwin says, "What makes a cha-cha real smooth?"

Crystal says, "Just look at what my feet are doing, okay?"

"Sometimes change can be good," Niko continues, "but even when it is, sometimes it's bad before you get to the good part. And sometimes you never stop wanting what you had before."

"Yeah," Charles says quietly. "Yeah, I guess that's true."

"I'm talking about my dad," Niko adds.

"I sort of figured that," Charles says, giving Niko another squeeze.

Edwin says, "Now they've added a bloody criss-cross?"

Crystal says, "Watch it, you just two-hops-this-time'd right onto my foot!"

"I just think," Niko says, her fingers picking at Charles's ghostly sleeve, "about what would've happened if I hadn't met you guys, sometimes."

"Well...dandelion sprites would've exploded out your head, for one thing," Charles says.

Edwin says, "The cha-cha was smooth, and then not smooth, and now it's smooth again?"

Crystal says, "Would you just watch my fucking feet for fuck's sake – "

"Someone told me once," Niko says, "that everyone has the family they're born into, and then the family they choose. I know that I chose you guys. I guess I just don't know what to do with the fact that you chose me, too, when it was so unlikely we'd all ever meet each other. And now we are. We're a family."

Crystal says, "Okay, fuck this, we need to try something else."

Edwin says, "Finally."

The music shifts again, and Niko holds back a squeak as Charles suddenly sits upright.

"Hang on," Charles says. "I know this one."

Crystal smugly brandishes her phone. "We're going to get him to dance whether he likes it or not," she says, with terrifying determination, before turning back to Edwin. "It is literally impossible to dance to this song wrong," she informs him. "Anything you do is right. It's the perfect song."

"Niko," Charles says, and offers her a hand. "Would you care to dance?"

Niko smiles, and takes his hand. She knows the song, vaguely – from a meme, she's pretty sure, because now that she's listening to it she thinks there were skeletons dancing? But Crystal isn't wrong, it's a groove that's hard not to dance to.

"Okay, just, like, bounce on the balls of your feet," Crystal instructs Edwin, demonstrating. "Then move your hips and your shoulders, however feels good – "

"You can also just bounce," Charles says, "that's the Pogo, it's a classic for a reason – "

"Oooh, move your hands, kind of like this!" Niko suggests.

"I cannot do those things," Edwin says stubbornly. "My body does not move in that fashion. In any of those fashions. What did I do to deserve this? I am trying to listen to the song, which seems to have a lot to say on the subject of September – "

"For fuck's sake," Crystal says, and pauses the song.

"I," Edwin begins, pre-defensive, "am trying - "

"I believe you!" Crystal interrupts. "Which is why I'm so confused! You said you could waltz before, so obviously you know at least something about music – "

"I know about the music that I know," Edwin says helplessly. "And I am also aware that I pre-date your popped music by several decades, and so I find myself at an impasse."

"I mean," Charles says, shrugging, "we could waltz?"

"I hardly think the girls would be interested in an evening spent waltzing to music that's over a century old."

"Maybe there's pop music with the right beat?" Niko suggests.

Edwin sighs. "But then I wouldn't know it, which would rather defeat the purpose."

"Wait," Crystal says, frowning at Edwin. "Wait, so – hang on, it isn't just that you want to know what to do - you want to know what's coming."

Edwin opens his mouth, and then closes it again, as if his brain stumbled on the thought. "Yes," he says decisively. "Yes, that's it exactly. When dancing to your music, it is as if I am trying to anticipate what is coming next, even though I have no basis on which to make those assumptions."

"Hmm," Charles says. "Have you tried, y'know. Not doing that?"

"I have a better idea," Crystal says, a sly smile stealing across her face. She holds out her hands. "Grab my hands."

Niko does immediately.

"Oh – okay. Yeah, sure, you too, Niko. But Edwin and Charles, come on."

Charles lays his hand across Crystal's wrist, next to Niko's hand, and Niko reaches sideways with her pinkie to poke him. It gets the delighted giggle from him she hoped for.

"What are you going to do," Edwin asks, always suspicious.

"You want to know what's coming next in the song?" Crystal says. "Well, great news, I'm a psychic. I can make all of us know the song, and then we can get on with having a good time."

"...how curious," Edwin says, and, very gently, puts his hand in Crystal's.

Crystal's smile turns into a radiant grin. "Okay, great, so – oh, shit. Niko, do you have a free hand? Could you just like...?"

"Oh! Right." Niko reaches with her free hand to tap the play icon on Crystal's phone, and the music starts again.

For a second, none of them move as Crystal takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. When she opens them again they're reflective white, but she isn't gasping or throwing her head back like she sometimes does with the really intense visions.

"Okay," she says slowly. "Okay, I'm gonna try – I think I feel you guys? Try not to think about weird shit for a sec, I need to..."

She starts tapping her toes, and Niko finds herself smiling as the song thrums through her, too, as if she's standing too close to a speaker at a concert.

"Whoa," Charles whispers, and Niko feels his hand start to move next to hers; when she glances over, he's brought his other hand up to hold an invisible drumstick, hitting the beat.

Crystal laughs in delight, and begins to dance. As her hand lifts, Niko follows, and Charles does too, all of them moving together. Edwin, across from Niko and Charles, begins to bop his head ever-so-slightly, a white cast over his eyes as his brow furrows even though his lips are smiling, evening out to an expression of baffled joy. Then his shoulders start flexing, too, and his weight shifts from one foot to the other.

"Oh," he says, "so this is – "

But the music starts to fade out, and Niko feels a pang of loss – and then feels the echo of it through the other three. And when her hand tightens against Crystal's she feels a hand tighten around hers, even though there's no hand there, because she's feeling her own hand on Crystal's the same way she's feeling Edwin's light touch on Crystal's other hand –

The next song starts up, an incandescent thrum of guitar, and Niko gasps. "I know this one!"

"I don't," Charles says, his eyebrows drawing together over his own filmed-over eyes. "But I sort of do? This is really weird. Cool, but weird."

"Want to see what this baby can do?" Crystal says, breathless, and starts dancing in earnest. She tosses her head and Niko feels the dizziness, she bounces and Niko feels it in her own feet, and Charles is headbanging like a one-man mosh pit while Edwin is mouthing along, eyes closed, and his body is moving in a way just awkward enough that Niko thinks he isn't paying any attention to it and it's perfect.

So Niko starts singing – well, shouting – along to the song, both because she knows the words and Crystal knows the words which means they all know the words, Charles is absolutely shredding some invisible drums while Crystal takes Niko's invitation and starts screaming along too, and now Edwin might be moving like one of the blow-up stick guys in front of a used car lot but Crystal is fully jumping up to stomp harder on the floor and Jenny will probably notice but then Jenny can learn the words too –

The song ends with the transcendence of a final chord lingering in the air and Niko immediately loses her balance. Because they're all still holding onto Crystal, they all go down, landing in a pile of laughter and triumph and, in Niko's case, minor nausea.

"Oh my God, that was amazing," Charles gushes. "I think I could, like, feel what you were feeling, did you guys feel that? That was wild."

"I can't believe I pulled that off," Crystal says. "Man, I would be the best wedding DJ ever."

Niko frowns, her attention turning back to the music. "Is it playing Taylor Swift now?"

"...yeah," Crystal admits, "this is literally a random wedding reception playlist I pulled off Spotify. But it did pretty good, right?"

"I suppose so," Edwin says, in his driest voice. He raises an eyebrow, his lips twitching, and says, "Top marks in Party, young lady."