Work Text:
“So, this is another loop, then?” Charles muses as he stares up at the dilapidated tenement on the otherwise picturesque London street. The place is admittedly an eyesore, but the structure sparks a sort of nostalgia in Edwin, even though tenements had already begun falling out of style during his brief human life.
The building is scheduled for demolition in the morning, which won't spell good news for the occupying ghosts if it is truly a loop. A fate worse than death is the prevailing theory for where they’ll end up.
“From what Mrs Lewis describes, yes,” Edwin replies, adjusting his coat and taking a step towards the steps leading up to the front door – it's boarded up and stamped with a rather excessive number of notices, ensuring no wandering daredevils enter. “Strange noises, lights, the usual indications. With any luck, we'll be back at the office before sunrise.”
Charles cracks a grin and hikes his rucksack further up on his back. “Wouldn’t expect anything less.”
Inside, the walls are peeling, leaving trails of brown stains and long-forgotten wallpaper behind along with the lives of the thirteen people who had never gotten the chance to leave. The floors creak and groan somehow and there's something about the place that sends a twinge of unease through Edwin. Not the time for distractions. They have a case to solve.
Narrow corridors lined with dirt and mould, a product of decades of neglect, lead them into what seems to be a drawing room of sorts, empty besides a few pieces of furniture covered in sheets that were likely white once. A fireplace sits unused against the wall, soot-covered and cold.
“Nice place…” Charles says with a sideways glance towards Edwin. “Has potential to be a second office.”
Edwin scoffs as he glances around the room. “Or a breeding ground for another round of plague.”
“Well, we wouldn't want that,” Charles chuckles, placing his hands on his hips. He looks left and right, scanning the space. “I’m not seeing any ghosts here, mate, are we sure–”
The room comes to life immediately. The lights blink on and flicker, casting dramatic shadows across the floor. Acrid smoke materialises and hangs in the air, obscuring Edwin’s vision of anything around him, including Charles, swallowing him whole in a cloud of misery.
Then, before he can call out, the screams begin. Shrill and terrified. Young voices and old. Edwin thinks for a second he hears Charles but the voices are too loud. Animalistic shouts steeped in true fear bounce against the walls and fill his head. Ghosts run by him, smacking hard into his shoulder as they try to flee, but their killer is close behind and they fall, down to the grimy floor, down with a spray of red blood. It feels like it's really hitting him, the warm, sticky sensation that he recognises all too well, the droplets coating his face. Even the dim flickering of the lights is suddenly too bright in the way it makes the spilled blood shine on the floor, like a horrific constellation. The pattering of panicked feet sounds so much like that creature, and perhaps it's muscle memory of decades of running and dying that sets his heart pounding once more.
It's chaos now; bodies falling and sounds of desperate running, cries cut off with gargles and Edwin knows this place.
It’s Hell, he'd recognise it anywhere. No, no – he got out, Charles got him out. But… what if… Was it all an illusion, the escape? A cruel ruse to break his soul, torture him further? The room tilts and it turns, it's hazy – his eyes play tricks and things warp and blur in front of him, the scene changes rapidly and he can't keep up and–
He suddenly can't breathe. Ghosts don't breathe, not really, but he can't breathe. His lungs ache and burn and the feeling makes a shaking hand fly to his chest, tangling itself in the material of his jumper that suddenly feels like needles stabbing into his skin. He hears a choking sound echo throughout the room, the ever-present background ambience of Hell. Of Hell.
He has to get out. He has to escape. He can't… he can't–
Blind to the steadily blurring world around him, he staggers away, past the doll heads, outside, down the green-tinged corridor. He passes by a woman sliding down the wall leaving a trail of red behind, a man trying to shake another awake, countless dead eyes watching him as he rushes past. He stumbles clumsily down the front steps, ignoring distant calls that he couldn't begin to decipher, and promptly falls to his hands and knees. The racing of his heart is all he can hear but he knows he has to move, because that creature will be coming now, it loves the hunt, feeds on his fear. It’s excited for the moment when it catches him and tears him apart. Sometimes so fast that Edwin doesn't realise it has caught him until he's bolting upright again, his injuries healed and his head no longer ringing. Sometimes so slow that he can feel the fire of every nerve in his body as he's ripped apart piece by piece by piece, scattered onto the grimy floor and then fused back together to do it all over again.
He can taste the tang of blood in his mouth, coating his tongue and there isn't any point in trying to clear it – the creature would make sure of that. He tries to stand, to get to his feet and give himself a chance, no matter how slim, to get away, but his legs shake and don't respond. The screams still ring in his ears and he clamps his mouth shut to avoid crying out and alerting the creature further. That had been a lesson learned in the first few years.
Tears drag themselves down his cheeks, through the blood and dirt, and land on the backs of his hands. His ears fill with static and he can only stare with wide eyes, waiting for that monster to drag him away – he’s been sloppy, has thrown away his chance of escape on this occasion. Will his death be fast or slow this time?
“Edwin!”
Something touches his shoulder and he flinches back, holding a hand up in front of him in pure instinct despite the fact that it would do absolutely nothing against any of the horrors Hell has to offer.
“Sorry! Sorry...” A blurry face swims into view, an unfamiliar sight in what he knows Hell to be. “Whatever you're seeing, Edwin, it's not real! It's not real,” a voice says, steady. Calm. The antithesis of Hell. “You're safe. It's me – it's Charles.”
Charles..?
He blinks rapidly, willing his eyes to work again, and as he does, the world starts to slowly reform. He dares to sit back, drawing his legs up in front of him, and tries to regain his bearings.
Charles is crouched in front of him, a hand stretched out but halted mid-movement, hovering. How?
By some miracle, Edwin manages to coax his voice into producing sound, no matter how quiet it is when he speaks. “Charles?”
“Yeah, mate, it's me.” Charles has a terribly concerned look on his face that Edwin has only seen a few times before. Once being in the depths of Hell.
But he's gotten out of Hell – escaped, in fact. He's free of it now, of its heat and the horrid stench of death and the sounds of screams. He's gotten out – he knows this because Charles is here. Charles is here and if Charles is here, then here can't be Hell. It's an obvious deduction.
So why does he still feel so frightened, despite the frankly childish wording of the question? Why does his heart still race and the edges of his vision blur? Charles is perfectly okay, from what he can just about see. Perhaps it is solely himself that is… broken.
Charles reaches for him and stops abruptly, his worried eyes searching Edwin's face for something. “Are you with me? Do you know where you are?”
Edwin exhales shakily, willing his mind to quieten for a moment. “Not… not Hell?” He doesn't intend for it to sound like a question.
Charles’ face crumples, his brow furrowing. “No, you're not in Hell, Edwin. You're out and never going back. Not if I have anything to say about it.”
He sounds so sure. Doubting him would be foolish.
“What… is happening to me?” Edwin grounds out, his hand finding itself over his heart again, feeling the speed of it.
“I think you're having a panic attack, mate,” Charles says softly, reaching out again slowly. “Can I… can I hold your hand?”
Edwin's mind is too frazzled to think about it too much and he nods once, allowing Charles to take his hand from where it measured his frantic heart, encasing it between his own. The hold steadies his uncontrollable shaking and warmth breaks through the ice in his veins. The contact keeps him present, because he didn't have that in Hell. He had nothing but pain there. This is the opposite.
But that doesn't matter now. Above all, he is a detective, and therefore the case always comes first.
“What–” Edwin says, swallowing as he gets his voice back under control. “What about the loop? The trapped souls– we must find the trigger. Before… before morning–”
“Edwin–” Charles begins, and Edwin knows what he's going to say before he even says it.
“We have to help them, Charles. I'll be– I’m fine.”
Charles looks entirely unconvinced, but he looks back towards the building and Edwin can see that he understands what's at stake.
Edwin pushes further, already having wasted enough precious time. “We need to–”
“It's alright, I'll take care of it. Just stay here a sec, yeah? Don't move.” He squeezes Edwin’s hand and looks him in the eye, waiting for his permission. Edwin hates that he's so useless but he knows his limits. He would only slow Charles down in this state.
So he nods, and Charles squeezes again and lets go, turning and disappearing into the house. Edwin isn't prepared for the vacuum left behind. His hand shakes. He breathes deeply, trying to dispel the lingering jitters, but distantly, he can hear the screams of the ghosts in the loop. Continually suffering.
He closes his eyes and rests his head in his hand, trying to think about anything else. It's embarrassing, being completely overwhelmed by virtually nothing. Nothing had happened. He was safe, still is. But it would be equally foolish to ignore the reality of the situation, the evidence in the form of his racing heart and tear-filled eyes. And that's not even considering what would most definitely now be going through Charles’ head, the doubts he may start to have about Edwin’s ability to continue on at the Agency. What a disaster.
The screams continue for what seems like hours, but the sight of the moon still peeking out from behind the clouds whenever he dares to open his eyes tells him not much time has passed at all.
He somehow doesn't register it when the horrors finally stop; echoes of the screams continue to oscillate in his ears.
It's another minute or so more until footsteps sound from behind, rapid, then slow.
“Edwin?”
It's Charles. Placing his rucksack down first, he crouches down in front of him, this time not touching though Edwin can tell he wants to – he’s a very physical individual. His jaw is tense, eyes searching, quiet not because he wants to be, but because he doesn't know what to say.
He looks scared.
Edwin draws another breath because that is quite enough of this. He's… fine, now. Nothing more than a brief lapse in concentration which decidedly will not happen again. It's not professional.
And he doesn't want to think about it any longer.
“What was it? The trigger?” Edwin asks plainly, as if everything was normal and he wasn't sitting on the ground outside the site of a massacre, blinking tears from his eyes.
Charles’ eyebrows rise almost imperceptibly. “The… trigger? Edwin–”
“Charles. What was it?”
Charles’ eyes narrow just slightly, but he relents with a sigh. “It was a wedding ring. One of the tenants had a wife. She got sick, died. And he blamed everyone in there for it.”
“...I see. And you–”
“Yeah, mate, I melted it in the fireplace. It's gone. They're all at peace, now.”
“Good. That's good.”
“And you? Are you good?”
“Yes,” Edwin says flatly, standing up and cursing himself when he sways on his feet.
Charles grabs his arm, stopping him from falling into another heap. “Really?” he shoots back, entirely unimpressed.
“Really,” Edwin responds, cursing himself once more as his voice shakes. He doesn't dare move away from Charles’ touch – falling down again would completely go against his point.
“Don’t do this,” Charles says with a shake of his head. “Please.”
“What would you like me to say, Charles?” Edwin presses, his frustration bubbling over even though Charles doesn't deserve any of it. “Would you prefer I tell you how I simply love to break down in tears like a child, crying over things that aren't real? How I very well could have doomed the souls of every ghost trapped in that building due to my weakness? How, no matter how hard I've tried to stop it, Hell has broken me, and I cannot control even my own emotions anymore.” He chokes out the last few words, new tears falling down his cheeks to well and truly drive the fact of his instability home. “You don't deserve to have to put up with this.”
Charles says nothing for a moment as he just looks, mouth set in a firm line. Then, he moves, stepping forward and taking hold of Edwin's hands in his own.
“What you deserve is to be loved, Edwin. I love you,” he says, with all the sincerity in the world. “And you're not any less of a detective for having feelings – if anything, it probably makes you a better one.” He pauses for a moment before continuing, his eyes never leaving Edwin’s. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course,” Edwin responds immediately, because that is the one thing he knows to be true.
Charles squeezes his hands and smiles softly. “Then trust me. Believe what I'm saying.”
However, Charles’ beliefs and the facts are two entirely separate beasts altogether.
Edwin breaks his gaze to stare at the floor. It's easier when he doesn't have to look into Charles’ too-expressive, too-understanding eyes.
“But–”
“But nothing. You were in Hell for seventy years. You went through so much shit and despite that, managed to escape. Then you were dragged back.” Charles tilts his head slightly, sadness overtaking his expression. “Any reaction is a normal reaction – there's no right or wrong way to feel after that. Remember the case we did about a decade ago? The one with the ghost who'd died from hypothermia in the river?”
Edwin did. Charles had taken it hard – it had been so similar to how… ah.
“You didn't think less of me then, and I think nothing less of you now, Edwin,” Charles continues. “I’m here for you no matter what. That's what partners do, right?”
And, in that moment, it all clicks together in Edwin's mind. After decades of being alone, he's found someone willing to deal with his less-than-endearing qualities – he didn't want to jeopardise that. He didn't want Charles to think of him as weak, or as useless, but he doesn't, does he?
He never did. He never will.
Edwin takes a shuddering breath, the sudden relief of that fear being lifted leaving him off balance.
Charles lets go of his hands, instead cupping his face and using his thumbs to brush away any lingering tears from his cheeks, the touch gentle.
“I can be a bit dense sometimes, can't I?” Edwin says with a small smile.
Charles laughs a light, breathy laugh and steps forward, leaning his forehead against Edwin’s, closing his eyes. “Only sometimes.”
“Shall we get back to the office?” Edwin says, more than ready to get back to work. He feels lighter, now.
“Let’s go.”