Chapter Text
Some carefully chosen words to Jenny later—with narrowed eyes and a warning not to be dragging her into anything majorly illegal—Crystal procured a more proper suturing kit.
“Woah,” Charles appreciated as she handed him the plastic box, “this is some proper gear. How does Jenny even have this?”
“I don’t think either of us want to know the answer to that,” Crystal quipped, moving once more into her kitchenette. She started to open a series of cabinets.
“Doubt she would have told us anyway,” Charles frowned. In the intervening time, he had closed Edwin’s other gashes with a majority of the butterfly bandages in Crystal’s bulky first aid kit (which, come to think of it, probably also came from Jenny). All that was left to do was the stitching and Edwin would be set—more or less. Charles planned to still keep a vigilant eye on him to make sure he doesn’t get an infection or re-open anything. He reckoned Edwin would get fussy with the attention, but his friend seemed to barely be able to keep his eyes open at the present moment; he doubted that Edwin would have the wherewithal to refuse Charles’s desire to caretake.
“Hey, Edwin,” he spoke softly, hoping to wake his best mate further before continuing with his amateur medical care. Edwin blinked back awake at his voice.
“Hmm?” He almost sounded like someone had caught him snoozing during lecture.
“Gotta do your stitches now,” Charles continued, “You need anything?”
“Like some liquid courage?” Crystal chimed in as she found what she was rummaging for—a half full handle of gin. She waved the bottle around in an effort to come off as tantalizing, rejoining the two of them.
Edwin frowned at the bottle. “I will pass on the libations, thank you.” At Crystal’s and Charles’s look of disbelief, Edwin sighed and elaborated, “I experience almost every bone in my body breaking and rearranging themselves every full moon. One does not just have that happen without building up some level of pain tolerance.”
“Well, shit,” Crystal breathed out, “I’m going to need something then.” She took a swig directly from the bottle. Charles, running on some amount of autopilot as his mind forcibly recalled Edwin’s transformation, reached a hand out for Crystal to pass over the liquor. He only received a slap on his hand in response.
“Dude, you are about to stitch up a person,” Crystal chided, “You can have all the alcohol you want…. after.”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely…” He trailed off, dazed. Shaking his head to dislodge the memory of Edwin screaming bloody murder, Charles decided to focus by busying himself with readying his materials. At the sight of the needles, Crystal excused herself from watching the operation, noting that she had already had enough blood and viscera for one lifetime.
“Are you okay, Charles?” Edwin tentatively asked after Crystal left.
“Yeah, mate, yeah. Just… got caught up in remembering that night, is all.” Edwin looked contemplative at his response.
In a hushed tone, Charles morosely said, “I really hoped you didn’t remember that part.”
“It’s one of the few things I do remember during the change,” Edwin spoke in an equally quiet tone. Charles didn’t have a response. Only a stabbing feeling of sorrow and injustice at it all.
He remained silent as he finished his prep work: disinfecting things, cleaning the area around the cut, washing his hands yet again…
When it came time to actually put needle to skin, Charles hesitated. It was one thing to stitch himself up, but it was another to do it to someone else. Especially when that someone was Edwin. He felt his breath quicken. His hand trembled slightly.
“It’s okay, Charles,” Edwin reassured, “I trust you.”
Giving Edwin a meaningful look—like he was already apologizing for causing him pain—Charles nodded slightly several times and steadied himself.
It was an almost surreal feeling. Like Charles was watching himself thread a curved needle through Edwin’s skin. It felt more visceral than watching David bleed out underneath him. It felt worse for Charles, even though Edwin barely twitched at the stabbing. The only reaction he even had was the changing of his breath to something deliberate and measured.
Did it normally take this long to stitch up a wound? Charles idly wondered. Was he being extra careful? Or was that making things more painful for Edwin? Was Edwin in actual pain or just putting on a brave face so Charles didn’t feel even worse than he already did?
After an eternity that was probably only minutes, the suturing was completed with a knot. Edwin examined Charles’s work, “You should have chosen to pursue a career in the medical field, Charles. I daresay these look better than ones I would have received in a hospital.”
Charles huffed out a laugh that held no mirth. “Not fucking doing that again, yeah?” He finally looked back towards Edwin, the feeling of everything catching back up with him. Charles felt pinpricks behind his eyes. A lump in his throat. “Never again, Edwin. Not to you.”
He rushed out of the apartment; hearing Edwin call out his name before the front door swung shut. A couple of steps down, he plopped himself down on a stair. He felt ridiculous. Edwin would be fine. He asked Charles for his help. He didn’t so much make a noise of pain.
…Edwin didn’t hate him—on the contrary, in fact.
Then why did Charles feel like he had done something irredeemable?
“’m not going to cry,” he muttered as he furiously rubbed as his eyes.
A creak of the door and a few thuds later, Crystal sat beside him, wrapping an arm around Charles.
“You okay?” She asked, though she obviously already knew the answer. Charles simply shook his head “no,” afraid to open his mouth for fear of turning more into a blubbering mess.
“Edwin yelled for me to go after you. Did… did something happen?”
Charles leaned into Crystal. “Didn’t like doing that. To him,” he mumbled out, as Crystal didn’t seem content to not have him talk.
“Doing what? Helping him?”
“I hurt him.”
“You didn’t hurt him, Charles,” she said, flabberghasted.
He didn’t have the words to list how wrong Crystal was. “S’all my fault this even happened,” he settled with.
“Now cut that shit out,” she pulled back to look at him directly, “David would have been out there regardless. Same with that stupid fucking bear trap, from what I gather. If anything, you saved Edwin’s life by being out that night.”
“But—”
“No but’s.”
He leaned back into the side hug, calming himself in the companionable silence that followed. A few sniffs, then Charles spoke once more, “Guess we are doing Christmas all together, yeah?”
“And we’ll make it the best damn Christmas yet,” Crystal smiled.