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Charles found him on the roof.
He walked up with trepidation, the soft scuffle of his shoes against the stone the only thing audible in the darkness. Edwin drew in a breath when he noticed.
“Charles,” he said simply, an indistinguishable edge in his voice. Charles could only make out the profile of his face and the glimmer across his eyes; they were too far above the city for the streetlights to reach, but even in shadow, he could tell Edwin’s jaw was set.
“Edwin,” Charles repeated, staring at him. He sat next to Edwin at the edge of the building. A million things to say swam in his mind, but each one he reached for unraveled like thread in his hand.
Edwin didn’t speak either, and Charles had the surreal experience of having no clue what was on his mind.
“Do you still love me?” he blurted out, before he could stop the words.
Edwin stilled for a second, surprised. “Do I…? Yes, I do.” The of course went unspoken, but he shook his head gently, as if laughing at the idea that he would ever not.
“...I’m sorry.”
Edwin turned to face him more closely. “Why?”
“Because it’s a mess. We’re a mess; I’m a mess.”
Edwin shrugged. “I don’t see how that makes a difference.”
Charles shot him a sidelong glance. Really?
“Self-deprecation doesn’t look good on you,” Edwin said pointedly.
Charles sighed.
Edwin looked at him again, and a silent question hung between them. Charles brushed it away.
“What…. What happened to Orpehus and Eurydice? Actually?” he asked instead, hesitantly.
Edwin ran one thumb around the edge of his other thumb’s fingernail. Charles was struck with the desire to hold Edwin’s hand and have Edwin trace shapes into his hand with the pads of his fingers. He folded his hands in his lap.
“You read it in school at one point, did you not? How far did you get?”
“He went to the Underworld to save her after she got killed by… I dunno. Something.”
“A snake bite.”
“Really?”
Edwin wrinkled his nose at him.
“I thought it would be something tougher.”
“Well, in some versions it was an enchanted snake that Apollo had conjured. He was jealous of Orpheus’s giftedness, and wanted him dead.”
“Why?”
Edwin gave him a look. “Why don’t you let me tell the story, and you can ask questions at the end.”
Charles clammed up.
Something in Edwin’s eyes had lightened. Charles watched him. Edwin hadn’t gotten to talk about something of his own for a while. Sharing this was important to him.
“Orpheus was the demigod son of the eldest muse Calliope. Each of the muses was artistically divine, and because of that he had what some would call an unnatural affinity for music. He wooed his wife, Eurydice, by playing the lyre and singing to her. When they had hardly been married a year, Eurydice died from the snake bite. The version I read told that Apollo had meant to strike down Orpheus, because music was his domain, and he didn’t want any half-god to be as close as Orpheus was to his skill level. Eurydice placed herself in front of his path when she saw the snake come near. She died a day later.
“Orpheus didn’t eat or sleep for days, and he came so close to death that he began to hear the music of the dead. He followed its sound to a cave, and crept through, hoping he might be able to follow Eurydice to the land of the dead. He convinced the ferryman Charon to let him cross the river of the damned by playing a song so lovely on the lyre that every ghost who could hear it stopped to listen, and he played the guard dog of Hell, Cerberus, a lullaby, until he fell asleep and let Orpheus pass.
“He made it to the palace of Hades and requested an audience. It was autumn, and Persephone had come to stay in the underworld, so Hades was in a good mood, and agreed. Orpheus pleaded for any chance to save Eurydice’s life, and Hades conceded, if Orpheus completed a challenge. Orpheus accepted instantly.
“Hades decreed that Orpheus could walk out of the underworld with Eurydice, and she would be granted a full second chance at life, if he didn’t look back at her once until they had both made it back to the land of the living. She needed a guide, he explained; otherwise her soul would be lost in the endless fields of the middle-afterlife forever. Orpheus thought it was too good to be true.
“He walked out of Hades’s palace. Hades assured him that Eurydice was behind him, but he couldn’t look and see for himself. He began to play the lyre again, so that she’d have something to follow; maybe she’d remember him and their life together. For her, it probably felt like she was moving through a dream, or a deep state of subconsciousness. She was detached. Her body was still rotting in the earth above.
“Orpheus spent the ferry ride back across with his gaze set firmly to the land on the other side of the river. He asked Charon if he could see Eurydice, but Charon didn’t respond. He continued playing the lyre. They walked up for what felt like an eternity. Hell is a long way down. Finally, Orpheus began noticing the walls getting lighter, and after another eternity, he could see thin cracks of sunlight reaching down to them. He began running faster and faster. He stopped playing the lyre just meters from the end of the path. He listened as closely as he could, to know if there were footsteps there. He walked slowly to the edge of the living world, one foot in the grave, so to speak. He hesitated again. He couldn’t hear anything. No breathing, no footsteps, no movement of fabric brushing against itself. He called out to her and heard nothing but his own voice.
“He fills himself with strength and leaves the cave. Immediately he hears a noise— someone stumbling against dirt— and turns back to help her up. Eurydice gasps, and light has begun to flood her face. Color returns to her skin. He reaches for her, overjoyed, but as he does, their eyes meet, and he realizes she is still in the cave. The life dims from her eyes once again, and she crumbles to dust in his hands.”
“What?” Charles exclaimed, incredulous. “Why?”
“There’s several variations of the ending,” Edwin explains. “In some, she trips, and he turns to help her up; in some the silence gets to him, he is filled with doubt at the last second and turns just before getting to the land of the living; in some, he makes it out, and looks back at her, ecstatic, but she is still in the Underworld.”
Charles rubbed furiously at his eyes. “No, but why doesn’t it work? It didn’t have to end like that; It would have been so simple!”
“If it were that simple, we wouldn’t be retelling it, thousands of years later.”
“Whatever. That was horrible.”
“He looks back because he loves her. There is no other ending,” Edwin persisted.
“Bull.”
“Charles, if I had told you, when you came to get me, that the only way you could save me was if you walked right out and never looked back, do you think you could have done it?”
“Yes,” Charles said petulantly.
“Even though you didn’t know the way? Even if I didn’t say a word and you had no guarantee at all that I was still there?”
“Well, I didn’t exactly make a deal with the king of Hell who promised me you’d be there, did I? Orpheus had a guarantee!”
“Gods lie. Hades could have exploited any loophole to keep Eurydice in his domain. Orpheus knew that. He had no other choice, just as you didn’t.”
“I just— why does it have to be like that?”
“Sometimes you love someone so much that it dooms them.”
“I don’t agree,” Charles said.
“You can’t not agree with a myth. The ending has been written for millenia,” Edwin retorted.
“That’s not how love should work,” Charles protested, forming his argument as he spoke. “If you love someone and do everything in your power to save them, they should be fucking saved. What happened to love conquers all?”
“That’s idealism.”
Charles snorted. “Like you aren’t secretly a romantic.”
“The point,” Edwin began again, “is that sometimes you do everything and everything isn’t enough. You can’t bring someone back from the dead. You can’t save everyone. But you still try. The story has a million retellings, but in all of them, he goes to save her, and in all of them he looks back.”
“Explain to me how him looking back is an act of love. Doesn’t he trust her?”
“It’s about irrationality. He trusts her but not himself. Doubt creeps in. What if she got lost, or trapped somewhere else, and this deal he made stops him from being able to help her? He loves her so much he can’t help but see if she’s okay.”
“Okay, but doesn’t he trust her to be self-sufficient?”
“It’s irrational, Charles! His feelings are irrational! His fears are irrational! He can’t help it,” Edwin exclaimed.
“So you’re saying love is conquered by fear.”
“No, I’m saying that the love required to go to Hell for someone is the same love that makes him look back. He can’t have gone all that way and then not even know if she’s still there; it goes against everything he’s worked for.”
That, finally, gave Charles some pause.
“Did I get somewhere?” Edwin asked begrudgingly.
“Yeah– I- yeah. That makes sense.”
“Good.”
Charles considered his words. “I saved you, though. Does that mean I don’t love you?”
“No.”
“How come?”
“Because this is real life, and no one told you not to look back.”
Charles grinned slightly. He wanted to kiss him.
“What?” Edwin frowned in confusion.
“Nothing.”
“Hm.”
“You love me,” Charles said thoughtlessly. The grin slid off his face. “Does it hurt?”
Edwin’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Well, that’s the point of the story, innit? If you love someone enough, there’s a point where that love can hurt you more than anything else. He loses her, he follows because he loves her. But he looks back because he loves her too. Love and loss go together.”
“Well, you’re still here, as far as I can see,” Edwin began flippantly, “So no, it doesn’t particularly hurt.”
“But I haven’t been,” Charles said quietly.
“That’s not the same.”
“Just tell me, Edwin. I need to know if I’m hurting you.”
“Why, so you can guilt yourself forever?”
“No— because- because you’re supposed to tell me what to do! You have all the answers, Edwin, can’t you just tell me what you need from me?”
“This isn’t like investigating a case,” Edwin bit back. “It’s a two-way street. I’ve laid my cards on the table; you have to do the same before I can make another move.”
“In this analogy, are we playing poker or chess?” Charles muttered.
“Whichever one makes you happy,” Edwin replied sardonically.
“I just need to know what you’re feeling. Please.”
“Only if you’re honest with me after,” Edwin said sharply, but his resolve had crumbled. “Promise me.”
“Promise.”
Edwin took Charles’s hand in his and carefully entwined their pinky fingers together. “Niko taught me this,” he said, almost sheepishly.
Charles hadn’t made a pinky swear to anyone in years. What a stupid thing to blush over.
Edwin cleared his throat. “I hate not talking. I can’t tell if you just need room to think or if you don’t want to be around me anymore— and I’m afraid of the answer. We can’t get things done the same if we aren’t communicating and our caseload is obviously suffering. And I miss your company.”
“Right.” Charles winced. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m going to need a little bit more than that,” Edwin said crisply when Charles hesitated. There was an unmistakable thread of anxiety in his words that made Charles’s blood chill.
“I still want to be around you. I still care about you, and what we’re doing; I don’t want to distance myself,” he continued hurriedly. “But I feel like I’m stringing you along if I don’t tell you where I’m at in response to your… confession. And I want to be able to figure things out on my own time.”
“We can still be mates, then,” Edwin said, his voice oddly shaky. “That’s all I want.”
“I-I don’t know how, though,” he continued, hating each word. “When I still don’t know what I want or what I’m going to do.”
Edwin didn’t reply.
“I’m– I’m sorry,” Charles repeated, desperately.
“I have something to say,” Edwin said sharply. “Was there anything else you wanted me to know, first?”
“Umm… no.” Charles’s heart thudded.
“I don’t care if you need time,” Edwin began, and Charles’s stomach dropped. “We have time,” Edwin added emphatically. “I told you something that alters our relationship, for better or for worse, and I can’t reasonably expect you to act like it didn’t happen. That said, unless you’d prefer to do something differently, I don’t want things to change between us, and they have been.”
Charles frowned. Where was this going?
“All I want, for Christ’s sake, is that you don’t shut me out. If there’s any reason you don’t think we can act the same as we always have, by all means, tell me. But I don’t need anything more from you, and you aren’t bloody leading me on by being my friend. It can be the same as always.”
Charles tried to arrange his thoughts. He didn’t want it to be the same anymore. Would Edwin be pleased to know that, or would it make him even more confused?
“I’d like to be certain, though,” Edwin added. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”
Charles jolted up to meet his eyes. They glimmered a bit in the trace of light.
“No,” he blurted out, maybe more harshly than ideal. “You’ve never made me uncomfortable. You’ve always been more respectful and considerate to me than anyone else.”
“That’s because I don’t respect anyone but you,” Edwin muttered, and Charles had to suppress the shiver that went through him.
“I— Edwin,” he began, fueled by some brazen courage. “If I did— well, if something did change— would you want to still be mates, or, uh. Something else?”
Edwin looked at him sidelong. “Are you asking if I want to date you?”
“Uh. Yes? Since I’ve established I’m not uncomfortable with you or your, ah, feelings towards me.”
“But… why?”
“Call it curiosity.”
Edwin sighed. “Yes, Charles, I’d consider it quite normal for someone to want to form a relationship with someone with whom they are enamored.”
“That’s a yes, then.”
“Yes.”
Charles raised his hands in surrender at Edwin’s inquisitive stare. “I was talking with Crystal a while ago about how I’d never wanted to be in a relationship with anyone, even someone I was attracted to. I guess I was just wondering how you think about that kind of thing, since the customs were probably pretty different when you were growing up.”
“Never wanted that, past tense? But she’d changed your mind?”
And Edwin thought he was the nosy one.
“I— well, no. That’s sort of why we broke up.”
“Ah.” Edwin looked like he was filing information away.
“And for my original question…?”
“It’s not that different, to be frank. Things are a bit more… open now. Less beating around the bush. Less chaperoning. To my mind, courting is a performance; dating is just two people getting to know each other. Not that I ever actually courted someone while I was alive.”
“No?”
“I never found any interest in it. And I was a bit young. Honestly, until quite recently, I thought dating was merely something people did out of obligation.”
“Yeah… I did too.”
“Past tense again,” Edwin noted. “Is there something I should know?”
“Like I said,” Charles said, his nerves growing, “I’m figuring it out.”
He could sense Edwin’s frown in the dark. “Glad to hear it.”
“Wait, so you’d never even fancied anyone before you died?” Charles asked suddenly, processing what he had said.
“No.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Charles conceded.
“Well,” Edwin began, as if something had just occurred to him. “I met a boy in Hell who liked me. We had gone to school together.”
“Did you like him at all?”
“He bullied me,” Edwin said flatly.
“Oh.”
“And he hated himself. He didn’t even try to escape. Thought he deserved it. It occurred to me,” Edwin continued thoughtfully, “Because this was the second time, before you came to find me— that I would have ended up exactly like him if I’d never met you.”
Oh.
Charles felt like he’d been struck by an arrow.
“Sorry,” Edwin added wryly. “Too much?”
“No,” Charles said emphatically, again. “I, um— some of the things you say make me feel like I am a good person, after all.”
Edwin laughed bitterly. “That’s because you are.”
I love you.
He didn’t say it.
By all accounts and purposes, this was a good time to say it. Edwin wanted to be with him. He wanted to be with Edwin. More immediately, he’d like to snog Edwin unconscious at the nearest availability.
But they’d just gotten here. Weeks of him rethinking and reevaluating and now he knew that he loved Edwin and maybe always had, and all of that contemplating had scared him out of acting. What they had was good, had always been good, and maybe he wasn’t as open to change as he wanted to believe.
So he pulled Edwin into a bear hug instead, buried his face deep into the side of his neck and pretended he wasn’t thinking about placing a kiss there, because they had tomorrow. Edwin gripped him in return, and Charles loved him.
And he wanted it to mean something, so he kept quiet and started planning.