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The bride’s veil was torn, and the tear tracks down her face were red. Charles had startled to see her – what had happened? Had her sorry husband ripped her eyes out or something?
But she had met Charles' eyes almost immediately, and both of them were still intact. A small victory, that, though something was very clearly wrong with her.
Edwin didn’t react. He never did, did he, as someone who was used to all sorts of violence. Sometimes, when Charles closed his eyes, he still saw the piles of Edwin’s corpses in Hell, the person he loved most in all the world torn to shreds. Sometimes he could still hear Edwin’s screams ringing in his ears when the office got too quiet, and he’d smile and try to light up Edwin’s face with a stupid joke or a curious thing pulled from his bag of tricks. It was the least he could do, after all. Edwin’s existence had been proper awful, and Charles was dead-set on being a bright spot forever.
“Good afternoon,” Edwin told the weeping bride with a no-nonsense look on his face.
Charles blinked his thoughts away and smiled at the client warily.
“I am Edwin Payne," Edwin continued, "and this is my associate Charles Rowland. As the door says, we are the Dead Boy Detectives – how can we assist you?”
The bride blinked, her face sad enough that Charles felt like he should comfort her somehow. But he didn’t, and when she spoke, her voice was broken. “It’s my fiancé,” she told them. Her gaze moved from Edwin to Charles and settled on his face. He gave her a lopsided grin from his place sat on the desk, and she swallowed before continuing. “Our wedding was supposed to happen… a week ago, now? But he didn’t show up. Then, I found him later, sitting in the hotel bar where we were supposed to have the reception, and you’ll never guess what he said.” She paused. “He said that he’d fallen in love with my maid of honor, Tabi! She was sitting next to him looking like the bitch she is, and she looked smug. I can’t believe her! My best friend since kindergarten. And Connor – god damn it. What a piece of shit.” She sobbed. “I can’t do this.”
“Wait,” Charles said, holding up a hand. “Back up. Connor’s alive, yeah? And Tabi?”
“Unfortunately,” the bride mumbled.
“Well, right, then.”
“At the risk of sounding insensitive, and I apologize for that,” Edwin chimed in, “how did you die?”
“Accident.” The bride looked annoyed. “I confronted Tabi, and we had a huge fight in my old bridal suite. She was screaming, and I stepped backward… right out of my third-story window. In my wedding dress. Oh, God.” She buried her face in her hands. “I’m a cliché.”
Edwin’s eyes turned up to meet Charles’s, and Charles nodded. “Right. So… what’s your name, then?”
“Aggie.”
“Right, Aggie,” Charles continued in what he hoped was a soothing voice. “You’re alright, then. So… most ghosts who stay here after they die have some sort of unfinished business. I’m guessing yours has to do with the wedding, right?”
“It is probably not the act of getting married itself,” Edwin interjected. “Rather, it is likely that you require an explanation of some variety from your expectant groom.” He tilted his head to the side gently. “What would you ask him, if you were able to do so?”
“Why he would do this to me,” Aggie said, her eyes blazing with righteous anger now. Gone were the bloody ghost tear-tracks; this new version of Aggie was filled with rage, which was aces in Charles’s book. A little anger was well-deserved. “Do you know why? Maybe we can get some fucking answers.”
Charles smiled at Edwin, who raised an eyebrow. “This sounds like a fairly simple case,” he said. “All we must do is find the man in question and make some inquiries regarding his undoubtedly selfish motives. Because of this,” he said, “we will not require too much in the way of payment-”
“I’ll give you my stupid fucking ring,” Aggie said with venom in her voice. “I don’t want it, anyway. It’s exactly what I wanted it to be.” She slipped it off her finger and tossed it on the Agency’s ratty couch. “Exactly what I asked for. A symbol of what I thought was a great relationship.”
“That should be sufficient,” Edwin agreed. Charles nodded at him slightly, and he stood up gracefully. “Now, do you have any idea where Connor might be?”
Aggie shrugged. “I guess probably with Tabi. I know where she lives, obviously.” A beat. “Can I come with you?”
“We will require your presence,” Edwin said, drawing his gloves on smoothly. “After all, how else are you to hear his explanation?” He moved his hands to his pockets and turned to Charles, assessing him with emerald eyes over his shoulder. “Do you think we ought to call Crystal and Niko? I believe that we can handle this one quite well with fewer people.”
“Yeah, a group would feel like they’re accosting him or something, wouldn’t it?”
“He deserves to be accosted,” Tabi spat.
“I don’t disagree, mate,” Charles told her. “You’ve had a rough go. But a surprise sneak-up doesn’t make people inclined to share what they’re thinking, does it, so we probably should go in with just us."
“Fine,” Tabi said, sounding very much like she didn’t care either way.
“Right, then.” Edwin pivoted elegantly on the balls of his feet, and Charles’s heart sputtered stupidly. He wondered why. “Let us go, then. The sooner our business concludes, the sooner your spirit can find rest. And, based on your experiences and general demeanor, I am confident that your afterlife will be far superior to anything that has happened to you here.”
-
Turns out, Tabi’s house was really easy to find. Aggie had stomped in front of Edwin and Charles with her hands curled into fists at their sides, and Charles had held his cricket bat while he and Edwin followed. No sense of leaving Edwin unprotected if the arsehole groom decided to pop up.
“Is this it?” Edwin raised an eyebrow as Aggie stopped. His hands were steepled in front of his waist, and his posture was straight as usual when their client turned backward.
“Yeah,” she said. “Ugly house, isn’t it?”
Charles kind of liked it. “Tacky,” he lied, because that was what Aggie had to hear.
Edwin side-eyed him, the corners of his mouth slightly upturned. “Quite the observation.”
“Thanks, mate. I live to observe.”
“Very well,” Edwin said. He held a hand out to Charles, who rifled through his bag of tricks until he found the glasses that put their disguises on. He dropped Edwin’s pair in his hand and put his own on, feeling the weird sensation of being solid in an old white guy’s body. Edwin’s disguise enveloped him, too, and he grinned. “Let us go in, then.”
“Wait, who the hell are you?” Aggie glanced between the boys.
“Oi, easy,” Charles said. “Probably should’ve told you before. These are our disguises.”
“They allow us to talk to the living.” Edwin shrugged, his hands moving loosely in the air.
Aggie tilted her head to the side. “Okay. Whatever. Let’s just-”
Charles rang the doorbell. What could he say? He was a doer, and they could just stand round and chat all day if no one made the first move.
After a minute passed, a woman with cascading blonde hair opened the door. “I don’t want to buy anything, I don’t want to join your church, and I have a solid cell phone plan that I’m not looking to change.”
“That’s not… no,” Charles said to the woman who must be Tabi. “My name’s Charles. That’s Edith. We’re, uh, family of Aggie?”
Tabi’s face hardened. “There’s nothing to talk about,” she said, slamming the door in their faces.
A moment passed, and Charles exchanged a look with Edwin. “Well, that wasn’t great, was it?”
“Bitch,” Aggie said, her cheeks red.
“I am inclined to agree,” Edwin said. “However, we must look at the bigger picture. Do you think-”
Unexpectedly, the door swung open again. A man stood in front of them, covered head to toe in freckles. His red hair was disheveled. “You knew Aggie?”
“Yes,” Edwin said, quickly recovering his posture. “Cousins. We have been looking for you.”
The man – Connor, presumably – assessed Edwin’s disguise. He leaned against the doorframe. “What do you need? Sorry if my girlfriend was rude to you. She can be really terrible sometimes.”
“Girlfriend?” Aggie hissed, and Charles shot her a sympathetic look.
“Right, then,” Edwin said. “Might we come in? Discuss Aggie?”
Connor narrowed his eyes. “Are you trying to accuse me of something?”
“Should we be?” Charles’s voice was light.
“We are well aware that Aggie’s death was an accident,” Edwin reassured Connor. “This is simply to put our minds at ease, as well as… others in the family. We promise that nothing you tell us will ever be repeated outside of this flat.”
Connor sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “Come in. And don’t call Tabi.”
-
“So,” Charles asked. “Why aren’t we meant to call out Tabi?”
Connor waved a hand. “She’s really mean when she’s tired.”
“That’s true,” Aggie mumbled.
“Anyway,” Connor said, “I was supposed to marry Tabitha last week. I remember really loving her, and being really excited for the big day. But then…”
“Then?” Edwin raised an eyebrow.
“Something happened,” Connor said. “The ring bearer – or at least, I thought he was the ring bearer – showed up. And he threw this weird bolt at me, and Tabi walked in after him. And all of a sudden… I don’t know. Everything was clear to me. The ring bearer left, but I realized: it’d always been Tabi. I don’t know why. Love’s not reasonable.” He shrugged. “But my heart’s never beat so fast, and everything she does…”
“Sudden love, then?” Charles scratched his head. “That’s proper weird. Did you have any feelings for Tabi before then?”
Connor chewed his lip. “I don’t remember.”
“Oh, fuck if you don’t remember,” Aggie said, and Charles sympathized.
“So…”
“So Aggie went to confront Tabi. I understand why,” Connor said, “but feel nothing. I only worried for Tabi, weird as it was. But when Aggie fell from the window…”
“Yeah,” Charles agreed lamely.
“Well,” Edwin said, “thank you, Connor. I trust that we can return if we have any further questions?”
“Of course,” Connor agreed, tucking his carroty hair behind his ears.
-
“Don’t you find all that a bit weird, mate?” Charles asked. He and Edwin had taken their disguises off, and now they sat on the stairs of an adjacent flat to chat. “If I were Connor, I’d definitely not have come to the door and let us in to talk. And wouldn’t have trusted us so easily, either. What do you think, Edwin?”
“I think that we must find that ring-bearer,” he said. “I think that we are dealing with a Cupid.”
Aggie snorted. “Like the little thing with the arrows?”
“Connor said he threw a bolt at him, didn’t he? That’d make sense.”
“Yes,” Edwin agreed. “If it was a cupid, there is nothing to be done about it. The arrow’s handiwork is of finite duration – one week, generally. If Tabitha wishes to continue this farce for longer, she must have the Cupid somewhere accessible.”
“Maybe he wasn’t a ring bearer at all,” Charles told him. “Connor didn’t sound too sure, did he?”
“No,” Aggie agreed. “He had no idea. And I happen to know that the ring bearer was my little nephew Sammie, who couldn’t throw anything to save his life. Also, he was literally with my sister all day, so… it definitely wasn’t him. Goddamn it. Connor knew my nephew was the ring bearer! How didn’t he recognize him?”
“Sometimes, a Cupid can convince their victim that they are someone else,” Edwin mused. “I would bet that Tabi is well aware of the nature of this Cupid. And, to be frank, I also am nearly certain that the Cupid is contained within the apartment. If I were… utilizing his services, I would wish to keep him quite close.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” Charles rifled through his bag of tricks. He pulled out a small gemstone, one that was shaped like a heart. “This’ll glow if it’s anywhere near a being that can alter romantic feelings. Faeries, Cherubs-”
“Cupids,” Aggie finished.
“See? You’ve got it,” Charles told her reassuringly. “Would you mind hanging out here for a bit while me and Edwin go try to scope the place out? More of us’ll make it less likely for the Cupid to come out. He might try to hide if he sees you, too, since you’re someone that he’s wronged.”
Aggie rolled her eyes. “Fine. Just don’t forget me out here.”
Edwin nodded at her, once, and stood up gracefully. Charles followed him back to Tabi’s house, striding lazily behind him as he sashayed purposefully along the sidewalk. They left a swirl of blue in their wake as they walked through the wall and directly into what seemed like Tabi’s bedroom.
She was newly asleep on the bed, snoring.
“Not altogether dignified,” Edwin muttered, but otherwise ignored her.
Charles watched as he strode up to her bookshelves and assessed the volumes there. “Quite a lot of Hallmark romances. Niko has taught me to appreciate a great romance myself, but I would be entirely embarrassed to be caught reading…” his mouth turned downward. “Lassoing the Cowboy’s Baby? For goodness’ sake. Look at this cover.”
“Definitely a photoshopped pregnancy,” Charles agreed, “and right terrifying. But it hasn’t got much to do with our case, so we should probably move on, shouldn’t we?”
Edwin exhaled. His shoulders set. “Quite right, Charles. Let us examine the insides of anywhere that a Cupid may be hiding…”
“Wouldn’t it want to escape? I would, if I were some sleeping bridesmaid’s hostage.”
“Excellent point. Perhaps we can simply call out for him and expect him to come to us?”
“Seems as good an idea as any.” Charles called out. “Cupid?”
A loud fluttering sound came from one of the dresser drawers; Edwin threw his hands into the air as though finally understanding something. “Good. Now we know that it was a Cupid.” He turned to Charles. “We must find some way to get it out without – what are you doing?”
Charles opened the drawer quickly and yanked the surprised Cupid from its depths. He shut the door just as fast and turned to Edwin, his hand tightly fastened over the Cupid’s mouth. “What? She’s out like a light. I knew she wouldn’t notice.”
The Cupid thrashed back and forth.
“That was incredibly reckless,” Edwin scolded. “What would you have done if she woke up?”
“Well, she didn’t wake up, did she?”
Edwin huffed. “Fine then.”
The Cupid continued struggling. “I’m gonna take my hand off your mouth now, and we can talk downstairs, alright? But you can’t scream, or Tabi’s going to – shit.”
The last thing Charles saw was a lightning bolt, as he fell to the ground.
-
When Charles opened his eyes moments later, Edwin was above him. “Charles,” he said, “Charles. Are you alright? You-”
“Yeah, mate,” Charles said. “You?”
“We lost the Cupid after he shot you. And, as he shot you, you will imprint upon the first person you see after opening your eyes.” Edwin inclined his head toward Charles. “As a result, you are likely experiencing… sensations, regarding me. I thought it best that you see me first rather than Tabi, as those were the only two available options. I am sorry.”
Charles furrowed his brow. “No, mate. It’s fine. I…”
Maybe Cupids couldn’t shoot the dead and make them fall in love. It made sense, didn’t it. And it was the only explanation, because…
“Nothing’s changed,” Charles said. “Guess we both dodged a bullet, yeah? Cupids probably can only influence the feelings of living people.” He smiled awkwardly. “You’re off the hook.”
Edwin’s face fell slightly. “Oh. Well, that is… positive news.”
-
It wasn’t.
Edwin was well aware that Cupid’s arrows were capable of impacting the dead as well as the living. He was fairly certain that Charles was, too, having solved The Case of the Romantic Runaways in ’97. And yet, Charles did appear unchanged, walking beside Edwin and chattering about how they would break the news to Aggie about her maid of honor having chartered a Cupid to steal the affections of her husband-to-be.
Edwin did not know what was happening to his best friend. This would have been unsettling in the best of possible situations, but considering both his feelings for Charles and the fact that Charles was aware of them, it was beyond that. It was distressing.
He watched Charles as he relayed what they had learned to Aggie, from the moment they had found the Cupid to the way that he had flown away. Perhaps he was gone forever now, Charles had said; a likely outcome, considering that he would not wish to return to the woman who had trapped and ensnared him.
“So,” Aggie sniffed, “what? Connor and Tabi live happily ever after, and I just die?”
“No,” Charles said, and Edwin’s unbeating heart skipped as he smiled at Aggie. “No. Cupid’s enchantments only last for, like, a week. Probably it’ll only be good for another day or so, and without the Cupid in her drawer, Tabi’s not going to be able to renew it. So Connor will snap out of it and leave Tabi.”
“And you will move on to your afterlife,” Edwin agreed. “Which, as I stated earlier, will likely be far nicer than here.”
Aggie turned toward Edwin. “Thanks,” she said. “For helping me. Um…”
“Death will come now,” Edwin said. He nodded at Charles. “We may no longer be running from her, but…”
“No reason to stick around, is there?” Charles said.
“Wishing you all the best,” Edwin said to Aggie.
He and Charles walked back to the Agency in an eerily, painfully comfortable silence.
-
Charles, Edwin had said back in Hell, I’m in love with you.
So, yeah, that was as clear as it could get, wasn’t it. Charles had been abnormally happy to hear it, even if he couldn’t say that he was in love with Edwin back. Edwin was his best mate, the best person he knew, and Charles always wanted Edwin to feel safe with him. He’d never toy with him or anything. He’d never want to hurt him, not at all. But being shot with Cupid’s arrow, falling in love with Edwin for a week…
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t string the person who was most important to him along, even if it was only for a few days and an understandable reason. So the minute they got back to the Agency, he cleared his throat. “I don’t know when this arrow thing’s going to kick in,” he told Edwin, “but I’ll leave when it does. Go somewhere else, maybe a hotel room. Not come back until I’m better-”
Edwin’s brow furrowed. “Why would you do that? I promise that I shan’t be unkind to you. And, regardless of my feelings, I won’t take advantage of your… ensorcelled state. I do hope you know that-”
“Of course. I mean, I’d never think you would. It’s just that… well, it’s not fair to you, is it? I don’t want to… to make you feel like you’re not important, or anything like that.”
“You will not,” Edwin said. “I do not want you to leave. We have always fought to remain together – why would this alter anything?” He tilted his head. “Have you wanted me to leave since we were on the stairway in Hell?”
“What? No!”
“Of course not. I am well aware of that. My point, Charles, is that I would not wish you gone, regardless of your feelings for me. I am certain that we will manage. Though…”
“What is it, mate?”
“It is odd. Cupid’s arrows tend to work fairly quickly. You ought to have been fawning over me within minutes, and instead we are here. And you appear perfectly yourself.” Charles noticed that Edwin steepled his hands before himself, tapping his index fingers together lightly at the bottom of the triangle his pretty hands made. “Are you experiencing… new emotions? At all?”
Charles scratched his head. “No? Honestly, mate, I don’t think it worked. Maybe he missed me?”
“He did not,” Edwin said, rolling his head. “Do not be silly, Charles. We both watched the bolt strike true.”
“Okay, well, maybe ghosts are immune.”
“They are not. But maybe something else about you makes you immune. I must look into this. Hand me the Compendium, will you?”
Charles did. It was a proper heavy book.
Edwin’s eyes focused as he flipped through the pages. “Cupids,” he muttered to himself, finally settling on a page toward the end of the encyclopedia. “Here we are.”
“What is it?”
Edwin sighed. “The slowest time a Cupid’s arrow would take to set is around five minutes. It has been significantly longer that that.” He glanced at the small clock on his desk. “Approximately two hours and twenty-seven minutes, in fact. I do not know why you have not been influenced by this particular spell.”
“Maybe I’m just made of sterner stuff than all the other ghosts.”
“Perhaps.” Edwin’s voice was dismissive. “Why would that be the case, though? Are you certain that you feel nothing for me?”
“I’ve never felt nothing for you.”
Edwin glared. “Are you certain that you feel the same about me as you did two hours and twenty-eight minutes ago?”
Charles plopped down hard on the plush arm of the couch. He perched on it, then, resting his elbow on his knee and his head on his palm.
Did he feel any differently toward Edwin? Charles looked intensely at the other detective, who sighed. Sure, he loved Edwin lots, but hadn’t he always? Edwin was smart, and he was bloody kind. He knew Charles backward and forward and had been a steady flame, burning at the heart of Charles’s existence for the past decades. And, yeah, he was fit – super fit, if you were into blokes. And his voice was calming, and the way he moved so gracefully was…
Brills didn’t even begin to cover it.
But that was all best mate stuff, wasn’t it, and he’d thought the same things that morning and yesterday and thirty years ago. “No,” he said. “Nothing’s changed. I’m sure of it.”
“Curious,” Edwin mumbled. “An odd anomaly, to be sure, but I suppose that there is nothing to be done about it.”
-
“Charles,” Edwin said the next day into the silence of their office. Charles was reading a comic book that he had borrowed from Niko, and he appeared so absorbed in it that Edwin feared he may have to clear his throat in a louder attempt to get his attention. But Charles’s head snapped up, and he met Edwin’s eyes with a warm smile. Edwin grinned back, knowing that he appeared stiff and wishing that he could be as warm as Charles was. But it did not matter, especially not if his hypothesis proved correct.
Edwin had been contemplating Charles’s Cupid situation all night. Unbeknownst to his friend, he had continued perusing books on supernatural beings all night in an attempt to learn whether anyone – or anything – had ever had immunity to Cupid’s arrows. Nothing ever had. Edwin was at quite a loss.
There was only one explanation, and it was surely a false one. It did not even bear contemplating too much – the idea that Charles might already be in love with him.
He would not say it; he could not say it, in deference to Charles’s feelings. The last thing that he wished to do was put the best person he knew in a precarious or uncomfortable position. But Edwin was not one to abandon his research without thoroughly testing each hypothesis, and this was the only remaining one that he had not yet explored.
So, without further ado, Edwin let out a shaking breath. “Can you describe in detail how, precisely, you think of me? I am simply curious.”
Charles flushed. “Why do I have to do that?”
Edwin considered this. The best lies contained a semblance of truth, but he realized that he need not lie at all. “I am testing a theory I have regarding the Cupid’s arrow,” he said. “I cannot elaborate further, but perhaps you can trust me?”
“Always,” Charles said, and Edwin felt his face warm. He ought not even have circulation; the feeling was unsettling. “But… uh, I don’t know about that, mate. I don’t want to…”
Edwin waved a hand loosely through the air. “I promise, Charles, that you will not hurt my feelings.”
“You’re sure?”
“I cannot imagine you saying anything unkind, what with the constant litany of he’s my best mate upon your lips.” He did a proper weird thing with his voice when trying to imitate Charles, and his eyebrows knotted with the effort.
“Well, for starters, you're awful at impressions,” Charles laughed. Edwin gave him a look of mock admonishment. “Well, then,” Charles continued, a lopsided, genuine grin on his face. “I think you’re absolutely aces. Smart, and a top-notch sense of humor, and I don’t like anything so much as I like talking to you. Everything you say and do makes me happy, and I always feel like I want to laugh with you. I don’t know.” He shrugged. “You’re my home, and my family, I guess? You make me feel safe when nothing else bloody well ever has.”
Pressure built behind Edwin’s eyes. “Oh. Well, thank you. I feel safe with you as well.” He paused, considering how to phrase the next bit. “What of my… other attributes?”
“Seeking lots of praise today, aren’t you? What, do you need some kind of mood-boost? Because I found a cool button on the ground, and I was saving it to give to you later, but-”
“No,” Edwin said. “No, I am not seeking attention. Though I will take the button,” he said, and Charles tossed it to him. Edwin assessed it – it was quite an ordinary plastic button, though its surface was made from a shimmering metallic blue material. He felt himself smile slightly. “My favorite hue,” he said.
Charles beamed. “Yeah?”
“It is quite nice.” Edwin placed it on his desk beside the mug that held his favorite pens. “Thank you.”
Not to mention that gift-giving could constitute as a love language. Perhaps there was nothing romantic about a button, but it was kind, and Charles’s inclination to save it until Edwin required some good cheer were… well, suspicious. “Do continue, please. Do you often find yourself thinking of me when I am not present?”
“You’re pretty much always present.”
“A fair point. But on the rare occasion when I am not, how do you picture me?”
Charles shrugged. “Fit? Smiling? I don’t know what you want me to say, mate. I love your smile, and the way that your eyes crinkle at the corners. Makes me feel all warm inside, you know? Like I’d do anything just to see your eyes light up like that.”
“Charles,” Edwin said before he could think better of it. “I know why you were immune to Cupid’s arrow.”
“Oh, really? Why?”
Edwin assessed Charles from head to toe. Should he say it? Would he appear to be taking advantage of Charles in some way?
Was he taking advantage of Charles in some way?
Of course not. He would never.
So he took a deep breath and answered truthfully.
“I believe that you are already in love with me.”
-
Charles felt the blood drain from his face. Which was stupid. He didn’t have circulation.
“Why do you think that?”
Edwin shrugged. “Well, you described a great deal of my best attributes and concluded that I made you feel safe. That does not necessarily indicate romantic love, of course – friendship is incredibly powerful, and my love for you as a friend is perhaps the strongest thing I have ever known. And yet you went on to call me ‘fit’ – a completely unsolicited descriptor – and waxed poetic about my eyes.” He paused. “Which indicates to me that there is a high likelihood that you harbor certain… feelings for me.”
You are already in love with me.
Charles couldn’t pretend that the idea hadn’t occurred to him over the last day. He thought about the first time it had – he’d been looking at Edwin and thought that his lips were proper pretty. Then, he’d wondered if Cupid’s arrow had worked before realizing that, no, he’d thought Edwin had a great mouth for years. He’d concluded that it must be a best-mates thing, but…
“Since when?” His voice shook.
Edwin shrugged. “I do not know. Only you could answer that, just as only you can determine whether you truly are in love with me. But… for what it is worth, that is the only explanation I can reasonably come up with.”
Charles tilted his head to the side and considered this.
Was it normal to think your best mate was bloody handsome? Was it weird to think about threading their fingers together sometimes when they walked along the London roads side-by-side? He glanced at the comic Niko had lent him. It was true that those were things couples did when they were on dates or whatever.
Was Charles in love with Edwin?
“I don’t know,” Charles said honestly.
Edwin tilted his head to the side. “Is there a way you believe that you can find out? It may take time, in which case I am happy to place this conversation on the table for however long you require. We can pretend it didn’t happen.” Charles blinked, surprised – Edwin only used contractions when he was stressed. “We’ll pretend…”
“No,” Charles said. “I, uh…” Might as well put his foot in it, really. “Can I come closer to you?”
Edwin blinked. His face softened. “Of course.”
So Charles jumped off the couch arm and walked over to Edwin. It felt slow; he felt slow, but he knew he wasn’t, really. When he made his way to Edwin, who was now sitting at the desk with his hands folded neatly in front of him, Charles assessed his face. “Can I put my hands in your hair?”
“Yes. Do as you wish.”
So Charles did. It was soft, comforting. He liked it.
“You can also touch my face,” Edwin said quietly, so Charles did. He cupped Edwin’s cheek in his palm, just like how he’d comforted him in Hell. But this time, Edwin closed his eyes as though hurt, and Charles felt a gnarly sort of shudder go through his arm and down his spine. Edwin’s eyes locked with his, and Edwin said, “Kiss me.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to, like…”
“It is quite alright, Charles. I am not delicate. I will not break. And I insist that you thoroughly investigate your feelings as any good detective would.”
So Charles smiled. And, with a weird fluttering feeling in his stomach, he leaned in to kiss Edwin’s soft lips.
When he pulled away, he knew.
“Yeah, mate. You’re right.”
Edwin’s eyebrows shot up, and for a moment he looked uncharacteristically discombobulated. “I was?”
Charles chuckled, his hand still cupping Edwin’s face. “Why do you sound so surprised?”
“I simply… are you certain? Is more experimentation required?”
“I’m certain,” Charles said. “Edwin, I promise that I’m certain. And that’s why I can confidently say that, yeah, more experimentation would definitely be aces.”
Edwin laughed, and he pulled Charles close.
Their lips met again, and all was right with the world.