Chapter Text
Crystal is comfortable. She’s warm, and well-rested, with no demons in her head and three best friends surrounding her. Her arm rests on the arm of Charles’ and Edwin’s uncomfortable couch. Her feet are tucked up next to her, bare toes under Niko’s legs. Niko, rather than resting on the other arm of the couch, leans against Crystal’s shoulder, a steady weight at her side. Rain drums on the window but it’s a Saturday morning—they have nowhere to be today and no obligations to attend to. The rain is a comforting, steady drumbeat rather than a dreary slog to get through.
Tucked into the minifridge she’d convinced the boys to get sometime between their return from Port Townsend and their rescue of Niko are two slowly defrosting frozen pizzas: lunch, in a few hours, heated by the microwave she’d also convinced them to get that sits atop the fridge. It’s a rare, lazy day for the agency and all four of them plan to take advantage of it together. With the day stretching out before them, it feels like they have all the time in the world.
“No, no, no,” Charles is saying now, grinning down at her and Niko from where he leans against the minifridge-microwave combo. “That’s too simple. Can’t be anything too simple—need to impress the clients, don’t we?”
“And the current name does that?” Crystal mutters wryly with a grin.
Charles scoffs comfortably at her. He turns his head with ease, staring down his best friend. “C’mon, Edwin, back me up here.”
Edwin does not look up from his desk. He’s the only one of the three of them doing anything that could remotely be considered work, though he’d been adamant that he enjoys comparing old case files with current ones and taking notes about the differences and similarities. Just as Charles has stripped down to his shirt, braces hanging off his hips, Edwin has shed a few layers too. He still has on his waistcoat, and he hasn’t rolled up his sleeves, but the bowtie and other layers are gone. (He says he’s concentrating, but Crystal’s seen his lips quirk a few times during their discussion when one of them is being particularly amusing.)
“I have not agreed to change our name, Charles,” he says, dry and fond all at once.
Crystal rolls her eyes fondly in return, even if he isn’t looking to see it. Edwin’s a pushover when it comes to Charles and everyone here knows it—however much he doesn’t like change, if Charles asks for it, Edwin’ll give it. Of course, she’s not convinced Charles is committed to a name change either, it’s just a fun discussion for the moment—same as Edwin’ll do anything for him, if Charles thinks Edwin genuinely wouldn’t like something (or at least tolerate it for him), he wouldn’t push for it.
“Simple can be nice,” Niko counters easily. “I mean, Dead Boy Detectives is simple, isn’t it?”
Charles’ head spins around so he can gape at her properly. “Simple?” he asks, mock horrified.
“Well, kinda, yeah,” Crystal says in support. “I mean, you’re dead boys, and you’re detectives, aren’t you?”
Charles shakes his head, as if distressing over them disparaging the agency’s name, but Crystal can see him trying not to smile. She exchanges her own grin with Niko.
“How did you guys pick the name the first time?” she finds herself asking, and then: “Not even just the name, really. How’d you guys decide to be detectives in the first place?”
That does get Edwin to look up from his desk. He exchanges a long glance with Charles, that kind where they have a whole conversation in seconds. Crystal can’t read them nearly as well as they can each other, but she can see the amusement and fondness bouncing between them. Edwin rolls his eyes and concedes to Charles with a slight nod.
Charles, grinning gleefully, rubs his hands together. “Right. Get ready for the story of a lifetime, girls.”
At Crystal’s side, Niko straightens attentively. Crystal can’t seem to stop herself from smiling, steeped in the warmth of the moment. Off to the side, she catches Edwin rolling his eyes again, but he’s leaning back in his chair instead of returning to the files on his desk.
“Okay,” Charles continues. “So, let’s set the scene. It’s a cold November, 1989. I’m just strolling the campus at St. Hilarion’s, this posh all-boys school I got into on scholarship. Classes and activities are over for the day. It’s actually getting pretty close to evening actually, and the place had a curfew, you know, so when I see these other blokes out by the lake I decide to go see what’s what, don’t I?”
“Uh, Charles?” Crystal interrupts uncertainly. Her smile has slipped off her face, replaced by a small frown as Charles’ story has unfolded. “Isn’t this… isn’t this how you died?” He’s certainly talking like this was still when he was alive.
“You didn’t meet Edwin before you died, did you?” Niko asks eagerly, with only a touch of sorrow.
Huh. Crystal hadn’t considered that.
“Well, I’m getting to that, aren’t I?” Charles says, still grinning. “But, sure, yeah, I’ll fast-forward a bit. No need to go over all the gruesome details I suppose. Anyway, a few hours later and I’m hiding in this attic right, shivering to bits, when I see this light coming round the corner.” He flashes his smile Edwin’s direction before turning back to them. “’Course, it was Edwin, wasn’t it, but I didn’t know that then.”
“So you did meet before you died!”
“Barely—could only see him because I was halfway there, right? So, anyway, he comes over with this lantern—”
“Charles,” Crystal cuts in again, a little firmer than before. “Not that, I mean, if you want to tell us, you can, but…” She doesn’t know how to put it. It’s hard to think about, sometimes. No matter how content they are with the way things are now, Charles and Edwin still died tragically, young. Kids. She’s nearly eighteen now. They’ll never be.
Charles’ grin softly fades. “Right. Sorry. Forget that not everyone… y’know.” He offers her a small smile. There’s grief in it, but there’s warmth too. “It wasn’t all bad, the actual dying of it. Not with Edwin there.”
It’s actually really, really touching, the way he says that—the way he casts a fond, love-struck look over at Edwin after saying it, the way Edwin looks back, all softness in his gaze, smiling in return. Crystal feels her eyes start to water a bit. She sniffs, trying to wipe at them subtly.
“But I’ll fast-forward a bit more,” Charles continues. “Skip straight to the ghostly bits. Alright, third time’s the charm. So there I am, a ghost, and Edwin’s all: ‘right, nice to chat with you, but I’ve gotta run, see you never’, right?”
“Charles!” It’s Edwin who interrupts this time, looking fondly scandalized. (Crystal didn’t even know you could add fondly as an adjective in front of the word scandalized, but she’s learned Edwin can express any emotion fondly, when it comes to Charles. For someone so bad with emotions, it’s actually sort of remarkable.) “That is not what I said at all!”
Charles folds his arm and offers Edwin a mock pout. “Well, if everyone keeps interrupting my story we’ll never get to the good parts, will we?” Despite the grumpiness in his tone, he’s still grinning. “How would you tell it then?”
Edwin straightens. “Very well.” He stands from the desk and moves to position himself in front of it, turning to face Crystal and Niko. His hands steeple themselves in front of him. “I,” he starts imperiously, “was well aware at that point that encountering Death would only get me sent to my assigned afterlife. Having only recently escaped Hell, you can imagine my reluctance to meet her.”
That, Crystal thinks with astonishment, is an understatement. Understatement of the year, properly. It wasn’t a one-time thing, that reluctance—and honestly, even if Edwin had deserved it, who would ever want to go back to Hell? She gapes slightly at him. Next to her, Niko lets out a nervous giggle.
“I was also aware that it was extremely unlikely that Charles had been assigned to Hell,” Edwin continues. “He had been excellent company, despite his state, and I told him as such,” —he directs those words at Charles— “before wishing him well. And then he decided, on a whim, that he was not interested in his afterlife—”
“Oi, that’s not what I said either!” Charles is grinning widely as he complains. Edwin looks fonder than usual but also ready for a good debate.
“What does any of this have to do with deciding to become detectives?” Crystal cuts in, before they can forget that she and Niko are even in the room.
Charles turns back to her. “Well, gotta start at the beginning, don’t we?”
Crystal rolls her eyes. “Not the very beginning,” she complains. “You didn’t just become a ghost and decide to be a detective just like that, did you?”
“You’d know,” Charles says cheekily, “if you let me tell it.”
She sighs, pointedly, feeling fondness welling in her breast that she tries to mask. She’s pretty sure she fails and that it comes across on her face, despite the sigh.
“Fine, then,” Charles says. “I’ll jump right into it then. So, we get to Loch Ness—”
“Loch Ness!” Niko squees in excitement. “So there is a Loch Ness Monster then? Did you guys see it?!”
“Charles, the Loch Ness Monster was not—!”
“Hold on, hold on.” Crystal’s sitting up properly now, if only so she can wave her hands around and get Charles and Edwin both to stop. “You can’t just jump straight to the Loch Ness Monster either!”
Charles laughs. “Well, I wasn’t trying to, was I?”
She rolls her eyes. The fondness overflows in her, spilling out again into a grin she can’t shake. “Fine, tell the story your way. No more interruptions.”
“Finally,” Charles says. “Right, where was I?”
“You had just decided to give up your afterlife for Edwin,” Niko says eagerly, enthralled.
“Right,” Charles agrees. He doesn’t dispute the wording of the statement—though Edwin sputters unhappily off to the side. Charles looks his way. “You want to tell it, then?”
Edwin raises an eyebrow. “Where would you have me begin?”
“At the beginning.”
Edwin rolls his eyes. “Very well.” He turns back to the couch. “As I was saying, Death was about to appear. There was little time for me to argue with Charles regarding his decision to stay…”
The blue light was there for Charles, Death was coming, and Edwin could not be there when she arrived, Edwin tells them. His soul was bound for somewhere Charles would never see—should never have seen, he corrects—and he had no desire to return.
They fled the attic rather quickly. It was early morning—“November,” Charles reminds them, “just before or after dawn, I think.”—and the school was more or less asleep, so Edwin had no qualms about opening the doors in their path for Charles as they raced down the stairs. It was easier, he explains, than expecting Charles to move through things immediately upon becoming a ghost.
Then they were out on the lawn, the sun only just lighting the horizon. (“See, told you. Dawn.” “Charles, are you telling this story, or am I?” “Right, sorry mate.”) Charles had grabbed the lantern Edwin had brought, though Edwin isn’t quite sure why. (Charles shrugs. “Dunno. Seemed like the thing to do, I suppose.” “Charles.” “Right, sorry,” Charles says, not looking sorry at all.)
Edwin had enjoyed his evening with Charles, but he was still taken aback by the other boy’s decision to remain and figured, in hindsight, it wasn’t that Charles wanted to stay with Edwin, it was only that he hadn’t wanted to be dead. (Charles opens his mouth. Edwin shoots him a look. Charles promptly closes his mouth.) He was expecting Charles to move on as soon as he realized being a ghost was very little like being alive.
“Well,” Edwin had said, straightening up properly, moving to clasp his hands behind his back. “I would say it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Charles Rowland,” he continued, “but I cannot imagine it was pleasant at all for you.” He nodded, fully prepared to walk away. It was one thing to comfort a scared boy—Charles had hardly been in any position to turn him away—and another thing entirely to try and cultivate a friendship on (mostly) equal footing.
“Hold on a tick, mate!” Charles replied, alarm in his eyes. “You can't just, I mean, I don't even know any of these ghost rules and whatnot, do I? Thought you said I could stick around, yeah?”
“I said nothing of the sort,” Edwin said, because he hadn't actually agreed. There hadn’t been the time. He supposed, by letting Charles flee with him, Charles must have taken it as an implicit agreement rather than the selfish desire it had been.
“Oi!” Charles interrupts properly here, frowning. Crystal finds herself frowning too. “It’s not selfish not to want to go to Hell!”
“Yes, well,” Edwin says fussily, not meeting Charles’ eyes. “One could argue that it is rather self-motivated.”
“That’s not the same thing,” Crystal cuts in, harsh. She softens a little. “Take it from someone who used to be selfish.”
Niko snuggles further into Crystal’s side as Edwin turns to look at her. Crystal accepts the comfort easily in a way she might not have before, entwining her arm with Niko’s.
“I did not say it was a bad thing,” Edwin argues, “only that—”
“Yeah, no,” Charles shuts him down. “Maybe we shouldn’t have started at the beginning. I’m jumping forward again.” He turns to her and Niko.
“So, Edwin foists me off onto Mrs. Marple, delightful woman that she is, and we get to talking, because I’m proper charming and all.”
“Most ghosts stay because of unfinished business,” Mrs. Marple had told Charles, all motherly and soft, patting his arm in a comforting way. “Of course, there are exceptions. Sometimes for you young ones the unfinished business is just living, isn’t it?”
“Charles,” Edwin cuts in.
“Yeah!” Niko agrees. “I was enjoying the story!”
Charles’ jaw tightens a little. He turns back to look at Edwin, staring him down. Edwin remains resolute for far longer than Crystal would, in the face of that expression on Charles, but he predictably folds, as he always does.
“Very well,” Edwin concedes, only a little unhappily. “I shall allow Charles to recommence the telling. I was only offering my perspective at the time,” he continues. “I do not see what all the fuss is about. It was nearly forty years ago.”
“Thirty-seven,” Charles corrects. “And now you get to hear my perspective. Where were we?”
“Edwin didn’t get very far,” Crystal says. “I think he’d just told you he was leaving.” She is wondering who on Earth Mrs. Marple is, but she figures they’ll get to that in time.
“Oh yeah, so, Edwin tells me, again, that he’s got places to be—nevermind that he didn’t—and I told him, again, that he was stuck with me…”
“I suppose, however,” Edwin had conceded, frowning unhappily, because even then he wasn’t immune to Charles’ charms (“Charles!” “Just adding a bit of flavor, mate.”), “that I can give you a few lessons on the basics.”
Charles beamed at him. “Aces, mate,” he said.
“First,” Edwin said. “First,” he repeated, “perhaps I should show you how to move through things.”
“You started with that?” Niko cut in.
Edwin looks a little sheepish. “It seemed easiest, and I wanted him to have something… fun, I suppose. We had already discussed the rules of it earlier and it was something… new.”
Crystal can put the pieces together. She remembers how frustrated Charles had gotten in Port Townsend—how he’d admitted to hating being dead. “Not something he’d miss from being alive.”
Edwin nods gratefully at her. “Exactly.”
Maybe Edwin had never properly put it together, how much Charles had missed living. Crystal had always wondered about that, all the years that they’d spent together. But maybe he’d suspected. Or maybe he’d just done his best to stave off such thoughts without needing to know the whole truth of things, the real depth of Charles’ feelings, and Charles had done his best to repress them, and between the two of them they’d pushed things down for thirty-five whole years without fail.
Charles is looking at Edwin with a tinge of awe in his eyes—not that he doesn’t usually do that, but this is something a little stronger, a little brighter. “You never told me that, mate,” he says, soft.
“Yes, well.” Edwin averts his gaze again.
Crystal doesn’t know if it’s cute or unsettling that Edwin responds the same way to being told he isn’t selfish for not wanting to go to Hell as he does to Charles praising him for being kind. Compliments. Neither boy is good at them, no matter how much Charles pretends to be. She exchanges glances with Niko—they’re working on it.
“Anyway, the story, Charles,” Edwin prompts, before Charles can say anything further.
“Oh, no, you’re not getting out of this, love,” Charles says. He straightens from his lean (if there’s one thing Crystal envies her friends about being ghosts, its they can stand—or lean—in one position for hours and never tire). “C’mere.” He opens his arms.
Edwin huffs a sigh, as fake as Crystal’s had been earlier, and rolls his eyes. Without protesting, however, he steps into Charles’ embrace. Charles holds him tight as Niko coos in delight. Crystal wishes she could take a picture.
“Thanks,” Charles says, quiet, just for Edwin, nuzzling into his neck and closing his eyes for a moment.
Niko bounds up from the couch, throwing herself into the pair of them.
“Oi,” Charles says, grinning, “what’s this for?”
Niko throws Crystal a look instead of answering, so Crystal heaves herself off the couch and folds herself into the hug. She tucks herself between Charles and Niko—not even really touching Edwin, knowing his aversion to it most of the time—mostly draping herself over Niko’s back.
“I asked you for a story about how you became a detective, and you started by telling us about your death,” she says, dry. “Take the group hug. Niko’s not going to settle for anything less.”
“Well, that’s alright then,” Charles accepts.
Edwin puts up with it for only a moment longer before squirreling his way out from the group, and they all settle back to where they were before—Charles leaning, Niko cuddling into Crystal’s side on the couch, Edwin standing in front of the desk. Edwin has a rare, soft smile on his face. Niko is wiping away tears, grinning as she does so.
“I didn’t mean to bring down the mood,” Charles directs toward Crystal.
“You didn’t,” she assures him. “Mostly.”
“I can skip to the Case of Mrs. Marple’s Necklace, if that’d make you guys feel better,” Charles offers.
“That was hardly a case,” Edwin cuts in.
“The Case of the Loch Ness Monster?” Charles asks.
“As I attempted to say earlier, that was in no way—”
“Well than what would you say was our first case?”
Edwin frowns, considering it. “The Case of the Misplaced Urn.”
Charles laughs. “That wasn’t a case! That was a, a… a family feud!” He shakes his head, amused.
“He was our first paying client,” Edwin counters.
“Yeah, no,” Charles says. He turns back to her and Niko. “The first real case—though we did it for free, was the Case of the Cursed Carousel.”
Crystal looks over to see if Edwin agrees to that; the other boy is frowning thoughtfully.
“I suppose it has all the requirements—we were approached by other ghosts to investigate a supernatural occurrence the living authorities were blind to, and solving the issue did require detective work, though we did not have the office at that time and, as Charles noted, we did not get paid.”
Charles beams as if Edwin had wholeheartedly agreed with him, rather than the back-handed agreement he’d been given.
“You don’t get paid normally,” Crystal feels safe to interrupt. “Take it from someone who still has rent.”
“I was under the impression that your parents paid for your flat?”
Crystal rolls her eyes. “If I had a proper source of income, they wouldn’t have to.”
“Nah, you need to milk those rotters for all they’re worth,” Charles says.
“I agree.” Niko snuggles in closer.
“Niko!” Crystal gapes at her friend.
“I don’t like them,” Niko says, a searing indictment from her.
Something in Crystal warms at the sound of it, even if she’s been doing her best to repair that relationship. “Anyway,” she says, because she doesn’t want to spend their weekend talking about her problems. “I didn’t ask what your first case was. I asked why you wanted to be detectives.”
“Right. Got a bit sidetracked then, didn’t we. Back to the story?”
“Yes, please,” Niko agrees.
Charles glances to the side. “You or me, Edwin?”
“You may resume,” Edwin allows.
“Great, so, where were we? Right, Edwin was being all soft and nice and offering to show me how to move through things, right?”
Edwin, pretending to look cross, doesn’t interrupt to refute the statement.
“Right,” Charles continues. “So, there we are, out on the lawn, Edwin offers to show me how to move through things, and I say…”
“Like how you didn’t go through the floor,” Charles said, grinning.
Edwin nodded. “Exactly. As ghosts, we are insubstantial. We do not interact with the living world.” (He’d already told Charles some of this, but it was a bit hard to remember everything that happened while one was dying of hypothermia—Niko makes a soft sound at the aside; Crystal grabs her hand and holds on tight.) “Unless we wish to, of course.” Edwin nodded at the lantern in Charles’ hand.
Startled, Charles looked down at it. He held it out from him, wondering how on Earth he’d managed to do that. “Oh, um, I—was I not supposed to…?”
“You have done nothing wrong,” Edwin reassured him. “As I said before, I did not fall through the floor because I chose not to. You picked up the lantern because you assumed you could—you did not think about it.”
That, Charles remembered thinking, had sounded right. He hadn’t been thinking. But he was now.
“Oh.” He frowned at the lantern. He tilted his head thoughtfully. The lantern slipped through his closed fist.
Edwin lunged on instinct, cradling the lantern to his chest and breathing hard before it could hit the ground.
“Never did figure out why that bothered you so much mate,” Charles cuts into his own storytelling. “’Course, I properly freaked out, thinking I’d almost broken my new mate’s stuff, but you never seemed to care much for the thing later. I had to go back and get it from where we hid it in the school once I got my bag.”
“You went back for it?” Crystal asks softly. She’s trying not to think about Charles freaking out about breaking something—or why he might have done so. Charles seems to think this story’s a happy one, but she suspects he and Edwin are both looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. Sure, maybe everything turned out alright—better than alright—but Crystal can picture the scene.
Two ghosts, two sixteen-year-old kids, one having just died of hypothermia and internal bleeding inflicted by people he’d thought were his friends, frightened of making a single mistake thanks to his dad’s ‘lessons’, the other freshly escaped from seventy-three years in Hell after being sacrificed by his classmates.
Charles grins, just as soft, pulling Crystal back to the present. “Yeah. First time I ever saw Edwin, he was holding that lantern. I’m sentimental like that, aren’t I?”
“You are,” Edwin replies, soft.
Crystal has thought, over her time knowing these two, that she can’t picture anything that would get her to stick around as a ghost when her time comes, no matter how much Edwin and Charles enjoy their time together. Edwin hadn’t made that choice, after all, and Charles had only stayed for Edwin. She’s starting to understand why. Maybe it hadn’t been for Edwin in the beginning, not really, just a desperate wish not to be dead, not to leave the world behind, but Edwin might have been the first real kindness Charles had seen in… in a long time, she thinks sadly.
“And I…” Edwin swallows. “It was not about the lantern itself,” Edwin admits. “I had forgotten where I was, for a moment. If the lantern had fallen, if it had broken… The noise!” He shudders. “Of course, it was unlikely to have done so on the lawn, but, as I said, I…”
That sounds more like something Charles would be afraid of—something he’d just admitted to being afraid of—but the both of them haven’t shared the details of Edwin’s time in Hell. Crystal knows Edwin’s been opening up about it to Charles, since their trip together that makes her heart ache just thinking about, but they haven’t told her or Niko. She hasn’t pressed—they’d both been adamant that she didn’t want to know. So, she doesn’t know why Edwin would be worried about the lantern breaking, but Charles clearly does.
He shifts from his spot, moving to Edwin’s side. He doesn’t cuddle into the other boy the way Niko’s doing with her, but he presses arm to arm with him, as if fusing them into one being. Edwin offers him a grim smile and a quiet, “Thank you, Charles.”
“Right!” Charles says. It’s too cheerful—putting on an act again—but no one calls him out on it. Selfish as it might be, none of them want to ruin this comfortable Saturday morning by talking about Hell—especially not Edwin, Crystal imagines.
“So, I drop the lantern, and then Edwin catches it,” Charles continues, and Crystal and Niko let themselves be sucked back into the story rather than bring it up and press at those old wounds.
“I’m so sorry,” Charles started to say, a little desperate.
Edwin cut the other boy off. “Whatever for?” he asked, bitter and curt. “The fault is not with you. I put the idea into your head. It is only logical that you should wish to test it.”
(Crystal snorts softly—that sounds so much like the Edwin and Charles she’d first met, either ignoring or repressing all their shit. It’s not really funny, but she can’t help but be fond of the first version of her friends. Maybe she’s looking at the past through rose-colored glasses too.)
Charles relaxed a little, but his eyes were still wide. “But, your lantern,” he said. “I almost…”
Edwin frowned at the thing in his hand. “It is not my lantern,” he said and thrust it back towards Charles. “I was merely startled,” he said a moment later. “Here. It is an adequate thing to test your corporeality with, for the moment.”
Charles eyed it much as he had the first time Edwin had pointed out that he was holding it: wary and uncertain. “You sure?” he asked, eyes flickering back up toward Edwin.
(“I was rather worried I had mucked it up at that point,” Edwin cuts in. “You seemed quite distressed.”
“Well I was, wasn’t I? Had nothing to do with you though, promise.”)
“I insist,” he said. “In fact, you can use it to lead us somewhere on campus better suited to these experiments, somewhere quiet where students are unlikely to venture.”
Charles relaxed further, but he still did not grab the lamp. “You sure?” he asked again, a little more cheerfully. “Thought you were a student here too?”
“That was some time ago, as I told you. I’m sure things have changed since my attendance here.”
(“’Course,” Charles tells them, “in hindsight I’m pretty sure he was lying. He knew that campus better than I did.”
“It wasn’t a lie,” Edwin argues. “The campus had changed. I simply… neglected to tell you that I had already explored it.”
“Still a lie,” Niko says with a giggle.
Edwin shoots her an offended look.
“It’s called a lie of omission.” Crystal smirks, backing up her friend.
Edwin sniffs. “I am well aware of the terminology.”
“So you admit it was a lie, then?” Charles asks.
“Perhaps you should return to the story, Charles?”
“That’s a yes,” Crystal says with a laugh.)
“Well, alright then,” Charles said, again a little brighter than before. He squinted at the lantern. “Just… grab hold of it?”
Quickly, Edwin placed the lantern on the ground and stepped back. “There,” he said. “There is nothing to be concerned about now—you cannot drop it.”
“So, it’s all strangers you don’t like touching you,” Crystal can’t help but cut in. She feels bad immediately as Edwin looks away. “Sorry, sorry, that was…” she huffs out in frustration. She knows she’s not the person she once was—Charles and Niko and yeah, even Edwin, have made that clear to her. It’s still hard work, to be better.
“Oh,” Charles says, startled, looking over at Edwin.
“Sorry,” Crystal repeats, quiet. “I didn’t mean it.”
Edwin looks at her. “Yes, you did,” he says, also quiet. “But you are not incorrect—especially then. It had been… a long time.”
Of course it had been. Crystal feels terrible. “I just meant, I mean, I’m not glad, but…” No, glad is the wrong word entirely, but… she doesn’t know what the right word is.
Niko, as usual, cuts right to the heart of things. “You were just glad it wasn’t just you,” she says, soft, affectionate, her compassion directed at the both of them because Niko’s compassion knows no bounds.
Crystal swallows at the insight to her psyche that even she hadn’t been able to give voice to. It’s been a long time since she’s worried about her standing with Edwin, but, yeah, Niko is right. It’s still comforting to know that they’d gotten off on the wrong foot not merely because she was herself but because she was a stranger. Edwin still doesn’t accept hugs from her as much as he does from Charles (well, no one can compete with Charles) or Niko (and honestly, Niko is incomparable too) and it doesn’t, it doesn’t hurt, because Crystal knows Edwin now (and this is Charles and Niko she’s up against, she thinks again), and it’s actually quite nice, to be one of the three people he’ll let give him a hug, on rare occasions, but…
“Yeah.”
“It is not just you,” Edwin confirms, letting himself be soft too, for a moment, before he adds: “Well, perhaps in the beginning.”
Crystal snorts, mood already lifted. Yeah, she knows Edwin now—enough to know that’s mostly a joke. “Don’t worry—I wasn’t interested in hugging you back then either.” That’s a lie, at least a little. Maybe not in London she hadn’t been, but there had been moments in Port Townsend for sure. She thinks she actually had hugged him, at one point, but it’s hard to remember everything that happened during those tumultuous days.
Edwin smirks at her. Also unlike those earlier days, they know each other’s boundaries fairly well now—they can argue on a topic for days without crossing them, and it’s fun, knowing she can be bitchy all she wants without hurting anyone’s feelings. Tricky at times, because heightened emotions will have her and Edwin stepping over those lines unintentionally, but fun, for the most part.
“O-kay!” Charles says, breaking the word into two distinct syllables, finally leaving his spot pressed into Edwin’s side to step between them as if he needs to break up an approaching argument. He’s grinning though—Crystal knows he secretly likes to watch their little spats, though he always pretends to be annoyed. “Think I was telling a story, yeah?”
“You were,” Edwin concedes imperiously, as if it’s some great concession that he’s allowing Charles to interrupt the nonexistent argument-to-be.
Crystal laughs, Niko giggling at the three of them at her side. (She’s just so comfortable and warm here, today. Cases are all well and good—fun and danger and excitement interspersed with panic and alarm and exhaustion, helping people—but it’s days like these she’s been living for, lately.)
“So, Edwin puts the lantern down on the ground,” Charles says loudly, like he needs to get their attention (Crystal and Niko giggle again; Edwin smiles fondly), “so of course, I gotta practice grabbing it, right?”
Charles frowned at the lantern, concentrating hard for only a few seconds before lunging for the thing. His hand passed straight through it.
(“So you’ve always been impulsive,” Crystal says, pleased with herself—that’s a much better comment than her previous.
“He has,” Edwin says, as if it’s something dreadful.
Charles pointedly ignores the both of them and continues the story.)
His hand passed straight through it, glowing ghostly-blue for the brief second it occupied the same space.
Edwin frowned at him thoughtfully. “You may be thinking about it too much,” he said.
Charles hadn’t much cared about that in that moment. He’d stared at his hand in fascination. “That was wicked, mate,” he said, not looking at Edwin.
(“’Course,” he continues in an aside, “then I had to tell Edwin what wicked meant, ‘least in 1989 terms.” Edwin huffs.)
Next, Charles tried kicking out at the lantern. His foot went straight through it, just like his hand. He laughed.
(“It’s still pretty cool,” Charles adds, “walking through stuff.” “Would you like me to tell the story, Charles?” “I’m getting there, I’m getting there.”)
“I believe the goal was to pick up the lantern,” Edwin said dryly.
(“Pushy in both timelines,” Niko cuts in with a giggle. Edwin turns his affronted look on her. She laughs again and gestures for Charles to continue.)
Charles didn’t take any offense to Edwin spoiling his fun—he’d forgotten the original goal, so he didn’t mind the reminder. “Right,” he said, frowning in concentration again. The next time, when he moved to pick up the lantern, was a success. “Ah hah! Got it!”
“Yes,” Edwin said. “Shall we?”
Charles gave him a puzzled look, still not remembering Edwin’s early comment about going somewhere less noticeable.
“A floating lantern would be quite the spectacle.”
Looking around, Charles conceded the point. No one had approached them yet, but the sun was up now, and the students were sure to follow soon. “Suppose so,” he agreed easily. “We can hide out in the library. No one ever goes into the stacks.”
The walk there was mostly silent, but there was nothing awkward about it. Charles was concentrating on holding the lantern and they had already spent hours talking together, after all. Of course, Charles, like an idiot, led them straight to the front door of the library and promptly forgot he could go through walls.
(Edwin opens his mouth. Charles holds up a finger. “Ah!” he says. “If I can’t interrupt you can’t either.”)
“Just a tick,” Edwin told Charles, before slipping through the door himself, unlocking it, opening it, and locking it behind the both of them.
“Brilliant!” Charles easily admitted.
Edwin raised a skeptical eyebrow but did not comment. “The stacks?” he prompted. Charles, who had rarely been in the library even when it was open, was looking around. He turned back to Edwin at the prompt.
“Right,” he agreed, still smiling. “Guess this means ghosts can go pretty much anywhere, can’t we?”
It was—“And still is,”—a brilliant part of being a ghost. Clearly Edwin agreed, because he said, “Nearly,” easily as they started toward the stacks, following up with: “In any case, a locked door is not enough to stop us.”
The stacks, as expected, were empty of the living. They were also unlit, with the lights off for the night, so the lantern turned out to be dead useful. Charles led them to a corner he’d used a couple times when he’d needed the quiet, one with a small desk and chair tucked away. Edwin gestured for Charles to place the lantern on the desk. After doing so, Charles looked back to him expectantly.
“The next thing,” Edwin instructed, “would be to walk through something entirely, if you feel you are up for it.”
Charles bounced on his heels, staring eagerly at the bookcases. “Oh, I’m up for it, mate,” he agreed readily.
“And that,” Charles tells them now, “is how I learned to walk through things.”
Crystal stares at him. That sounded suspiciously like an ending. “What on Earth does any of that have to do with deciding to be detectives?!”
Charles laughs. “Well the story’s not over yet, is it?”
Crystal stares at him, trying to give him her best look of disapproval. He laughs again, and Niko laughs at her side.
“I think that’s a good place for a break,” the other—living—girl says, peeling herself off Crystal’s side.
Crystal misses her warmth in an instant, but she can’t begrudge Niko the chance to stretch. “Good point,” she agrees. “I’m going to go use the water closet.” (Niko snorts out a small laugh; Crystal had started using the term to make fun of Edwin’s stuffiness—or just his Britishness, maybe—but it’d stuck. Now all three of them—four, though Edwin will never admit it—find it amusing.) “Don’t start back up without me. I’m expecting an answer.”
Charles puts up his hands with a grin. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”