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It was fucked that the afterlife let him choose his clothes, but not his body. He didn't even have a body anymore. Shouldn't his soul reflect his true self?
But death was more like life than he'd expected. It wasn't a paradise for the virtuous or a punishment for the sinful. It wasn't biology or theology or psychology. It just was what it was, with no more rhyme or reason on this plane of existence than the last. As misaligned now as he'd been then.
He could still choose a binder and packer, at least. All a part of his own soul, wasn't it? So they fit just right and stayed in place. No more checking behind him after a run with the lads, fearing an extra wad of socks had tumbled out his pant leg. No more sweaty summers in too-many-yet-not-enough layers for his chest. No more tape with its euphoric effects at the cost of painful regrets. No more sewing lessons with his mum, pretending to want to wear the dress she helped him run through the machine—so that later, he could design his own compression-wear in secret. For when he got away, someday. No more suffocating.
No more struggling to breathe.
Not after that very last time.
The drenched cling of fabric, already tight on his ribs, constricting like a threat. Too much. It wasn't a warm hug in the frigid night. Too much. Not holding his bones together enough to stand strong against his killer companions.
It was too much.
He was too much.
Had to hide--had to be less.
Inside, his lungs had dried up with every jagged breath as he'd dragged himself upstairs to the attic.
Charles had pulled away his sopping coat and jacket, but he'd gotten stuck in the undershirt. Too cold with the wet clothes. Too cold without them.
And then there'd been Edwin, unaware of most of it.
Surprised that Charles could see him.
Charles had pulled a blanket tighter around his shoulders then.
Another boy at the boys' school. Charles had snuck into it from where he was assigned every chance he could get.
A kindred spirit of sorts. Someone else unseen and discarded.
No, Edwin had been seen when he hadn't wanted to be, hadn't he? Hiding behind his comic pages, he still had been too much. Charles learned that later on.
With Edwin's company in the attic, his breath had eased, lungs relaxed, eyelids grown heavy. Not supposed to sleep in it. He'd thought about tugging at his compression top again, fighting to stay awake. But he'd drifted off and floated away.
No longer bound to his body, he had stood taller without it, leaving it behind him.
His ribs never complained again.
He'd looked his soul over when he'd realized what had happened. His chest had been the same, after. All of it had been the same.
But it felt okay, didn't it?
Who would ever see or touch him, anyway?
A year had passed before Edwin was comfortable accepting an embrace. Not something he'd been used to, apparently. Less pressure for Charles to worry how his chest might feel against Edwin's through his Edwardian apparel. His own, lean frame left him with less to flatten than other lads like him. He should've considered himself lucky, he had supposed, even as he'd worked tirelessly to find a solution for how off he had felt when he was alive.
In any case, between his lean form and Edwin's outfit, he probably wouldn't notice either way.
It was easier to forget about his body now. Never had to hear his old name again, either, though it was carved into his gravestone. More reason not to go back to his neighborhood's cemetery and visit himself. He was terrible company, anyway—conversation was dead dull, y'know?
That was one thing Edwin struggled to understand without Charles' having to share the obsolete image of himself: why didn't Charles want to investigate the followup of his end? Ultimately, his partner must have decided Charles was grieving himself or didn't want to face the likelihood that no justice had been served, his memory neither avenged nor honored. All of those things were true.
Instead, the first few years, they got to know each other better. Charles was Edwin's tour guide to modern times. Edwin advised Charles through adapting to the spectral capabilities of his new existence. They developed skills and collections together: magic, pocket dimensions, cursed trinkets, investigative perception, bedside manner. They set up their agency and made a home of it. No bathroom needs to navigate. They didn't change clothes often, and when they did, no nudity was required as a stage between the shimmer of one outfit to the next.
Edwin, in his own many-layered clothes, had never had a cause to question the looks Charles chose to imagine up for himself. Too polite to inquire, if he did ever detect a discrepancy. Part of Charles was relieved and grateful for that, but another part had longed to open up about it. No reason to, really. Just… felt strange after a few decades together to still have things between them they hadn't shared. Then again, there was loads Edwin hadn't told him about his life. Details of Hell he'd left out. They got on well in their present state by not poking around the painful parts of each other's pasts.
Maybe someday.
Maybe.
Every time he considered it, some part of him lashed back in a protective coil, tugging at his gut. Where was that survival instinct coming from? He was already dead.
Then again, he had a lot to lose.
Why open himself up to that?
He couldn't imagine Edwin would reject him or kick him out, but… what if he never quite looked at him the same way again? Even if his eyes were still kind and accepting.
You could see it in people's eyes, y'know? When they thought something didn't match up and they couldn't quite make it fit in their minds. They could memorize the words they were supposed to use and apologize if they slipped up--far better now than in his own time, so what could he complain about?--but still.
You knew when someone didn't see you.
He felt that more acutely now that he was invisible to most people. Being a ghost had brought a new pain of near-nonexistence with it.
But he was still here, on Earth. He existed. He experienced life vicariously through the living enough to forget he wasn't alive himself, sometimes. A second chance at life as a new man. This time, he could create himself to be who he wanted to be, unrestricted by his home and school.
Edwin was the first to see him—as a ghost, that is. His were the only eyes Charles existed within, most days. He couldn't find his reflection in the pupils of the memory of Edwin's eyes--ghost physics, that--but he knew from his mate's proud fondness of his banter that he was in there, somewhere.
Charles was himself in Edwin's eyes.
He couldn't bear to lose that now. Not over something that had decayed long ago. His bones would look more or less the same as all the other lads'. Tall, gangly.
Still growing into the man he was meant to be someday.
Huh. They'd been right when they'd shouted at him that he'd never grow a beard.
This hadn't been what he'd expected. Knew he'd struggle to access the hormones. Knew his lifespan was at risk around his dad. Still, he really thought he'd reach the age to--
It didn't matter.
Not like he and his old man were gonna' bond over shaving together. Felt like he'd had a blade to his neck for most of his life, brief as it was.
Anyway.
However unlikely it seemed, the fear that Edwin's eyes could one day turn to him, only to look through and see someone he had never been…
Charles' jaw clenched at the thought.
He could probably keep putting it off. What's another thirty years when you're dead, right?
It took Edwin over a century to express his interest in other men.
Charles could take as long to risk explaining that he wasn't the kind of man Edwin assumed he was, couldn't he?
He was still Charles. They both knew that. That would never change.
But god, what if it did?
What if?
Then Edwin had confessed his love of him. As more than a friend. He was afraid.
Too much.
Too much happening behind them. High stakes, tough escape.
Too much unsaid that needed to be known before now.
Too much to lose.
He hadn't thought at all about gender in that moment.
He'd been thinking of survival and freedom. The light from the open door guiding their ascension to familiarity, friends, and a further future together.
He was pulled back by his arm, spun back to the spiraling dark abyss they could easily fall back into, if they weren't careful. Edwin's heart laid bare in Charles' hands, the personification of all his insecurities rushing up on eight legs behind him to rip them both apart.
"Why am I here?" The last person to yank his arm on those stairs had cried in mournful confusion. There she remained below them, tearing love letters apart.
"Why am I here?" Charles remembered feeling trapped at the base of the stairs of his room, watching his father retreat carelessly from the harm in his wake. His mother's face a dull light behind the door slammed shut.
Gotta' save this, somehow. A knee-jerk joke to lighten the mood. Too impulsive. Stupid mistake. Too much.
"Charles, I'm being quite serious!" Edwin's eyes had pleaded with him. Upset. Frustrated. Hurt? In Hell, he swore he could just see his reflection in them. Warping. What was Charles becoming in them?
He had felt like he might start suffocating.
No time for that.
Care for him now, deal with this later.
He hadn't dealt with much of any of it since, other than to keep reassuring Edwin. Couldn't lose him.
He was his home, afterall.
Too much to lose.
Only now, weeks later, ruminating alone, had this additional, unspoken issue resurfaced for him.
He loved him, too. Course he did. Could be properly in love with Edwin, if he allowed himself to be.
Could loving each other as the best mates they'd been be enough? He'd rather disappoint Edwin further than hurt him like his dad, or… or if it turned out they simply weren't compatible in that way.
Which would be fine. As long as it didn't change things.
Couldn't risk losing his home.
Couldn't risk seeing someone else in Edwin's eyes when he looked at him.
Charles was smitten.
And heartsick.
And scared.
He couldn't face the world alone again.
Couldn't see another loved one turn on him.
Couldn't let someone down when he inevitably fell off the pedestal he was precariously being placed upon.
Why couldn't it be like before? Things were solid then, yeah? Stable.
He was thrilled to think that he and Edwin could keep building on this home of theirs.
At the same time, he felt the foundation shifting, heard the creaking, saw the cracks starting to form. Edwin wanted to open his isolated heart in this home that they'd built together. Pin it to the wall--no, Charles' chest. Charles felt the weight of each floor on his back, a beam bowing, about to collapse.
He couldn't do that to him. Couldn't kick him out for his safety, couldn't risk crushing him under his own failures when the pressure would someday collapse his spine.
Edwin had been isolated most of his life. Never hugged. Never told that he was loved. Not only by his family, but by his society, the time he lived in. To offer his heart to Charles now… it was an honor, and it was a responsibility.
Too much.
But Edwin wasn't too much.
He never should have been killed for this.
Neither of them should have.
He wasn't in Hell's vestibule anymore, but Charles' mind was still there, spiraling like the stairs.
"Alright?" Edwin's soft voice nearby, wise enough not to touch his shoulder just now, observing the stricken look dawning over Charles' features.
He jumped anyway, then shook it off and collected himself. He painted on his go-to charming smile crookedly with the last paint at the bottom of his bucket. "Course I am. New case to solve?"