Chapter Text
Edwin was sitting in his usual spot in the chair behind the large, wooden desk in their office when the knock came. Crystal looked up surprised from her spot sprawled on the couch, brows furrowed at the door.
It was quite late, by living standards, and a weekday in the middle of October, the weather growing colder by the day. It grew darker every day, and Crystal had exchanged her t-shirt and shorts for jumpers and jackets and long trousers weeks ago, even adding a hat, scarf or gloves on occasion, if the temperature called for it.
After a shared look between the three of them, Charles pushed himself up from where he’d been sitting on the windowsill behind Edwin, and slowly opened the door.
Two teenage boys stood on the other side, one tall, blonde and with striking eyebrows, the other shorter and with yet black hair, arms crossed tightly over his chest. For a moment, Edwin felt like he was back in Port Townsend, but these boys do not look like Brad and Hunter, so he quickly dismisses the thought as Charles beckons the boys further into the office.
The blond one, who introduces himself as Gally, sits in the chair on the other side of the desk, while the brunette, Minho, stands by his shoulder, scowling grumpily at everything like he’s personally offended by the bookshelf and old couch. Crystal stares at the boys with an odd look on her face, as she strides around the desk to take her place on Edwin’s other side.
‘You’re alive. Both of you’ she said, and oh, well, that’s odd, isn’t it?
They very rarely get live clients, mostly because most living people can’t see them, but also because they investigate the clients death, which is hard if the client is still alive. Gally nods, fixing his gaze on Edwin.
‘We, I need your help. Finding someone. Alive’ he has an american accent, which is unusual for them, seeing as most of their clients are born and raised londoneers, or at least from England.
‘Alive?Mate, did you have trouble reading the name? The DEAD Boy Detectives?’ Charles asks incredulously, eyes widening as he looks at Edwin and Crystal, who mirror his look of surprise.
‘Why us?’ Edwin asks, trying to smooth over Charles’s rude inquiry, while still getting some form of context from their perhaps-clients. Minho still hasn’t said anything, nails digging into his arms through the material of his jacket, pointedly looking away as Gally answers.
'Because, you’ve been in hell, and escaped’ All three detectives stiffened at this, and Minho whipped his head around to look at his companion, showing that this was clearly news to him.
‘Hell? Like, the devil lives there, burning fires of satan, kind of hell? he asked, voice rising as he looked in a slightly panicked manner between the four over occupants of the room.
Gally shrugged, moving a hand to the pocket of his worn, brown jacket. Edwin managed a chocked ‘yes’ to Minho’s question, which had the living boy pale distinctly, despite his tanned complexion.
‘My LIVING sister, she was looking for a girl trapped in a snow dimension? Niko something, I think? Anyway, something happened, and while she managed to get the girl out, something else found them, and chased them into hell’ Gally said evenly, though his hands shook as he produced several pictures of a young girl, woman really, with blonde hair, and striking green eyes. In the never ones her hair was halfway down her back, with shaggy bangs and several earrings. In the older ones her hair was cut in a boy’s style, the ends dyed different colors and heavy eyeliner covering the ends of her eyes.
‘Niko?’ Crystal asked, hope clear in her eyes as she leaned forwards, eyes fixed on the boy as he drew back, alarmed at her proximity. He nodded, produced another picture from his pocket, along with a note.
Gal,
I found her, but something’s up. Something dark is following us, and we need to lose it before I bring her home, lest it follow us. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t
Per aspera,
Love, T.J.
The picture was of a dark-haired girl, with short bangs and pastel-colored clothes, pink dusting her eyelids. It was clearly a bit old, seeing as the girl’s hair had turned white after an unfortunate encounter with dandelion sprites, but, without question, the girl in the picture was Niko Sasaki.
Edwin felt tears gathering in his eyes at the sight of their dead friend, who apparently, wasn’t dead at all. That would explain why their ‘babysitter’ from the afterlife agency-place wouldn't tell them anything about Niko’s case. How could she, if Niko wasn’t there in the first place?
‘And, more recently, she sent this,’ Gally said, carefully producing his last piece of paper, this one more sinister somehow. Perhaps it was the scraggly quality of the note, showing how the hand writing had clearly shook, or the large, crimson stain that speared the ink together in places until it was barely legible. Charles and Crystal leaned over Edwin’s shoulders as he picked up the note to inspect it. It was short, and has the same half of latin phrasing as the previous one.
Gal,
A demon found us. We’ve taken an unfortunate trip downstairs I'm afraid. Don’t do anything stupid, yeah? I’ll be back asap,
Per aspera,
Love, T.J.
‘What is Per Aspera?' Charles Asked, gaze flicking up to Gally’s. The blonde carefully took back the notes and pictures, excluding Niko’s which Edwin had taken protectively at the first opportunity, which Gally didn’t seem to mind.
‘Its a latin phrase, per aspera ad astra, through hardship to the stars. We say it as a form of good luck. All bad things must come to an end at some point, and then there will be something good, a sort of light at the end of the tunnel, I guess?’ he supplied, looking at each of them in turn.
‘You’ll help then?’ he asked, and though he clearly tried to hide it, there was evident hope in his voice. Minho glared at then from behind his friend, or whatever they were, for honestly, Edwin wasn’t quite sure, like he was daring them to say ANYTHING to hurt Gally.
‘How exactly was we to help? And, how do we know you’re not lying? About Niko’ Crystal asked, and, well, she had a point, didn’t she? They’d trusted Monty blindly, and look where that got them?
‘You can read minds, right?’ Gally asked Crystal, though he shifted uncomfortably in his char, and Minho grabbed his arm, protests on the tip of his tongue.
‘You can’t just let someone read your mind Gally! Anyway, the kid said she was fine, right? You keep on going on about how shucking capable she is, so let her do her thing, and we can go back home!’ mMinho ranted angrily, and as an experienced detective, Edwin deduced two things from this:
Firstly, he didn’t like this sister. Going off his reactions, he probably hadn’t known of her existence until recently, and wasn’t pleased at the discovery.
Secondly, he was quite clearly…..infatuated by Gally, though the blonde seemingly hadn’t realised. Quite possibly jealous of the amount of attention Gally’s sister was getting, perhaps used to most of it being on him? God, lovesick, emotional, LIVING teenagers were really the last thing he needed..however.
However, Gally was willing to go to the scariest, and pardon his french, but shittyest (and Edwin’s speaking from experience here) place in the world, just to TRY and help his sister. And, well, there was Niko. lovely, sweet Niko who was like a sister to him, and just imagining her in that horrid place made him feel ill, though he knew ghosts couldn’t feel ill.
Crystal slowly rose, and touched Gally’s arm gently, her eyes getting the milky quality they did whenever she entered someone’s mind. Minho looked like he didn’t know wherever he wanted to be sick, run out of the room screaming, or bash Gally’s head into the desk. His hands shook as he watched the pair, milky eyes and deathly still, until Crystal let go, eyes shining with unshed tears.
‘It’s Niko. He believes it is, in any case’ she said quietly, beaming with happiness as tears trickled down her cheeks. Charles let out a choked laugh, wrapping his ars around both Edwin and Crystal. Usually, Edwin would be horrified at the amount of unprofessionalism, but this was NIKO, so he let himself bury his face in Charles’s hirt, just for a moment, and let hope spark in his chest. They could get her black. No.
They WOULD get her back. Whatever it took.
‘We need to open a doorway, and only people who’ve been there can open one, and we haven't, so…’ Gally trailed off, shrugging helplessly, and leaving the You have unspoken.
Minho continued to stand still as a statue behind him, a pained look in his face as he listened. Edwin had a feeling Minho wouldn’t like the next bit of conversation either.
‘We’ll open a doorway for you, on one condition,- he took a deep breath at this, even though he knew as a ghost, he didn’t NEED to breathe, hadn’t for quite a while, actually,- ‘We’re going too’
Gally and Minho both looked surprised, eyes widening. they clearly hadn’t expected this, and honestly, if you told Edwin an hour ago he’d willingly go trapeasing into the pits of hell he spent seventy years trying to escape from, he’d curse you out so badly, Jenny’d be impressed.
‘Niko’s our friend. if she needs our help, we're going. All of us’ crystal sais, and she glowers so intensely at Edwin and Charles, her boys, that they don’t dare even try to argue, though they had a feeling it would be pointless. It was one thing whenEdwin was there, someone who would probably be uncomfortable with a larger audience at such a level of vulnerability, another was Niko, who was by all accounts still ALIVE (as far as they knew, at least) and by god if they didnt give it their all to get her back home alive too, safe and as okay as can be expected given the circumstances.
‘Okay, when do we leave?’ Gally asked, taking it in stride, which surprised Minho. Initially, they'd been hesitant to even ask the Dead Boy Detectives for help, but Gally’d found a scribble in one of his sister's notebooks about them, and decided it was worth trying, if nothing else.
Honestly, Minho wasn’t even sure why he was here. Util three weeks ago, he didn’t even know Gally HAD a sister. They’d met during his time with Laurence, and she was some sort of super power-kid, yada yada, dangerous to be around because of her psycho mother, and had asked Gally not to mention her to anyone, if it could be avoided, to keep him, and others safe.
Personally, Minho felt waltzing into shucking HELL was as far from safe as one could get. Unfortunately, Gally was set on going, and Minho’d gotten this far, and had no intentions of letting that shuckface go anywhere without him. So, they established a time to meet at tomorrow, went over necessary supplies, since obviously hell wasn't made to be survivable for the living. Minho mostly zoned out, watching Gally as the dim lights illuminated his gold hair. It’d grown out quite a bit in the year since they arrived in safe-haven, now curling slightly over his ears, and falling into his eyes like a golden curtain.
‘Ready to go?’ he asked Minho, holding the door open for him as they left the office, tired, and scared for what lay in store. But Minho’d already left him once before, and over his dead body would he ever do it again. So, hell it is.
The next day, as he stared into a shuckload of black nothing, he found himself thoroughly regretting his decision. At least, in the maze, he knew what to expect. Here? here, anything was fair game.
Per aspera, he heard Gally whisper under his breath as he followed Minho into the darkness, and though it left a sour taste in his mouth to know he shared things with someone Minho’d never even met, he found himself finishing the phrase, unable to see the blush spreading over Gally’s cheeks in the process.
Ad astra.