Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The last thing Edwin remembers is magic, swirling bright and painful in the corner of his vision. Hands, desperate, shoving at him, slipping off his back. An impact, a crack, pain worse than anything he could have ever comprehended. Then nothing, the endless dark.

He comes to with the taste of dirt in his mouth and his vision blurred. His body aches, there is a strange taste on his tongue, and somebody is clinging to him to the point of creaking bones. Something tacky sticks to him everywhere. There is the feeling of sand between his teeth.

There are sobs being smothered into his shoulder, hands fluttering back and forth between his back and shoulders. A grief so profound lodges itself in his chest—for what, he can’t quite place. The hands on him feel like something he once would have given anything for. He knows there once was feeling, something that is swallowed up by the endless dark.

Edwin doesn’t remember why, but he knows that he should not be alive.

The person clinging to him is familiar, but it takes Edwin a while to remember a name. He remembers laughter, a void so deep he thinks he might fall and disappear back down into nothing. There is supposed to be something, he can taste it on the tip of his tongue. He is missing something that once made him all he was, he just knows it.

The name finally crystalises itself. “Charles?” 

His voice is barely there, a croaking thing that does little to cut through the sobs. All the same, Charles grows still before rearing back and reaching up to cup Edwin’s face. His hands feel tacky against Edwin’s cheeks. His hold is a little too tight, digging in enough to make Edwin remember where his edges are. His nose brushes Edwin’s and Edwin’s heart remembers an emotion that Edwin can no longer place. His pulse thumps loudly and the world blurs. Charles’s forehead touches his.

“Yeah,” Charles sobs, “yeah, I’m right here. You’re okay.” 

Edwin knows that isn’t true. 

He pulls away as far as Charles lets him, takes in the shaking boy. The fingers on his jaw feel wet, there is dirt smudged across almost any part of Charles, clothes and skin stained much like Edwin feels he himself is. His face is swollen, his eyes bloodshot and puffy. There are tear tracks in the sheen of dust on his cheeks.

Edwin can’t remember, but there is a strange feeling inside of his chest. Charles’s fingers slip on his chin. Edwin doesn’t remember enough for this picture to make sense. “Charles, what did you do?” 

Charles presses closer again, his thumbs brushing beneath Edwin’s eyes. He is trying to smile, but it keeps slipping whenever he takes a shuddering breath. Edwin doesn’t follow the urge to reach out and adjust his collar. He thinks he would have, before—well, before whatever brought them here. 

“I dug you up, and Mick- there was a spell, I bought it, and it brought you back.” Charles’s voice cracks, but he pushes past it. “You’re okay now, I’ve got you, yeah? I brought you back.” He sounds desperate, like he is trying to convince Edwin of a truth he has denied without even opening his mouth.

Edwin looks to his side, and stares down at the hole in the ground. Slowly, things slide into place inside of his mind. The images are blurred, nothing comes into focus, but he remembers distinctly when something sharp and long had punctured his chest before being torn back out without care.

He reaches up and finds the torn edges of the hole still in his chest. Charles hiccups another sob. “No don’t, don’t touch, please, we gotta stitch you up, don’t-”

“What did you do?” The question is out before he can finish thinking it, spilling out of his mouth with remnants of grave dirt.

Charles’s face breaks apart. “I couldn’t just leave you down there, could I? You hate small spaces, I couldn’t live with myself. I promised I’d always come for you, remember?” His hands shake where they rest against Edwin’s jaw. Blood trickles down his lips. Edwin isn’t sure when Charles started bleeding. “So I brought you back. You’ve gotta believe me.” His voice grows desperate, his plea tumbling off his tongue like it couldn’t get out fast enough. “Please. The magic can’t- You have to believe me, Mick said it’s important that you believe me.” 

Edwin knows magic, knows its strange oddities and whims, has fought with them for every hard-earned spell sparking at his fingertips. Faith had always been the biggest hurdle, always the one the spells refused to bend to his will on. He’d learned to bend himself instead, but now he’s aching and so very tired and he knows he should not be alive. He died.

Charles’s grip slips down to his shoulders. “Edwin!” His face fills up Edwin’s vision. There is something new on his face, behind the tears and pleading eyes. Edwin takes a breath ready to talk Charles through how to bend, how to lock faith out of the magic long enough to let it settle. Edwin isn’t sure he’s aware enough for his belief to be enough. 

And then Charles’s nose slides against his, and he is kissing him. His hands wrap around Edwin’s neck, his knees bump against Edwin’s hip. He kisses Edwin like he might die if he pulls away, pushing so close that everything else falls away except the hot line of Charles against his chest, against his lips.

Edwin, with sudden clarity, knows he’d been hoping against hope for something just like this. He remembers a life of gently falling in love, of turning his head with every one of Charles’s steps—like a flower seeking the sun. He remembers a confession, Charles’s confused, yet forever kind, response. Softened time passing with Charles still smiling, still touching, still orbiting him like Edwin remains the centre of his universe no matter what feelings nest in Edwin’s heart. Then pain, something long and sharp through his lungs and ribs. Darkness. 

Charles pulls back. Edwin doesn’t chase him, but finds that his hands curled around Charles’s elbows at some point. “You can’t die on me before I get to figure it out,” Charles says, begs before kissing him again. 

Edwin thinks there’s something he is missing. There still is the hole, the emptiness yawning within him like a monstrous mouth. But Charles is warm, and Edwin suddenly has never been colder before in his life. Finally, his body moves, pushes close. His hands find Charles’s shoulders, his neck, his jaw. Charles sobs into his mouth and holds on tighter. The taste of copper and soil fill both mouths, but Charles doesn’t seem to care.

Edwin doesn’t think he has to breathe, but Charles gasps when they separate, bloodied saliva connecting their mouths. Edwin isn’t sure whose blood it is, and he thinks that would have worried him, before. 

Charles is now tugging a jacket over him, warm but not warm enough. He buttons it up, smooths it down, then kisses Edwin again. He’s stopped crying. Edwin thinks that’s a good sign, or it should be. 

“Let’s get you home, yeah?” Charles says, deceptively light. “Got needle and all ready, you’ll be good as new. Promise.” 

Edwin stumbles when Charles helps him to his feet. The world behind Charles seems muted, quieter, greyer. Charles is brilliant as ever. “I love you,” Edwin says, throat dry and itching. Charles smiles and hugs him until Edwin think he might be trying to climb into his chest through the wound now hidden beneath his jacket.

“I love you,” Charles whispers into his neck. “Don’t leave me behind.” 

Edwin thinks that even if he tried, Charles won’t let him. There is an unknown spell and grave dirt beneath his fingers to prove it, determination drawn into the way he holds onto the back of Edwin’s jacket. It might not be a good thing, but Edwin won’t say that out loud. His chest aches, and he is tired. Charles intertwines their hands and leads him home.

Chapter Text

Not for the first time in the past hour, Edwin feels stupid, needing to be picked up like a homesick kid at a sleepover. It’s frankly humiliating, especially after he insisted to Charles that he would be fine without him. It was Crystal’s party, and yes, he and Crystal sometimes got into it with each other, but he trusts her, so of course he had thought that nothing could go wrong. It seemed the perfect set-up to get himself to socialise, to prove to his friends and himself that he could do it. And it had been fine. 

Sure, Edwin’s heart is still sitting on his tongue after the scare with the dolls, but it feels silly now, standing on the curb outside of Crystal’s house. It's just a Halloween party with creepy decorations. It’s just a stupid party. 

A stupid party that Edwin can’t bear to step back inside of. Everyone is so loud, so uninhibited. Niko will be sad she missed his exit, but he can’t make himself turn around. If he turns around, he will just open himself up to another panic attack when he inevitably finds the damned dolls again. So here he is, standing alone and resolutely not swaying to the music, ignoring the laughter of all those people he doesn’t know anyway. He considers walking to the other end of the street, but that feels like an even worse admission of weakness, so he lingers on the curb, staring straight ahead into the garden of Crystal’s neighbours with their appalling collection of oddly shaped hedges. 

Charles’s red car turns onto the street and Edwin finally takes his first real breath since he’d stumbled upon the twisted baby doll. Even with the humiliation of having to call Charles to be picked up, he can only feel relief as Charles parks right in front of him. He barely manages to wait until the car stops to stumble the rest of the way towards it.

“You okay mate?” Charles asks through the rolled-down passenger window. He reaches over to unlatch the door and push it open for Edwin, who folds into the passenger seat like a marionette with its strings cut. Immediately, shame curls hotly in his throat. He knows it’s silly, just like he knows this whole situation is silly. Charles told him to let him know if he needed an out, he told him. And Edwin knows Charles would rather eat his own hand than ever make Edwin feel ashamed. 

“You didn’t have to come,” he mumbles into his collar, all the same. He feels the childish urge to hide behind his hands, as though that would somehow make Charles lose sight of him. 

“Hey, none of that, yeah?” Charles’s voice is soft, but frank. “I’ll always come pick you up when you need.” He says it with such conviction, like it is the only truth of the universe. Edwin feels warm all over, looking over at Charles who looks back with that beautifully fond smile of his. Edwin wants to crawl into his lap and kiss him. 

Instead he presses his balled fists against each other and sighs. “But you were at work.” 

It had been a massive point of contention within their group. When Niko and Crystal had heard that Mick had requested Charles stay in for Halloween, they had very nearly thrown a fit. But Mick had been resolute—apparently, last Halloween there had been several attempted break-ins, along with some curious hauntings of his less-average stock. And despite Niko’s sad look whenever it got brought up, Mick wasn’t getting any younger. So of course, Charles had agreed to monitor the shop with him despite Crystal’s party. And of course, Charles had only rolled his eyes at Niko’s hesitant suggestion of having the party a day early instead. “It’s a Halloween party, it’s gotta be on Halloween.” 

Back in the present, Charles reaches over and drops his warm hand down on Edwin’s fists and squeezes them. “It’s not that late yet, Mick could do without me for a few minutes. You come first, I told you.” 

“Thank you,” Edwin whispers around the sudden lump in his throat. After years of exposure, he’s gotten used to Charles’s many words and acts of affection. Normally, he can breathe his way through them, let himself think of kissing the life out of him in thanks before returning to business as normal. Tonight, he can’t quite get himself up to business speed. Charles’s thumb draws a circle into the spot where Edwin’s hands meet. Turned suddenly bold in the cover of night, Edwin opens one to turn his palm to meet Charles’s. 

When his eyes dart up to check on his best friend, Charles is smiling at him. “Where to, Eds?” 

Brain finally jumping into motion, Edwin doesn’t have to think long. He still makes a show of it. “I wouldn’t mind checking out Mick’s new arrivals.” He bites down on the disappointment when Charles withdraws his hand, but is quickly soothed by Charles laughing. 

“One day I’m gonna get in so much trouble for letting you into the back.” 

“Mick loves me,” Edwin replies primly and Charles giggles as he turns the key in the ignition. 

“Course he does mate.” There is nothing but brilliant sincerity in his voice as the car stutters to life. “You’re properly lovable.” 

Edwin spends most of the ride turning those words over in his head, flushed and happy. He also is far too aware of the way Charles’s hand brushes his thigh whenever he shifts gear. Strangely enough, the boldness he felt earlier doesn’t dissipate, and so he doesn’t make an effort to shift away from the touch. Instead, he allows himself to bask in the curious sense of intimacy spreading through the limited space between them, allows his thoughts to be hopeful and curious about what it would be like to reach over and put his hand on Charles’s thigh.

He compromises, letting his hand drift over Charles’s the next time he shifted gear. Charles lets out a soft hum. When he lets go of the shift, his hand settles on Edwin’s knee. Taking a deep breath, Edwin reaches for his hand and twines their fingers together.

It’s quiet, safe for the sounds of the car and the world passing them by. Quiet, but comfortable like they always have been. Charles doesn’t stop smiling all the way to Mick’s shop. Edwin doesn’t, either.