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It was Boxing Day, 1993, when Charles first saw light-up shoes. He and Edwin were taking a walk to admire the fairy lights. Edwin was crazy about fairy lights; first time he saw a large display he'd gone so googly-eyed and captivated that Charles thought there was something wrong with him. Turned out he was just delighted, though, so they made it a point to see the lights, now, whenever they got a chance. And there'd been a white Christmas, in the town they'd mirrored to that evening, so the lights were glittering off the snow, and every time Charles turned to look at Edwin, Edwin's eyes were glittering, too.
It was enough after sunset that kids wouldn't normally still be running around, but it was Boxing Day, after all, so there were some kids out trying out their new toys. Some bikes had raced past with dinging bells, a bright pink child-sized Lamborghini that said Barbie on the side almost drove right through Charles, and they'd ducked through a heated fire-fight with snowballs on one side and some kind of foam dart Gatling gun on the other.
The snowball folks had the superior firepower, in Charles's opinion, but Edwin pointed out that the foam contingent had better strategic positioning, with a tree to snipe from and a built-up snow bank for defense. By the time they got the end of that block, though, the sniper in the tree had already run out of darts and resorted to trying to knock snow off of branches onto the enemies' heads (without success), so possibly, Edwin admitted, he had been too quick to discount the importance of munitions.
They turned a corner and Edwin stopped in the middle of the street, entranced, gazing up at the massive oak tree taking up the entire roundabout. It was dripping with lights of all colors and sizes, like a rainbow made of stars, or something out of a particularly magical picture book. Edwin's eyes were wide and bright and full of stars, his mouth ever so slightly open, and Charles was just wondering why their eyes could reflect light when they didn't have reflections, when he saw the kids.
A boy in a little blue cap that Charles bet his grandma'd given him for Christmas, plus a tie that he definitely had been intended to wear for holiday dinner and not for playing on the street, was chasing after a boy in a red shirt, and laughing. The boy in red turned the corner, looked left and right, then dived into a bush.
The boy in the cap skidded to a halt when he realized there wasn't anyone in the street, then narrowed his eyes, looking at the hedges. He grinned, suddenly, and reached down to yank the plug on the lights in the hedges, sending a decent section of the street into darkness. There was just one bush left with a faint glow, and the kid dove into it, and he and the other boy rolled out of it onto the sidewalk, tangled together and laughing.
"How'd you find me?"
The boy with the cap rolled his eyes. "Elementary, my dear Watson," he said, nose a bit in the air. "Your shoes."
The boy in red looked at his own feet, and Charles realized they were lit up. "Oh, right," the kid said, grinning down at the other boy that he now had pinned down, and then they were back up and running. The kid's feet lit up every time they hit the ground, Charles could see now that there was less light from the hedges.
Charles felt his eyes going as wide as Edwin's.
He wanted it.
He flapped a hand behind him, at Edwin. "Edwin," he said, "Edwin, we've gotta get this. Did you see that? They're like - they're like sneakers, but lit up. It's absolutely aces, Edwin, did you see?"
Edwin blinked several times, and shook his head once, coming out of his light-induced trance. "I didn't notice, I'm afraid," he said. "Did you say sneakers that light up? That seems rather counter-productive."
Charles snickered. "Sneakers are a type of shoe," he said, "but also you're not actually wrong, given what happened..."
He described the incident to Edwin, as they circled back to get to the mirror that would take them back to London. The snowball-dart war seemed to have devolved into far less strategic combat, by that point, possibly as a result of the pink Lamborghini having crashed into the defensive snow-bank and its driver having entered the fray.
Edwin was looking considering as Charles excitedly got to the end of his story. "I can certainly see how that would be useful," he said. "Aside from anything else, it would have prevented you from getting lost during the Case of the Loquacious Labyrinth. Or at least allowed me to find you more easily."
"I told you, mate, I wasn't lost," Charles said, then paused to toss a snowball at a kid who was sitting glumly on a porch watching the fight. The kid looked down at his snowy sweater for a second then yelled and ran into battle. Charles grinned after him. "I was just biding my time until the lights turned back on. Strategically."
"And I told you that you would have been waiting for nine years," Edwin said with a huff. "If you didn't get eaten first. You are quite fortunate that the Labyrinth happened to enjoy Agatha Christie."
"And you say you're not good with people. Managed to make friends with an ancient maze, didn't you, I've never done that," Charles said, and swung his shoulder to jostle Edwin's. "Not the point though. The point is, light-up shoes would be a strategic advantage, and more importantly, would make me look absolutely wicked."
Charles waited a moment to see if Edwin would figure out from context that "wicked" was a good thing, and also whether he would figure it out but pretend he hadn't to get a chance to be snippy. Edwin just crinkled his face for a second and then nodded, though, which meant either he already knew that one or figured it out and decided to let it be.
"Yes," Edwin said, but his voice was dragging a bit.
"Oi, I don't like that voice. What's the problem? Light-up shoes not professional enough for big-city detectives? I could take 'em off when clients are in the office."
"No, that's not it at all," Edwin said. "I rather suspect that our office currently being a treehouse would be a greater concern to potentially judgmental clients than the luminosity of your footwear. We need to accelerate our plans to find another location. I'm just..." He glanced sideways at Charles. "I'm not entirely sure they would work. Given the nature of ghost attire."
Charles stopped walking. "Oh." He stared down at the street, wet with melted snow, shiny with reflected light, shiny right up until under his feet, because he wasn't blocking the light any, was he. "Didn't think of that."
"We can try to find ways around the issue," Edwin said, turned around a few steps in front of him. "You had been meaning to further personalise your jacket, anyway, after all. A bit of practice in manifestation, and research into its limits, would not go amiss."
Charles pulled the sides of his mouth up, then his head, then bounded forward to catch up to Edwin. "Yeah, sure," he said. "Always happy to test the ghost rules."
They kept trying all the way into April. The problem was, of course, that ghost clothes weren't really real. Just a spectral manifestation, made of the same stuff as their bodies, controlled by their spirits, more or less. And they couldn't just go around manifesting anything they wanted willy-nilly. Obviously. If they could, they'd be doing it all the time.
But where exactly the line was, between clothes and something else, they weren't quite sure. Charles's earring seemed to be about the edge of it - he was able to wear it, because he'd been wearing it when he died, but not replace it with a different one.
Edwin got his hands on the original patent for light-up shoes, from 1989, and then dismantled a couple pairs of them, to figure out what the insides looked like. He'd been rather concerned to find that the shoes used mercury to activate the lights (and then quite pleased when it occurred to him that he now had tiny vials of quicksilver on hand). Charles tried to tell him he really didn't need to go to that much trouble, but - but Charles might've gotten a little too much expression on his face, when Edwin said the patent was from 1989, and Edwin seemed pretty dedicated to the cause. Even if it was a silly one.
Charles could manifest the shoes, easy enough. He didn't have to consciously focus on every bit of stuff in 'em, to do it; he wasn't focusing on every thread in the rest of his clothes, after all. He just slipped on one of the pairs Edwin got for a few minutes, until it got uncomfortable holding solid enough to keep them on, and then took them off, and then put them back on, but with his brain this time. Or a lot of much longer words that Edwin used.
And they looked right. But when Charles stomped, they didn't light up.
And, yeah, it was in April that Edwin finally gave up. "I'm sorry, Charles," he said, and he looked like he really was, even though it was just some silly light-up sneakers. "No matter what I try, there is simply no way for a manifested item to use electricity. You are successfully manifesting all the necessary pieces, by this point, but..." He brought his hands close to each other, fingers nearly touching but not quite. "The circuit is unable to connect, and there is no way to force it to do so."
Charles nodded, and bit his lip, and pulled his socked feet up under him onto the brand-new couch in their brand-new office. "Right," he said. "That's fine. I mean, I figured. You said as much all the way back when I first saw 'em, that it probably wouldn't work."
He looked at the wood floor and traced his eyes around a knot in one of the planks. Edwin seemed to be looking at it too, from where he was standing, leaning against the desk made out of crates that they'd dragged over from the treehouse.
"It's just," Charles said suddenly, "it's just that I missed it by that much, y'know? Patented 1989. And - I dunno. Maybe I would've been too old to wear 'em, by the time they actually got sold. I'd've been about twenty, I guess, by the time I actually would've had any chance to get any. Maybe twenty's too old. But I would've liked the chance to know, you know?"
He looked up at Edwin, and blinked some water off his eyelashes. "I would've liked to know if I'd be the sort of person who's too old for light-up sneakers when he's twenty. Maybe I'd be a stodgy old codger by thirty," he said, and his voice was cracking, an ache in his throat that he didn't think it was fair for him to still be able to feel, when he was dead. "I'd've liked... I'd've liked to choose to get 'em, or not. But I can't."
He curled forward, and the water dripped off his face and vanished right before it would've hit his socks. "I missed it, by just a couple years. So I don't get to choose." His eyes screwed shut, and he rocked even further forward.
Soft fabric brushed his face and he jumped. His eyes popped open, and Edwin was kneeling there, in front of him, in front of the couch, brushing something against his face. He could feel it, on his skin, soft fancy linen, feel it properly like he was still alive.
Edwin finished dabbing at Charles's face and settled back on his heels. He gestured with the fabric. "My handkerchief," he said. Oh. That explained it. Part of Edwin's manifestation. Charles could feel it, like he could feel any other part of Edwin, like he couldn't feel real cloth, anymore.
"I used to have a monogrammed one. I've forgotten what it looked like, the monogram. It was on most of my things, but not on the nightclothes that - " That I died in, that I went to Hell in, Edwin didn't say, Charles heard him not saying. "That I kept." He folded the handkerchief carefully and tucked it back in a pocket. "I do remember what the fabric felt like, though. It was the softest thing I owned."
Charles sniffled, and twitched one side of his mouth up into a rather poor effort at a smile. "It feels nice."
"Yes. I always thought so."
They sat there, for a while, Edwin on his heels on the floor, Charles curled over his feet on the couch, until they got bored and started talking about their latest case and Charles popped up to check on a clue (a rather sordid love letter written by their client's ex).
And Charles forgot about the shoes, mostly. Twitched a little when he saw someone wearing them, but that was silly, wasn't it, they were just fun silly kids' shoes, so he bit down on his lip, and grinned, and forgot about it.
Until Christmas Eve, 1994.
It was just before the midnight of Christmas Eve. The midnight that would make it into Christmas Eve, not the midnight that would've made it into Christmas. The office was decorated floor to ceiling - Edwin's doing, mostly, or at least the impetus of it was, Charles did a lot of the actual attaching of garlands and things - and they had a tree in one corner that was so tall its top branch was bent over against the ceiling.
It was the same tree they'd had last year. Edwin had confessed in 1990 to having been made miserable by Hans Christian Andersen's The Fir Tree as a kid, and being "irrationally distressed" by Christmas trees now, post-death. (Charles suggested Edwin read it to him, and Edwin declined on the grounds that "I would not do that to you, Charles, I like you far too well".)
So they came up with a very convoluted set of spells and rituals and potions that, long story short, left them with a living tree that they could put back in the forest after the holidays were over. You couldn't even see all the runes and stuff all over the floor with the tree skirt over them. The tree had fit in the treehouse better, though, even though the ceiling’d actually been a bit lower. It must have grown. They might have to get a different tree next year. Or make the ceiling higher somehow.
Anyway, Edwin had decided not to turn the big lights on, that night, and just let the fairy lights on the tree light up the office, and Edwin's eyes were dazzling with stars, again. Charles said something about Edwin needing glasses by the time he was a hundred if he kept trying to read by tree lights, and Edwin materialised glasses on his face just long enough to give Charles a librarian-glare over the top of them, right before they both bent over laughing.
And not long after that, the bells rang at the church a ways over, twelve bells, and it was Christmas Eve.
Charles grinned at Edwin. "My turn! You got the midnight present last year, it's my turn."
Edwin was already moving towards the tree, and pulled out a small box tucked up next to the trunk. He held it carefully in his hands, looking down at it, and Charles saw his hands flexing in the way that meant he wanted to be pressing them together. "There wasn't really any way to wrap your present, I'm afraid," Edwin said. "Given its nature. I packaged the supplies instead." He jogged the box up and down in demonstration. "I hope that will be sufficient."
Charles raised his eyebrows way up high. "Ooh, mysterious. Well, let's see if it's sufficient, then," he said, and made grabby hands at the box. Edwin deposited it in them delicately and Charles went to sit on the couch, which seemed the right place to open presents, he thought.
Charles admired the precise wrapping - Edwin treated present wrapping like he was trying to write a geometry textbook - and then tore it off with one dramatic rip. He was of the opinion that half of the fun of a present was getting to tear the paper, and he'd been delighted to learn that Edwin, instead of wanting to carefully fold it up and reuse it or something, whole-heartedly agreed.
Charles popped the lid off the box and looked inside quizzically. It was his own rune-painting brushes, plus a bottle of purple ink, and some papers in a folder. He started to pull out the folder.
"You needn't look at the papers," Edwin said. "It's only the diagrams and instructions. I was just trying to make the box look more full."
Charles pulled out the ink-bottle, instead. The purple was swirling with sparkles, like there was silver glitter mixed in, and it spun into little spiralling eddies when he picked it up.
Edwin was squeezing his hands together, looking at the bottle. "Could you manifest sneakers on your feet, please? Any style you like."
Charles's head whipped up. "What?"
"Sneakers. Please. It would be easier if they were the ones with the thick white soles, but I can work with whatever you prefer, I think."
Charles looked down at his feet, and disappeared his boots, and wiggled his toes in their socks for a minute. He hadn't actually liked the overall look of the light-up shoes much, to be honest, just that they lit up. He screwed his mouth to the side, and a second later there were red high-top Converses covering his toes.
Edwin knelt down in front of him and took the box out of his hands, laying the items tidily out on the floor next to him like a surgeon getting ready for surgery. "I owned Converse galoshes," he said. "They were also called gumshoes, at the time. I'm not sure if you still call them that now." He glanced up at Charles with the edge of his mouth tilting towards a sneaky smile. "I'm going to get you to call us gumshoes eventually."
Charles grinned down at him. "Told you, mate, we're not Pinkertons. Private eyes sounds way cooler. You sure you don't want more light while you're doing that?"
"It sounds like we're voyeurs," Edwin said, and pulled Charles's left shoe onto his lap. "And no, the light from the tree is perfectly sufficient. I still get shivers remembering you trying to introduce us as 'Pee-Wee's Peepers'."
Charles scrunched up his nose. "Okay, that one wasn't my best idea, yeah. But it does mean private detectives!"
"Among other things, yes," Edwin said, picking up the brush. The tilt of smile slipped off his face and he looked way too serious for Christmas Eve, looking briefly up at Charles before checking his papers and starting to paint on the white stripes of the shoe. Charles couldn't quite see what the runes were, at this angle.
"This would have taken less time, I am sure, if I had enlisted your aid," Edwin said, not looking up from his task. "You are far more proficient with rune-work and enchanted items than I. But I was concerned I wouldn't be able to get it to work."
"Less time? How long are you planning to paint my feet for, mate?"
Edwin flicked a glance up at him, fast and nervous. "That's not what I meant," he said. "I meant... it might not have taken me since April, if I were better at it. I apologize for the delay."
Charles jerked enough he almost accidentally kicked his foot, and Edwin glared a little as he pulled the brush away to avoid a smudge. "April?" Charles's voice was a little breathy, which was... silly.
"Yes," Edwin said. He squinted at the runes and dabbed a touch more ink on one of the strokes. Charles, with valiant effort, refrained from telling him that always did more harm than good. The first stroke always worked best, even if it was a little thin. "Your other foot, please."
Charles pulled his left foot back and held it in the air, letting the ink dry, while Edwin drew the right foot onto his knee. "Edwin," Charles said, "is this what I think it is?" He didn't have a heart, but he thought if he did, it'd probably be going a mile a minute. Like... well, like a kid on Christmas morning, probably.
Edwin glared at the rune he'd started on and washed it off with some of Charles's solvent. "I started out trying to simply use a rune to complete the electrical circuit," he said, and that was an answer, wasn't it? "As a replacement trigger for the mercury. But I eventually determined that there was simply no way for a manifestation to include electricity. I couldn't even get a simple shocking trap-rune to work," he huffed, and tilted his head to get a different angle on the shoe.
"I... I couldn't actually make what you wanted." Edwin let the shoe drop more heavily onto his knee, and looked down at it for a minute, shoulders kinda slumpy. Charles frowned at the back of his head. He shouldn't be slumpy, it was Christmas Eve. "But," Edwin said, and started painting again, "I believe the substitute may please you. I did my best."
"I'm sure it's aces, Edwin," Charles said, and his throat was kinda achey, which was doubly unfair, because not only was he not entirely sure he even had an oesophagus, he also wasn't even unhappy. He thought he might be the happiest he'd been in quite a while, actually, and it was making him a little dizzy trying to stay still.
Edwin finished a rune with a flourish of Charles's brush. (Flourishes definitely didn't help, weird followthrough tended to screw up your lines, actually, but Charles definitely wasn't gonna begrudge Edwin a dramatic gesture.) He pulled both shoes up towards him, hands grasped around Charles's ankles to keep his feet in place without touching any of the wet ink that was glistening and sparkling, the glitter catching the light from the tree, and started chanting.
That part was very much Edwin's territory, and Charles didn't understand a word of it, but he absolutely did understand the satisfied smirk on Edwin's lips when the sparkling purple runes flickered and then faded into the rubber, only one left visible at the side.
Edwin dropped his feet just in time, because he jumped up almost before the runes were gone. Charles was wriggling under his skin like a puppy trying to wag harder than its body could take as Edwin stood up. "Can I do it?"
Edwin stepped back, and the warm dim lights of the tree flitted across his face as he nodded. "Stomp."
And Charles stomped.