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Crystal was lounging in Edwin’s chair, leaning back on the back legs of it, waiting for him and Charles to get back to the office, when she heard their voices approaching from the hall. (Unusual, they usually took the mirror, but they’d had to walk today for some reason or other, which was the only reason Crystal’d felt confident enough to mess with Edwin’s chair.) She jumped up and pushed the chair in hastily, arranging herself into a casual position leaning against the wall.
“It can wait until tomorrow, Charles, the case - ”
“Is over, and you’ve been making that argument every day for the last month. It’s been seven, Edwin, you’re a month late, we’re doing it now.”
“I really don’t feel that’s necessary,” Edwin said as he phased through the door, and Crystal heard the stiffness in it even before she could see his face. The face was all tight, and Charles’s was, too, as he followed Edwin through, although Charles was trying to cover it by looking confident and firm.
They stopped as they saw her, like they’d forgotten she was going to be there, and there was a moment of awkward silence. Crystal decided to break it. “What’s this about Edwin being late? Is he pregnant?”
Both boys blinked at her in confusion, and Crystal rolled her eyes. Right. Teenage boys from historical times. Incapable of understanding the high quality of her humour. “Never mind. What’s got our local old married couple bickering today?”
Charles’s eyebrows went down into a disgruntled furrow. “There’s this, like, medical procedure, that Edwin has to do every six months. That we’re late on. And he drags his heels about it every time, but we’ve gotta do it anyway,” he said, although the last half was pretty clearly directed at Edwin, not her.
“Charles is being melodramatic,” Edwin informed her, and she realised she probably shouldn’t’ve gotten involved in this, because now they were going to spend the next hour ‘talking to her’ in order to argue with each other by proxy. “We’re well within a safe time frame, and his urgency is entirely disproportionate. We have plenty of time to finalize the details of the case before dealing with it.”
Charles did a sorta half-growl, half-groan noise. “We don’t,” he said. “Because if we do that, then he’s gonna find another case that just has to be started on now, or a book he absolutely must hunt down, or whatever, and then it’s gonna be another month later and he’ll be glitching out.” He finally turned to glare at Edwin instead of still pretending he was talking to Crystal.
“Hang on,” Crystal said, unwisely drawing attention back on herself. “I get that Edwin’s allergic to self-care just like, in general, but why is he trying so hard to argue with you in this particular instance?”
“I can speak for myself,” Edwin huffed, and was immediately steamrolled over by Charles, who seemed to disagree.
“Partly because he doesn’t have any sense of priorities,” Charles said, and then softened out of his irritation, which Crystal got the impression was mostly fake and protective anyway. “But, uh. Mostly because the process makes him feel kinda… miserable.”
Crystal looked between the two of them as she tried to sort the situation out, then, as it started to click, raised her eyebrows high.
“Wait. You’re telling me Edwin’s actually trying to avoid physical discomfort?”
Charles flashed her a brief smile. “Yeah, I know, first time for everything, right?”
“The procedure does not cause pain,” Edwin said, unnecessarily defensively. “Pain I would not… delay.” He looked furtively sideways at Charles as though Charles might’ve somehow missed until now that he was trying to put whatever this was off.
Crystal rolled her eyes. “Trust me, I know.”
Charles snorted a little, but it seemed forced. He was pretty clearly trying to balance not dismissing Edwin’s discomfort with acting as chill as possible so as to not make Edwin even more keyed up. He left Edwin’s side to start pulling things off the shelves, but kept talking over his shoulder. “The recalibration makes him sorta… not just corporeal, like iron does, but more like he’s alive again. But in a bad way, all the worst parts of being alive and none of the good ones. Like… when you have a really bad fever, you know, and everything that touches you is too rough, and your skin aches, and everything aches, and you’re nauseated, and your head’s sore, and the light’s too bright, and just… everything’s miserable, you know? Too much.”
Crystal wrinkled her nose. “Okay, yeah, I can see how if you hadn’t had to feel nasty human stuff for decades, that’d be kind of awful.”
“Thank you for your understanding, Crystal,” Edwin said, and she might feel more appreciative of the rare ‘thank you’ if it didn’t sound very much like it was in fact weaponised and pointed at Charles. Also if he didn’t sound like the stick up his ass was a whole foot further up than usual, all rigid formal discomfort, so much it was tightening his voice a couple notes higher than his usual pitch.
“It is, yeah,” Charles said, as he pulled a step-stool out to reach something on a shelf so high even his ridiculous gangly limbs couldn’t get him at it, “regarding which I am not unsympathetic,” Crystal recognised that as a phrase he must’ve been quoting from Edwin, “but unfortunately it’s still gotta happen.” He stepped carefully down from the stool, put his stuff on the desk, and took Edwin by the arm. Edwin looked much less pleased about it than he normally did.
“I know, Edwin,” Charles said quietly, “but we’ve gotta. C’mon.”
Edwin looked for a second like he might be softened by Charles’s gentleness, which normally worked on him like a charm, but then his chin went up and he tugged a little on the arm. “You’re being ridiculous. The Night Nurse will want our reports promptly, this delay could jeopardize our standing with the Lost and Found Department. And put me in danger of - ”
Charles’s jaw went stiff. “Yeah, no, you’re not pulling that card right now.”
Charles all but shoved Edwin down into a sit on the couch. He didn’t pop back up, but he eyed Charles grumpily. Charles pulled various ingredients out of his bag, followed by a mortar and pestle, and then started mashing them up with what Crystal was pretty sure was a little more force than necessary.
“Okay,” Crystal said, as he ground the pestle into some sort of fucked-up purple leek, “I’m going to need a few more details. Why does a ghost need regular medical care?”
“Edwin’s got this… condition.” Charles flicked his eyes over to Edwin in a way that meant ‘I’m not sure how much you’re comfortable with me saying in front of Crystal’. (Crystal was starting to learn their look-language. Slowly.)
Edwin’s nose twitched a little, but he took up the thread. “As I did not become a ghost in the standard fashion, my form is unstable in some ways that most are not. It requires recalibration on a regular basis. But not yet,” he said, turning back to Charles, and Charles looked to the ceiling for strength.
“Yes yet,” he said firmly, without even looking back to Edwin between the ceiling and whatever he was working on, which now involved some sort of weird silver tool. “It took us about five years to figure out what was happening and what to do about it, and he kept getting sicker and sicker. I…” He bit his lip for just a moment, and darted a look at Edwin. “I really thought he was gonna just fade away, before we figured it out.”
“I would have in fact imploded, resulting in a rapid discharge of spectral energy,” Edwin told Crystal, his fact-correcting instinct getting ahead of the rest of him for a second, before he saw Charles wince. He winced in response. “But that will not happen now. It took five years for that to become a serious risk, and it has only been… half a year.”
“Seven months,” Charles said, “and you know it. It should’ve only been half a year.” He finished measuring the powder and went to stand over Edwin with his arms crossed. “And you’re not getting out of it again today.”
Edwin huffed. “I am not trying to get out of anything.”
“We’ve done this whole song and dance almost sixty times by now, Edwin,” Charles said, and Crystal felt the jolt of time, that was getting increasingly familiar, at the realisation that they’d done something that only happened twice a year sixty times. “I know all the delaying tactics you’ve been using for the last month. And also you’re getting rapidly less subtle. But it’s happening anyway.” His voice softened. “I know it sucks, but you have to. C’mon, lie down.”
Edwin glanced over at Crystal, and somehow it was only then that she finally realised this was something private and awkward that she probably shouldn’t be there for. Aside from anything else, Edwin hated looking vulnerable in front of her. “Um,” she said, “I can go, just. Give me a second to get my stuff.”
Edwin shook his head. “No,” he said, tight and rigid, but certain. “You can stay.”
Charles and Crystal both looked at him in disbelief, but Crystal caught up to speech first. “Really?”
“Yes,” Edwin said. “You needn’t go through all the bother of carting your excessive baggage to a beverage shop, or whatever it is you do to get away from us, when you’ll simply have to come back afterwards. Besides,” he went on, shooting a glare at Charles, “perhaps you can keep this tyrant from going mad with power.”
Crystal ignored the ‘excessive baggage’ comment and didn’t point out that Edwin would be carrying a purse bigger than hers if he didn’t have a personal Cart-Horse Boyfriend to lug around a whole pocket universe’s worth of stuff for him. She also pretended to ignore the significance of the fact that Edwin was allowing her to be there when he wasn’t at his best. Instead, she snorted. “I am not helping you avoid medical treatment, Edwin, and I am definitely not getting between Charles and looking after you. I’m not suicidal.”
Edwin grumbled something disavowing his effort to get backup against Charles, probably denying that he was trying to avoid medical treatment, but Crystal ignored it in favour of Charles’s grin. “Wise decision,” Charles said. “Excellent survival instinct.” His next look at Edwin, Crystal was pretty sure, meant ‘now if only someone else could learn such good survival instincts’.
Crystal looked back at Edwin herself. “Given that I’m not doing that,” she said a bit hesitantly, “you sure you’re okay with me being here?”
Edwin looked away from both of them. “Yes,” he said simply, and wow, a genuinely monosyllabic answer? He really must be stressed.
“Great,” Charles said. “Time to start, then.”
Edwin leaned back into the sofa a little, away from Charles, looking at the powder in his hands with trepidation, and Crystal felt bad for Charles. He probably dreaded the six month mark too.
Charles sighed and knelt down, careful not to spill any of the powder, and looked up at Edwin, whose head was now a foot higher. “Look, you know you really do have to,” he said. “Just a little while, and then it’ll be over and you won’t have to worry about it again for ages, okay?”
“I’m not worried,” Edwin said automatically, but then refocused, his eyes aimed a few inches to the left of Charles’s head. He breathed out through his nose and shifted to lie down, stiffly, curled up thanks to the tiny size of the sofa but rigid as if he was made out of iron. It looked weird, and awkward, and Crystal realised abruptly that the only times she’d seen Edwin lying down before were when he was being tortured and when he was recovering from being tortured. It felt wrong, somehow.
Charles stood back up and reached for the bowl with his other hand, and Edwin kept staring past them, tense, and Charles paused. “Actually,” he said, “Crystal, can you help?”
Crystal’s eyes went wide in surprise. “Me?”
“No, the other Crystal,” Charles said, one side of his mouth going up for just a sec. “Could you just sprinkle this over him?” He held the bowl of powder out in her direction. “Sort of all over. Doesn’t have to be precise, or anything, I already did the precise parts. Just dust ‘im like sugar on a donut.”
Crystal was confused, but Edwin wasn’t objecting, so she slowly took the bowl. “Like, with my fingers?”
“Yeah,” Charles said. “All of it, kinda slowly, just take out big pinches and sprinkle a bit at a time. Doesn’t matter where you start.”
Bowl handed off, he knelt back down and reached for one of Edwin’s hands. Edwin grabbed for it before it got to him, and a little of the tension went out of his body, and Crystal suddenly got why she was helping. But even then, Edwin’s eyes flickered up towards the bowl, in a movement that looked involuntary, and he gave it one last try.
“Charles,” he said, “please can we - can we just wait one more day? Just until tomorrow?”
Crystal could see Charles squeeze Edwin’s hand. “Sorry.” He didn’t even bother to shake his head, and Crystal got the impression that the exchange had been run through so many times he hadn’t had to for decades. Charles’s other hand went up to Edwin’s hair, stroking through it once, Edwin thawing under it ever so slightly, before Charles nodded up to Crystal.
She carefully portioned out a pinch from the bowl and watched it float down like snow.
“That’s it,” Crystal said. “Bowl’s empty.” She stared at the wall, taking advantage of the relief of not having to look at Edwin to aim anymore. “…do we need to do anything else?”
“No,” Charles said, and “thank fuck,” Crystal said, and all but threw the bowl onto the desk. But not quite, because it looked magic and possibly irreplaceable.
“We’re all done, Edwin,” Charles said, so quiet Crystal could barely hear, bent only a few inches from Edwin’s face, one hand still so tightly gripped by Edwin’s it would be white if it could, the other stroking a little too jerkily though Edwin’s hair. “It’ll just take a little for the side-effects to finish up. But we’re done. You did great.”
Edwin didn’t stop shaking, but his eyes came back into focus, some, locking onto Charles for just a moment before he pulled his hand back from Charles’s so he could dig the heels of his palms into his eyes.
His hair was in loose, messy waves, having given up on the gel less than halfway through the process, and his hands were pressed into his face, and there was just a little bit of wetness visible dripping past them, and, for a second, he looked like... well. Like a boy.
Crystal was older than he was, by now, she realised like a little static shock. He was a century and a quarter old, yeah, but he was also younger than her, and he didn’t usually look it, all formal and dressed up and polysyllabic, but…
But he definitely looked it just then, and he shifted from digging his hands into his eyes to rubbing at them, and she cleared her throat against the instinct to reach out and hug him.
Charles didn’t bother resisting his instincts.
The powder was fully soaked into Edwin’s skin, now, no danger of doing weird shit to Charles anymore, and he wrapped himself around Edwin like he was trying to hold him together with his limbs, or maybe cover Edwin’s whole body up so he couldn’t get attacked by evil powder anymore. He was still kneeling on the floor, not really enough room for them to pile on top of each other on the sofa, but Edwin had somehow managed to curl his giraffe body up so small that Charles was almost hiding him anyway.
“It’s over, Eds,” he whispered into Edwin’s hair, “you did good, we’re done, you’re okay.”
Crystal felt her mouth pulling into a smile, a little, sad one, and bit into her lip a bit, and tried really hard to smother the flicker of jealousy about being loved and cared for like that, because fuck, Edwin deserved it, he’d been through so much more shit than the universe could ever repay him for, was still so much further in the red in the good/bad ratio than she was that she’d never catch up, comparatively.
Which was probably an unhealthy way to think about it, but it was better than the jealousy, so…
She turned away to grab her purse to leave them alone, because she’d done her part, and standing there just watching Charles whisper soothing nonsense into Edwin’s hair was - weird, at best, and -
A hand caught her wrist.
It was Edwin’s strong fingers, wrapped all the way around, still trembling a little, and she turned to meet Edwin’s eyes, looking past Charles to dig into hers. “Thank you, Crystal.”
She shrugged. “I mean, you can always count on me to make you miserable for the greater good. Just say the word.”
Edwin didn’t even roll his eyes. “That was…” He trailed off and his gaze went a bit out of focus again. “I shall dread the day when you are no longer able to assist. Thank you.”
Crystal raised her eyebrows. “This was really that much better than your usual? Seriously?”
Edwin nodded. “Yes,” he said, and turned his head to bury his nose in Charles’s curls. He gave her wrist a momentary squeeze before letting go. “You needn’t leave if you do not so wish,” he said, and closed his eyes. “My chair is available for your use.”
Crystal gaped at him, for just a moment, before slowly sitting down in Edwin’s chair, and then slowly, silently tilting it back onto the back legs.