Work Text:
The imp, sitting on the desk - Edwin’s desk, where Charles was supposed to sit - watched them with a grin that was, well, impish. Charles hated it. He had one leg crossed daintily over the other in a way that reminded Charles of Edwin, which he hated even more.
“It’s pretty simple, you guys,” the damn 5th-dimensional bastard said. “Just tell me the truth of your heart, and I let you go.”
Edwin gave it a withering glare. “You will have to be more specific,” he said with - not quite as much ice as he could muster, because Charles had heard some truly devastating Arctic tones from Edwin, but it was still pretty damn chilly. “The ‘truth of our hearts’ is not a particularly well-delineated requirement.”
The imp considered that for a second, face over-dramatically screwed up in thought, and then said “Yeah, okay, that’s fair. It’s no fun if you just lose because you misread the directions.”
He hopped off the table and held his hands out to the sides. “Here’s the rules: you each have to tell me the emotion that fills all of your heart, that suffuses your every thought, and then I let you go. You lie, and you go poof.”
“That’s still wildly unclear,” Edwin started, and got cut off.
“You’re gonna hafta deal with the lack of emotional literacy part yourself,” the imp said. “That’s kinda the point of the game. Okay!” He clapped his hands. “Red boy first.”
Charles made an embarrassing squeaking noise. “Me?”
“Well I wasn’t talking to the potted plant. Come on, clock’s ticking.”
An oversized clock appeared behind the imp, blocking out the light from the window. The Jeopardy countdown music started playing from nowhere, tinnily, off-key.
“I - what… what am I supposed to say again?”
The imp raised an eyebrow, which was Edwin’s expression, damn it, and this ass wasn’t allowed to steal it, and the clock hands spun forwards a bit.
“The emotion which is most central to your core and persistent in affecting your thoughts and actions,” Edwin said quickly. Always trying his best to provide whatever information Charles needed for the case, bless him. Even when it required using emotion words, poor lad, he was still trying his darnedest to give Charles what he needed to make the right decision.
“Right,” Charles said, because that answer was easy. “The truth of my heart, yeah?”
“Mhm,” the imp hummed, with a smirk.
Charles shrugged. “I love Edwin Payne.”
Edwin took in a harsh gasp across the room, which Charles thought was a bit silly. His answer was obvious. What else could it have been?
The imp pulled a big envelope from thin air, read the card that was in it. Its smirk turned into a grin, Charles’s falsest grin, and then stretched further, more teeth showing than Charles even had. “Wrong answer.”
Charles’s mouth dropped open. “What? What - it’s not! That’s - what are you talking about?”
“Look, this is kind of a trick or treat situation, and this part’s the treat. I’m trying to help! But you, kiddo, are not being helped. You’re lying instead. The card doesn’t lie, and that is not the answer written here.” He brandished the card with a flourish. “So since I’m such a big fan of yours, I’ll give you thirty seconds to say your goodbyes.”
Charles’s throat caught, he couldn’t speak, he was supposed to be either making people like them or fighting but this wasn’t a fighting situation and he couldn’t -
“He’s not lying on purpose,” Edwin cut in. Edwin. Thank everything for Edwin. Always there for the big-brained rescue.
The imp turned to look skeptically at Edwin. “What do you know about it?”
Edwin took a big breath. “I can see what’s written on that card,” he said. “And Charles did not lie. His answer was inclusive of the correct answer, simply not as specific as you expected. And this isn’t trivia, correct? It’s about showing you the truth of our hearts. He would be happy to, if you just… if you let me give him a… a hint.” He tilted his head. “Phone a friend, as it were.”
The imp scowled, for a minute, and then gave the same smile and eyeroll that Edwin does when Charles has charmed him into something. “Oh, alright, I just can’t say no to you.” He turned to Charles conspiratorially and dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “I just love when he gets all clever, don’t you?”
Charles only just refrained from snarling like a furious Rottweiler.
“Yeah, sure,” the imp said, turning back to Edwin without seeming to notice Charles’s barely-contained fury, “he can get a second chance. But no telling him the answer! That’s cheating. Hints only. And I get final say on if it counts as a hint or not, so don’t think you’re rules-lawyering your way around that part.”
Edwin pulled his lip between his teeth just ever so slightly and centered himself. His eyes lifted back to Charles’s.
“Charles,” he said, “you were very nearly correct, and I am proud of you for knowing yourself so well, and warmed more than I ever felt I could be that you were able to speak so openly, about something that - about me.”
Charles’s heart swirled with that emotion, with its truth - Edwin’s freely spoken pride making him almost dizzy, Edwin’s gratitude making him half delighted that he’d made Edwin happy, and half torn up with the need to rip apart everyone in the past that wouldn’t have let Edwin know they loved him.
“I…” Edwin trailed off and turned to the imp. “Might I, perhaps, go first?”
The imp’s head tilted. “I said you could give him a hint, and now you think you’re in charge of everything?”
“You are a fan of ours,” Edwin said, “and I think I may know your desired outcome. You don’t really want the tragic ending, do you?”
The imp considered. “I mean, I do like me some angst, but I’m not really into cliffhangers.”
“And it would be one. Charles would fight his way back to me eventually, you know this.”
“Which would be awfully…” The imp stopped and laughed, Edwin’s delighted laugh, and Charles instinctively leaned towards it before feeling almost sick. How fucking dare that bastard laugh Edwin’s laugh? “Spoilers,” the imp finished. “It would be awfully something. But you know what, you’re right. I’m not really feeling my burn that slow today. Sure. You can go first.”
Edwin nodded. “The truth of my heart,” he said. “I am in love with Charles Rowland.”
The imp’s smile turned nasty, and Edwin’s face shifted slowly from certain to confused as the imp pulled the card from its envelope, inch by inch.
“I don’t think that’s it, Edwin,” Charles muttered quickly, as the paper slid.
“Of course it is,” Edwin said, with absolute certainty in his voice. “What else could it be?”
The card paused in its slide. “I do adore you both so much. I’m giving you one… last… chance.” He tapped the card a quarter-inch further out with each word, then raised one hand, ready to snap. They already knew what that snap could do. RIP the office football. “You have until I pull this card from this envelope before I click my fingers and you, Mister Payne, are the one lost to an eternal cliffside.”
Edwin started to breathe, fast, his eyes wide and rabbity, and he pulled back, away, like he was about to run. Charles grabbed for his hand. It was almost slippery with sweat, and Charles realized he must have been freaking out the whole time, just hiding it until now -
Oh.
“Edwin,” Charles said urgently, “you’re feeling it right now.”
Edwin’s eyes rolled wildly in his head like a terrified horse. “What?”
The imp chuckled Charles’s chuckle from behind him. “Clever boy.”
“You’re feeling it, Edwin,” Charles said, and lifted his other hand to Edwin’s shoulder. Edwin almost tugged against it, the animal fear not registering that it was his Charles. The room began to buzz and shake, and Edwin was almost flickering, not his own flicker, the one from when he wanted to be anywhere but here, but like he was being pushed away, like he was being shoved into the nothing -
“I’m afraid!”
Charles spun his head back to look at the imp. It was smiling, Edwin’s proud smile, the one he gave Charles when Charles was being extra clever. Charles wanted to rip it off its face.
“Interesting,” it said, and its fingers, pulled tight almost into a snap, moved apart a half-inch. The electric buzz that was pushing down on them began to fade. “Go on.”
“I’m afraid,” Edwin said, and swallowed. He licked his lips with a pant. “I’m afraid, always, all of the time. I’m afraid that Charles will leave, because I’m too much for him, or because - because he grows weary of me, and I’m afraid that I will be taken back to Hell, always, always, so afraid, and I’m afraid of Crystal being more important than me, and I’m afraid of being forgotten in my own home.”
The imp was still smiling, and now it looked almost like a photo from when Charles was eating a birthday cake as a kid, the smile of someone eating something delicious. “More.”
“Your card doesn’t - “
A deafening hum and the pressure was back, pushing Edwin away from Charles in a direction Charles instinctively knew he wouldn’t be able to follow. “I said, more!”
“I’m afraid of Niko and Crystal being hurt again! The living are messy, and soft, and so - I’m afraid of the Night Nurse, the Spider, and Sa’al, and the Headmaster - I’m afraid of my father and my governess and Simon - I - I died frightened and alone and I am so, so afraid of being alone!”
Charles was gripping onto Edwin, his hand and his shoulder, so hard he hadn’t even realized he’d taken his eyes off the imp until he heard a slow clap from behind. He turned his head back, again, and the imp had one of Edwin’s more condescending-but-pleased looks, its hands coming together repeatedly, the card discarded on the desk.
“There,” it said. “Now that’s how you tell a truth. Take notes, Charlie-boy.”
Charles bared his teeth at it.
It held up the card, spun it with the elegance and flair of one of Edwin’s gestures, and on the back, in text that started big and got smaller towards the bottom, it read - as far down as Charles could read at a distance - “I’m afraid. I’m afraid, always, all of the time. I’m afraid that Charles will leave, because I’m too much…”
“See?” the imp said. “Not so hard. And now you get your reward!”
Edwin brushed tears off his face and frowned at the imp in confusion.
“Well, sorry, that was premature. I need two truths for one reward. And, really, it’s more that I’m facilitating it than giving it, yeah? But anyway - red boy! Back to you.”
Charles’s eyes widened. “Me?”
“We already did this line,” the imp said. “I’m not giving you another clever quip. You’ve gotten your hint. A little more than a hint,” it said, raising an eyebrow at Edwin, “but your performance was just so lovely I’ll allow it. So now it’s your turn again, and no more funny business. I’m at my limit.”
Charles gaped at the imp. He didn’t know what to say. He’d already said the truth of his heart, he was sure of it. What more could there be? He could feel its truth in every cell of him, or whatever ghosts had instead of cells (ectoplasmic reticula, primarily, Edwin’s voice said in the back of his mind). He could feel the warmth of Edwin’s hand and shoulder, even through the ghostly numbness. He could feel the tug towards him in his chest that he’d felt ever since they met, even as he was dying. It was the last thing he’d felt, as he’d slipped away to the soothing rhythm of Max Carrados, that warmth and comfort that were so much more than the meager heat of the lantern or the blanket.
Edwin’s shoulder wriggled under Charles’s hand, and Charles looked back at him. There was faith, in those eyes, complete and whole. The fear was gone, somehow, the fear that Charles now knew was all the way down at the core of Edwin - not that he hadn’t known before, exactly, but - but how could Edwin be afraid Charles would leave him? Charles would never - but Edwin was just looking into Charles’s eyes, even, unwavering, completely sure, like he somehow knew Charles would have the right answer this time.
Charles shook his head. “I don’t know what I said wrong,” Charles said. “It’s not… I don’t know what to do, Edwin.”
Edwin smiled at him, his private smile, like it was just the two of them in the room, and for a moment, Charles felt like it was. There was nothing there but Edwin’s warm eyes, soft for Charles as they never were for anyone else, kind as they were for anyone who needed it, glinting with brilliance at the back, and so, so sure, so sure in Charles, so sure that there wasn’t any fear left, under Charles’s hands.
Charles didn’t know how he could disappoint him, but - “I don’t think there’s anything bigger, that I have,” he said. “There are things that hurt, but they don’t hurt any bigger than that. There’s nothing bigger than that, I swear.”
The imp said something, but Edwin’s hands were on the sides of Charles’s head, cradling it, and he couldn’t hear anything but Edwin. “It’s not bigger,” Edwin said. “The imp’s a bit backwards, I’m afraid. I told you, before.”
Not bigger? But what - Charles pulled his mind, fuzzy with the softness of Edwin’s hands, callused where he had held pen and chalk and bow and string, but soft on the palms against Charles’s ears, gentle like no one had ever been with Charles before the night he died, even his mother, gentle like Charles was something precious - Charles pulled his mind back to what Edwin had told the imp, because of course that would have been a hint too, Edwin would have helped him wherever he could, even if it was cheating.
‘His answer was inclusive,’ Edwin had said, ‘just not as specific as you expected.’
Charles frowned. So something smaller, then? Why would it be something smaller? Anything would be smaller, anything. Edwin’s pain came from his death, and from seventy years of agony, but Charles - Charles’s life was so much smaller than what he had now, he realized, or sort of always knew. He had had a small life and then thirty-five years of Heaven. He hadn’t died in pain, he’d died warm and hazy, soft and gentle, the way he’d have wished, if he’d ever thought about it - he’d slipped softly, to Edwin’s lullaby -
Ah.
“I am in love with Edwin Payne.”
Charles was vaguely aware that there were some sort of loud sounds, fireworks or vuvuzelas or doves, he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t take his eyes off Edwin, who looked so proud, so happy, so unafraid, like he’d known Charles would get there all along. Charles knew they’d have to talk, later, later, but now - something heart-red drifted across the air between them - a heart-shaped sprinkle, of all things, why not confetti - and onto Edwin’s nose. Charles reached up to brush it off, with the hand that had been on Edwin’s shoulder, the one that had been in his hand still holding it tight.
It left a little bit of dye, against the sweat on Edwin’s brow, that was still there, even now, even after they’d won - because they had to have won, because that was the right answer, Charles could see it in Edwin’s eyes. Charles kissed the red smear away, lips brushing gently against the edge of Edwin’s eyebrows. There was just a touch of sweetness from the sugar sprinkle, and they felt soft, not like the bristling anger they held so often, but like Edwin’s voice when it was just the two of them, like Edwin’s hands, one still holding his, the other now slipped down to Charles’s arm.
Edwin smiled at him, and lifted their joined hands, kissed the back of Charles’s, where there was a faint red mark from how hard Edwin had gripped it earlier, while he was answering his own truth. His lips just barely tickled against the light fur on Charles’s skin, and it felt like magic.
Cheering and clapping finally got loud enough to break through, and Charles turned to the side, wanting to scowl, but Edwin’s hands were too warm for it. The imp was applauding wildly, eyes turned into giant hearts. It reminded Charles faintly of Niko, though not with the grotesque mimicry the imp had been pulling off towards the two of them.
“Bravo! Now that’s a confession. See? I told you you’d like your reward.”
“You didn’t do anything,” Charles half-snarled, but without any heat to it.
“Oh, you two would have been dancing around for another decade if I hadn’t come along,” the imp said. “Trust me, one of my extra dimensions is time. I know. And I told you there’s a limit to how slow I like my burns.”
Edwin rolled his eyes, and it looked so much better than when the imp had done it. “Do you expect thanks?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t mind it,” the imp said. “But expect, no. I know how you two are. I am your biggest fan, after all! Now,” it finished, and with a clap all of its props began to pop into nothingness one by one, “I’ll leave you to your happy ending.”