Chapter Text
Charlie wasn’t sure what to make of this whole being dead business.
Actually, come to think of it, he might as well be Charles now. He’d always liked being called Charles, and now that he was apparently dead, he figured he could call himself whatever he wanted. Edwin already called him that anyway, and Edwin was the only person here that Charles wanted to talk to.
So. Charles wasn’t sure what to make of this whole being dead business.
He believed Edwin, obviously. Hard to doubt a bloke’s sincerity while he was crying and holding your face in his hands. Charles felt pretty dead, anyway. He had a hole in his stomach, for Christ’s sake. It wasn’t that hard to make the jump from dying to dead in his mind.
The thing was, he’d kind of expected stuff to stop happening once he was dead. He’d been led to believe that Death was supposed to be restful. The past few minutes had not been restful in the slightest. Stuff had not only continued to happen, it had started happening at approximately the speed of sound.
Now Charles was dead, and apparently he was also his mum’s guardian angel or something, and Edwin was some kind of jedi who could blow shit up with his mind, and everybody else at the party was gone, and that creepy guy with the leaf tiara was standing in the middle of the kitchen threatening to kidnap them both.
Also, there was still a fucking hole in his stomach, and that was making it a bit difficult to think straight. He was definitely not doing a great job at making sense of things. So, as Edwin tightened his arm around Charles’ waist, and inadvertently sent a brand new shockwave of pain through his body, Charles had a thought that really should have occurred to him earlier.
If he was dead, but things still hurt, and he was wandering around in some rich wanker’s stupidly huge house, and people kept trying to fuck with Edwin no matter what Charles did, then—
Was this Hell?
Honestly, it would make a lot of sense if this was Hell. Why else would it be crawling with people who wanted to hurt Edwin? Why else would Mark shove a knife in him? Maybe Charles had been in Hell for a long time.
Goddamn it, if this was Hell, what did that make the creepy staring guy? A demon? Satan? Was Satan real?
Whatever he was, he was staring at Edwin again, and Charles did not like that one bit.
“You’re not taking us anywhere, because you have not won the game,” Edwin said icily.
“Haven’t I?” the stranger asked with a coy little smile. “Your task was to leave together without your memories. You have remembered. You cannot win, so the game is concluded.”
“I was never forbidden to remember,” Edwin corrected him. “I drank the Lethe water, as was required of me. I cannot be blamed if the effects wore off.”
The stranger shrugged. “And I can hardly be blamed if you agreed to a game you could not complete. Perhaps you have not cheated, but you have broken the rules nonetheless. You must forfeit.”
“In fact, you challenged us to ‘leave together without the guidance of our shared memories,’” said Edwin. “I have remembered, I admit, but my friend has not. Our memories are not shared. The game is still on.”
Hang on, what was Charles not remembering, then? Christ, had he been drugged or something? Had he died from being drugged and stabbed?
“What fucking game are you talking about?” Charles asked, trying to sound intimidating, as if he wouldn’t just keel over if Edwin let go of him. “Mate, do you and this guy have a bet on, or something?”
The stranger eyed Charles with obvious amusement. “‘Or something.’ You’re not much of a poet, are you? Never fear, you have other qualities that the queen will enjoy.” He winked. “You won’t have to do much talking at all, I suspect.”
Charles shuffled back a step on instinct, fear and revulsion squirming in his belly. Edwin’s hold on his waist was the only thing that stopped him from tripping over his own feet and going down like a sack of bricks, but the skittish prey animal that lived somewhere deep in his gut screamed at him to keep moving anyway.
He didn’t know anything about any queens, but he wasn’t stupid. He could guess perfectly well what this stranger was insinuating.
And bloody hell, of all the things to worry about, he really wished he could have left this one behind when he apparently died. Ever since he’d hit his last growth spurt, Charles had been aware that some people found the color of his skin and the texture of his hair… intriguing. Exotic, was usually the word that got thrown around.
And that was one thing coming from girls his own age. He didn’t love it, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. It was something else coming from a grown woman at a show, or one of the mums at the football matches he played in fall. He usually tried to laugh off those flirtations, like they were a joke, but some ladies were persistent, even when Charles was visibly uncomfortable, blushing and staring at his feet and trying to escape the conversation. Even when he was the same age as their sons.
If this stranger wanted Charles to go somewhere with a queen that he thought would enjoy Charles’ other qualities—
No, no, fuck no, absolutely fucking not. Especially not if Edwin was getting dragged into this, too. Charles shook his head, not trusting his voice at the moment.
Fortunately, Edwin seemed to be up to the task of talking for both of them.
“Robin Goodfellow, you have not won,” he growled. “If you lay a hand on my friend, you will suffer for it.”
Robin Goodfellow? Wasn’t he the host of this awful party? Shit, maybe he was Satan.
Goodfellow beamed, delighted. “Perfect, little rook! Such fire! The court will adore the pair of you. We must recreate the display you put on in the cellars, that was a spectacular show.”
Charles’ blood ran cold. “You can’t put him through that again,” he said hoarsely.
“Of course we can,” Goodfellow said with a dismissive flick of his hand. “Don’t fret, little king. You may rescue your rook again, as many times as it pleases the court. Oberon enjoys a good drama, and Titania does so love a gallant hero.”
Charles had heard those names before, he was sure of it, but right now he didn’t care to puzzle out where. All he needed to know was that this absolute freak wanted to see Edwin get abducted into Simon’s nightmare show again, and Charles was more than willing to commit a murder to stop that from happening.
He reached for the secret pocket in his trousers, right at his knee. Edwin noticed him moving and tightened the arm he still had slung around Charles’ waist.
“Don’t,” he warned. “Let me handle this.”
Charles scowled, but complied. He moved his hand away from his pocket.
Edwin drew himself up and fixed Goodfellow with a blisteringly cold glare. “You are trying to upset us, to goad us into conceding the game or breaking the rules. It will not work. You have not won. If you had, we would be in Titania’s bower by now.”
Goodfellow’s face shifted, fluid and kind of flickery. It went through fury and nervousness and settled on a petulant, childish pout. “You spoiled all the fun by remembering. Now we have to conclude the night with tiresome semantics. Wouldn’t it be better to come along willingly? Wonderful games await you in the court.” He snickered. “Perhaps we should give your friend a proper weapon, next time. The stage play with the rabbit would be more entertaining if it ended with real bloodshed.”
“You will not persuade us to concede a game we have won,” said Edwin firmly. “Our memories are not shared, and the sun has not risen to find us separated. All we have to do to win is leave.”
Goodfellow cocked his head. “It occurs to me that your friend is in no fit state to decide much of anything.”
Charles huffed indignantly. “Piss off, I’m fine.”
He tried to prove his point by taking his arm off of Edwin’s shoulders to put his weight back on his own feet, but pain erupted throughout his abdomen before he could make any real progress. Charles gasped despite himself and felt his knees give out underneath him. Edwin sighed and tugged Charles’ arm more securely over his shoulders, holding all of his weight while Charles tried to remember how to breathe.
“I will see to it that he rests, as soon as he is free to do so without a threat looming over him,” Edwin said stiffly.
Goodfellow narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. “He can hardly decide to leave with you if you’re holding him up. There is no true choice between a shoulder to lean on and the ground.”
Edwin smiled, sort of. To be honest, he just bared his teeth. “It is fortunate, then, that you have offered him a true choice. He can choose to leave with you, if he wants.”
Goodfellow’s eyes lit up. His face shifted to something like excitement. “How chivalrous of you, rook. Let us leave the choice to your king.”
It took Charles a second to realize that they were talking about him. Since when had he become a king? Was that part of being dead?
“Hang on,” he said, glancing between Edwin and Goodfellow. “You want me to—what, pick who I go home with?”
Goodfellow smiled sweetly. “Yes.”
Charles forgot to be hurt for a second, he was so offended. “Like a dog in a kid’s film?”
“Not at all,” said Goodfellow. His smile widened, almost unnaturally, and kept on widening until it was definitely unnatural. “Like a prospect to be wooed.” He reached for the breast pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out what looked like a pinch of glitter.
“Don’t you dare—” Edwin hissed.
Charles missed whatever he said next, because Goodfellow blew his little pinch of glitter straight into Charles’ eyes, and just like that, the kitchen was gone.
So was the pain in his stomach.
God, it was such a relief. For a moment, Charles didn’t even bother looking around to figure out what the hell was going on. He just doubled over and hugged his stomach, sucking in deep breaths that didn’t hurt. He’d never known before today just how sweet air could taste.
As his breathing settled down, Charles realized that it wasn’t just relief making the air sweet. Wherever he was smelled like flowers. He raised his head and took a look around.
He was surrounded by flowers in every color. A dusky, honey-gold light came from the sky, but Charles couldn’t see the sun. The light trickled down from the whole sky at once, like rain.
“What the fuck,” Charles breathed.
A voice just behind him tsked in disapproval. Charles jolted and spun around.
Robin Goodfellow was there, smiling. The ivy on his head had been swapped out for a wreath of flowers. It suited him. He looked brighter, somehow, almost like he was glowing.
“Welcome to a gentle dream, little king,” he said.
“Where are we?” Charles demanded.
“You are where you were,” Goodfellow answered. “By your friend’s side. I simply want to make clear what is being offered to you.”
Charles opened his mouth to ask another question, but something stopped him. Movement in his peripheral vision. Someone else was here.
Charles turned away from Goodfellow to face the approaching stranger, tense and ready for a fight. He didn’t see a fight, though. He saw a lady.
She had pale skin and long, yellow hair. She wore a flowing gown made of something that looked softer than the dusky sky, with a crown of violets resting in her hair. Her face was hard to pin down. She looked familiar, in a way, and yet brand new with every second that passed. Like a dream he couldn’t quite remember.
She moved slowly, like she was underwater, but she arrived at Charles’ side in hardly a second. Maybe she wasn’t moving slowly at all, maybe it was just Charles’s brain struggling to make sense of this place. His thoughts were a bit syrupy.
The lady brushed soft, cool fingertips against his cheek.
Charles expected himself to flinch. He hated it when people touched his face, it always made him jump. And he sure felt the way he usually did when he jerked his head back to avoid an incoming slap, but he just— didn’t move. It was like his insides flinched, but his outsides didn’t.
It wasn’t the worst feeling, actually. For once he didn’t have to try to keep the embarrassing reaction in.
“Calm, love,” the lady whispered. “All is well.”
Charles blinked sluggishly. The tension bled out of his limbs until he was barely standing, swaying there like a reed in the wind. His mind thought that he ought to be worried about that, seeing as he hadn’t actually wanted to relax so much, but that was the thing, wasn’t it? He was too relaxed to worry, now. His own shot nerves were no match for the warm, heavy calm that settled over him.
The lady leaned in close, until her lips brushed the shell of Charles’ ear. Some part of him shuddered unhappily. The rest of him just stood still, waiting patiently to hear what the beautiful lady wanted to say.
“Would you be freed from all your worries, little king?” the lady murmured.
“I dunno,” Charles answered honestly. There weren’t many thoughts left in his head, and the ones he had were moving like treacle that had been left in the refrigerator. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth. “Maybe.”
“I can take them all away,” she breathed.
The lady was really close, now. One of her hands was in Charles’ hair, when had that happened? Not that he really minded. Her fingers rubbed soft, soothing little circles into his scalp, and if he had been relaxed before, now Charles went completely boneless. He found himself bowing his head to rest it on the lady’s shoulder, just so his neck wouldn’t have to do the hard work of holding it up. She stroked the back of his head, encouraging him to lean into her.
“Well done,” the lady cooed. “Rest your weary head, sweet spirit.”
Fucking hell, that sounded really nice. There were a million alarm bells going off in the back of Charles’ head, but they were muted and distant, completely disconnected from his nerves. Charles didn’t think he had ever been so calm, not once in his life.
“Beautiful,” the lady sighed contentedly. “You will be well loved in my court.”
Beautiful. She’d called Charles beautiful. Not like a joke, but like a line from a poem. He hadn’t really known you could talk about blokes like that, to be honest. And she’d said he’d be loved. Well loved, even. Charles didn’t think he knew what that meant, but god what he wouldn’t give to find out.
The haze that had settled over him was wonderful. It was like being drunk, but a thousand times better. He could barely even tell that he was scared. If he stayed here, maybe he’d be able to stay like this all the time. Maybe he could just do whatever the nice lady said, and she’d whisper “well done” into his ear again, and he wouldn’t have to think or make mistakes ever again.
Sharp nails dug possessively into the back of Charles’ neck. It hurt, sort of, but it was different from any other pain he could remember feeling. Because pain wasn’t usually just pain, was it? It was always mixed up with fear and adrenaline. Half of being hurt was just dealing with his body’s irrepressible need to stop what was hurting, especially when there was nothing to be done about it. This, the nails sinking into his neck, didn’t have any of that other stuff attached. It stung, but it didn’t bother him.
Charles let his eyes drift shut. He didn’t remember anymore what he’d been scared of. Thinking about Mark didn’t hurt anymore. Thinking about his mum didn’t even hurt. Whatever it was inside him that was capable of tearing itself to pieces had been neatly scooped out. There didn’t seem to be anything left in him at all.
He’d been so tired, for so long. He felt like he’d been balancing on the edge of a knife for years, unable to rest without slicing his feet. He didn’t want to do that anymore. He wanted to stay here, empty and thoughtless and unbothered.
He wanted so badly to be nothing.
Something shifted in the air around him. Charles didn’t pay it any mind.
Then something stabbed him in the stomach, and that got his attention back.
Fucking Christ. The thing where pain didn’t bother him had definitely worn off. He’d thought the stab wound was hurting a little less, before, but now that he’d had a break from the pain it seemed to have returned with interest. The flowers were gone, the lady was gone, now there was just pain and pain and pain.
Charles’s legs gave out underneath him, and he would have fallen to the ground in a tangled heap of screaming nerve endings except that his arm was looped over something solid and there was maybe a burning chain around his waist or something that wouldn’t let him drop and oh god everything hurt so much, he wanted to go back to the lady with the flowers, he wanted to back to feeling nothing and being nothing—
“What did you do?” someone practically screamed, right next to him, by his ear.
Oh, that made sense, Charles was leaning on a person. Well, more like dangling off a person, really, with his arm draped over their shoulders like a heavy, lopsided scarf. That wasn’t a burning chain around Charles’ waist, that was just a thin, wiry arm, which happened to be digging into his abdomen in a way that felt pretty similar to being sliced in half from the inside. It was getting better, though. The person he was leaning on was sinking, lowering both of them to the floor. Charles let out a gross, wet noise when his knees hit the floor and finally took the weight off his shoulder and waist. He sagged against his helper’s side, trying hard not to cry with relief.
There was a hand on his face again. Charles whined and tried to pull back. He hated people touching his face, he really did, and he felt like people had been doing it kind of a lot tonight.
The hand was insistent, cupping Charles’ cheek and coaxing his head to turn. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” a boy’s voice whispered. “Just let me see.” Charles blinked unhappily. Green eyes and bold, scrunched-up eyebrows swam into view.
Oh, right. Edwin. He was in the kitchen with Edwin, and he was dead, because he’d been stabbed. Or maybe he’d been dead before he got stabbed, he’d never quite put the timeline together. He might have been drugged, too? And Edwin was a wizard now, but he looked worried anyway.
It was a good thing Charles was used to feeling confused and out of the loop at the boarding school. Nothing made any bloody sense to him right now, but whatever. He could wing it. That was how he usually did things anyway.
“‘m okay,” Charles wheezed, not very convincingly.
Edwin looked livid. He was pulling it off pretty well, too. Fury suited him. “Puck,” he said, low and dangerous. “What did you do?”
“Surely I must be allowed to make my case before our chosen judge,” a musical voice answered. That was Robin Goodfellow again, wasn’t it? But Edwin had just called him Puck. Charles vaguely remembered that name from the play he’d read in Year Nine, the one with the donkey. Puck and Robin Goodfellow were different names for the same bloke, he thought, the fairy with the magic flower.
Goodfellow wasn’t Satan, then, he was a fairy. Why not? That made about as much sense as anything else at this point.
“So,” Puck lilted, sounding quite pleased with himself. Charles forced himself to look up at him, squinting against the harsh light of the pristine, white kitchen. Puck, or Robin, or whatever his bloody name was, smirked down at him and Edwin. “Now you have the options laid out before you, little king. Will you stay here, and limp out the door with your rook? Or will you come to the meadows where summer never ends, and pain is a distant memory?”
Charles wanted to go back to wherever Puck had just sent him, with the pretty flowers and the hazy sky and the numbness that smothered all his thoughts like a fire blanket. He didn’t care anymore what that lady expected him to do. He could put up with anything if it meant he could have that numbness back. No more alarm bells going off in the back of his head all day and night, no more jumping out of his damned skin every time someone moved their hand anywhere near his face, no more dragging his miserable, exhausted body through the minefield of the boarding school.
If he had to be dead at sixteen, shouldn’t he at least get a break from all the shit that used to make him wish he was dead?
Edwin stiffened, wrapping a protective arm around Charles’ shoulders. Charles was basically a boneless sack of blood and pain, just now, and he wasn’t so much leaning on Edwin as he was halfway through the process of collapsing into his lap. Still, he forced his spine to cooperate with him for a second. He pulled himself away, settling his weight on his own knees instead of Edwin’s chest, and peered at Edwin’s face.
“It was nice,” he admitted hoarsely. “In the meadow.”
Edwin met his eyes, and Charles gave himself exactly one second to grieve the fact that he would probably never again feel as calm as he had in that dreamy, hazy meadow.
Because Edwin was staring at him with raw, open terror, and Charles would do literally anything to take that look off his face. If that meant Charles had to stay hurt and scared, so be it.
He reached into the secret pocket at his knee, clamped his jaw shut so he wouldn’t scream, and shoved himself up to his feet. He sort of heard Edwin yelp in surprise, but the sound was mostly lost amid the roaring in his ears. His head spun and the agony in his stomach was beyond anything he’d ever felt in his life, but he only had to accomplish two things: keep his feet underneath him, and not lose his grip on the damn knife this time. He did a pretty good job of it. He only wobbled a little bit.
Around the white spots in his vision, Charles saw Puck gaping in shock.
“Is this the only trick you know?” the fairy sputtered.
Charles flicked his knife open. “Maybe,” he said. “Now fuck off. We’re leaving.”
Puck’s mouth hung open, cartoonishly surprised. Edwin was frozen at Charles’ side, one hand extended as if he’d started to reach for Charles and stopped himself.
Puck turned his outraged gaze on Edwin. Charles took a lurching, unsteady step to place himself between the two of them.
“Nuh-uh,” Charles said, as resolutely as he could with his knees shaking like wind-up teeth. “I don’t know who you are or what the fuck is going on here, but you’re stressing out my mate, so we’re leaving. You said I could leave if I wanted. So get out of the way or I’ll stab you.” He lifted the knife in his hand and tried not to let it wobble in his grip. “Being stabbed fucking sucks, just so you know.”
“Game over,” said Edwin. “He’s standing on his own, he doesn’t share my memories, and he’s choosing to leave. We win. Our offense is forgiven.”
Puck clenched his fists and scowled furiously. “You have threatened your host,” he spat. “You must answer for your bad manners.”
“We will accept the consequence of being thrown out,” Edwin countered. “Now step aside.”
The ivy on Puck’s head was thrashing like a tangle of angry snakes. “You,” he snarled, “are wretched guests!”
“I could have told you that myself and spared us all some trouble,” Edwin sighed. “Step aside.”
Puck stood still for a long moment, fuming, and then his face split into a wide, toothy, humorless smile. “Fine,” he said sweetly. “I concede, chessmasters. My king and queen will simply have to make do with this humble pawn’s retelling of events. You must not leave without giving me your names, so that I may sing them in praise.”
“We will not—” Edwin started, but Charles cut him off. A voice that sounded suspiciously like his own whispered in the back of his head, telling him what to say.
“Charlie Row,” he said firmly. “You want a name? Take that one and piss off.”
Puck cocked his head and smiled, almost naturally. Almost like a friend. Then Charles blinked, and he was gone.
Aces. Charles had no idea what he would have done if he’d actually had to stab the guy. He probably would have ended up face-down on the floor within two seconds.
“Charles,” Edwin said reverently. “That was a stroke of complete and utter genius.”
Charles carefully closed the knife and stuck it in his pocket. “Hey, Edwin? Are you any good at catching?”
Edwin hesitated. “Not really, no.”
Charmed hummed an acknowledgement. “Shame,” he mumbled as his knees buckled underneath him.
He tried to fall away from Edwin, because if he wasn’t any good at catching, Charles didn’t want to knock him to the ground as well.
He needn’t have worried. Edwin wasn’t that bad at catching, after all.
Edwin would never be any good at catching a rugby ball, but he had a distressing amount of practice catching Charles. His partner’s legs finally gave out and Edwin moved on instinct, grabbing Charles under the arms and pulling him to his chest before he could topple over.
Edwin tucked himself under Charles’ arm once again, snaking an arm around his waist to take as much of his weight as he could.
They were so close. Less than a dozen slow, painful steps brought them to the front door. Edwin stopped them one step short of their exit.
“Things will change once we leave, I think,” he said. “I’ll be able to explain everything.”
Charles nodded. “Okay,” he mumbled. “Thanks for helping me. You didn’t have to.”
Edwin dearly hoped that Charles’ memories would return once he properly left the house. Before tonight, Charles had all but stopped expressing surprise when Edwin offered him help.
“We’re friends,” Edwin told him. “We help each other.”
“Really glad I met you, mate,” Charles confided softly.
Fresh guilt flooded Edwin, slicing him to shreds from the inside. Charles had risked everything to help Edwin—a near stranger at the time—and he’d triumphed spectacularly. He had appointed himself Edwin’s protector within minutes of meeting him, and the bruises on his knuckles showed just how ferociously he’d fought on Edwin’s behalf. Edwin, on the other hand, had protected Charles from nothing at all. He’d been nowhere to be seen when Charles was attacked, tormented, killed.
Charles shouldn’t be grateful to have met Edwin, he ought to regard him with nothing but bitter resentment. He never would, though. Bitterness was not in his nature.
Edwin would have to resent himself enough for the both of them.
“I’m glad I met you, too,” Edwin murmured, knowing how irredeemably selfish he must be to mean it. “Let’s go home.”
Charles probably didn’t know how to walk through walls yet, so Edwin opened the front door for him and was mindful not to let him stumble over the threshold. Together, they finally, finally exited the house and stepped outside.
They took three more steps together before Charles gasped.
Edwin stopped short and watched Charles closely. His friend’s eyes had gone wide with shock, and his free hand had flown up to grasp at the wound in his stomach.
“Charles?” Edwin asked nervously. He wasn’t sure if he was addressing his partner or the confused teenage boy who had recently been stabbed. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, aces,” Charles muttered, staring absently forward. “Just remembered something.” He removed his hand from his stomach and frowned down at it. Edwin followed his gaze and breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
Charles’ hand was clean and unbloodied. The dark stain on his polo shirt was gone, as if it had never been there. His knuckles were whole and unbruised, and when Edwin craned his neck to peer at the other side of Charles’ face, the bruising there had vanished as well. Edwin eased himself out from under Charles’ arm. Charles let him go without complaint, steady on his own feet.
“What did you remember?” Edwin asked, stepping in front of Charles to get a good look at his face while he answered.
Charles glanced from side to side, taking in his surroundings. His frown deepened. “I don’t know. I think—I was remembering school, for some reason? But I was remembering it like you were there.” He grimaced apologetically. “Sorry, I don’t know why my head’s all scrambled up.”
Edwin looked down at himself and smiled. He was wearing his own trousers and boots again, and though he still had Charles’ red athletic jacket on, he could tell that it was his own collared shirt underneath.
“I see,” Edwin said lightly. “Would you do me a favor, Charles? Remind me how old you are.”
Charles huffed and shot Edwin a halfhearted glare. “Oi, what’s that about? Trying to make me slip up while I’m out of sorts? Nah, mate, dead years still don’t count. I’m two months older than you forever.”
Edwin let out a short, giddy laugh. “I won’t bother arguing with someone who cannot be made to see sense.”
Charles ran a hand down his face, looking tired. “I got hit with some memory magic, didn’t I?”
“I’m afraid so,” Edwin said with a nod. “Nonetheless, you conducted yourself admirably, and the Case of the Haunted House Party can safely be called closed. I will catch you up on events back at the office.”
Charles squinted, like he was trying hard to remember something. “Right,” he said with a frown. “I’ve got bits and pieces coming through, but some of the bits in my head definitely couldn’t have happened. There wasn’t a nightmare illusion, was there?”
Edwin winced. “There were a few overlapping illusions, but the most important two were the use of Lethe water to induce amnesia, and a piece of fairy magic to conjure animate memories from the trapped ghosts’ pasts.”
“Yeah, that sounds familiar,” Charles said slowly. “But then…” He trailed off and looked Edwin up and down. “You’re wearing my jacket.”
“Yes,” Edwin agreed. “Would you like it back now?” Truth be told he was quite enjoying the comfort Charles’ jacket offered, but he would never stoop so low as to complain about giving it back.
Charles didn’t answer him. He just stared. A look of abject horror was emerging on his face. “You’re wearing my jacket,” he repeated.
“Yes?” Edwin said warily.
Charles lunged and seized him by the wrist. Edwin realized what was about to happen a split second too late.
“Charles, wait—” he gasped.
Charles took off at a sprint, dragging Edwin along behind him.
There was nothing to be done, now. They were off. Edwin did his best to keep up. He was usually the faster runner, but panic made Charles capable of some truly superhuman feats. He was currently hauling Edwin along at a speed one would expect from an automobile, not a boy. Edwin’s feet barely touched the ground as they flew down the sidewalk, into a neighboring house, up a flight of stairs and into a woman’s walk-in closet.
“Office,” Charles demanded, shoving Edwin towards the mirror.
“Charles,” Edwin said plaintively. “Calm yourself, we’re not in danger anymore.”
Judging by Charles’ wild-eyed stare and heaving chest, calm was not anywhere in the realm of possibility right now. Charles grunted in frustration and slapped his own palm against the mirror’s surface. Edwin sighed and batted his hand away.
“Alright, alright, I’ll do it, you’ll land us in Tokyo with the state you’re in,” he huffed. A hazy image of the office replaced the reflection of their surroundings, less than half a second before Charles pushed him through the mirror.
Edwin stumbled on the other side and took a moment to savor the familiar sight of their office, their home, exactly as they had left it. Edwin’s books were all in their proper places on the shelves, the caseboard was covered in notes, and Charles’ bag of tricks was resting on the sofa.
Then Charles barreled in after him and grabbed Edwin by the arm, hauling him towards the sofa, and Edwin realized that he had very little time left to make a case for sanity. Charles released him and snatched his bag off the sofa, opened it wide, and then rounded on Edwin with terror and determination in his eyes.
Edwin held his hands out in front of him like he was trying to placate a spooked horse. “Charles,” he said warily. “Be reasonable. You know as well as I do that our office is protected by dozens of overlapping wards. We are safe here.”
Charles inched closer, still holding the bag open. “Mate,” he said, voice strained. “It’s gonna be the easy way or the hard way.”
Edwin bolted. Charles caught him by the collar, and then darkness fell over Edwin’s head. Edwin squawked indignantly as the floor fell away from under his feet, and he felt himself falling, tumbling through empty space for a long, vertigo-infused few seconds.
He landed with a thump on a red beanbag chair. Soft light filled the space around him, produced by the strings of Christmas lights suspended mysteriously overhead and a small colony of lava lamps littered across the floor. Another beanbag chair of the same color sat beside him, currently unoccupied.
He was in Charles’ bag of tricks, in the part that Charles called his “waiting room.”
Outraged, Edwin craned his neck to shout at the dark, vaguely-defined ceiling. “Charles! You cannot throw me in here every time you’re worried!”
“Extenuating circumstances!” Charles’ voice answered from somewhere overhead. “Give me a sec, I’ll be right in.”
A metallic rasp echoed throughout the bag. Edwin groaned loudly. “Is that the bloody barbed wire? You told me you threw that out!”
Charles did not deign to answer. Edwin crossed his arms and scowled. He could vividly picture Charles wrapping the rucksack in the cursed barbed wire he’d pilfered from a particularly militant vampire’s house. It was overkill in the extreme, considering how many wards already protected the office, and how many alarms and traps Charles had built into the bag itself, and the fact that nobody but Charles could use the damn bag in the first place without losing an arm. Something about seeing the bag wrapped in barbed wire apparently soothed Charles’ anxieties, though, and he refused to dispose of it no matter how many times one of them tore their clothes on it.
A loud rustling and an echoing boom sounded throughout the bag. Charles must have set it down, probably on one of his sheets covered in runes. Edwin closed his eyes and breathed through his irritation. Charles dabbled in being absolutely ridiculous.
Eventually, a light appeared and disappeared overhead, signalling that Charles had reopened and closed the bag. He didn’t fall from above, the way Edwin had. Rather, he walked into the “waiting room” from somewhere off to the side, carrying Edwin’s old lantern and his faithful cricket bat.
Edwin glared. “Am I safe enough now?”
“Nope,” Charles answered. He set the lantern down between the two beanbags and reached down through the dark floor, lowering himself down until his whole arm was out of sight. When he sat up and extracted his arm, he had a remote control in his hand. He pointed the remote straight up and hit a button, triggering an ominous click from somewhere above them. Edwin could not begin to imagine what sort of trap Charles had just armed.
Charles nodded once. “Okay. Now we’re getting there.” He dropped the remote, and it fell right back through the floor, presumably on its way to whence it came. Charles swung his cricket bat in a few experimental circles, then flopped down into the beanbag chair next to Edwin’s, laying the bat across his knees. He finally met Edwin’s eyes. The tinge of panic in his face had not abated in the slightest.
“Is this entirely necessary?” Edwin asked, exasperated. “I was perfectly safe in the office, you know.”
“Sure,” said Charles. “And now you’re safer. So. What happened?”
The slight tremor in his partner’s voice dissolved Edwin’s annoyance. “We entered the house and encountered a fairy. Robin Goodfellow,” he explained.
Charles nodded. His jaw twitched with tension. “He’s from Shakespeare, isn’t he?”
“Well, I imagine he’s from the fairy court, but yes, he does feature in a Shakespeare play,” said Edwin.
“‘Kay,” said Charles, rubbing at his temples. “Fairy magic, then. I fucking hate fairy magic. He made me forget?”
“In a roundabout way, yes,” Edwin agreed. “He had a supply of Lethe water on hand that we were both… persuaded to drink.”
Charles’ eyes widened with alarm. “Both of us?”
“I seem to have some resistance to the stuff, my memories came back within a few hours,” Edwin added quickly. “It’s not so surprising, really. I actually swam across the Lethe a few times, have I ever mentioned that? During some of my early escape attempts.”
Charles’ jaw dropped in unconcealed horror. Edwin winced. He should have known better than to mention Hell in any capacity when Charles was already so worried.
“Why are you wearing my jacket?” Charles asked, voice rough.
Edwin glanced down at the red fabric. “You loaned it to me.”
“Why?” Charles pressed.
Edwin hesitated. “That piece comes rather late in the story. Perhaps we should start from the beginning? Or by trying to identify what you remember?”
“Edwin,” Charles said, growing desperate. “I don’t know what I’m remembering, but I think—I think I saw people holding you down, and every time I blink I get flashes of you covered in blood and shaking like mad, and if you’re wearing my jacket that means—” He abruptly brought his hands to his own eyes, grinding the heels of his palms into his eye sockets like he was trying to banish the images from his mind. “If that was real you need to tell me so, right now, because I’m about to lose my fucking mind.”
Edwin opened his mouth but could not find a single thing to say. He closed his mouth again. Charles’ expression crumbled into despair.
“Fuck,” he whispered. “Oh my god, fuck, that whole thing with—was that Andrew Fielding? From my old cricket team?”
Edwin nodded mutely. Charles looked like he was about to be sick.
“And Tommy?” he rasped. “My old mates? They hurt you?”
“They didn’t really hurt me,” Edwin offered halfheartedly. “They meant to scare me, I imagine.”
Charles lurched to his feet and started walking with stiff, unbalanced steps. “Stay there,” he mumbled. “I’ll be right back.”
Edwin bit the inside of his cheek and nodded. He folded his hands in his lap and settled in to wait.
A few seconds after Charles had disappeared into the darkness, Edwin heard a crash that sounded an awful lot like something glass being smashed to bits with a cricket bat. The same sound rang out seven or eight more times before Charles reemerged, cricket bat in hand, shaking with emotion.
“What about that blond git?” he demanded, knuckles white from how tightly he was holding the bat. “He’s not one of my old mates, who the fuck was he?”
Edwin wished fervently to disappear. “That was, er, Simon. I think I may have mentioned him, once or twice.”
Charles stared at him blankly. “Simon, from St. Hilarion’s?”
Edwin cringed. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“Do you mean the bastard who sacrificed you to a demon?”
“He hardly acted alone,” Edwin offered weakly. “That was a group effort, really.”
Charles turned on his heel and stalked back off into the darkness. The series of crashes was louder this time, and it went on long enough that Edwin began to worry. He picked himself up out of the beanbag chair and took a few caution steps towards the sounds of shattering glass and splintering wood.
“Charles?” he called cautiously. “Charles, are you alright?”
“I cannot fucking believe!” Charles’ voice shouted, punctuated with an especially loud crash. “That I was in the same fucking room as that vicious cunt!” Crash. “And I didn’t! Fucking! Kill him!”
An almighty crack sounded out. Edwin wondered what it was that Charles was smashing to bits, off where Edwin couldn’t see.
“You broke his nose,” Edwin offered. “And you made him cry.”
Silence. Then—
“Really?” Charles asked quietly, tiptoeing his way back to where Edwin could see him.
Edwin had to smile. There were splinters of wood in Charles’ hair, and his bat was covered in scuff marks. “Yes, you beat him bloody and scared the living daylights out of him. It was very cathartic. I may take up painting again, just to capture the scene in oils.”
Charles inched closer, further into the light, and now Edwin could see the tears running down his face.
“I should have killed him,” Charles said thickly. “I don’t care if he wasn’t real. I always told myself that if I met one of those cunts I’d kill him.”
“We don’t typically kill people,” Edwin reminded him. Their record wasn’t spotless in that regard—they’d been implicated in a small handful of deaths and damnations, over the years—but they’d never committed any murders.
Not yet, anyway.
Charles looked at his feet. “Extenuating circumstances,” he mumbled. “They killed you, I should get to kill them. That’s just fair.”
“I’m sorry,” Edwin said softly, fondness mingling with grief. “I never wanted you to see any part of that.”
Charles drew in a wet, shaky breath. “Was that how you died?”
Edwin shrugged. “More or less. The rabbit and the red paint were new.”
Charles screwed his eyes shut. Fresh tears spilled out onto his cheeks. “Mate,” he whispered hoarsely. “That’s fucking horrible.”
There it was again, an old ache throbbing back to life beneath Edwin’s ribs.
“Yes,” he said softly. “It was horrible, wasn’t it?”
The fact of it hung heavy in the air. Charles inched closer to Edwin, then closer still, eyeing him with obvious intent.
Edwin rolled his eyes and held back a smile. “If you’re going to hug me, at least put the bat down first.”
The bat clattered to the ground. Charles threw his arms around Edwin’s shoulders and pulled him close. Edwin patted his back a few times.
“If we ever see them again I get to kill them,” said Charles into Edwin’s shoulder.
Edwin smirked. “In the incredibly unlikely scenario that we encounter the animate shadows of our murderers, again, I will not attempt to stop you.”
“Good.”
“Will you let me out of the bag, now?”
Charles paused and then shook his head.
“Charles.”
“S’not safe out there. There’s fairies and shit running about.”
“We are ghost detectives. There are always supernatural creatures with ill intent.”
“Yeah, that’s why you’re in the bag. Nothing can get to you in here but me.”
“Now that you have gone and kidnapped me, one might argue that you are precisely the person from whom I need protecting.”
“Yeah, but you don’t believe that.”
Edwin held his tongue. There was no rebuttal he could give, even in jest. He let Charles guide him back to the beanbag chairs and gently shove him down into one.
“Do you want your jacket back?” Edwin offered.
Charles chewed on his lip. “Maybe. Can I trade you?”
Edwin cocked his head. “Trade?” he repeated skeptically.
“Yeah, hang on.” Charles crouched down and reached through the floor again, this time rooting around for several seconds before he found what he wanted. He pulled his arm back with a triumphant “Ah ha,” and brandished his prize at Edwin.
For a moment, Edwin thought it was Charles’ favorite jacket dangling from his fist, the one he usually wore outside. That one was hanging up in the office, though, and the jacket he had in his hand now was slightly different. It was dark blue, not black, and it had a different collection of pins and patches scattered across the lapels and sleeves.
“Oh,” said Edwin. “I had nearly forgotten that one.”
“Yeah, you only ever wear it to shows, and we haven’t been to one in years,” Charles agreed. “I made it for you, though. You might as well wear this one instead of mine.”
Edwin obliged, and shed Charles’ jacket to swap it for the one being offered. The jacket that Charles had made him all those years ago had a pleasant weight to it, and Edwin could have sworn he felt warmer when he wrapped it around himself.
“When did you make this?” he asked. “It was early on, wasn’t it?”
Charles hummed, halfway through the process of shrugging his own jacket back on. “Yeah, maybe during our second year? I was trying to convince you to come see the Hotknives with me. That jacket was what finally sealed the deal.”
Edwin remembered that show, now. He’d been so overwhelmed he’d barely heard the music, but Charles’ incandescent smile had been worth it.
“Anyway,” Charles continued. “I sewed a bunch of your protection amulets into the lining, so now it’s basically armor.”
“Charles,” Edwin huffed. “I am inside your bag, in the office, surrounded by all our usual wards and the bloody barbed wire. I don’t need to be wearing armor.”
“Humor me,” Charles retorted, dropping down into his own beanbag chair. “It makes me feel better.”
Edwin declined to respond. He didn’t take the jacket off, though. He really did like it.
“What do you remember about tonight?” he asked instead.
Charles made an unhappy little noise. “You getting sacrificed again, mate. Thought we covered that.”
“Anything else?” Edwin pressed.
Charles pulled a face. “People, mostly. Just snippets of their faces. Were the girls from St. Bernadette’s really there?”
“Yes,” said Edwin. “They were a raucous bunch.”
Charles snorted. “Yeah, that sounds like them. You met Trina?”
“I did,” Edwin confirmed. “She was terrifying, but lovely. I met Jackie and Phoebe as well, and a few others.”
Charles’ nostalgic smile made something in Edwin ache. “They were something. The real them, I mean,” he said quietly.
Edwin chose his words carefully. “You never mentioned them before. I didn’t realize you had friends at another school.”
Charles shrugged. “Never came up, did it?”
“I suppose not,” Edwin allowed. “It does occur to me, though, that those young ladies are almost certainly still alive, and I know you look in on Bill from time to time. Did you ever—”
“No,” Charles said quickly. “No, I’d, er, rather not, actually.” He looked nervous, all of a sudden. “I mean, if you’re curious about them now that you sort of met them, I get it, but. If you do check on them, could you maybe not tell me about it?”
“Why?” Edwin asked, mystified. “I thought you liked them?”
“I did! I still do, probably, it’s just.” Charles waved a hand, gesturing vaguely. “That’s kind of the problem, innit? No point twisting the knife?”
Edwin flinched at the word “knife.” Charles noticed immediately.
“What was that?” he asked, furrowing his brow.
“Nothing,” Edwin dismissed. “You were saying something?”
“No,” Chalres sat up and fixed Edwin with a hard, scrutinizing stare. “You just twitched like you were hurt. Are you hurt? Did you get hit with any crazy fairy magic? Iron burns? Fuck, Lethe water’s from Hell, isn’t it? Does it have side effects?”
“For heaven’s sake, Charles,” Edwin snapped. “I’m fine. You’re the one who was stabbed.”
Charles blinked, stunned. “I got stabbed?”
Edwin’s jaw dropped in outrage. “You remember seeing Simon, but not being gutted?”
Charles looked down at his stomach, like he was checking to see if he’d bleeding out this whole time. “Nah, mate, I don’t remember that at all.” He looked back up at Edwin. “That’s embarrassing, innit? I’m supposed to be the brawn. Who stabbed me, then? Was it at least someone big and tough?”
Edwin could not muster up an answer. He was busy trying to remember why he was not supposed to strangle his best friend.
“Are you joking? ” he sputtered.
Charles shrugged. “Well, if I’m gonna get stabbed, like a bloody amateur, I can at least hope it didn’t damage my reputation too badly. I don’t want to go around getting stabbed by someone pathetic where you can see it, do I?” Something seemed to occur to him now, and he lurched to sit upright, back ramrod straight. “Wait a fucking minute, tell me it wasn’t fucking Simon. Edwin, I swear to god, if I lost a fight to that wanker I will walk straight down to Hell right now for round two.”
“Don’t even say that,” Edwin said automatically. “No, it wasn’t Simon. You broke Simon’s nose with a single hit, remember?”
Charles paused, frowning deeply, then relaxed his shoulders a bit. “Right, you did say that. Alright, fine, who stabbed me then?”
Edwin hesitated. Something seemed to dawn on Charles now, and he slumped back down into his beanbag.
“Oh,” he said softly. “Oh, wait. Was it Mark?”
Edwin nodded. “I’m sorry.”
Charles sagged, hunching his shoulders in. “Jesus,” he muttered. “What a prick.”
“I didn’t know how close you two were,” Edwin blurted. “I knew you’d been killed by your friends, but somehow I didn’t realize that you had—a best friend, I suppose. Someone you trusted.” He swallowed. “I cannot imagine how painful his betrayal must have been. I’m so sorry I let it happen again.”
Charles frowned. “You didn’t let anything happen, mate.”
“You don’t remember what happened,” Edwin pointed out.
Charles shook his head, unbothered. “I don’t care, I know you. You definitely didn’t let someone waltz up and stick a knife in my gut.” He settled deeper into his beanbag. The shifting lights of the lava lamps around the floor cast interesting shadows on his face. “So Mark stabbed me this time, eh? That was bold of him. Last time he missed me with every rock he threw.”
Edwin wasn’t sure what to make of that. Mark confused him beyond all measure. He couldn’t imagine wanting to hurt Charles at all, but Mark in particular seemed to have veered back and forth between wanting to protect Charles and wanting to kill him, which was even more perplexing.
“He was my best friend,” Charles went on. “But he was never that good at being friends, I guess. It’s like he was never all there, because he was busy worrying what the other guys thought about everything he did.” He laughed. “Plus he was fucking awful for my lungs.”
“Your lungs?” Edwin repeated blankly.
“Yeah.” Charles’ smile was rueful. “Whenever he wanted to apologize for being a prick he’d ask me to come smoke with him and give me a cigarette, ‘cause I never had my own. But he was a prick kind of a lot, so eventually he stopped saying ‘sorry’ and just handed me a cig every time he knew he’d been a cunt.” He flashed Edwin a sheepish grin. “I ended up smoking a lot, thanks to him.”
“I see,” Edwin said. It made him quite sad to imagine Charles pulling toxic fumes into his lungs to numb the sting of a friend’s apathy. “At the party, you offered me a cigarette that you had gotten from Jackie. Was she apologizing to you, as well?”
Charles laughed. “Nah, that was just economics. The girls paid me in cigs to do their eyeliner like rude girls, and sometimes they’d trade them for my makeup kits. I’m glad you got to meet them, if you had to meet anyone from my day. The girls were definitely the best of the lot.”
“It really wouldn’t be any trouble to look in on them,” Edwin offered again.
Charles just shook his head, looking sad. “Nah, I don’t want to see them all grown up.”
“Do you think they’ll have turned out poorly?” Edwin asked, puzzled. He’d thought the girls showed some real strength of character, but then, he’d only known them for a few hours at most.
Charles swallowed hard and shook his head again. “It’s not that. It’s more like.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t mind being dead, do I? I’ve got my best mate, and my bag of tricks, and enough cases to keep us busy for the rest of forever. What’s the point of making myself sad again?”
“You don’t want to see them because you miss them,” Edwin realized. “You don’t want to make yourself miss them more.”
Charles closed his eyes and nodded. “Yeah,” he whispered. “It’s better if it’s a clean break, you know?” He sniffed and swiped a hand over his eyes. “Besides, can’t be moping around the office all day thinking about my life. You’d get sick of my sad mixtapes really quickly.”
Edwin pursed his lips and shifted around in his beanbag chair. He’d never known why Charles liked this type of chair so much, Edwin found them terribly difficult to move in. He still managed to maneuver himself until he was facing Charles more or less directly.
“I don’t mind if you miss your life, sometimes,” he said seriously.
“You don’t miss yours,” Charles countered. “Where do I get off wallowing?”
“I hardly even remember my life, it’s not a fair comparison,” said Edwin. “Truly, it wouldn’t bother me. If you miss things from your life, you could check on people, or bring home mementos.” Nervousness leaked into his tone. “We could talk about it, if you wanted to.”
Charles grunted skeptically. “What’s the point? And I don’t want you thinking I don’t like running the agency with you. Like I’d rather be a thirty-something gym manager.”
He said it so casually, like he’d thought about it before. Gym manager. Was that what Charles had wanted to do? Was that the course he expected his life would have taken? Something about Charles’ casual dismissal of that idea that struck Edwin as alarming.
“Would you rather be a gym manager?” Edwin asked despite himself.
“Of course not,” Charles scoffed.
Edwin fiddled with one of the buttons on the jacket Charles had given him. “Would you rather be in your thirties?”
Charles looked away. “That doesn’t matter, does it? I’m dead. Sixteen forever.” He glanced pointedly at Edwin. “Sixteen and eight months, mind you. Still older than you.”
Edwin did not rise to the bait. “I’m being serious. I would never be upset about you missing things.”
Charles looked down. “I know you wouldn’t be upset, but you wouldn’t be happy about it either, would you? We don’t have to talk about it. We can just be happy.”
“I’m not happy that you died, Charles,” Edwin said, surprising himself with the force of his voice. “Obviously I enjoy our existence together very much, but I am not happy that it came at the cost of your premature death.”
Charles’ eyes widened. “I didn’t mean—”
“The fact that I was too late to save you in that attic is my single greatest regret,” Edwin said firmly. “If I could have saved you, I would have.”
Charles stared at him, eyes wide, looking thoroughly overwhelmed. Edwin nodded to emphasize his certainty.
“You did save me, though,” Charles blurted. “In the attic. I mean, I know I died, but—you know that’s how I think about it, don’t you?”
“I beg your pardon?” Edwin asked faintly. “We watched your autopsy, Charles, I’m fairly confident that I did not save you from anything.”
Charles was starting to look truly panicked. “Oh my god, did we seriously never talk about this? Mate, I was supposed to die alone that night. They didn’t find my body for two days, remember? I would have gone with Death knowing that absolutely nobody gave a shit about me. You saved me.”
“I kept you company,” said Edwin. “That’s not the same thing.”
“Felt like the same thing to me,” Charles said stubbornly. “‘Cause now, even though I’m dead, I’ve still got a life. You and me are still mucking about in the world, doing stuff that matters. It’s a better life than I was ever gonna have when I was alive, believe me, and it’s a hell of a lot better than dying alone.”
Edwin swallowed the lump in his throat. “I’m glad you feel that way. You deserved to be saved.”
“So did you,” Charles said.
“You did save me, tonight, at least,” Edwin reminded him. “And I’m reasonably sure that’s what got you attacked by your old friends again.”
“It was worth it,” Charles said simply. “I don’t remember it, but I’d definitely do it again.”
Edwin had known for sixteen years that Charles would die for him, of course, but after tonight he knew that on a much more visceral level. Charles would die for him even if Edwin weren’t his best friend. He would die for him even if Edwin were practically a stranger.
Charles would readily die for Edwin in the exact same way he had died for Bilal Naseem. And now Edwin could not stomach his own hypocrisy, for ever having looked at Bill and believed himself to be different.
“Do you remember the fountain?” Edwin asked.
“Sort of? It was huge, I remember that.”
Edwin set about filling Charles in on the details of the night, embarking on frequent tangents to answer Charles’ questions. It took a few hours to hash it all out; it had been a very long and harrowing night. Charles took two more breaks to go smash things with his bat before he was all caught up.
Edwin tried to remain honest, but he did omit the specifics of the threats Puck had made regarding Titania’s interest in Charles. Charles didn’t seem to remember that part at all, and Edwin could not bring himself to remind him.
After they had tapered off into idle chatting, Edwin once again broached the subject of his freedom.
“How long do you intend to keep me in this bag?” Edwin asked.
“Not too long,” Charles answered easily. “I know I don’t have enough books in here to keep you occupied.”
“So why not let me out now?” Edwin suggested. “That way I won’t even have a chance to get bored.”
“No,” said Charles. “I keep seeing you covered in blood when I close my eyes, so you’ll need to stay where I can see you and know you’re safe for a bit. Sorry, mate.”
Edwin sighed in resignation. He couldn’t really fault Charles, to be honest. If Edwin could stick Charles somewhere he couldn’t be harmed, he’d probably give in to temptation and do it every other day. “What books do you have down here?”
Charles perked up. “Actually, I set up a TV and DVD player the other day so I could watch that new Jason Bourne film sometime. Do you want to watch it together?”
“You’ve already kidnapped me,” Edwin groused. “Do you honestly intend to make me watch another action film as well?”
“It’s not just action!” Charles argued. “It’s a mystery too, I think. He’s got to follow up on all the leads from the first film.”
Edwin didn’t have the will to argue very much. He’d almost watched Charles die again, after all. He put up another few moments of token resistance, and then surrendered and watched Charles set up the television he pulled up through the floor. After some fiddling, Charles managed to make the film play, which was an impressive feat given that he didn’t have any electrical outlets in the bag.
When Charles did flop back down into his own beanbag, he couldn’t seem to stop fidgeting. Edwin watched him wring his hands and pick at his nails for a few minutes before he took pity and shoved their beanbags together, forming a single, amorphous mass.
Now effectively sharing a loveseat with Edwin, Charles settled down considerably. As soon as Edwin was properly resettled, Charles dropped his head onto Edwin’s shoulder.
Wrapped in the jacket that Charles had made for him, inside the bag that only Charles could navigate, Edwin had to admit that he did indeed feel safer than he had for a long time. He adjusted the position of his shoulder to make sure Charles’ neck was at a comfortable angle.
He was quite glad that his time with Charles was now longer than his life had been. He liked this era of his existence so much more than he’d ever liked being a real, living boy. He felt more alive than he ever had with a pulse.
Besides, for all Charles might argue that he was sixteen forever, Edwin had now seen irrefutable evidence that Charles had matured anyway. Perhaps they hadn’t really lost their chance to grow up.
Edwin rested his head on top of Charles’, flattening his friend’s curls with his cheek. There was, on the other hand, an advantage to being young forever. He could never be accused of being too old for the occasional act of petty vengeance.
Once Edwin tracked down Mark Pearson, that man would learn to regret having ever been born.