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Charles had begun to really enjoy nights in Port Townsend. It was so different from London—quieter for one, and for another: you could see all the stars in the sky. Now he didn’t know shit about stars, just that he thought they were fairly pretty. Which made them aces, in his books.
For the second time that night, he and Edwin sat on the roof of the Tongue and Trail. The girls had gone to bed a few hours ago, Crystal with her memories in hand. Charles always preferred to make himself scarce through the night time hours, or whatever time of day it was when the girls went to sleep. He wasn’t a fan of sitting around in the apartment like night, like some creep who watches people sleep. Edwin felt the same way, but Edwin had always had a bit of a habit of wandering around at night when they weren’t working on a case.
Speaking of Edwin, he had been quiet since they came up here. Currently, he was scribbling away in his notebook, which he’d been going at now for at least an hour. Charles watched him, the corner of his mouth ticking up in a smirk. He wondered what Edwin could possibly be writing about, but figured if he could make a guess, it would most likely be Hell.
They hadn’t talked about what happened today. Returning from Hell, Edwin’s monster. They had barely even touched upon Edwin’s confession, which still made Charles’ stomach swoop nervously when he thought about it.
Edwin had barely talked about Hell before Port Townsend, anyway. He had said some stuff, mostly the basics—because that’s the kind of thing that is important to Edwin—about the sacrifice, how he was passed around from demon to demon until he ended up somewhere he had never spoken about. Until today.
“Mate,” Charles called from across the roof.
Edwin’s head popped out of his book, turning toward Charles.
“You’re going to burn a hole in that thing with the speed you’re writing,” he said. “Take a break. Want to go on a walk?”
Edwin sighed, a contemplative sound Charles was deeply familiar with. “Yes,” was his answer. “I think that would be good.”
And so, they made their way down to the streets of Port Townsend. Walking was something Charles had gotten used to since the whole ‘ghost’ thing. You had to find ways to occupy your time and it wasn’t as if they could get tired; their muscles never ached, their feet never sore. It wasn’t half bad, and when Edwin came with him, it was even better.
Walking in Port Townsend was very different from walking the busy streets of London. They rarely saw anyone, except for other ghosts, who kept mostly to themselves. Charles had found that ghosts weren’t typically very social creatures.
They fell into a companionable silence. As they walked Charles dug his hands into the pockets of his coat. He had always figured this was out of habit. He never actually felt cold, hadn’t in years, but sometimes it almost felt as if he still had a chill in his bones; something like a phantom memory, te ure to wrap himself up tight.
As they turned the corner away from the butcher shop, a cat ran across the street.
Edwin pointed. “One hundred and forty-five.”
Charles turned to him. “Why are you still counting cats? The bracelet’s off, mate.”
“Right,” Edwin said, a bashful look on his face. “Habit by now, I suppose.” Also out of habit, maybe, Edwin reached down to his wrist, as if feeling for the bracelet that was no longer there.
Charles watched the movement, the pale section of skin exposed between his coat jacket and his leather glove. “So, do you feel like telling me what the Cat King really wanted with you now?” He moved into Edwin’s space, so he could knock their shoulders together.
“God,” Edwin said, exasperated but with a laugh and ducked his head down. “I—it’s embarrassing, Charles.”
“Even better then,” Charles smiled.
Edwin glared at him, a playful glint in his eye. “This accursed town unearthed many things,” he sighed. “I told you some—most by now, and I suppose it started with the Cat King. Unfortunately. He has made it very clear that he’s…attracted to me, and though I have no reciprocation of those feelings it was otherwise rather…flattering to be…wanted. To be desired.”
Something formed in the pit of Charles’ stomach, heavy and hot. He had known on some level that whatever had gone down between Edwin and the Cat King had made Edwin uncomfortable. It had to, because why else would he have been so cagey about telling Charles the truth? But the fact that it was about being wanted. The first thought to come to Charles’ mind was, I want you, mate, and he would say it. He would. But Edwin’s admission on the staircase from Hell came swinging back to him full force, and he was suddenly so afraid of saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing.
Edwin’s eyes danced away from his face. “I told you it was embarrassing.”
“It’s not!” Charles practically cried, a hand twitching toward Edwin. “I guess I didn’t know that you…wanted that.”
Edwin’s eyes looked painfully sad for only a moment, before he turned them away. “Everyone wants to be desired, Charles.”
Something else had begun to happen since they arrived in Port Townsend: more and more, Charles hadn’t known what to say to Edwin. Everything felt so different than it was only a few weeks ago, Edwin felt further and further away, and though maybe now Charles was beginning to understand why, he still hated it.
“So…what did the Cat King want then?” Charles still didn’t quite understand.
Edwin didn’t look at him. “He wanted me to make him ‘happy.’ I said no, quite enthusiastically, and so he told me to start counting cats. He probably didn’t expect for me to take the request quite so literally. Regardless, it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?” Only then did he turn and look Charles in the eye, and Charles’ stomach twinged.
“Edwin, are you okay?” he asked. “Like with—everything. The Cat King, Monty, fucking—Hell. You can talk to me, and I mean it.”
Charles watched as Edwin’s mouth twisted into a smile. He nodded, and only with a little hesitation, reached for Charles’ hand, and gave it a squeeze before he dropped it once again, Charles itching to ask him to hang on.
“I am,” he said. “Or I will be. In a way I’m grateful to the Cat King, and even to Monty. I feel as if I know myself better than I ever have, and as for Hell.” He paused, Charles noted how his hands wrung together. “I’m out.”
They turned another corner of Port Townsend’s downtown. Little shops lined up against one another, all tucked in and locked up for the night. Charles let his gaze wander, over the dim street lights, the displays in windows. He looked up, expecting to meet his own eye for only the briefest of moments before he remembered. Again. It stopped him in his tracks.
Edwin, having walked a few steps ahead of him, turned when Charles wasn’t following. “Charles?” he murmured, walking back to his side and looking in the same direction. “What is it? Are you alright?”
Charles blinked, and looked away from the glass. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it’s fine.”
Edwin breathed out slowly, there was a shake in his exhale that sounded nervous. “Charles,” he said. “I think if we have learned anything from our escapades here in Port Townsend it’s that it is better—for the both of us—if we simply speak what we are feeling. Won’t you tell me?”
Charles smiled, something soft. He looked back towards the shop window and the nothingness there. “There was a mirror in Hell,” he said, recalling the moment. “And it worked. Like, I saw myself for the first time since I died, and I hadn’t in so long I—I almost forgot. What I looked like. And just now I looked over and for a second I thought I would—” he gestures his hand toward the shop window, where the empty street behind them was, still half expecting to see him and Edwin reflected there, together.
Edwin hummed, reflective and turned to look toward the glass as well. “That must’ve been, well—I had a similar experience, I suppose. Today, that is. There had never been any before, but this time there was a mirror and I saw my reflection as well. Granted, it was dark and I was covered in blood so it wasn’t a very good look but it still took me by surprise. It’s been well over a century. I think I had completely forgotten what I looked like.”
Charles’ eyebrows raised. He hadn’t thought about that, how Edwin probably hadn’t seen his reflection for much longer than Charles.
Edwin laughed quietly. “Honestly, I feel as if I’ve already forgotten again. That’s the way it is, though, for us.” They turned back to one another, their eyes meeting. “I’m glad you got a moment to see. I feel as if that would have been, well—was it important to you?”
“Dunno how I feel about it,” Charles said with a shrug to his shoulders. “It’s silly.”
“It’s not silly,” Edwin told him. “Especially now that I know how complicated your feelings towards your death are.”
Charles snorted. Complicated sure is a word for it. “Don’t you ever feel complicated? Edwin we are—we were—so young. Doesn’t it ever piss you off?”
“Once, it did,” Edwin admitted. “But that is why our work at the agency is so important to me—it’s proof that we mattered. That our lives mattered.” He sighed. “But mostly I’m glad that if I have to be dead, that it is with you—and that I’m no longer in Hell.”
Charles reached for him in an instant, like second nature. Their hands linked together. He had almost never thought twice about reaching for Edwin, and even in the admissions between them on this day from hell—literally—he still wouldn’t stop himself from reaching to Edwin when he felt the urge to.
Edwin’s throat bobbed. “Did I ever thank you for coming to get me?”
“No,” Charles drawled. “You just yelled at me. Something about how stupid it was?”
“Well it was stupid,” Edwin said. “But I still should. Thank you, that is.”
“You really don’t, mate,” Charles replied.
“Charles,” Edwin said.
“Edwin.”
“Thank you.”
The sincerity of Edwin’s tone made them both pause.
“Of course.” The words came out strained to Charles’ ears. The thing was, going to hell hadn’t been a choice he made. It was a given. Of course he would go to Hell and back again to get Edwin back. Of course he would fight tooth and nail and risk his entire existence. Of course. If the Night Nurse hadn’t let him through he would have done anything he needed to just to find Edwin again. He would have faced Death herself. All of this was a given, there had been no other option. Doesn’t Edwin get it by now? That without him, there is no Charles? It would be them: together, forever, or nothing at all.
But instead of saying any of this out loud, Charles said, “I would do it again. I would bring you back a million times.”
The hitch in Edwin’s breath was almost missable, if it was anyone else but Charles who was watching him. Edwin could read the actual books, but Charles could read Edwin. He had tried all his life to be good at things. Sports (that came pretty naturally), school (not so), but Charles thinks one of the only things he’s ever gotten really good at, is Edwin. Reading him, knowing him, and so Charles watched as his throat moved around the small gasp, transfixed.
As Edwin’s gaze dropped from Charles, both of them seemed to realise that their hands were still linked. Neither of them had let go yet.
Edwin made the first move, an attempt to shake Charles off, muttering, “Sorry—”
“Don’t be,” Charles said, hanging on. “Don’t.”
Charles thought again, though he had been trying not to, of Edwin’s admissions on the stairs from Hell. He thought it had been brave. Really brave. Possibly the bravest thing Charles had ever witnessed Edwin do, and he has seen him in some really tough situations. He had promised Edwin then, and himself, that nothing would change. And yet he already felt Edwin changing before him. He didn’t want to think twice about touching him, about what that would mean. But he also didn't want to hurt Edwin, and even though he found himself really not wanting to, he let go of Edwin’s hand.
They walked again side by side for a while, weaving through the downtown streets of Port Townsend and into the small, residential areas. Silence between them had never been awkward, or unwelcome. Before Edwin Charles had spent his time trying to fill every silence he encountered. There was always something to be said: to be funny, to make someone laugh, to impress someone, to distract them from something. It wasn’t until Edwin that Charles discovered he could sit in silence with someone and not think he was doing something wrong, that something was wrong. He learned, with Edwin, that he was safe in that silence.
Sometimes when they would go on walks, Charles would play a game with himself. He would imagine himself as a typical teenage boy. He would imagine what the night air would feel like on his skin, the crunch of the gravel beneath his feet, how the wind would feel running through his air. He could imagine that on a night like this in late fall, there might have been a bite to the wind.
And if, maybe, he was like any other sixteen year old, and he was walking with someone he cared about—deeply—he would think about what it would be like, to reach over again and take their hand. To keep each other warm. Would Edwin like that? Would he want Charles to take his hand, or would he shy away? And Edwin’s hand, what would it feel like? Would his skin be soft or rough, warm or cold? Would he blush at Charles’ touch, colour rising high onto his cheekbones?
The thoughts were all jumbled in Charles’ head. When it suddenly all came back to, “You really didn’t remember what you look like?” Charles asked.
The question appeared to bring Edwin out of his own thoughts, who looked surprised for only a moment before he said, “I fear I’ve already forgotten again.”
The admission didn’t sound sad, just factual. So Edwin was being very Edwin about this. It was only natural, then, that Charles became very Charles about it all.
“You have a very straight nose,” Charles said, pulling them again to a stop by grabbing hold of Edwin’s elbow and stepping in front of him to look at Edwin head on. “And, um, a sort of soft jawline—strong chin, though. Thick brows, and high cheekbones. Your hair is brown, and your eyes are green. You get a little crinkle between your eyebrows whenever you’re doing practically anything.” Charles demonstrated by glowering playfully in Edwin’s direction. “Thinking, reading, telling me off.”
Edwin raised an eyebrow.
“And I’m taller than you,” Charles smirked.
Edwin rolled his eyes. “Barely.”
Charles dropped his chin lower, looking up at Edwin through his lashes, and whispered, “But still taller.”
“What you are, Charles Rowland,” he said, “is insufferable.”
“You love me anyway,” Charles said, before his stomach dropped to the ground. He looked down. “Shit.” He was making this weird, he was mucking all of this up but then—then Edwin laughed, and it sounded like everything he had been missing for weeks now.
Charles watched with embarrassed shock as Edwin reached for him, and like that night after the Jocks from Hell, fixed the lapels of his jacket. Though this time, Charles wasn’t quite sure there was anything to fix, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“It’s true,” Edwin said. “I do.” He then took a deep breath, and set his shoulders back, and met Charles’ eye.
“You have dark hair, all curly on the top. Not long before you died you must have cut little nicks into your sideburns. When I first saw you I thought you might have had an accident with a razor and slipped.”
“You were just shocked because you’d never seen anyone as cool as me,” Charles said with a shrug.
“Do shut up,” Edwin said, not missing a beat. “Your jawline is more square. Sharp. You have a round chin, and a longer nose.”
“I remember being told it was beakish,” Charles interrupted, again. He couldn’t help it, and it’s not like Edwin really minded.
“There is nothing ‘beakish’ about it,” Edwin replied, easily. His eyes danced over Charles’ face. “Your eyes,” he took in a breath, “are brown and rich. And so kind, and when you smile they crease at the corner, like your smile reaches there, too. Your smile may be an act you put on sometimes to make others feel at ease, but when it is true, Charles it is…beautiful.”
Charles can remember the night he died as if it was yesterday. He doesn’t think he ever considered that he was dying as it was happening, it didn’t even cross his mind. He had been afraid, yes, he thought anyone in his situation would likely have been afraid. But he was too focused on finding a way out of the situation, of trying to understand the why, and then it had been about focusing on getting warm; and then, by the time Edwin came along, it was about focusing on the strange boy in front of him and everything else had melted away.
The boy who read to him as he died, who brought him light and warmth when he was cold. Edwin hadn’t even known Charles would be able to see him, and he did all that. He stayed with him, he talked to him, distracted him and made sure he wasn’t alone when he went. That he wasn’t afraid.
In a way, that was what the past thirty odd years had been, too. Focus on Edwin, focus on keeping them together, focus on the case at hand and then the next one, and the next one. There had been times of laughter, too, of course. Joy and friendship, and he experienced things with Edwin, too. He’d never had a friend like him, and never would again. Still, though, he thought there was a part of him that never stopped being the boy who fought back. Who focused on keeping them safe. Who was so, so angry, and didn’t understand the why.
But Edwin thought him beautiful when he smiled; thought his eyes to be kind. Saw him when even a mirror wouldn’t anymore. Brought him light. Edwin loved him. Maybe, then, this didn’t need much thought at all.
“I fear I’ve made it awkward,” Edwin laughed, dropping his chin down. “I apologise—”
He took Edwin’s face between his palms and kissed him.
It wasn’t a choice, really. It was a given.
Edwin’s mouth was warm. He didn’t quite understand how, and if he said the fact out loud he could already hear Edwin’s correcting him—my mouth cannot be warm, Charles, we don’t feel. But yet, somehow, the feeling of it, whether it was phantom or not, was dizzying. Charles kissed him, thumbs stroking Edwin’s cheekbones, gently tipping his mouth to meet his own because Charles was taller, damn it.
Charles felt it throughout his whole body, tingling and warm. Edwin gasped against his mouth, but didn’t pull away, instead pushed himself forward into Charles’ grasp, his hands coming to hold onto Charles’ wrists, as if steadying himself and Charles there.
Edwin breathed warmth back into him, through his lips, as they danced, Charles’ teasing a tongue against Edwin’s bottom lip, curling it against Edwin’s. The touch of his hands wrapped around Charles wrists, thumb pressed to the soft skin where there would be a pulse point if they were living, if they were just regular boys. But they weren’t, and it was okay, it was more than okay because if they were regular boys they never would have met. Edwin would have been old and grey and wrinkled long before he met Charles, and instead they are ghost boys. They are who they are and it means that Charles can have Edwin here, like this. Warm, and pliant, and gentle and loving and in his arms.
After a moment, a millenia, they pulled back, but Charles still clung close. He squeezed his eyes shut, a smile on his lips, forehead pressed against Edwin’s.
“Oh,” Edwin panted between them. “My.”
Charles huffed out a laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “Me too, mate.”
Reluctantly, he let go as he felt Edwin take a step back. He looked, as much as was possible, ever so slightly dishevelled. Charles had to admit that the thought of him being the reason for it was more than just a little appealing.
“Forgive me for being, um, rather confused,” Edwin said. “I thought you—I thought we—what is happening?”
Charles reached for the lapels of Edwin’s jacket, pulling him in closer so he didn't move too far away. “I kissed you, and it was pretty brills if you ask me. More than.”
“Well of course it was—” Edwin stuttered. “It was—I very much—quite lovely,” if ghosts could blush, Charles would like to think Edwin would be pink by now. “But I thought you didn’t…feel that way about me. You said—”
“I said I couldn’t say what I felt,” Charles clarified. “But I’ve thought about it—”
“For only a few hours!” Edwin squawked. “You surely could not have changed your mind on whether or not you’re in love with me after only a few hours!”
“Okay, first, it wasn’t a change of mind, it was a change in how I was…looking at it. And second, yes I could.”
Edwin looked as if he was about to open his mouth to refute that statement, and instead Charles rather fancied getting his mouth back on his, and so he did, pulling Edwin in by the waist. Edwin fell into the kiss with a sigh, hands coming to squeeze Charles’ shoulders, and he thought, if this was a way they could end their arguments now, that would be downright brilliant.
After another moment, Charles pulled back to look at a delightfully dazed Edwin with a smile.
Edwin blinked, and then smacked his hands on Charles’ shoulders. “You can’t just—you’re always following what you feel on a moment's whim, Charles; and though I find that quality admittedly charming, when it comes to the matters of my…my heart, you can’t just toss this about like it’s a ball.”
“I’ve always followed my feelings on a whim when it comes to you, mate, and it’s always worked out well for me,” Charles said. Then, the easiest thing in the world, “I love you.”
“Charles.”
“I love you,” Charles said again, would say it a million times. “Edwin, of course I love you. Of course I love you. And we have—we have forever, don’t we?”
Edwin still looked only a little dubious, eyebrow raised in Charles’ direction.
“We have all time to figure it out, but what I know is that I love you.” Charles pulled him almost impossibly closer, wrapping his arms around Edwin’s waist, their chests pressing together. The thrill of holding Edwin so close almost threw him off balance, but he trudged on anyway. “I know there is no other place in the world I want to be than by your side, and I know that that kiss? Bloody hell, mate, I want to do that with you for forever.” He smiled, feeling the corners of his eyes crinkling. “How does that sound to you?”
“That sounds…” Edwin’s eyes looked everywhere on Charles’ face, as if assessing him, taking in every fact he could. “Charles, that sounds…well, oh—fuck it—”
Edwin threw his arms around Charles’ neck, and poured his answer into his mouth.