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Edwin leaves the Partially Deceased Treatment Centre on a Sunday.
He put in his contacts and applied his cover-up mousse over two hours before his family were due to arrive, just in case. It has, alas, left him with nothing to do and he has been sat (on the bed he has been sleeping in for the past couple of months, bedsheets already stripped) waiting ever since. One of the nurses gave him a beat-up copy of Persuasion to read so he thumbs through it, trying to pay attention to it, even though he’s read it before.
When the door finally opens it is with little fanfare but the abruptness still makes Edwin jump.
“Edwin?” Patrick, the nurse assigned to Edwin’s release, calls him. “Your family’s here, mate.”
He’s been told they’re all alive. Edwin wasn’t allowed to talk to any of them on the phone but one of the doctors confirmed his parents and sister are all alive.
(But what about…)
Edwin picks up the bin bag containing the meagre amount of possessions he has (two months worth of contact lenses, three months of cover-up mousse, the clothes he was wearing when they found him (his burial clothes), and the copy of Persuasion) and follows Patrick out.
He wants to turn around, wants to run into the surrounding trees and never emerge.
(No, not the trees, not trees ever again)
What will he do if his mother turns her back on him? If his father spits at his feet? If his sister does not remember him at all?
Patrick leads Edwin to the collections hallway. Before he opens the doors to Edwin’s family, he offers Edwin a strained but kind smile; “It’ll be okay,” he says, a lie that he cannot possibly believe.
When Edwin steps into the hallway, however, there are four people there.
His father, leaning on his cane, face white with shock; his mother staring at Edwin as though she cannot look away; his sister, Lee, frowning as though she was expecting someone else; and, somehow, impossibly, Charles.
Where his parents are motionless with shock, Charles steps forward with glittering eyes. “Edwin,” he breathes. “Is that…”
Edwin nods.
Tears slip down his father’s face. Charles reaches forward and, then, abruptly bursts into tears. Edwin shrinks back, almost waiting for his heart to start racing but it won’t, as his father stumbles forward (both legs unsteady) to wrap an arm around Charles’ shoulders, his eyes fixed on Edwin.
“Mr and Mrs Payne,” Patrick prompts, “have you anything to say to Edwin?”
Edwin watches his mother’s mouth twitch and tremble, her light eyes rapidly filling up with tears. It is Lee, little Amelia who was only three when Edwin… went away, who walks up to Edwin and tilts her head up at him. “You’re my brother?” She asks.
Edwin nods. What does she know of him? Can she remember him at all?
“We were sad when you left,” she says. “But you’re back?”
Edwin looks up at his shell-shocked parents, at a furiously sobbing Charles trying to control his breathing. “I sure hope so.”
His mother whimpers at the sound of his voice.
Lee smiles up at Edwin. “Good. Pick me up? I’m bored.”
Edwin looks at his parents; they do not look alarmed or concerned at the request, as though their youngest daughter was not asking a monster to hold her. He drops his bin bag of belongings and picks his little sister up, swinging her into his arms. He has not held anyone since he came back. She is warm and sweet and lovely and smells faintly of Ribena.
With that, the spell on his parents seems to break and his mother comes running over and throws her arms around him, sobbing raw and ugly sobs, with Charles and his father close behind.
Edwin stands in the midst of them, of their arms and tears, overwhelmed.
The rest of the visit is short. Edwin and his parents sit in Patrick’s office (Charles and Lee outside) and discuss the logistics of his… condition. Even when Patrick stresses the importance of Edwin taking his medication lest he go rabid and cannibalise everyone, his parents still each hold a hand, gripping so tight that he almost worries that they’ll break his fragile bones.
With a substantial amount of paperwork now in their possession, they all go for a walk around the centre with Patrick who mostly talks to Edwin’s parents. His mother keeps turning her head back to look at him.
Charles, giving Lee a piggyback, stares at Edwin without speaking as Lee excitedly tells Edwin all about her friends at school and about everything he’s missed. She, at least, is uncomplicated.
Lee is telling a story about her recently lost friendship bracelet when she says: “… but then I found it in Charlie’s room—”
Edwin jolts. “Sorry; Charlie’s room?”
Before Lee could answer, Charles says softly, “I live with your folks now.”
“You do?” Edwin blinks. “Why—?”
Charles swallows, breaking eye contact with Edwin for the first time. “My Mum… she. She was one of the first killed.”
Edwin stops, his stomach seems to be somewhere by his feet. “Charles, I— oh God…”
Charles offers a strained, sad smile. “I know.”
“And. And your father?”
Charles’ eyes darken. “Oh that wa— guy is still alive. But the minute I lost Mum, I went to your parents didn’t I?”
Edwin’s husk of a heart feels warm and full. “You did?”
“Safest place I know,” Charles smiles. “We all take care of each other.”
“Oh that,” Edwin pauses, choking on tears that he cannot cry, “that makes me extraordinarily happy to hear.”
“Charlie goes into your room sometimes,” Lee says, clearly annoyed to have lost their attention. She sounds casual, totally unbothered by the bomb she just deployed.
Charles blushes, his cheeks going that sweet ruddy colour that Edwin loved to kiss. “Ummm…”
Lee taps Charles’ shoulder. “You sleep in there too!”
Charles chokes. “Okay! That’s enough from you Little Miss Chatterbox,” he says, jumping on the spot and making Lee squeal in delighted fear.
“My darlings,” Edwin’s mother says and they all look at her. His mother has significantly more grey in her hair than she did when he last saw her, her face lined with stress and grief, but her eyes are still bright. “Let’s go home, shall we?”
Edwin’s bedroom door creaks open.
He wriggles back underneath the covers, submerging himself completely, hiding. It is very late, or very early depending on your point of view; it was late when they all went to bed, Lee was asleep in Charles’ lap for two hours before they went upstairs, and later still when Edwin snuck into the bathroom to remove his contacts and wipe off the mousse.
(That suits him fine. He doesn’t need as much sleep as before, only resting his mind and not his body, and he doesn’t like the dreams he has; not the violent bursts of memories from the past three years, nor the vivid detailed flashback of his, well, death. Whenever he closes his eyes, he can recall their cruel sharp laughter instantly. He sleeps with a light on now.)
But now someone was coming in.
“Edwin,” Charles whispers.
“Here,” Edwin whispers back before he can think better of it. He cannot bear to leave Charles unanswered.
“You’re here?” Charles whispers, choking a little on a sob.
“I’m here.”
Edwin hears Charles come into the room and shut the door softly behind him. “Can I see you?”
Edwin pauses. “I have removed my mousse and contacts,” he says. “I… I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“I do,” Charles says gently. “I thought I’d never see you again, yeah? I wanna see you all the time.”
Even if I look like your mother’s killer? Edwin thinks but cannot ask.
“Edwin? Baby… please.”
It is unfair. Edwin always found it impossible to deny Charles anything when he calls him ‘baby’. Or when he is crying, and Charles is doing both here.
Edwin shuffles out from beneath his duvet. When Charles sees him, soft and rumpled in his pyjamas, he breaks into a smile. “There you are. Can I—?”
In for a penny, in for a pound. Edwin slides over so Charles can slip in beneath the covers. Charles radiates warmth like the sun, Edwin cannot help but be drawn closer to him. Charles hisses. “You’re fucking freezing, mate.”
“I am dead, Charles.”
Charles winces, reaching for Edwin’s hand. With Charles’ hand around his, Edwin feels real again, feels like Edwin Payne again and not the ghost of him. “Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
“It is okay.”
“It’s not,” Charles murmurs. “Nothing’s been okay since you—”
He stops. Without thinking Edwin cups Charles’ face with his spare hand. Charles stares at him with large, wet dark eyes. His mouth parts in surprise before smiling softly.
“I’m sorry I left,” Edwin says.
Charles turns his face and presses a kiss to Edwin’s cold, stiff skin. He looks nothing less than thrilled to be doing so. “God, you have nothing to be sorry about,” he says. “I’m… I’m so sorry, baby.”
Edwin frowns. “What are you apologising for, Charles?”
“If I’d gone to school,” Charles says, “they couldn’t have got to you.”
“You were ill, Charles,” Edwin whispers. “It is not your fault. I even convinced you to stay home.”
“I—” Charles stops and sobs. “I brought you home.”
Something in Edwin’s chest breaks. “You found me?”
Charles nods. “Beatrice and I… we, we looked all night. I w-went to the woods.”
“Oh Charles…”
“I carried you h-home,” Charles sobs harder. “You were… you were s-so heavy.”
Charles breaks down completely, near hysterical. Edwin’s useless heart breaks as he waits Charles out, allowing him his grief as he strokes his thumb over Charles’ lovely cheekbone as if it were a grounding stone. As Charles begins to mellow into hitching sobs and hiccups, Edwin leans in and softly kisses the corner of Charles’ mouth. It cannot be a pleasant experience, kissing the dead, but Charles exhales, calmer for it.
“Thank you,” Edwin breathes. “For seeing me home safely.”
“Always,” Charles says weakly, voice exhausted. “If it was the last thing I—”
Edwin shakes his head, pained. “Please don’t talk like that. I can’t bear—”
Charles shushes him gently, soothingly. “Not going anywhere, am I? God, not now, not when I’ve just got you back.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t want me back,” Edwin confesses quietly.
“Fuck no, never,” Charles says fiercely, breath heavy again. “Mate how could you even—”
“I’m sorry,” Edwin says quickly, lest Charles start hyperventilating again. “I didn’t mean…”
“Good. Good you can’t just…” Charles inhales. “We’re okay, we’re okay.”
“We’re okay,” Edwin lies, softly.
For seconds, minutes, hours, eternity, they lie opposite each other with Charles’ breathing and Charles’ warmth heavy between them. He is so gloriously, perfectly alive.
“I have a confession to make,” Charles says, eventually.
“Oh?
Charles squeezes Edwin’s hand. “Simon. And Anthony.”
Edwin freezes.
Let’s give this little fag a proper scare!
Charles brings Edwin’s hand to his mouth, kisses the back of it. “They can’t hurt you. They can’t hurt you ever again.”
When Edwin tilts his head, Charles exhales. “I was being chased by… well. I was being chased, wasn’t I? I ran to the school to hide and I… they were in a classroom I ran into, right? Those cunts had been released when everything got started.”
“They were released?” Edwin asks, feeling breathless with anger. His hands tremble, Charles grips him tighter.
“Yeah, Bea got fined for attacking them in the street,” Charles says, almost smiling as though it were a fond memory.
“And they were in a classroom?”
“Right— so the three of us were being chased by two untreated PDS sufferers and I. I saw an office. I found that the office had an inside lock and I ran inside. I… I locked them out.”
Edwin’s eyes widen as Charles continues, talking fast, “They tried to get me to open the door, it meant… they were caught. I listened to them die— and I was fucking thrilled about it.
“I’d do it again,” Charles says fiercely. “I’d do it again every time and I won’t apologise for it. I regret it even less now that you’re back, yeah? They can’t hurt you again. But I figured you should know.”
“They’re dead?” Edwin asks.
“Ripped apart, eaten, gone for fucking ever. And the world’s a better place for it.”
Edwin exhales. If Charles is a bad person for locking them out, then Edwin is just as bad for feeling relieved about it. Though, of course… “Even if I were angry,” Edwin says, “how could I possibly judge you? I’ve spent the past few years k—”
He cannot finish his sentence. He closed his eyes.
“Hey, it’s okay love.”
“I’ve killed people, Charles,” Edwin snaps. “How is that okay?”
“You weren’t in control of yourself,” Charles says, cradling Edwin’s face in his hands. “You think I don’t know you, Edwin Payne? You wouldn’t hurt anyone if you were in control of yourself.”
“What if I was the one who killed your mother?” Edwin snaps, before he can stop himself. The words are ugly and violent and designed to hurt. “Could you forgive me then?”
Charles looks away and swallows so deeply that it looks like it hurts. “Truth is,” he whispers, “there’s nothing I wouldn’t forgive you for.”
“You cannot possibly—”
“I do,” Charles says with such an air of finality that Edwin cannot argue.
Instead Edwin breathes, “I do not deserve you,”
Charles smiles so sadly that it barely resembles a smile at all. “You deserve more than I can give you,” he says. “Fuck I love you so much.”
“How can you love me like this?” Dead, monstrous, as terrible as they said.
“I’ll love you whatever way I can have you. I mean, God Edwin, it’s been torture,” Charles cuts himself off with a sharp hiss and a shaky inhale of breath. “I started to wonder if I was in Hell, you know? Like some waking nightmare. The Rising was hard enough and, fuck, my Mum but losing you first…”
He starts crying again, racking sobs that sound like they hurt, like they’re ripping up Charles’ lungs, bronchi from bronchioles. Edwin pulls Charles into his arms, cradles him close. Charles clings back tightly; his hands grab the back of Edwin’s shirt, curves a leg around Edwin’s so that their knees interlock, turning his face into the crook of Edwin’s neck.
“Don’t leave me again,” Charles cries, “Oh God, please never leave me again.”
Edwin wishes he could promise such a thing, like he did when he was alive and Charles was still a teenager, and they believed that everything would be okay as long as they had each other, never dreaming that they could be ripped apart from one another. Edwin had promised ‘forever’ so carelessly then. He had forgotten that sometimes the world didn’t give you a choice, didn’t let you keep your promises.
And the world was far more dangerous now.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers instead. If only he could shrink the world and bubble it around the two of them. Keep Charles safe and keep himself safe for Charles.
They lay together, Charles sobbing until he tires himself out, with Edwin following suit. His sleep is, finally, dreamless, restful in its oblivion.
The sun rises slowly. Birds sing. And, for now, they sleep.