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She’s never unexpected, but she’s always a surprise. There’s a saying about it somewhere, that nothing is certain but death and taxes. Charles had died too young to pay taxes, and then had escaped death with the kind smile that read to him as he slipped away. But he always knew she’d come for him someday. Had hoped otherwise, but had never had faith in their own power to hide from her Endless gaze forever.
When she meets him, he is alone, as it was always fated to be so. He’s not like Edwin, comforted by his own presence, able to relax in the presence of written company. He likes to go people watching, explore the world that moved on without him. It’s one of his favourite haunts, a coffeeshop in Soho, spying the regular patrons and making up stories about their mundane existence. He laughs at the joke of a title ‘Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death’ and likes to pretend he’s just as dull as he seems, rather than a walking talking aberration.
He regrets laughing at the shop name when he sees her besides him. He’d never seen her order, nor witness her sitting down, but she’s people watching with him, hands neatly tucked around a thermos. He’s seen her too much, and has belonged to her for thirty years.
Death leans her chin on her wrist and shares a conspiratorial smile. He feels just as cold as he did the day he fell to her domain.
They’d thought they were so clever, ducking away from her gaze, concealing themselves behind walls and petty material boundaries. They never had a chance to begin with.
He’s leaving Edwin alone, but he won’t go without a fight. He’s been fighting impossible battles his whole existence, at the end is no time to stop. Except for the way he automatically smiles when he sees her, the way his shoulders relax and the bitter anxiety soothes.
“You don’t need to worry. I came for you, not to take you away.”
It would be so much easier if she wasn’t so comforting. A part of him bites away, knowing that this is wrong, it’s everything he’s been warned about. Edwin would be furious, would shout, his voice breaking at the peak of it. But rather than taking his friends hypothetical words to heart, he just feels the insane urge to tell her about his dearest friend, so she might share in how wonderful he is. It feels wrong, sometimes, to keep Edwin for himself, but when they share one of their smiles, it feels like a heat he lost long ago, and he tries to be a good guy, but that’s too precious to share.
Her words curl around him like a balm to a bruise, one of the real fancy types that are warm and everything. The meaning settles in like a paper boat to the ocean, crumbling against the waves.
“Is that right? Because I’m not going anywhere with you, you know that right?”
He wishes he could talk like Edwin, all authoritative and self assured. A voice that drips intelligence, forces people to reconsider. All Charles has is brash threats and posturing. His hands twitch for a cricket bat, but anger melts like ice cream under the sun.
“I know. The Lost & Found Department have all these ideas about where souls belong, but trust me, it’s not that simple.”
They share a smile like there’s something they both understand. He looks at her order. It’s a Hazelnut Latte. Oddly mundane, but so is Charles. He supposes it must have been just as surprising for Crystal to see ghost covered with pins alluding to ska music.
“We’re working with them now. Well, adjacent to them. We’ve got a supervisor and stuff, her name’s Charlie.”
“Like Charlie’s Angels?” It’s not really a question. She knows she’s right.
“Exactly. Edwin didn’t get it, but I think it’s brills.”
“Well, you don’t quite know how it works either, do you?”
“Nah. Don’t want to either. We’re happy helping where we can.”
She leans forward, and her smile carries mischief. It’s like she’s an inside joke with him, her and him against the backdrop of this entire world.
“So am I.”
They both laugh, something pained in the back of it, and she looks up at the sun. She’s shockingly beautiful when the light hits her, the way it absorbs into her skin. The way she doesn’t leave a shadow.
“We have somewhere to be.” She says, and he believes her. She leaves her coffee behind and holds the door for him. He picks up the coffee, to throw in the recycling. Feels like the right thing to do. Feels like something Edwin would do.
It’s a pleasant walk, when he doesn’t think about it too hard. Death makes conversation with almost everyone, and points out the different types of flowers that bloom in London. Just like earlier, the whole city is an inside joke with her, and she points out the history that beats between timber and plaster. Not all of it is old, some is a recollection of a week past. Everyone furrows their brow when they see her, even as her gentle demeanour wins a smile, like they’re trying to place exactly where they know her from.
“I was there at their beginning, and I’m there at their end. They recognise me from both. Premonition, intuition, hunches, they’re all just remembering in the wrong direction.”
Charles hums. It probably doesn’t make sense, but it seems logical to him. Maybe that’s what it means to be dead.
They’re in Soho, and they haven’t been walking long, and he hasn’t thrown himself through a mirror, but he recognises the shops of Hounslow and his footsteps falter. She waits for him, and offers her hand.
“It’s alright. I’m with you.”
She’s so sweet. Yet somehow that makes it worse.
He doesn’t know what their house looks like. Has peeked through mirrors and memorised their wallpaper, but he’s never seen the home they built without him. Maybe it was cowardice, and maybe it was protection, but he was scared he wouldn’t be able to resist. In another life, he’s familiar. Brings his kids to the step and rings the bell, and throws himself onto the couch. Laughs over his mothers daal, and never quite leaves his kids alone when his father is in the room, but they delight in the noise of too many bodies in a small room. In his death, he’s under Edwin’s evaluating eyes, trying to make him smile.
He wishes he was conflicted on which was better.
Death turns to a small bungalow, with room for a car and two bins left on the kerb. There’s a garden in the back, but it’s barren, neatly cut but sterile.
Edwin would like to grow things. Medicinal plants, which he would carve into nasty smelling pastes and smear over wounds, out of curiousity. Everyone gets fooled by the stern demeanour and the accent, but he’s a mad scientist at heart, and would take any chance to run an experiment, even at his own risk. Charles has never really thought about a garden, but he’d like one proper overgrown, with waist high grass to make it feel like a safari, bunch of cool plants throughout.
The doorknob turns under her hand, and she holds the door for him again. He knows what they’re there for, but her expression would give it away if he hadn’t already known. It’s not pitying, or consoling. It’s the one that comes when people discuss the inevitable heat death of the universe. The way you discuss something inevitable.
“Just… Give me a minute, yeah?”
He takes his jacket off and toes off his loafers, kicking them into the wall. A bad habit Edwin would frown at, but he doesn’t think about Edwin. It’s harder than it sounds. He steps into the bathroom and washes his hands, reading the soap as a ‘Rose and Germanium’ scent. When he was a kid they just used carbolic, and it left an odd residue on his hands, like his skin was too tight stretched across his palms.
When he’s neat he steps into the sitting room. His father isn’t there, and he feels guilt for his relief. But he’s not here to be a good son, just a selfish one. His mum is sleeping, hands folded over her knitting. The stitches are far apart and uneven. He knows the arthritis has hit her hard, but she used to be great at it. He leans down and presses a kiss to her temple.
“Hi mum. I’m home.”
He keeps a blanket laid over her, gently, but making sure her feet are tucked in, and turns off the television. He sits besides her, leans as though he’s tired and seeking her comfort. They’d never been like this when she’d been alive, and yet it feels natural.
Death is looking at the photos on the wall. There’s one at a wedding, another at a Holi event. Charles’s cousin, who’s a doctor now, working in trauma.
There’s none of him. They’d moved on. Away. And Charles had too, but they hadn’t had to watch that. The mourning clothes turn to comfortable slacks and office attire to fancy clothes for the first event they’d went to after the death of their son.
It was horrible watching them mourn. Watching them forget was better. That doesn't mean it didn't hurt.
Her eyes fall to him and he nods. Stands, loafers back on his feet, jacket weighing him down and grime on his knuckles.
His mum awakens with a startle, before rubbing at her eyes. The wrinkles suit her, have grown with her. They carve stories into her face, and she suits them. She murmurs, grasping for her glasses and picks up an echo of them, squinting at death. With a shudder that doesn’t appear on her body, she steps away from herself. In front of death, she’s so small, and it’s heart wrenching.
This is a better ending than most, really. She’s ready for this. Death doesn’t need to introduce herself, there is no fretting about an absent will, or forgotten errands. But she still flinches back, brings hands to her face as though she wishes to sob. She’s delicate, this woman. Quick to worry, quick to flinch. Quick to look the other way.
Her full focus is on Death. Charles fades into the background. This is not an audience he is craving.
Death speaks first. She’s sweet, and kind, and understanding. Everything you want to be met with when you reach the end. She hugs his mother, hides the woman’s face in her shoulder. Murmurs sweet nothings into her hair. Not empty comforts, death is painful truth before a beautiful lie, but reassurance.
“I brought someone to meet you. I thought it might help.”
Mary Rowland turns and sees him. There is a painful second that will live in his corpse forever, where she does not recognise him. It stings, the bitter reminder of how long it’s been, how little an impression he left on the living world.
He never wanted to be famous, or leave a legacy. Just a good person. Just someone who people cared about.
But realisation sets in, and her hands fold back into her face. She steps forward, arms open, and grasp hold of him, bringing him into a hug for the first time since he was about thirteen.
It’s the strange cloudiness that all textures are limited to now that he’s a ghost, but it’s his mother. He’s worried about her his whole life and his whole death. He can admit to himself that she wasn’t always the most… Present. She’d never tried to protect him, but he knows she’d loved him, in her own way. Had smoothed his hair, taught him to make Chai, not even yelling when he overboiled it, leaving a sticky residue over the counter. Had called him puttar, and sung to him when he was a baby.
He’s bigger than her. She’s thrown herself into him, and as his arms wrap around her, it feels like he’s defending her as she sobs into his jacket. Like he’s protecting her. Unfairly, he compares it to Edwin, who allows him to hoist the title of ‘brawn’ with a grandiose cocksure arrogance, but hugs him gentle and firm, like he’s protecting him. Edwin’s hand finds the back of his neck, pulls him in all soft and sweet. He’s technically shorter, when he’s not wearing the shoes with the stiff base, but when he hugs Charles, he envelops him. Fools him into warmth.
Is it cruel that his own mothers hug disappoints him?
He hugs her back, tight, because this is still more than he ever dreamed
“I missed you.” It comes out a heavy sort of murmur, but it’s the truth. Edwin had warned him, that it would tear him apart, watching the people he used to love move away. It was why he’d checked up on them in secret only, but it was worth for one quiet moments like this. Her sobs intensify.
“Oh, puttar. We missed you too.”
She speaks of grief as a shared thing, as something his father had built around. He doesn’t know if he believes her. She was always blind in a way. The years might have quietened his screams.
His father has changed. He’d heard once, that the loss of a child breaks a family or binds it, and they chose the latter. He’s gentler now, better. It’s a struggle sometimes, knowing that his father always had the capacity for goodness, just that Charles was never worthy of it. He’d never been good enough, kind enough, worthy enough for it. He was just a challenge for his family to overcome.
The death of a child changes you. But why did it change him for the better? And why did that feel so unfair?
They don’t have long, he knows, but they have enough. She strokes at his jaw, and pulls at his pins and patches. He sees her bite back the offer to fix a frayed hem, and pretends he can’t. Death is quiet, but she watches them with the eyes that never look away, even as she faces the photos on the wall opposite them.
“You waited for me?” She says it in an almost confused tone, like she can’t believe she was a good enough mother to warrant that. Which, she wasn’t, but he hates that he made her feel this way. He strokes her wrist with his thumb.
“Not… Not really. I wasn’t ready to leave. I’ve got this friend, Edwin. He died in 1916, but he found me when I was-” He bites himself off. Was talking about his own death considered insensitive? He pressed on anyway, with less targeted words. “When I was in the attic. Read to me, brought me a light, made me as comfortable as possible.”
He’d lost that lantern, left it behind in hell. It’s okay. He left with something more important. He misses it, all the same.
A strange keening noise comes from her, almost like a whine, and she looks like she’s about to start crying. “You weren’t alone?”
He smiles, remembering the first time they’d met, understanding her gratitude towards Edwin. “Not for a second. He’s aces. Wicked intelligent, and way kinder than people think. We run a detective agency, helping ghosts solve supernatural mysteries. Like the Three Investigators.”
She turns their joint hands around, so hers is on top and squeezes gently. “That sounds wonderful for you.” Her voice falters. “Bilal, he told us the truth, about what those horrible boys did. What you did, for him. The boarding school covered it up, but… The people who love you, they know the truth. He still emails us, once a month. He has four children now.”
Bilal. That was the Pakistani boy he’d protected, the day before he died. He should feel jealous, the life that was replaced, the four children Charles will never have, but it’s just a painful sort of relief. If Bilal had died months after Charles, it wouldn’t have made a difference. But knowing that one of his last good deeds had created something bigger? It makes him stand a little straighter.
His murderers are still alive. They’re doing well, big names in their industries. Charles doesn’t mind. He knows that they can’t escape their actions for long. He sincerely hopes that they’ll move on to a peaceful afterlife, but he’s certain that they’ll never escape the guilt that comes with killing someone. They don’t talk to each other, because nobody can stand the gaze of someone who knows you’re a murderer.
On dark days he wonders if it’s guilt that binds them, of killing a child. Or shame of judgement, and to them, Charles’s death is nothing to mourn.
“I’m glad.”
The soft silence returns, one that soaks into this house. His cousin will inherit it, maybe sell it. But for now it’s theirs, a legacy to their life.
“If I ask you to come with me, you won’t, right?”
He flinches, recoils from the question like it will hurt him. He can’t imagine leaving, and can’t imagine leaving Edwin. She understands, he can see it in her eyes. But gods, she sounds so sad.
“I’m sorry. But my place is here, with him.”
She sniffs, and smiles. She looks brave, she wears it well.
“It is an important thing, finding where you belong. You two take care of each other. He’s good to you, right?”
He grips tightly, that a living body might feel bones give way. “He’s the best. He’s my…” Words fail to summarise what they are, to his mother, who he wants to be known by. “Well. He’s mine.”
Her smile dims into something more genuine, and she presses a kiss to his temple. “I’m glad.”
She’d never been all that present as a mum. Could never fight for him. But he can’t imagine how scared she must have been, and none of the good deeds she never did drown out the simple desire to be loved by your mother. And nothing sits as well in him as her approval, as subtle as it is. He presses in to what he knows will be their last hug. She curls around him like static, but is the one to pull away, wiping at her eyes.
“Would you mind putting the kettle on? It’s impolite to not serve our guest.”
This is the closest thing they’ll get to a goodbye. She’s trying to be gentle, by not putting it into words, trying to protect him as she never did in life. He leans down and presses a kiss to her forehead, and cuts through all the gentle pleasantries.
“I’ll miss you. I don’t know what comes next but… If we have a chance, I would love to be reborn as your son again.”
He doesn’t know if he means those words, but the sound of wings behind him as he leaves to the kitchen is accompanied by the mental image of his mothers smile, so it's worth it. Death comes to stand by him and they leave together, leaving through the back door to step into Regents Park, somehow.
“Thank you. For… Letting me say goodbye.”
She hums. “You may not believe me, but I try to take care of my people. All I can give them is a kind word and a friendly face, because that’s all I have. But, when I have the chance to give them more, well…” She keeps smiling.
Wondrously, he realises that the two of them aren’t so different.
“It was nice of you.”
“For you or her?”
He shrugs. “Maybe for both of us. Just, maybe not with my father though.”
“I wouldn’t have.” She smiles consolingly.
Silence, again. There’s a lot of that recently.
“Do you begrudge me?”
It’s not asked with fear of retaliation, nor curiosity of his response. She speaks like she knows everything about him, and she likely does. But she’d like to hear him out anyway.
He can’t even imagine why he would.
“Far as I can tell, you didn’t kill me. And, I think it’s nice, that when people die, there’s someone who will be there to take care of them. Better than having to do it alone. I might have even gone with you. It’s just, I met Edwin.”
“He’s sweet.”
“Too good for me.”
“I don’t quite think so.”
The roses are beautiful this time of year.
“Is it sad? Your job. Is it a job? I can’t imagine you applying with a CV for it.”
She laughs at that. It feels good, making her laugh.
“Well, I hardly have an employer. I suppose you could say there’s a family business of sorts. I don’t quite consider it my job.” She rocks back on her heels, and he notices that she’s holding her shoes in her hand. He hadn’t seen her remove them. “People are terrified of being dead, even if they found peace with dying. It’s the idea of having more to do, and the uncertainty of what will come next. We all make our own journey to the Sunless Lands, and I’m lucky enough to be there with you.” She uses ‘you’ to refer to the whole human race, and it’s sweet. Like they’re all individually cared for, all known and loved. “I’ve had painful moments, of course. Where I doubted my purpose, my function. But I’m only here because of them.” She smiles at the families milling past. “I’m quite lucky, in the grand scheme of things.”
Charles rests his head on her shoulder. In a world of static, she’s solid beneath him. “I don’t know if I can apologise for all of us, but I am sorry. We’re scared of what we don’t understand. You’re really kind.”
He can feel her smile in the stretch of her cheek, and she rests her own head on his. “That’s very sweet of you. I know I’m not what people expect.”
“Yeah, but I think that’s a good thing. Pretty woman is way better than a gem reaper with a scythe, innit?”
There’s a second of silence, and they’re both giggling, erupting into new peals whenever their eyes meet. It’s not even all that funny, but still, they can’t stop laughing.
She's a good egg, Death. They calm down and sit together on a bench, watching the living. Let the Sun move and the Earth turn to their own pace. At some point she leans against him, something slightly distant in her eyes. Like she’s gone somewhere he can’t trace.
“I’m not fair.” Death says suddenly, her eyes on a baby. Innately, Charles knows that the child is going to leave soon, knowing the sound of soft wings and the warmth of a blue light. It isn’t unusual, or even unexpected, yet tears spark anyway. Infant mortality are such cold words, and yet the kid is reaching for a butterfly and he wants to hide them both away. He tries not to look at the parents, wonder whether they will bind together or break apart. Death’s gift is given to those unready for it. She stands, and he follows suit, facing her as a light burns in her eyes. “I’ve never been fair. I snatch away the good too soon and let evil live and set roots. I treat people without equality or consideration.”
He’s not sure what she’s building to. He wonders if all the Endless are like this, wrapped in riddles. She’s not looking at him, more through him. But she smiles, and their eyes meet.
“I’m not fair, so I can give you something important. Hold out your hand, carefully.”
He swallows, and wipes his hands against a clean part of his jacket, cupping them gently. Her own hands rest over them, just millimetres away from making contact. He wonders if he’s imagining the chill.
He definitely doesn’t imagine the heat.
It’s not that there are no sensations as a ghost. There is the jolt of physical contact, the pressure of arms around you, the sting of a cats claws. But this, this burning heat, like the way his hands pressed into the lit lantern in his last hours of death, feels wholly foreign. He fights to not flinch away.
“It’s your friends soul. Edwin should have never lost it in the first place, but I believe that you are a safe place to keep it.”
Charles’s head snapped up, horrified at the implication of the fluttering sensation between his trembling, unworthy fingers. “You mean, this is-”
“Taken away and traded amongst demons like a baseball card.” Her fingers trace a pattern he will never understand over his tense fingers. He’s terrified, unable to move, knowing the power he has between his fingers. “You can let go. It was given to you, it won’t leave.”
He hesitates, still, but the warmth seems to attach itself to his index finger, and the pulsing vibrations relax to a gentle hum. Tentatively, he splays his fingers, enough to get a look at his dearest friends soul.
It’s not truly visible. If Charles was asked the colour or shape, he would be unable to vocalise it, even recall it. But when he looks at it, it’s overwhelming. Every part of Edwin, the petty and vindictive, the kind and gentle, the jealous and bitter. Every unfiltered trait, every fear, every love that never was. It’s the essence of the boy he cares for more than anyone in this world, what he went for hell for, what has protected him every day since he died. He can’t help but smile, pulling it closer towards him, Death’s grip not quite leaving his hands.
The soul flickers, and hums, and finds a place to rest above Charles’s heart. It sinks into him, and Charles innately understands that he can pull it out if he wishes to, that Edwin’s soul is merely appreciating the presence of the unconditional love that Charles is made of. He can feel the soft delight, and wants to cut himself open, let the soul feed on all the affection, all the devotion Edwin deserves, only mourning his empty body because it’s not the right vessel to make clear how loved his friend is.
The question occurs to him too late. “This won’t… Like… Resurrect him, right? Returning his soul?” Because the logistics of registering paperwork for a 100 years deceased Edwardian boy is not something they are aware on how to do, and he has a feeling that’s not what Edwin wants anyway. He’s much better at being dead than Charles, who’s always a little bitter under everything. Besides, it doesn’t feel like something Death would do, take away her gift. Not after everything.
“Nothing can do that. My people don’t come back.” And Charles hadn’t really been hoping or anything, but it still hurts, just a little. “You have your soul, it’s only right that his is returned to him. It was taken in the ceremony and passed through the ranks, but I think you’ll find that very little stands in my way when I am taking care of one of my own.”
He doesn’t doubt it.
“A soul doesn’t need to be connected to a body. But ownership of one comes with a certain power. When you two are ready to move on, know that judgement will face you as you are.”
Edwin is free from hell, Charles realises in a daze. He’s researched it, prepared for it, and yet the reality crashed over him in technicolour. Edwin is free.
(A tiny part of him is afraid, and he tries not to notice it, not to believe in it. It’s scared that Edwin will leave him now, move on to whatever glorious afterlife he deserves. That all along it was fear that tied him to Earth, not Charles. He knows Edwin wouldn’t leave, and definitely not without saying goodbye, but the fear bears fruit regardless. Death looks at him like she can taste it.)
Thank you is too petty in the magnitude of what she has given, but it’s all he has. There’s a fragile, perfect moment, where, irrationally, he thinks he wants to hug her, and he tilts forward, only to feel a pull, a terrified scream that he’ll know at the end of the world because he’s been there.
Edwin has never looked worse, and that’s counting hell. Charles would burn the world, become everything he fears becoming to keep that hopeless, pained expression away from Edwin, but this is desolate in its desperation, and so much worse. A formless scream bursts from him, and he lunges, reaches for Charles like a drowning man, and Charles is helpless, leaves the most powerful primordial being without so much as a by your leave because he runs to meet Edwin halfway, collides into him and holds him close, scared only because Edwin is.
He scans the park for a threat, but he doesn’t think there is. Edwin is strong in the face of fear, Edwin doesn’t flinch away. He recites Latin and Aramaic, and believes with all his heart that a clear mind will solve every problem life throws at you. But now he grabs at Charles, Edwin, who would barely tolerate hugs a decade ago. He grabs tight, a panicked breath shaking him, and that horrific expression is still carving it’s way across his handsome face.
Charles, perhaps for the first time in history, breaks the hug, but remains close, pressing his hands to Edwin’s cheeks. Edwin legitimately whines at the separation, and yet takes the chance to look at Charles, like he’s studying him. Every part of him, catalogued with care.
“Please don’t go.”
The words coming out of Edwin’s mouth are so nonsensical that Charles can’t begin to decipher them. He blinks, confused, but Edwin hasn’t stopped talking, gasping through the words.
“I understand that a lot of personal issues in your life have been brought to an uncomfortable light, and that you have found personal closure on some matters, and I know that there has been a tremendous amount of trouble that has befallen us over the last year or so, and believe me, I can acknowledge how selfish I am in this request but-” Impossibly, Edwin’s grip tightened, and he talks through tears. “Please. Stay. Don’t leave me.”
Charles doesn’t know what to say. Edwin is shaking, and irrationally, Charles wants to stroke his hair, press a kiss to his temple. He’s saying a lot of stupid things.
“I-I’ll be better. I won’t complain that you don’t pack things, or get annoyed, or yell. I’ll do anything, as long as you-”
Edwin is crying.
There’s a lot of situations in this world where Charles is helpless, but this, helping his friend, it feels like what he was made for. Like he was crafted to give Edwin a place to hide. He pulls Edwin back in, presses hard against his shirt. Edwin never leaves the office without his blazer. Charles doesn’t grip to him, but there’s a power to his grasp. Secure, and lasting.
“Hey, I’m not going anywhere. And you… You don’t have to change at all, okay? You’re perfect for me. You don’t need to be anyone else.”
He can physically see Edwin fall loose, against Charles’s chest. His best friend looks up, relief cut clear across his face.
“You… You’re not?”
It takes a second for what Edwin is responding to to click.
“What, leaving? How could I?” He hesitates. He wants to bring up how they’re finally official, how Charlie would miss him, how Crystal promised to bring him an MP3 player, but none of it seems right. He settles on the truth. “You’re here. I’m staying with you. You’re all the afterlife I need.”
His words trace their way across Edwin’s eyes, a soft glow finding a home as he looks at Charles like he’s never seen him before. It’s a world a way from the gentle recognition, the way Edwin’s worried eyes relax when they land on him, the way Charles is recognised and relied upon. This wary sort of wonder suits him.
“I… I saw you and Death, and I…” Suddenly, his proper friend seems to realise his state of disarray. “I may have overreacted.”
He thought Charles was leaving. It settles in as a foreign thought, fought off. The idea of it, leaving Edwin hurts. His own hands tightens at the thought of it. They cling to each other, no longer desperate, but reassuring themselves.
“No, you didn’t. Just, you should’ve been careful, yeah? What was your plan if she had come. Thrown another soul in front of her?” It’s supposed to be a chastising sort of levity, but Edwin’s face twists.
“It didn’t matter. I just… I couldn’t bear to loose you.”
It’s too honest, too seen, and there’s eye contact that burns more than iron until Death coughs lightly, and they give her their full attention. She’s smiling, but there’s something sad in it.
“I’m sorry, Edwin. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Edwin doesn’t truly cringe away, but Charles can see the fear in his spine, and he looks like he wants to recoil. Nonetheless, he gives a firm nod and reassures her that there was no harm done. Death smiles like she doesn’t believe him, and shoots him a conspiratorial glance. Like that, it feels like he’s in on the joke, and yet, he only has eyes for Edwin, who keeps shooting glances at him, as though reassuring himself.
It’s funny. Mere months ago, this was their worst nightmare. Now, they’ve been through worse.
He nudges Edwin with his shoulder lightly, affectionate, but comforting. Death cranes her neck to look behind her, as though there is something only she can hear.
“I can’t remain much longer I’m afraid.” Irrationally, Charles is upset. She was so nice. It was just, fun, talking with her. She reminded him of what a mother should be, and it feels like loosing her all over again. “But I wanted to say thank you.”
Charles blinked. He’d spent most of their time together thoroughly unimpressed with his own average nature. “What for?”
“Well… I suppose for not being afraid. I don’t meet many people like that.”
He should have been. Meeting Death was supposed to be the end of his time with Edwin, the end of the life they’d scratched out, but as soon as he’d seen her, all those warnings had just fell to the wayside. Maybe he should be curious as to why he’d so quickly fallen to contentment around her, but it seemed obvious.
“Honestly? Dying was one of the best things that ever happened to me.” He looked at Edwin, who looked shocked. He wondered why. Wasn’t it obvious? “Maybe not the actual hypothermia of it, and yeah, I miss spaghetti, but.” He reaches out to grab Edwin’s hand, discontent with the space between them. “Edwin came for me. I wasn’t alone or anything. It was nice.”
She looks like she understands. She turns to Edwin.
“I really am very sorry. Hell may not be my jurisdiction, nor it’s demons. Yet, I can’t help but wonder what might have happened if I came for you first.”
Edwin’s face takes on that pinched look that Charles exclusively associates with when he’s thinking about hell. But he inhales sharply, and speaks with the sort of receipt pronunciation his teachers had hammered into him.
“You need not apologise for things that are not your fault. If you punish yourself, everywhere becomes hell.” The words echo without reverberation, as though he’s said it before. Edwin hesitates, and watches Charles in the corner of his eye. “Besides… While I can not truthfully say that I am glad for my death, or that I think about it positively, one can not deny that my… Unique, passage through the afterlife gave me unique opportunities. Ones that I would be loathe to give up, irrespective of the hypothetical pain I could avoid.”
The words are vague, but the way Edwin looks only at him, even when addressing Death, isn’t. Because, in another world, Edwin is allowed to move on, and not imprisoned by the painful actions of children who didn’t know what they were doing. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be eaten, doesn’t flinch from the glass faces of dolls, doesn’t let fear cling to him like small fettered wings. It’s a world where hell has never touched him. A good world.
One where they never meet.
The only chance they had of finding each other was here, and Edwin was saying that he was glad for it. Charles couldn’t help but smile, a proper one, straight from an unbeating heart. Death smiled too, and it looked like relief.
“I gave Charles his gift. It’s only unfair if I give you one as well.” She smiles at the joke, and finally he understands the reason for that enigmatic little smile. It’s fun, when you’re a part of the joke.
“There is no need, genuinely. We are-”
“I never came for Niko.”
It’s said in the soft tone that all groundbreaking news is delivered in. Charles is shocked still, while Edwin staggers back. She’s not smiling. There’s no warning, or fear, or confirmation. Just that soft gaze, inquiring eyes. Curious to see them tick.
“She was remarkable. And I can’t tell you where she is, but my children do not come back. If I haven’t met her yet…” There’s no need to elaborate. Edwin steps forward. For a second, Charles worries that he is about to threaten her for more information, and he has no idea how to begin using an enchanted shattered cricket bat against an Endless, but he’ll try, for Edwin, but then he sees his best friends face.
Oh.
Hope looks beautiful on him.
Death seems just as taken, tilting her head like a puppy
Charles presses forward before he can think about it and wraps his hands around her. She doesn’t breath, not even out of habit like him and Edwin do, but her fingers twitch, and she’s slow to wrap her arms around him. He wonders if her family aren’t big huggers.
Only a little embarrassed, and not embarrassed enough to regret it, he steps back. Death’s hands twitch in his direction, and he grabs one of them, to make his point.
“If you’re ever lonely, or in the area. Hell, even if you’re not in the area, just come here. If you ever want a friend… Or something.”
“Or something.” She echoes, like he’s offering a lot more than company. She smiles, he blinks, she’s gone. It’s just them.
It’s still. It’s late. It’s perfect.
“What was your gift?” Edwin’s voice is fragile. Miracles are rare. Second chances even rarer. He can’t believe their luck honestly.
Charles smiles. He can’t wait to see Edwin’s reaction.
“Freedom. For both of us.” Facing Edwin, he materialises the small soul for the big hearted boy, and Edwin's eyes widen. It isn’t like it was with Charles, there’s no confusion or realisation. His soul rests in Charles hand, and he reaches for Edwin’s. When they make contact, the soul burns even hotter, the vibrations intensify. Like it can tell it’s almost home.
Charles is looking at his best friend and everything he is, the small soul still clinging to his fingers. Edwin is looking only at Charles.
“We don’t have to worry any more, yeah? No demon owns you, nothing controls you. I would come after anything that did, but…” He hesitates over the last words. “You’re free.”
Edwin’s hand covers his own cupped one and it feels like fireworks where their skin meets.
“One might think my soul is a poor gift for you.”
He’s so stupid. Charles doesn’t even need to reply to that, just shoots Edwin a look. One that says that there is nothing, nothing in the world he needs except for this. The knowledge that they can stay together, and that Edwin is choosing to stay. It’s the most selfish thing in the world.
Their hands fold over the soul, but Edwin uses the heel of his hand to press Charles’s fingers into a fist, the soul bubbling within. His gaze is as soft as his voice when he speaks.
“Would you mind taking care of it? I think it’s happier with you.”
It’s an insane level of trust, and Charles instinctively wants to reject it, press the soul into Edwin, free himself of the burden of his dearest friend, but-
He sees Edwin’s eyes, yearning and intense, and knows how much it took to ask.
Edwin has held Charles’s heart for years now, has taught him bravery and kindness. In a way, he has formed his own soul for years. He can hardly shrink from the same burden. Happily, the soul reabsorbs within him, a flicker echoing his heartbeat, but they don’t let go.
And Charles, he isn’t an idiot, right? He’s not sure what love is, but it must be so shallow, compared to what’s between them. It took him a bit longer to realise, Edwin’s always been the smart one, but it’s hard to hide from yourself the way he wants to hold him close forever, press a kiss to his cheek, languish with him doing nothing at all. He wants to grow old, but if they can’t, they will grow together in only the metaphorical. They’re staying here, staying together, because they’ve beat Death, beat everything that matters. And in the end, it’s just them, here. Holding on.
They don’t let go for a long, long time.