Archive of Our Own

Charles considers himself a pretty agreeable person, for the most part. In life, he’d been content to let his friends pick what they did, where they went out for food, to let them invite whoever they wanted to tag along. 

Nothing had been off the table, as far as Charles was concerned. He played every sport he could, dabbled in a variety of electives, and was always willing to lend a hand even with the few activities he didn’t care for. He’d been flexible like that. He is flexible like that. It was part of how he’d made so many friends, despite being a tax bracket or two beneath the other students. It’s part of how he gets along with so many of their clients now, no story too long or miserable to lose him so long as he likes the person telling it.

But there are still some things Charles really doesn’t like. It’s a rather long list, in fact, especially these days.

He doesn’t like bullies, young or old. He doesn’t like bigots. He doesn’t like the cold, and whenever a case takes them to the lake or ocean, he can’t help but linger near any children left unsupervised, on-edge and teeth aching from stress. He doesn’t like iron, obvi. He  does like cats, actually, but he doesn’t like how snippy they are with ghosts. He doesn’t like it when people try to nick things from the office, because then he and Edwin have to drop everything they’re doing to make sure no one unleashes a new monster of the week. 

There’s a more obscure list too, full of the stuff that he tries not to admit aloud. He doesn’t like snail sprites (slimy) or hellhounds (slobbery). Snobby clients who refuse to look him in the eye and only talk to Edwin make him want to punch a wall—though not more than he wants to be someone who doesn’t react to things by punching walls. Alcohol doesn’t bug him, though he does wish that he could get a buzz, yet he can’t stand angry drunks and is slightly relieved that he can’t find out whether he is one. He hates spells and chains and prisons that work on ghosts, because there’s always some new trick that makes them extra difficult, and if he’s locked up, then there’s no one keeping Edwin safe. And that’s bad because Charles can’t stand to see Edwin hurt. There’s nothing worse. He can only think of one thing that comes close—and it’s this.

He fucking hates it when the bad guys separate them. Splitting up to search for clues is one thing. Getting captured is another. Being dragged away from Edwin by people who can and will hurt them? That’s a special sort of torment.

He’d fought when they pulled him and Edwin apart. He always does. Right now, he has the aches and pains to show for it—a soldering iron burn that runs the length of his ribs, inflicted by a crowbar; a stab wound in his shoulder, which hasn’t healed in the slightest and is simply burbling blackish-red ectoplasm through his jacket; and a mark on his temple that would bruise if he were still living.

They’d roughed Edwin up a bit too, or at least they had been until Charles started fighting back. 

But it’s not like he’s there to draw their ire now. They could be doing anything to Edwin this very second. They certainly aren't here with Charles. 

A muffled cheer goes up in the distance, audible even through the floor. Someone is winning big.

Charles has to pause his pacing to kick the wall. It collides solidly, and the thud resonates up his shin with satisfying force. The fact that he doesn’t phase through is both a blessing and a curse—a blessing, because it’s cathartic, And a curse, because it means he can’t tear through this place searching for Edwin like he wants.

No iron bars needed. They’d known that walking in: this casino is a goddamn ghost trap. And barely a casino, really. In reality, it’s a palatial hotel with a gambling den on the first floor and increasing amounts of depravity on each level below ground. The hundreds of rooms in the towering building above aren’t for people who want to hit the city. They’re for guests to retreat to when they need a break from the sex, drugs, and games. It’s basically Las Vegas for a very exclusive clientele—the monstrous and the magical, the dead and the undead.

Which of course means that the entire place is enchanted inside out, runes etched into every wall and floor. In here, ghosts like Edwin and Charles are as close to physical as they can get. It would be exciting—great, even—if there weren’t so many people walking in and never walking out again.

He never thought he’d say it, but right now, Charles is really, really regretting not calling the Night Nurse in.

Unless told otherwise, she only comes into the office twice a week: Wednesday and Sunday. This is Monday night…or very, very early Tuesday morning, depending on exactly how long Charles has been in this stupid underground cell. Worse, Crystal is occupied for the first time since joining their agency last year—a call from her parents that had brought excitement and hope, turned into hurt that they simply had to have her at their newest gallery opening in Prague. Do you know how terrible it will look if our own daughter isn’t there? 

Either Crystal shows her face, or they freeze her bank account so she can’t make rent. Real good parenting.

Charles would have it out with them if he could. But then, Crystal doesn’t need a white knight to defend her, which she’s made very clear. She just needs a listening ear and a shoulder to lean on sometimes, and Charles can do that too, even if he usually prefers to whack problems in the face. 

Look on the bright side, Crystal had said, hooking one arm around his shoulder to pull him into a hug. She didn’t care that people were turning to stare. I’ll be such a messy drunk that my parents never invite me to one of these again. And you, she’d accompanied this with an extra squeeze, can get some alone time with your new boyfriend.  

That had been convincing. This thing between Edwin and him is delicate, and Charles can’t help but worry that it’s all the more fragile for how long it’s sat untended between them. For how long it took him to realize , like leaving a budding rose unwatered for weeks. What right will he have, now, to be surprised when he reaches out and the wilted petals crumble under his fingers? Except it’s worse, because Charles left it for much longer than that. Ten months passed between that conversation on the steps of hell and the case that changed it all: The Case of the Faux Frenchman, a client who’d ended up being a culprit who’d seemed like an absolute joke right up until he cast a spell that ripped Edwin’s spectral heart out. 

He loves Edwin. They both know that and have for a while. Sometimes he thinks he might’ve loved Edwin before they ever even knew each other, before he was fucking born, because every moment he spends or spent without Edwin feels like an awful, pale imitation of what it should be. It’s just—well. Charles did spend a lot of time thinking that it was one of those epic, mythological friendship sorts of love. Which it is, very much. 

It just turns out that it might be one of those epic, mythological romantic sorts of love too, and not realizing it until right after someone had split Edwin’s ribcage open was poor timing to say the least. 

They’ve been working it out slowly in the two months since that awful night— it being something romantic, something that’s quite frankly more than dating, yet not all that different in shape from what existed before. 

Point is, as much as Charles loves Crystal, a little time just for him and Edwin had sounded…nice. And probably needed. 

Except now she won’t be back until Thursday.

Which is fine. Totally fine. No outside rescue just means that they have to save themselves, that they have to figure this out solo—the two of them against the world, just like old times. 

Nothing ever went wrong back then. 

The door of his makeshift cell clicks, a lock sliding open. Charles whips around just in time to see two of their captors enter, clad in black suits and wearing sunglasses inside like assholes . They post up on either side of the open door, and Charles is just considering making a run for it when a third steps in between them.

They’ve seen her around during their investigation, lingering around the building with the distant confidence of someone in power. But this is the first time he’s seen her so close. She’s taller than Charles expected, standing easily over six-and-a-half feet, with tan skin and slick black hair in a braid that swings loosely down to her waist. 

Though she wears a black suit, a metal headpiece rests heavy on her crown, hammered bronze wrought into something like a helm and a tiara both. No way is Charles gonna be able to shoulder past her.

“Where’s Edwin?” he says intently, paying no attention to the way her guards start reaching for their weapons. “If you’ve hurt him, I swear—“

The tall woman lifts a hand, gauntleted in iron. Her other hand is bare. “Mr. Paine is unharmed. Mostly. If you’d like him to remain that way, I suggest you behave. ”

She doesn’t raise her voice, not a fucking bit, yet the words ring down like a gavel anyway. Charles freezes in place, even as the word mostly echoes in his ears like a scream. What the fuck is mostly? A scratch, a dislocation, a bruise? 

“Good,” says the tall woman, when Charles remains obligingly quiet. He’s biting the inside of his lip so hard that it hurts a little, but he can’t stop. “Do you know who I am?”

“The bitch in charge, I’m guessing,” Charles mutters before he can think better of it. He remembers Edwin a second too late, but when he glances up in alarm, the tall woman just smiles.

“Yes,” she says. “The bitch in charge. That is how most people know me, yes. But to my friends,  I am known as Karna of Bana-Mighdall. And I do hope, Mr. Rowland, that we might become friends.”

Oh, great. “You’re an Amazon,” Charles says. “Aren’t you lot supposed to be the good guys?” 

“Oh, please,” Karna shakes her head, mouth curling. “We’re warriors. Just because some of us like to play hero doesn’t mean we all do. And besides, this is good. For me. Bread and circuses—brings in a tidy profit, and it keeps people happy. Nothing wrong with that!”

“Right, except for all the people who’ve vanished. Not too good for them, is it?”

“Ah. So that’s why you and your boy were prowling around.” Karna steps further into the cell. Her shoes are nice, professional-looking black boots, but Charles can tell they’re steel-toed from the stitching alone. “Listen, it’s not supposed to go down like that. It usually doesn’t. But in this business…sometimes accidents happen. It’s unavoidable. Nothing that requires attention from,” her voice takes on a mocking quality, “ the Dead Boy Detectives.”

“Riiight,” Charles drawls out. What’s a few corpses and dissolved spirits to an operation that rakes in millions? Nothing at all, apparently. He offers Karna a cheeky grin. “Totally fair. I take your point, that’s our fault. Just bring me to Edwin, and we’ll be out of your hair in a jiffy.”

“Will you.” It’s unimpressed, and very much not a question.

Charles doesn’t let it shake him. “Absolutely. Just let us go, and—”

There’s a hand on his shoulder. It sinks just slightly through his coat, nearly clips into his skin, but he is solid enough beneath it to be held in its firm, almost painfully tight grip. Charles glares up at Karna even as he tries, fruitlessly, to step back and away. 

“You want me to let you go,” says Karna thoughtfully. “Fine.”

Okay, he hadn’t expected that to work. “What. Really?”

“Really,” Karna gives his shoulder an uncomfortable squeeze, and it’s far too threatening to be anything other than ominous. Charles braces himself for the catch, because he’s been in the game long enough to know that there always is one. “One of you gets to go home.” And there it is. “The other stays here, and…” she pauses, one corner of her mouth twitching upward. “Well, we’ll see. I’ll even let you choose who stays and who goes.”

“Edwin,” Charles says immediately, because this of all things is easy. “Let Edwin go. I’ll stay.”

“Tempting,” says Karna, right before she drops her hand off his shoulder and slaps him across the face.

The blow whips his head off to the side so hard that it hurts his neck. He raises a protective hand to his face on instinct, and it isn’t until he registers the discomfort in his knees that he realizes he’s down on the ground. 

He clenches his jaw and forces a thin breath in through his nose. The shock of the hit and the stinging in his cheek are already giving way to a simmering anger. Fuck. Charles hasn’t been slapped since—

Since before he died. 

On an objective level, he’s pretty sure that he’s been through far worse dead than he ever experienced while alive. He’s been tortured, shot, cursed, hexed, stabbed, beaten. He’s taken hits from bats, hammers, pipes, and, on one memorable occasion, an enchanted mace. And yes, he’s been punched. Like, a lot. But always with a closed fist, never an open one. 

It’s different, in a way that he’s never really thought about before and isn’t sure he wants to think about now. By all the measures that Charles can think of, it’s not half as bad as a right hook. The dizziness had passed in only a second or two; the ringing in his ears is already clearing; the pain is more of a dull, aching buzz than a shriek. 

There’s no explanation for the nausea building in his gut, or for the fact that his practiced breathing feels strangled and not very calming at all. He knows already that if he were given the chance to choose between a jaw-breaking haymaker and another slap like that, he’s taking the punch every time, which is such an absurd notion that Charles is humiliated to even think it.

Get it the fuck together, Charles. Edwin needs you.

Charles clambers to his feet and just barely manages not to stumble. He ignores the instinct that urges him to curl up into a ball and protect his center, instead lowering the hand that’s shielding his face. The open wound in his shoulder takes the opportunity to announce itself with renewed fervor. He grits his teeth through it.

“You told me to choose,” he means for it to sound tough, but his voice has gone up a pitch from surprise. “So I bloody chose. Sorry if you don’t like it, but I’m not changing my mind.”

Karna, if anything, looks almost delighted as she looms over him. “Oh, you’ve got fire. And loyalty. That’s good, I like that a lot. Honestly, you do well out there, and I may just have a job for you when you’re done.”

“Sure,” Charles lies. He doesn’t know what she means by out there, but he also doesn’t care. “As long as you let Edwin go, yeah?”

“As I said, it’s up to you.” She hushes him when Charles opens his mouth to protest. “ Both of you. Wouldn’t be very fair of me, only giving one of you a say.”

“I’m sure Edwin wouldn’t mind,” Charles tries, which is also a lie. The next bit, though, is true. “Listen, you’re setting yourself up for a hard time here. He’ll choose me to go, I’ll choose him, it will turn into an argument. Waste of effort for everyone.”

Sort of. Charles knows Edwin well enough to talk him into it, or at least he’s pretty sure he can. It’s just that he doesn’t want to. It feels shitty and manipulative to say something specifically because it will make Edwin buckle to what Charles wants, like the way his dad would “accidentally” break pieces of his mum’s family china set so he wouldn’t have to wash the dishes anymore. It’s wrong, but Charles thinks he’d do it to keep Edwin safe, even if he has to push through his own nausea the entire way. 

And that’s not even mentioning that Edwin will blame himself if he has any sort of role in the decision. He’ll keep himself together long enough to stage a rescue and crack the case, then he’ll seclude himself and languish in guilt until Charles finds a way to snap him out of it. 

“I’m serious.” He thinks about untended roses wilting away into nothing, and something where his heart should be skips a beat. “Just let him go.”

“We’ll see.”

“See after what?” Charles’ clenches his fists. Imagines driving a punch right back into Karna’s smug face. “I’ve already told you—”

“I know, I know. ‘Let Edwin go!’” Karna rolls her eyes. “It’s all very touching, but that is simply not how we make decisions around here.”

“Then how do you make decisions? Because literally everywhere else, what I just did is fine.”

Karna smiles. It’s a little bit proud, a little bit vicious. But all Charles can see is teeth.

They drag him out of his cell and take him down a floor. The hallways that they lead him through are dark and narrow, but Charles can hear the sound of a crowd cheering through the plaster walls. 

The sound grows louder and louder until they finally reach their destination, an iron-barred door that leads out into a sandy arena, lit so brightly that Charles has to squint to keep it from blinding him. 

And then they’re showing him out the door and into the light, forcefully enough that his side twinges and he hits the dirt on his hands and knees before he can catch himself. Bang! The door slams behind him, just his luck. 

The arena is smaller than he expected, more like a basketball court than a football field, and circular in shape. Tiers of seats rise around them on every side. Highest of them all is a viewing box. Its glass barrier is opaque, but Charles knows almost instinctively that Karna is there. Watching. 

All around the stands are people—just regular-looking people, in jeans and sweatshirts and sunglasses—eating snacks, checking their phones, talking to each other. 

It would be easier if they looked like they were here to watch bloodsport. But if anything, they look like they’re here to catch a film. 

On the other side of the arena, an identical door to Charles’ swings open with a metallic creak.  Moments later, a familiar form stumbles out, barely keeping upright. The crowd goes silent, the shouting and overlapping chatter fading to an excited murmur.

Charles ignores them. Edwin, glancing up and around himself, is clearly alarmed enough for them both. 

“Edwin!” Charles calls. He’s already running. 

Edwin’s been divested of his jacket and tie, leaving him in only a rumpled dress shirt and slacks. On any other day since this entire thing started, Charles might’ve paused to enjoy the view. Now he’s just offended. Who the fuck are these assholes, to strip Edwin down like that? Edwin never takes his jacket off in public, only in the office, for reasons that escape Charles entirely but clearly matter quite a lot to Edwin.

The only saving grace is that it gives Charles a clear view of any injuries, of which there don’t appear to be many. His clothes are unkempt, but not spotted with blood or ectoplasm. He’s not limping or clutching anything. The worst that Charles can spot is a mottling mark on Edwin’s right cheekbone, a blow from something blunt that split the skin. He files that away for later.

The relief on Edwin’s face when he spots Charles feels better than it has any right to, a heady rush that makes him go warm in the chest and in—well. In other places, that are really inappropriate for the situation and that should probably know better than to act up in life-or-death situations. Or, y’know, afterlife-or-death situations. Whatever.

It’s so good to see Edwin safe and relatively well that Charles has to tamp down on the urge to kiss him then and there just to do something with all that energy. He doesn’t. Edwin may be warming up to PDA (doubtlessly assisted by the fact that they’re invisible to roughly 99% of the population), but making out in front of a crowd of hundreds would probably be throwing him in the deep end way too fast. Besides, the spiritual and magical worlds have communities that are incredibly open-minded…and ones that are dangerously insular. Charles has no way of knowing which they’re dealing with now, though he has heard that the Amazons aren’t exactly picky about gender or sexuality.

Still, when Karna ordered him to put on a show , he’s pretty sure that’s not what she’d been talking about.

For now, he settles for running his hands up Edwin’s biceps and clasping his bony shoulders. Edwin smiles at him, a private thing, just the barest twitch of the lips that the crowd can’t possibly see. His gaze is pulled off to the side for a moment, but Charles knows better than to be offended. A distracted furrow forms between his brows, eyes catching on the faint shimmer of the wards. The runes themselves are carved into the sides of the stone arena, and an arcane wall starts where the smooth-hewn rock ends—protecting the audience and locking them in without ever obstructing the view. Wankers.

Charles gives Edwin’s arm a comforting squeeze just to wipe away that look of consternation. He can’t help but be pleased when it works.

“You alright, Edwin?” he says quietly. This is just for them.

“Practically unharmed,” Edwin responds crisply. Then, with a touch of anger, he adds: “Though you can hardly say the same.” He isn’t looking at the wards anymore. He’s looking at the bloody hole in Charles’ shoulder, at the ectoplasmic mess that’s staining his jacket. One of his hands rises to press against the wound, as if he might somehow staunch the bleeding. “How badly have you been indisposed?”

That’s Edwin’s public-speak for are you okay? The fact that he doesn’t entirely manage to conceal the waver in his voice is a damning clue—he’s worried, and not masking it particularly well. 

“I’m still fighting fit, mate,” Charles whispers back. “Don’t worry about me.”

Edwin tilts his chin down and gives him a skeptical sort of look. Charles grimaces. 

“I mean it,” he says more insistently. “And what’s ‘practically’ unharmed? How’d you get this?” He reaches out and taps the mark on Edwin’s cheek.

“One of the guards was wearing a ring,” Edwin says, off-hand. “It’s of little matter.”

It’s a huge matter, actually. Massive. Getting clobbered by someone wearing a ring hurts a great deal more, in fact, than getting clobbered by someone who isn’t. 

He doesn’t have time to formulate a response before someone in the crowd jeers at them. “Are you going to beat each other bloody or not?”

Charles blanches. Right. Because that’s what Karna wants, for them to—to fight in here. The winner gets to go free. And the loser—

Well, she hadn’t specified, but Charles is probably going to find out. After all, it’s not like he’ll be letting Edwin take the fall here. Or ever. That hasn’t changed in the slightest since they started courting. 

Charles would have done this in 1989 just as readily as he’ll do it now. And besides, Edwin’s the clever one. Much better at orchestrating rescues and the like. He takes a steadying breath.

The rest of the crowd is starting to catch on, murmurs of discontent rising as the seconds stretch on without any bloodshed.

“Absolutely barbarous,” Edwin grumbles under his breath.

“They fill you in?” Charles asks. He drops his grip on Edwin’s shoulders, and something in his chest twists when Edwin reaches out to catch one of his hands with his own, only for Charles to step away first. 

Edwin frowns. “They did. But we aren’t—”

“Right then,” Charles makes sure to keep his posture loose. Upright, unguarded, arms mostly limp at his sides. Easy target, since Edwin’s never taken well to his boxing lessons. “Take a swing.”

“What?” Edwin stands there slack-jawed for a moment before remembering to close his mouth. “Has something addled your brain? I will do no such thing.”

“Come on,” Charles beckons Edwin with two fingers, gesturing to a spot on his chin—not that Edwin’s coordination has ever been particularly good. “Right there. It’ll be fine.”

Edwin makes a strangled sound and keeps his hands down at his sides, even though Charles can fucking see him clenching them into fists. 

Come on, he thinks. Just like that. Fucking box me across the face. Easy. It probably won’t even hurt, or at least it won’t hurt by Charles’ standards. He’ll have to throw the match, act it out a bit. Which he’s happy to do, but Edwin actually has to hit him first.

“Absolutely not!” Edwin says, and it’s so shrill that Charles has to hush him so the crowd won’t hear. 

“Edwin, they’re not going to let us out until we give them a fight,” Charles reasons. “Unless you’ve got another plan?”

He’s pretty sure Edwin doesn’t, otherwise he would have said so by now, but it can’t hurt to ask. 

Unfortunately, the dismayed pinch of Edwin’s face is answer enough. 

“I have a few ideas,” Edwin says, which is his way of saying that he hasn’t a fucking clue but is working on getting one. “I just need a little time.”

“Yeah, mate,” Charles gives him a regretful look. If he could buy Edwin that extra time and get rid of that clear dismay on his face, he’d do just about anything to make it happen. “Fraid we haven’t got any. So just. Y’know. Give me a tap. I don’t mind, really.”

“You don’t—” Now it’s Edwin’s turn to back up a step. He’s shaking his head, mouth parted just slightly, but after a moment his expression closes down. It settles into something more resolute. “Fine.” Charles releases a relieved breath before Edwin continues: “You do it, then.”

And. Well, that just doesn’t make any sense. “Do what? ”

“You,” Edwin gestures between them. “Hit me. It will be far more convincing that way around anyway.”

Charles’ heart, by all rights, shouldn’t be capable of skipping a beat. And maybe it doesn’t. He’s startled not so much by a lurching pause in his chest as he is by the sudden racing, the abrupt mothwing flutter of his pulse in his throat, in his mouth, choking him. Fuck. Why is it that his heart only ever works when Edwin’s around?

“You're mad," he says around the lump in his throat, forcing a joking smile onto his face. Because Edwin's joking; he has got to be joking. He can't possibly think that Charles would ever do that. Not for anything.

Has Charles ever given him a reason to think that he would?

"My point exactly," Edwin says sharply. "Don’t be a hypocrite, Charles. You said it yourself: there's no other way. And we both know I've never learned how to throw a proper punch. I'm hardly equipped for this. So it has to be you."

"No it bloody doesn't," Charles spits out, because how could Edwin say that? How could he ever? Charles is the one who takes the hits. And, okay, Charles is usually the one who doles them out too—but not to Edwin. Never to Edwin. Not once in the past thirty-something years. Even when he tries to teach Edwin how to fight, he always makes Edwin hit him for real (or, well, he tries, Edwin never does, beyond the occasional listless bump to make Charles leave off), and he always stops short, only ever tapping his fists or cricket bat in the spots where his blows might connect.

Charles tries to imagine it, just for the thought experiment. Not even how he'd hit Edwin properly, just how he'd do it here. A punch in the gut to wind him, maybe. He could probably knock Edwin to the ground with a single blow. Especially if Edwin didn’t fight back, which he doesn't seem particularly interested in doing. What would Edwin do then? Stumble back to his feet and wipe the blood off his face? Stay down and wait?

Fuck. Charles stumbles back and claps a hand over his mouth, trying to will away his rising nausea. It’s got him nearly dizzy. 

When he finally gets the churning in his gut under control, he pulls his hand away, and it strikes him, then, how much it looks like his dad's. Long fingers. Nails that are a little too short to be proportionate. It would be very, very easy to crack Edwin across the face with that hand; it doesn’t even really feel like his. It feels like it might hit Edwin all on its own, a separate entity that knows exactly how the crunch of bone will sting and doesn’t particularly mind.

Yeah, he might’ve overestimated his control of his stomach.

“Charles?” Edwin says, brow furrowing. He steps forward, outstretching a hand. Someone in the audience boos.

Charles vomits.

They don’t fight each other. Instead, the guards drag them back to their cells. This time, it’s mostly Edwin that fights. Charles is shocked so still from throwing up for the first time in almost four decades that he doesn’t realize what’s happening until he hears the semi-solid thunk and sizzle of someone bodying Edwin against the opposing gate. 

Then he looks up. Remembers, or notices, about thirty seconds too late, the concerned weight of Edwin's hand on his shoulder before the guards had dragged him off. He throws himself forward now, but he’s lost any advantage he might’ve had. Two of Karna's hired muscle drag Edwin down the long and dark hallway on the other side of the arena. Charles is pulled into his own only a moment later.

He shouts, practically screams, and it does nothing. They take him all the way back to his cell and slam the door shut there too. 

Charles punches it just because he can.

His stomach still hurts. It does for a few more hours (or at least Charles thinks it's a few hours, but it's become increasingly difficult to keep track). By the time it stops, it would be nearly funny if he weren't so damn worried. 

He hasn't thrown up since...geez, the Halloween dance at St. Hilarion's, three months before he died. He'd had one beer and taken a couple hits from a bong with the rest of the cricket team, laid down in bed, then immediately become so dizzy that he'd thrown up right over the edge of his mattress and onto his floor. And also onto his roommate a bit. That had been awkward. And much worse than whatever he’d spit up today, which had been a paltry mess of saliva and bile rather than a mix of cafeteria food and vodka-spiked punch.

At Christmas, he’d refrained. Plenty of time to experiment next year, when he’d have a single room and wouldn’t have to worry about inconveniencing a roomie.

Ha. 

Time stretches out, achingly boring and also terrifying. No one comes to see him. Are they with Edwin? Are they hurting him? Charles wastes what must be an hour yelling himself hoarse for someone to just tell him what’s going on. 

No one comes. 

He even sleeps a little, somewhere in the mix. Ghosts, contrary to popular opinion, do rest sometimes. Sort of. Course, they need it a lot less than the living. He and Edwin usually go six or so months between, because that’s usually about how long it takes for Edwin to cast some bloody big spell that knocks him out or for Charles to take a whack that his ghost healing can’t quite cover on its own. Less-active spirits can go years before they need to rest. 

It’s not really “sleep” either, It’s more like that wretched state of half-consciousness, half-unconsciousness that Charles remembers from when he’d get sick as a kid. A feverish rest that leaves you too tired to move or even really feel anything that’s not pressed right up against you—all the more uncomfortable for the fact that the waking world still has one hazy hand on you. 

Edwin calls it a state of spiritual inertia , which is not so much an official term as much as it is one that he completely made up, even if it sounds pretty accurate. Charles prefers to think about it like a sci-fi movie—a spaceship shutting off what it doesn’t need in a crisis. When a spectral body expends too much energy, non-vital systems go offline. That power’s got to go to holding them together, so they lose the ability to do things like phase through walls, walk around, and know what’s going on around them. And once a spirit enters that state, nothing but time can rouse them. It is immensely vulnerable, which is no doubt why Edwin’s taken such pains to impress its risks upon him.

This time, Charles enters a proper sleep, at least for a bit. Nothing but darkness, but more restful and warm than it has any right to be, given that he’s sleeping on the floor and badly injured to boot.

He’s still blinking the bleariness away when Karna finally returns to his cell. She’s alone this time, but she shuts the door solidly behind her before he can decide whether he should try and shove past.

“So,” she says, and it’s nearly conversational. “Yesterday didn’t go well.”

Was that yesterday already? Fuck. “No it didn’t. I did warn you.”

“You did.” Karna agrees readily. “We’ll have to try again tonight.”

“Don’t they say that insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?”

“I don’t think I’ll be the one going crazy.”

“I’m not going to hurt him.”

Karna tilts her head back and laughs, full-throated and hearty. It should be a mistake, a moment of distraction for Charles to seize, but he doesn’t, some anxious instinct setting him too on edge to act. 

Some animals don’t guard their necks because they don’t have the right instincts. Others don’t guard them because they don’t have to. 

She wipes an imaginary tear from the corner of her eye when she’s done. “Why? Afraid he won’t forgive you?”

And now it’s Charles’ turn to laugh. “Yeah. Hardly.”

Because here is the awful truth: Edwin would forgive him. Edwin probably wouldn’t even think twice about it if Charles walked into the arena and said: “Alright, let me box you across the face a couple times and then I’ll come back with a rescue.” Edwin might not even register the injury, and he’d probably congratulate Charles on a job well done after the fact. Then he’d move on, business as normal.

Except that’s how it starts, isn’t it? Charles may have spent years thinking he deserved it, but he hasn’t forgotten his mum either. She wove different lies for herself, and for him. He meant well, Charlie. He was trying to help. Sometimes he doesn’t realize his own strength. He just…loves us so much. 

And Edwin’s already got an ungodly tolerance for pain. Higher than Charles ever could have imagined, and he’s been worried about it since 1991. How bad would it actually have to be for Edwin to push back? How awful could Charles get before Edwin so much as considered that he deserved better?

Charles doesn’t know, and he doesn’t ever intend on finding out.

Just like last time, they push Charles into the arena first. Unlike last time, he notes with a sinking stomach, there’s a weapons rack lined up against one wall. 

Also unlike last time, it takes a good five minutes for the opposing gate to swing open. Charles is restless during the entire wait, mind conjuring up all manner of horrors until the iron door cracks just wide enough for Edwin to be shoved through—roughly. Fucking assholes. Edwin’s dangerous, sure, but he’s not physically strong by any means. There’s no cause what-so-fucking-ever to be that forceful with him. Charles only regrets that he can’t see who did the pushing.

He’s quickly distracted from his frustration, however, by the compulsive need to check his partner over. 

Edwin somehow looks better than last time. His clothes are a bit more kempt; that awful mark on his cheek is gone; and when Charles cranes his neck to peek at Edwin’s back, there are no burns from the door, as there rightfully should be after yesterday. God knows that Charles’ own iron burns haven’t healed.

Charles can’t hold back a sigh of relief. At least they haven’t been withholding medical treatment while Edwin’s in this awful half-physical state. Karna’s still an absolute cunt, but this much, at least, he can be grateful for.

“You’re alright?” he says breathlessly, when they finally reach each other. “Did they hurt you?”

Edwin glances him up and down, and not in the way that Charles has come to enjoy in recent months. In the way that tells him that he’s in for one hell of a lecture later. 

“Do I look alright?” he asks, and if it were anyone other than Edwin, Charles would assume that they were being a bit of a shit. But this isn’t what Edwin sounds like when he’s being sarcastic, all dry and sardonic. This is something genuine, edged with anxiety. It has Charles looking Edwin over again one more time, just to make sure there are no awful injuries that he’s missed.

“Oh, come on,” Charles says with his most winning smile. “You’re ridiculously fit and you know it. Way out of my league.”

The words come out a bit stiffer than he intends, but Edwin still flushes, and Charles is counting that as a win. 

“I admit that I am not a studied oceanographer,” Edwin tells him, pretending to examine the arena studiously. “But I would call your measurements into question. If anything, I should imagine that it’s the other way around.”

Charles can feel his face coloring too. They’ve had this debate before and probably will again. As Charles sees it, Edwin is a bloody genius, a powerful magician, and one of the only souls to escape hell without outside interference ever . Meanwhile, Charles is just some bloke with a cricket bat. 

But Edwin had looked appalled—then furious—when Charles said as much. He’d been loathed by his peers, he pointed out in return. He still didn’t know how to talk to most people. He was rude, sharp, gangly, and it was only thanks to Charles that he’d gotten out of hell a second time, prancing in some sort of mythological hero with a martyrdom complex—

That was about when Charles had silenced him with a kiss. No one talked about his best mate that way.

“You know,” Charles says with a small laugh, because they really can’t afford to have that tiff right now. Especially if it ends the way it usually does. “The ‘league’ thing is actually about baseball.”

Edwin’s eyebrows quirk adorably as he processes that. “How mundane,” he almost sounds a little disappointed. “But see how lost I’d be without you.”

“NOT AGAIN!” someone in the crowd screams, so loudly that their voice breaks halfway through. The rest of the crowd bursts out in raucous laughter and shouting, apparently agreeing with that sentiment.

They both startle at the volume. Fuck, Charles had actually forgotten, for a second, that they weren’t alone.

His stomach sinks. 

“Edwin,” he says. “Love.” It’s not got easier, even though he’s rehearsed it a dozen times. “I’m sorry,” Edwin’s eyes brighten with something like hope, but the light vanishes when Charles continues. “You’ve got to. Okay? I…I can’t.”

“You won’t,” Edwin corrects, half-bitterly. “So I must. Is that about the shape of it?”

Charles will take that, as nauseous as it makes him. Inflicting a hurt that Edwin will treat as terrible the way he should, rather than one he might write off as justified. 

“I know. I’m sorry,” he says again. “Listen, I can take a hit, alright? I’m used to it. You’ve got this.”

Edwin flinches. “Have I done something,” he asks, “to make you think so little of me?”

Fuck. “It’s the opposite, Edwin,” he whispers. He probably shouldn’t. He could maybe be more of a dick about it, make a difficult task a little easier, but Edwin is looking at him like there’s a knife in his belly. Like Charles is the one that put it there. “Come on, look at the state of me. I need you to do this, okay? Someone’s gotta make sure I get out of this, and I don’t trust anyone more than you.”

“I am trying,” Edwin says, pleadingly. “If we can delay one more day, I can finish…”

The audience’s cries are only growing louder.

“I don’t think we’ve got another day,” Charles admits.

Edwin swallows, throat bobbing. “I am going to be,” he says sharply, “so cross with you when we get out of here. I have to improvise now.”

It’s not said like I’ll hate you; I’ll never forgive you. It’s said in the same tone that Edwin uses to lecture Charles when he grabs a cursed item or steps into a trap. The relief that floods Charles then could knock him out on its own, if he’s being quite honest.

“Thank you,” he says fervently.

Edwin studies him for a moment, expression unreadable. “Don’t thank me yet,” he says, and it’s louder this time. Loud enough for the audience to hear. Perhaps a little too formal to be showmanlike, but it’s probably as close as Edwin is capable of getting. “I’ve little interest in fisticuffs. If I shall be indulging you in this matter, it will be with a gentleman’s weapon.”

“What?” Charles wiggles his eyebrows humorously. “Pistols?”

That earns him an eye roll. “The rapier, actually.” Edwin mutters something under his breath, and when he flings a hand out, a long, thin blade flies from the weapons rack and immediately slams into his palm.

One sole individual in the audience wolf-whistles. Charles half-turns to glare at them, and so he misses his rapier when it follows. It tumbles instead into the dirt, and Charles has to stoop to grab it.

It’s not a bad idea. Edwin’s not the greatest martial fighter…with one notable exception. Charles has seen him grab for a sword once or twice during an emergency. Even though his training (by his own account) is mostly formal, he can hold his own as long as the blade isn’t too heavy. In fact, with a quick enough rapier, he’s far better than Charles. 

The biggest barrier, really, is that he doesn’t care to lug a sword everywhere, and usually if they’re at the point where Edwin’s pausing his spellwork to reach for a weapon, that means that Charles is too indisposed to hand him one from the bag. So it’s not really a skill that gets used unless there happens to be a conveniently placed sword somewhere when shit goes off the rails (which happens more than you might expect, but far less than Charles would like, given how fetching Edwin usually looks during those rare encounters). 

This sword is different from the fencing sabers that Edwin keeps in the office. It’s a bit wider, though still a relatively thin weapon overall, and it’s definitely heavier. And, of course, unlike their rubber-capped sparring blades, these are deadly sharp—edges and points alike.

They don’t seem to be made of iron, but Charles is pretty sure that they’re solid enough it won’t make a difference.

He swings the blade through the air, drawing a figure 8. It’s lighter than his cricket bat and just about any other weapon in his bag—he’ll have to be careful that he doesn’t actually hit Edwin if he forgets about the weight difference. 

Edwin, for his part, has the blade pointed toward the ground at a forty-five degree angle. Waiting. Charles catches him murmuring something under his breath, staring down at his sword, but then he looks back up to meet Charles’ eyes. 

“Let’s not tarry,” he says, not unkindly, and Charles forces himself to nod.

“Right then. Uh, en guarde?”

Edwin’s mouth twitches just slightly. “En guarde,” he agrees, and then he moves.

The crowd goes absolutely wild, screaming and cheering like they’ve just watched the moon landing or something. Which, okay. Charles can’t even fault them for that. Edwin is good with a sword, and he’s lost his coat, which means that Charles can see the lean stretch of his muscles through that too-thin dress shirt, and—

He fumbles with his sword and blocks an incoming strike. It’s incredibly clumsy, but to his surprise, Edwin’s sword glances right off his rather than breaking through Charles’ admittedly poorly executed guard. 

More embarrassing is the fact that Charles can feel a cold sweat beading across the back of his neck anyway. The iron burn across his chest aches ferociously, urging him to lay his weapon down and rest.

“Don’t overexert yourself,” Edwin mutters. “Let me lead.”

Charles cracks a smile. “You make it sound like dancing.”

Edwin doesn’t respond.

They spar like that for a while. Charles, for his part, actually thinks that they’re putting on a pretty good show. Or at least Edwin is, moving with a speed and grace that belies how little force he’s actually striking with. Half the time he redirects his blade at the last moment so that it clashes with Charles’ weapon in a screech of metal rather than striking home, but it’s so showy and skillful that no one seems to notice or at least care. The worst Edwin does at one point is smirk a little cockily when Charles lunges at him, then hook the point of his sword in Charles’ jacket to send him rolling gracefully to the ground.

The problem, of course, is that they really can’t go on like this forever. Sooner or later, the crowd is going to get bored. And one of them has to win, even if Edwin would clearly like to draw this out as long as possible.

With the hand he has extended for balance, Charles gestures vaguely toward himself. To an outsider, it might look like something adjacent to come at me. But he knows from the dismayed look in Edwin’s eyes that Edwin reads it for what it truly is. Finish it. I won’t be mad.

What does get him a little frustrated is Edwin’s response—a small frown. Not yet. He gives Charles a look, pointed, and that means trust me. And Charles does. Of course he does. But it’s not a matter of trust, really, it’s a matter of time.

He takes another swing. And this time, instead of letting Edwin deflect, as one typically does with a rapier, he steps in. There’s a furious screech of metal as their blades, locked together, clash at the guards. 

This close, Charles can see Edwin’s nostrils flare in frustration. “Charles,” he whispers over their crossed blades. “I just need a little longer. I’m not ready—”

Charles’ chest aches, sympathy and guilt making for a potent combination. Knowing the likely reason why Edwin was stalling is different from hearing it directly. 

“Come on, Edwin,” he says. “It’s not going to get any easier.”

“You are being incredibly infuriating today,” Edwin snaps back. “Are you certain you don’t have a concussion?”

Then, with a surprising amount of force, he shoves his blade against Charles’. They both stumble back a few steps, separated by the push. Edwin twirls his rapier thoughtfully.

He says something in Latin. It’s got to be a spell, but Charles doesn’t recognize the words, which means that it’s not one of his regulars. Probably a good thing, since Charles would actually rather not get blasted with a fireball right now. Knowing Edwin, it’s probably something protective. Probably something to keep Charles from getting hurt, and well.

He can’t have that, can he? Not right now. 

They clash a few more times before Charles sees his opening. Edwin, recovering from a ridiculously smooth parry, brings his blade back to center, all formal, sportsmanlike training. And, well. Charles isn’t quite as clever with a blade as Edwin is, but he knows how to take a hit.

And he knows how to step into one. It’s just that Edwin’s usually behind him when he does—not in front of him and holding the weapon.

So when Edwin lashes out with the blade again, an overly coordinated thrust that should be easy enough to sidestep or deflect, it’s really not that hard to make it look like he’s fallen for a feint. To step directly into the blade instead.

Edwin’s rapier jerks off to the side at the last second, and when that’s not enough, Edwin actually lunges forward like he means to grab it by the blade before it can strike home.

He’s really got better reflexes than he gives himself credit for. As it is, the rapier doesn’t drive itself into Charles’ belly like he’d been aiming for. It just sort of buries itself in his side—a dead straight line, through and through, but far off from center. It’s really only an inch or two away from having missed entirely, which if he were alive, would probably be the difference between a flesh wound and punctured intestine. He’s not alive, though, so the only real difference is that it hurts far less than it probably should. And it is not really the disabling, fight-ending injury that it probably should be. That he’d been bloody aiming for.

Or at least, that’s what it feels like. When Charles looks down, however, he finds the blade buried just beneath his sternum, at an oblique, slightly downward angle.

“What?” he says faintly. The world has started to swim slightly, and he’s abruptly unsure whether that’s because his injuries have finally caught up to him or because of the bizarre, dizzying disconnect between what he can see and what he actually feels. The blade in his chest, which is just barely hooked in his side, soaking that half of his jacket with ectoplasm and blood. Except the blood is actually turning his polo dark. He’d liked this shirt, really. He’s going to have to manifest a new one when they get out of this. If they get out of it. “Edwin?”

“Shh,” Edwin says. His brow is damp, beaded with sweat, which is something that Charles never thought he’d see before today. It’s absurd that he somehow manages to make it look so good, leagues more dignified than the boys that Charles played sports with. “I’m…concentrating.”

He’s bleeding too, Charles realizes. His hand is still curled around the base of the saber, and the blade is digging into the half-spectral flesh of his palm, cutting deep into the bend of his knuckles. He doesn’t let go, not even now, with the act done.

So much for not wanting to hurt Edwin. He’d gone and done it anyway. Charles could almost laugh, and he probably would if he didn’t think that he might cry instead.

Edwin’s muttering again, and now Charles is close enough to catch a fraction of it: “- ad valorem sanguinus.”

The crowd’s cheering has started to taper off. Now they’re waiting with bated breath to see what happens next—more blood, or an end to the fight. 

Edwin leans forward. The sword in Charles’ chest slides in deeper. The ache in Charles’ side throbs ferociously, but it’s been doing that the whole time.

“I’m going to pull the sword out,” Edwin whispers urgently. “Play dead, would you?”

“We’re ghosts,” Charles whispers back because Edwin has used this line on him more than enough. He chokes just slightly on a bit of pleghmy ectoplasm. Fuck, this half-solid thing sucks. “Can’t die, can we?”

Edwin gives him a look that conveys what he thinks of that comment. Then he withdraws his saber in one swift motion. It hurts in the distant sort of way that’s easy to ignore. It’s at about that point that Charles, rather obligingly he thinks, throws his arms out and flings himself dramatically to the ground.

Their audience gasps appreciatively. 

Charles lets his eyes droop most of the way shut, though he keeps them cracked just enough that he can still peer through his eyelashes. 

At this awkward angle, he can see blood seeping from his chest, soaking through the dirt so that it forms dark clumps. Except, of course, that the ground beneath Charles is entirely dry.

An illusion, then. Not exactly Edwin’s preferred school of magic—most of his books are on evocation and abjuration, with a bit of conjuration theory peppered about here and there—but then, Edwin is good at everything. Well, everything except boxing. 

Edwin whips around and drops his blade to the ground. It’s a bit dramatic, but he somehow makes it seem quite valiant, especially in that white shirt, traced with ash and grime as it is. 

“Are we done here?” Edwin asks the viewing box above, voice cold. “If so, I suggest you send a medic.”

When nothing happens for a long moment, the line of Edwin’s back straightens. 

“Now!” he snarls, thunderously, and someone in the audience whoops.

It kicks off something of a chain reaction. People are cheering again now. Someone yells “good show!” before flinging a bouquet of roses at the arena. The flowers bounce sadly off the barrier. A few people kick off a chant. And more than a few, surprisingly, are agreeing with Edwin, shouting up at the box for a medic—though they for their part seem rather jovial about it. Less like they have a problem with there being blood in their bloodsport and more like they want to grant a reward for a show-well-showed.

Or keep the entertainment going for a little longer. 

After what feels like minutes, one of the iron-barred doors swings open. Two guards—who just look like normal security guards, in blue vests with block lettering, step inside. One of them is holding what looks like a standard first-aid kit.

Top-notch healthcare for fighters, clearly.

The guard with the first aid kit starts jogging across the arena toward Charles. The other hangs back for a moment, pulling a ring of keys off his belt.

When he goes to shut the door, however, it catches halfway, stuck on seemingly nothing. The blood on Charles’ chest flickers—then vanishes. (Okay, the blood from the fake chest wound vanishes. The blood and ectoplasm from the real one is, apparently, here to stay for now.)

“Right,” Edwin says, where he’s holding his injured hand straight out. Black blood dribbles from the cut on his palm, hitting the ground in fat drops. The wound is deep and at an awful, awful angle, the flesh half-carved off in a flap. In the mess of gore, Charles would swear that he sees the impossible pearly white of bone. “I’d apologize, gentlemen. But, well…”

He crooks a bloody finger, and with a furious screech of metal, the door rips itself off its hinges. Then the bars rend themselves apart too, peeling off their frame like tissue paper under the force of Edwin’s will. Two of the bars fly across the arena and knock down the guard with the medkit, before wrapping themselves around him like the bow on a Christmas gift. The other four slam one after the other—with enough force to shatter concrete and send the dust billowing up into the air—into the carved wards. 

The arcane wall flickers, but it doesn’t go down.

Seems the jig is up, so Charles takes the opportunity to get upright, scrambling to his feet and ignoring the awful ache of his body. For lack of his cricket bat, he grabs one of the abandoned rapiers off the ground before taking his rightful place at Edwin’s side.

“Right, so,” Charles looks around. The crowd doesn’t seem to care that their wards are still standing—people are screaming and fleeing their seats, fleeing in a clumsy herd-animal disarray. “What’s the plan here, exactly?”

They’ve got to be several floors down. And mirror travel doesn’t work when they’re only half-incorporeal, as they are now. Fighting their way out is not going to be easy. If it’s possible at all.

“Um,” says Edwin.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Oh shut up,” Edwin counters. One of the iron bars pulls itself from the wall and hurtles toward the remaining guard, who’s apparently opted against fleeing like a reasonable person and has instead decided to run at them full-tilt. He’s moving fast enough that Edwin actually misses. Charles would honestly be impressed under any other circumstance. “I’ve got an idea. I’m just…hammering out the details. And regardless, I am not accepting criticism from you! What was your plan? Letting me stab you till you passed out or died? ”

He sounds properly aggravated by that last bit. Charles winces. He’s not looking forward to this discussion, whenever they end up having it. 

“No!” he says. The guard flings himself in Edwin’s general direction, but Charles steps in between. Jabs the guy in the shoulder, then kicks him hard in the ribs for good measure, sending him flying. “I think the boss lady likes me. She wouldn’t have let me die again. And you could have come back with a rescue!” He pauses. “Sorry, could you…?”

“And left you here!” Edwin shouts back. But he obligingly adds in some words in Greek, and then their hair is whipped about as a gale forms in the arena, whipping up dust and pebbles in a small tornado. Not strong enough to be particularly dangerous, but enough that guard the second can’t get off the ground. Once that’s done, Edwin resumes: “For all manner of harm to be visited upon you? After you were injured first, at my own hand?” His gaze catches on Charles’ bloody side, something inscrutable crossing his face. “I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. I’d sooner go back to hell.”

And, well. Charles does get that. Edwin looks so distraught that he suddenly feels like a bit of a dunce. And a bit unkind, for assuming that Edwin wouldn’t feel that same way that Charles himself did about this whole affair. 

He’s known from the beginning that Edwin wouldn’t like it. That he’d argue against it and probably feel awful afterward. But Edwin’s the sort who’s really good at taking it on the chin—British stoicism’s favorite foster child, really. And he’s always the one between the two of them who advocates for setting personal feelings aside if it will serve the greater good. A detective does what they must, and all that.

But Edwin’s expression holds traces of the nausea that Charles himself was choking on earlier. That he has been choking on, quite frankly, since they ended up here.

“I wouldn’t,” Charles says back ferociously. “Rather that you went back to hell, I mean. If you had to choose between, like, punching me in the face and going back to hell, I’d want you to do it.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.” 

“Well, then, I guess I’d have to hike back down there and get you out again,” Charles says. “And that seems rather inconvenient.”

“Sorry,” Edwin gives him a wide-eyed look, completely bewildered. Combined with the wind ruffling his hair, he looks a bit ethereal. Like some divine being, come down to earth and stunned by the horrors they’ve found. “Are you trying to talk me into hitting you in the extremely unlikely hypothetical situation where my options are striking you and returning to hell ?”

Their audience is mostly gone now. Except, bewilderingly, for one woman in the top row with thinning blond hair, who’s slowly eating popcorn out of a box and watching them still. 

“What? No?” Though Charles can in retrospect see that that’s what it seems like he’s saying. “I’m saying-what I’m trying to say is—I’d do anything to keep you safe. Including ask you to hurt me, even though I know you’d hate it.”

“Even impale yourself on a sword while it’s still in my hand?” Edwin asks quietly. Charles thinks that he’s aiming for dry, but his voice cracks about halfway through, so he doesn’t quite manage it.

“Even that,” Charles replies, because it’s true. Obviously. “And I’d do it because I love you. And because I trust you. More than anyone else.” At Edwin’s pursed lips, he continues. “I’ve never thought you would hurt me—not out of anger, not out of carelessness. I haven’t thought that even once since the day we met.”

“Charles,” Edwin says, but something about that must’ve gotten through to him, because his voice is softer now. “I—”

“Touching display, boys!” shouts a familiar voice. Charles startles, spinning on his heel to face the sound. He finds her in the open doorway. Karna, for her part, seems utterly unperturbed by the mess and the ruined show. If anything, there’s almost some amusement to the curve of her mouth. “And a clever trick.” That last bit is addressed to Edwin. The wind slows her but doesn’t stop her completely, like a storm buffeting itself against some great rock. She’s using her spear as a walking stick, but she doesn’t exactly seem to need it. “But I think that’s enough.”

“Oh, excellent,” says Edwin, when she’s about seven feet away. He gives Charles a sidelong look, the one that means trust me . “My plan.”

The wind stops. Just in time for Edwin lunge forward with deceptive speed, headed straight for Karna. She lifts her spear lightning-fast. Charles shouts before he can stop himself, and—

Edwin vanishes.

Karna staggers, the spear clattering from her grip as she clutches at her heart. There’s something of a bulge in her shoulder, something tumorous. And it’s moving. She looks, for the first time since Charles has seen her, shocked.

Her body shudders. And then she plucks something off her belt. A walkie-talkie. She clumsily lifts it to her mouth. It takes her three times to get the switch, but she does, she says, in a cadence that Charles knows very well, “Lower the wards.” A pause. Then, belatedly: “Over.”

The response comes tinnily over the smaller speaker. “The…arena wards, ma’am?”

Karna thinks about it for only a second. Her upper half jerks, one arm shooting out to the side almost comically. But the hand holding the radio stays dead still. “On the whole building. Over.”

“But—”

“Now,” says Karna. The giant mound of flesh in her shoulder crawls down her spine. “That’s an order. Over.” 

And then, before another question can come through, she promptly crushes the radio in her massive hand.

The lights above flicker, rolling dreadfully.

And just like that, Charles feels a little lighter. He still hurts all over, but suddenly he has to focus a little harder to keep the saber in hand. The iron burn and the stab wound in his shoulder still hurt something awful, but the fresh, raw wound at his side starts bleeding less almost immediately. And already it’s more ectoplasm than blood. 

Karna’s body convulses, and Edwin’s body—also entirely spectral again—hits the floor with a thud.

Charles skirts around Karna, who’s shaking her head and clearly still regaining her bearings, and grabs Edwin by the shirt collar to help haul him upright. The back of his shirt is considerably more burnt-looking and strange than before. He doesn’t dare wait before he starts dragging Edwin along behind him, though he can’t help but brush a kiss to Edwin’s temple before they go. “We’ve got to run!”

“Yes,” Edwin says breathlessly. “That was sort of the idea.”

Running, and moving in general, hurts much less when you can’t really pull on an injury. Still, it doesn’t feel great. The body—spectral or not—doesn’t forget, and Charles’ body clearly knows that it’s running low on energy. Still, there’s no time to waste.

They’ve barely been running for ten seconds when Karna screams out behind them, then takes off in pursuit. And she’s fucking fast , presumably thanks to those long legs and Amazon strength. Of course, they can cut through walls again, which is quite helpful. But not nearly as helpful as Charles would like.

It’s worse because it takes them a few tries to actually find a room with a fucking mirror. The first room they check is a storage closet. The second is a locker room—but all lockers, no fucking toilets, because that’s just their fucking luck. The third is an office.

The fourth, finally, is a bathroom. It’s got a mirror that stretches the whole wall and is about four feet high, though they’re gonna have to hop up onto the sink to get through it. 

Charles pushes Edwin ahead. “You first,” he says. “I’ll watch the—”

He hears the door explode open well before he sees it, and just barely manages to drag Edwin out of the way of Karna’s spear when it comes hurtling toward him. 

The mirror, however, shatters. Fuck.

They don’t make it through the wall before Karna grabs hold of Charles’ shirt. Which shouldn’t do anything, of course, except she’s used her gauntleted hand to hold him. Her grip sizzles and smokes and forces him solid, and it hurts so terribly that he can’t help but gasp.

She smiles a little when she sees it. And when Edwin’s hands twitch with the start of a spell, she summons her spear back into her hand and digs it deep into the skin under Charles’ jaw. 

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” she cautions, and Edwin freezes as truly as if she had it pointed at his throat instead. Satisfied, she turns her attention back to Charles. “You’re fighters, the both of you. I’ve got to give you that. So out of respect, I’ll let the two of you choose. Which one of you should I kill? Properly.”

“Fuck you,” says Charles, at the same time as Edwin spits furiously: “This is absurd!”

Karna rolls her eyes and gives Charles a small shake. His throat burns and blackens, and his vision goes a little white at the edges. Fucking ouch. 

“Choose,” she repeats.

Edwin, with a faintly strangled tone, says, “Me.”

“What?” Charles struggles fruitlessly against Karna’s grip. It only serves to burn his chest and throat more. “No, it’s going to be me.” He gives Karna a look. “It’s got to be me. You can’t—”

Karna looks nearly charmed. “And both loyal to the end. How noble,” she says. Then she looks at Edwin. “Don’t worry. I can tell a ringleader when I see one. It was always going to be you.”

What?

She pulls her spear away from Charles’ throat and hefts it upward. The golden metal glints in the fluorescent lights, as she prepares to swing the weapon down in a terrible, fatal arc. And Edwin, damn him, doesn’t move an inch. Of course he doesn’t. 

After all, if he escapes, there’s only one person left for her to kill.

Charles beats his fists against her arm, but he might as well be punching a statue. There’s no purchase, no give, nothing at all he can do to save Edwin. He can’t—

In one of the bathroom stalls, something pops . Or maybe the pop is in Charles’ ears. It’s not so much the pop of a bubble as it is a terrible pressure change, a storm system arriving all at once rather than rolling in. Even Edwin glances away from his impending second death to look toward the source of the sound. 

One of the stall doors opens, and there, in a pencil skirt and one of her favorite vintage blazers, clearly still getting herself straightened back out, is the Night Nurse. 

“Well,” she is looking down at her clothes, flattening out a crease in her lapel. She’s wearing small cat-eye glasses today, which is odd because Charles knows for a fact that she has better-than-perfect vision. “ Possession, Edwin Paine? I ought to have your license revoked for this! Do you know how many alarms you just set off? Sanctioned by Lost and Found or not, you should know that—”

Some glass crunches under her heel. Her brow furrows, those ruby lips of hers creasing into a frown. Expression dark, she looks up at them. 

Then she looks at them for a good while longer, her eyes tracing lines from the destroyed mirror to Charles, still smoking and burning under Karna’s grip, to the weapon about to cut Edwin down where he stands.

“Oh,” she says, in that mildly dazed way of hers that means she’s processing. “Dear. This is a mess.”

“Yes,” Edwin responds, clearly not bothering to hide the strain in his own voice. “We are in a bit of a pinch. Would you…that is to say…” he trails off then. Still no good at asking for help.

The Night Nurse sniffs disdainfully. 

“On my authority as a representative of the Afterlife and Death the Endless herself,” she says, ignoring Edwin entirely and speaking only to Karna, “I must ask you to unhand that child at once.”

“And bow down to a bureaucrat?” says Karna lowly. But still, her eyebrows are raised. If nothing else, they’d surprised her. “You must have me confused for someone else.”

“I’ve chosen my words poorly,” says the Night Nurse, folding her hands in front of her. “You are hereby commanded to release that child, lower your weapon, and surrender yourself to the Authorities.”

“Or what?”

“Or,” says the Night Nurse. She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose then strides right up to Karna, resting a thin hand on the taller woman’s shoulder. She has to reach up no small distance to do so. “I would be within my rights to make you.”

“Good riddance,” says Karna. She turns back to Charles, and the Night Nurse sighs, exaggeratedly loud and deeply put-upon.

“Last chance,” the Night Nurse offers, nearly in sing-song. Karna ignores her completely now and just shoves Charles more firmly into the tile wall. He can’t phase through it with her hand keeping him solid, so all it does is compress his ribcage and send more ash crumbling down his shirt. He makes a noise. He can’t help it.

“Charles!” Edwin starts forward, eyes blazing.

Unfortunately, that’s about all he gets to do before the Night Nurse unhinges her jaw into three disparate pieces and, with little fanfare, promptly bites Karna in half.

A bit of hubbub ensues. There’s something of a surprised shriek from Edwin, and Charles definitely yelps. Or, okay, fully screams, because what the fuck? He hadn’t known she could do that?

The Night Nurse simply sighs and dabs her blood-spattered face with a kerchief. Then she collects them both up off the ground and brings them back to the office.

(She’d meant to bring them to Lost and Found first, to see someone she called “the Day Nurse.” But she’d given up quickly when they practically demanded to go back to the Agency. Charles isn’t sure what he’d call the look on her face when she conceded. Not quite defeat, but not all frustration either.)

They’ve got a bed now, in one of the back rooms that used to store case files. Which it still does, actually. It just stores fewer now. The bed is technically for Crystal when she stays over, but the Night Nurse swings the backroom door open and virtually commands them to rest.

While Charles and Edwin are still processing that, she disappears. It takes her maybe five minutes to come back, and when she does, she brings two things along with. 

Well, technically three, but the first two are the same.

There are two mugs, piping warm like tea or cocoa, except when Charles looks inside he finds something that resembles thick gray ichor. It’s also shiny, like she maybe dropped glitter in it.

Then is Charles’ bag, retrieved from God knows where and which she deposits nearby. She ignores his thanks completely. Instead, she gestures to the cups and says: “You’ll drink those at once. That potion will repair any spiritual injuries that may not be visible to the eye. It will drain your energy a tad, though, so you’ll be staying abed, the both of you.”

Edwin, still upright and dressed in his ashy clothes, black stripes burned through the back of his shirt, nods. It’s awfully stiff, and finally he turns to the Night Nurse and says, heavily: “About the possession. Charles didn’t know. That transgression was entirely mine, and I accept full responsibility for—”

“Mate, no,” Charles says.

The Night Nurse simply silences them both with a polite cough. 

“For a member of the Lost & Found Department to possess someone,” she informs them, once they both turn to look at her. “Is virtually unheard of. And it breaks a great number of regulations. However, it is clear to me that these circumstances were highly irregular. And it is also Lost & Found policy that an agent under duress should contact headquarters at once. Which you did, albeit in an…unconventional way. I shall file the paperwork, and if I happen to need more details from you, I will request them. Otherwise, I highly suggest you put the entire matter out of your mind.”

Edwin’s shoulders untense just slightly. “Thank you, Asa,” he says softly, hands clutched together in front of his stomach. “For saving Charles. And myself.”

“That’s unnecessary,” the Night Nurse pulls a face and takes a step back. “You are my charges, however little I desire the post. I am only doing my duty. Now,” she points commandingly at them. “I have a report to write. Drink the curative, rest, and do not get kidnapped again.” 

And then with another disorienting change to the air pressure, she’s gone.

“You know,” Charles finally says, fumbling with his jacket. Taking his clothes off the old-fashioned way is never more inconvenient than he’s injured—which is a bit problematic, since that’s usually the only time ghosts can’t poof them away with a thought. “She’s really not so bad.”

“I shall never think unkindly about her again,” Edwin replies, which definitely can’t be true. “Stop that, Charles. Here.” He steps behind Charles and helps him tug his jacket off, folding it up carefully and placing it on a chair. Then, still looking stressed and pale, he makes Charles sit on the bed and drapes a blanket across his lap.

They drink their potions from the Night Nurse, which taste much better than they look. Sort of like hot chocolate, if a bit milder in flavor. More like hot vanilla, really. And obviously magical, since they don’t spill right to the ground like Charles half-expects. 

When they’re done, Charles does feel a bit better. Sleepier, too, as the warmth of the drink settles over his entire body. Still, he’s got one more thing to do.

It takes a little more effort than it should for him to reach into his bag, and far more rummaging that it rightfully ought to before his hand closes against a small, palm-sized jar. He pulls it free with a victorious sound.

“Come here,” he says, patting a spot on the mattress beside him.

Edwin spots the salve immediately and, before Charles can stop him, snatches it up with his good hand. “Absolutely not,” he snaps. “We are not starting with me.”

“But your hand!”

“Have you seen yourself?” Edwin gestures sharply at him. “No, absolutely not. Shirt off, dear.” 

Charles can’t help but look more closely at Edwin’s hand. It’s not dripping anymore, more ectoplasm than blood at this point, which is sticky enough that it’s just sort of tarring the wound shut. It’s got to hurt something awful, whereas Charles’ own wounds have faded to an easily ignored hum, but he also knows that look on Edwin’s face. He won’t be getting his way on this one.

“Fine...” 

Edwin has to help him with his polo too, undoing those top few buttons and pulling it gently over Charles’ head while clearly taking painstaking effort to keep from hurting him any further. It’s not entirely successful, but there’s not much to be done about that. There really aren’t many ways that Charles can move without a bit of pain.

It’s hardly the first time Edwin’s ever helped him strip down. They rarely need to, but thirty years is a long time with plenty of room to end up in unusual situations. Once, for instance, a culprit had rigged a trap for them with molten iron. It had sunk right into Charles’ shirt, and Edwin had been forced to divest him of his clothes and then spend a few hours more digging the cooling metal out of Charles’ actively smoking burns.

That had fucking sucked, enough that Charles hadn’t even thought to be embarrassed about the fact that he was down to his pants. At the time. Now, he’s definitely embarrassed about it.

Once Charles is good and shirtless (polo folded and set neatly to the side, of course), Edwin looks him up and down. Charles flushes instinctually, but Edwin’s expression remains entirely clinical. 

“Unbelievable,” he says unhappily, as he visibly takes in Charles’s wounds. The iron burn on his side, already closing fast; the burn across the flat of his chest; the first stab wound in his shoulder, and the second one…

Edwin’s face visibly falls when he sees the injury, lancing straight through the side of Charles’ waist.

“Hey,” Charles puts a hand up to Edwin’s cheek. “None of that. You did what you had to, love.”

“As did you, I suppose,” Edwin murmurs. He uncaps the salve and scoops some of it up on his fingers. 'But I did not much care for it. I would rather you were safe and well. Lean back, please.”

“Yeah,” Charles says. “Feeling’s mutual, innit?” 

He obligingly flops back into the mattress—perhaps a little too hard, since it fucking hurts. He pretends it doesn’t, because otherwise he’s going to get another one of Edwin’s patented lectures on carelessness.

Edwin dresses Charles’ wounds one by one, his touch feather-light—barely perceptible except for the distant ache of something coming into contact with an open injury—as he brushes the salve over the burn, then his aching head, then the terrible gouge beneath his collar bone. It’s probably a good thing, really, that he’s barely making contact, because even the barest hint of touch has Charles imagining Edwin splaying those long, graceful fingers flat across his chest instead, pushing him further into the bed, and—

Nope. Nope. Naked grandma. Or. Something.

Edwin’s particularly careful when dressing the saber injury, applying way more of the salve than the wound strictly needs. He spends a long time on it, hunched over Charles’ chest. His hair, normally brushed and styled flat, is falling into his face, revealing hints of the loose curls that Charles so rarely gets to see, to the point that he often forgets they exist at all. He feels a fool for that already. There’s no detail of Edwin that isn’t worth committing to memory.

And so when Edwin’s nearly done, Charles reaches out to brush those errant locks of hair back out of his face. He gets the opportunity so rarely that he can’t resist it, and besides, he likes to see Edwin’s expressions, subtle as they are. The crinkle of his nose when he’s exasperated, the low furrow of his brow when he’s concentrating, the subtle rise of his mouth when he’s amused. It’s a veritable feast for beggars, or at least it is if you’re Charles.

At the touch, Edwin looks up, blinking a few times. The crease between his eyebrows smooths over, his entire face softening, lips parting just slightly as if pleased. 

Charles cups his jaw, fully intending to lean in for a kiss, when he sees it.

“That spot on your cheek is back,” he says, because it is. The bruising is down, and it’s closed a bit since Charles saw it the other day. But two hours ago, it hadn’t been there at all. He squints, leaning in closer.

Edwin pulls away before Charles can get a better look at it, frowning. “The spot on my cheek?”

“The injury! It was gone before.”

“Oh.” Comprehension dawns on Edwin’s face. “Ah, it…was not. Gone, that is.”

Charles frowns. “Sorry, I don’t follow.”

“Well,” Edwin hedges, straightening his back and setting his shoulders the way he does when he’s about to say something Charles won’t enjoy. “I had to test the illusion somehow. I’d never used it before.”

“You haven’t? Mate, I’ve seen you use illusions.” Maybe not often , since they require an artistry that Edwin doesn’t much enjoy, but he definitely has used them.

“Yes, well,” Edwin says. “I’ve never committed any of them to memory, though that will be changing. That was…a bit of makeshift spellcraft I cooked up in my cell. I’d hoped to have a bit more time to polish it off, find a source of power, but…” he holds up his injured hand. “I had to improvise. A small sacrifice of blood did the trick, but I’ll have to look into alternatives for the future. It’s not like I have much blood to give, usually.” 

Oh. Charles looks at Edwin’s hand again. “You invented a spell for me that requires your fucking blood?”

“No,” Edwin says with a sniff. “I invented a spell for the situation at hand. And as I said, the blood was improvisational. I’ll find an alternative.”

“That’s absolutely aces, Edwin! You’re—” Charles doesn’t have the words for it, except maybe aces again. And by aces, he’s starting to think that he really means hot. He’s not quite sure how someone as smart as Edwin exists, or why he’d bother spending time with Charles. But he’s grateful for it anyway. Then he remembers the ash on Edwin’s shirt, and the way that it’s been flaking since the bloody arena: “Your back!”

“Ah,” Edwin winces. “Healing, really.”

“Mate!” Now it’s Charles’ turn to snatch up the salve, his body’s earlier interest entirely forgotten. He unbuttons Edwin’s shirt shakily, and Edwin lets him, simply resting a reassuring hand on his forearm. “Can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“Well,” Edwin says. “You wouldn’t have let me have the pleasure of tending to you first if I did.”

“Ha ha,” Charles says dryly. Edwin’s actually a bit wider across the chest than he is, but somehow dreadfully thin regardless. Bony and angular and beautiful and also bloody injured. “Come on then, turn over.”

Edwin obligingly flips onto his belly and lets Charles treat the long, cracking burns that stretch the entire vertical length of his back. He doesn’t wince, doesn’t seem particularly bothered by any of it, because he has always put Charles to shame on that front. But he does take Charles’ free hand when Charles treats a particularly deep burn, one that must have melted through flesh down to the spine when they were still corporeal, though he doesn’t even squeeze it. Just clasps it loosely, running his thumb in circles. 

When they’re done, Charles switches on the telly. Neither of them turns to watch it though. Instead they lie curled up in bed together, legs tangled, still shirtless, and hands clasped.

Their conversation’s not done, or at least Charles is pretty sure it isn’t. Knowing Edwin, he’s probably got a dozen more lectures lined up about self-sacrifice and recklessness. And Charles is going to be thinking about that awful wound on Edwin’s hand for perhaps the rest of his existence, and he can’t imagine the memory becoming any less sour with time.

For now, though, they both need to rest. Charles wonders if any of the effects from the wards earlier might carry over; if they might get to sleep properly one last time before they’re whole and hale again. It would be nice.

But then, Charles wouldn’t mind half-consciousness either. At least that way, he’d get to appreciate the weight of Edwin’s hand in his—the brush of their foreheads against each other. And also his icy cold feet, which are practically a criminal matter at this point.

“I love you,” Charles says, as the TV drones on in the background.

“I know.”

Charles has no clue whether the reference is intentional. Edwin’s got a way of stumbling into jokes like that by accident.

“Well,” Charles wheedles softly. “Do you love me back?”

Edwin huffs indignantly, dark lashes brushing his skin as he shuts his eyes as if in protest. “Of course I love you.” When Charles starts to grin, he adds: “Oh, don’t gloat. It’s unbecoming.”

“Can’t help it. I enjoy a good gloat. Occasionally.” Charles tells him. “Sorry about the awful date, though. Next case will be a do-over. Except Crystal’s gonna be there, so...”

“I shall not dignify that with a response,” Edwin says.

But when he curls up further, tilting his head into the line of Charles’ uninjured shoulder, Charles would swear that he laughs a little.