Chapter Text
“C’mon loosen up,” Charles hopped around Edwin punching out into the air, “Boxing’s a gentleman’s sport, innit?”
“When will I have to hit someone? I’ve been dead since 1916.” Edwin looked defeated, tired from their previous case.
This went on for about 5 minutes before someone buzzed the door. Charles went to open it, revealing a little girl who looked lost, lost wasn’t the right word, because she looked well determined walking in like she owned the place with a giant green glowing squid following her, which he guessed was her pet.
“Can you boys help me, this is the place, right?”
Edwin nodded politely, “Yes, right then, I’m Edwin Payne. This is Charles Rowland. As you no doubt know, we are the Dead Boy Detective Agency.”
“He’s the brains, I’m the brawn. Getting things done.” Charles chipped in happy to help a little kid in need of help. He was deeply insulted by her a second afterward but had to ignore it since he was a professional.
The girl proceeded to ask them to help her friend who seemed to be acting rather strange as of lately, which concerned this girl. They did find out that the girl’s friend was an American psychic, and sure, they’d dealt with psychics before, some worse than others, but they’d never dealt with one their own age. Charles seemed really interested in the case, even almost taking the case willingly before Edwin had to step in to demand payment.
“Sounds like a demon,” Charles said as a half-joke, wanting to make fun of Americans as well as trying to solve the mystery. So, this girl, Crystal Palace, was probably possessed by a demon according to their information, and was roaming around London terrorizing everyone.
After some talking and agreeing, they went and agreed on the case, it was mostly Charles who pressed on about finally speaking to someone their own age other than the two of them. Edwin nodded in agreement at last and gave in.
Charles had to say that whenever Edwin started yapping about his knowledge of everything it made him seem even more attractive. Not that he wasn’t already, it was an added bonus.
“I don’t know about this case,” Edwin said once the little girl had gone on her way, “Maybe we should think this case over. I don’t want there to be another catastrophe of ‘08 again. You know where the psychic died- “
“-In a housefire after a family friend did arson due to them believing that she was a witch. Edwin, love, c’mon, liven up. Or deathen up, this will be a fun case, demons have no control over the dead, right?” Charles tried to cheer him up, walking over and sitting down on the desk, reaching out to play with the other’s bowtie. His finger wandered over to feel the other's jaw, “You’re being silly.”
Edwin never turned away Charles’ touch, so he sighed, “You’re right, I am, let’s get on with it.”
They very much did, they started observing what Crystal Palace did in her day-to-day life, which all in all was concluded to be insanity if they hadn’t known her to be possessed by a demon. While Edwin was researching how to trap and exorcise a demon, Charles was trying to learn how to draw the ritual used in exorcising the demon.
When the day came to do it, Charles felt nervous, something he usually felt but would never talk about. What if it all goes sideways? What if the demon tries to hurt Edwin and calls hell to drag him back? All sorts of stupid thoughts ran through his mind.
He was sitting fake reading a newspaper, waiting for some dumb clowns to get off before he called for Edwin to trap the demon. He was quick on his feet to hold Crystal but was struggling to hold her in place and tried hurrying Edwin who went as quick as he could.
With a few mishaps here and there, like getting kicked in your ghost balls, or getting thrown into a door that shouldn’t hurt, but did hurt due to phantom pain., they successfully trapped Crystal Palace and the demon possessing her. And after some more accidents, they managed to exorcise the demon the best they could.
“You’re Crystal, yeah?” Charles tried to reassure her.
“Yeah, Crystal Palace,” she looked confused around, “Something, there’s uh… There’s more to my name.” She was properly confused and confessed that she must be missing a lot of her memory. Charles then offered for her to stay at their place while they sorted out the memory loss, which caused Edwin to give him a pinch in his side. He gave him a ‘what’ stare back.
Back at their place, Edwin was pacing around, panicking over a living person being in their house. “She shouldn’t be here! The case is closed, why is she in our office?”
“Is the case really closed? She doesn’t remember anything, does she? Where else is she gonna go?” Charles argued back, finding it quite annoying for Edwin to be quite upset about this.
They argued back and forth a bit more, before Edwin stated, “Charles, you cannot keep her! We don’t want a repeat of the infamous puppy debacle of ’94, do we?”
Charles finally understood what had gotten Edwin so angry, “You’re jealous! You’re utterly jealous that there’s someone else here!” He stepped a bit closer to Edwin, holding his waist gently, “Edwin, love, there’s nothing to be jealous of, she’s a human I want to help nothing more than that.” He pecked the other’s lips, pouting, “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”
Edwin blushed, somehow, and held around Charles tightly, hugging him as close as possible, “I might be, it’s silly, I know.” His head rested in the crook of Charles’ neck, and he slowly shifted their balance from side to side, “She can stay.”
They were interrupted by Crystal who looked at them annoyed, “I’m here too, ugh.”
While Charles was chatting it up with Crystal, Edwin was putting the case away in a drawer, looking at the two of them talking. Frankly, he had no use of a living psychic girl in their apartment, the two of them did well on their own and the case had wrapped up, so no use in having her around any longer, which is why he said:
“So, you’ll be leaving then.”
“Oi, give her a minute to breathe before you push her out of the door, yeah?” Charles started, but Edwin knew too how to argue, which they had done now twice since Crystal had appeared. This wasn’t something that they didn’t do, it was something that they did here and there, but twice in under 24 hours was almost like that time they almost broke up over a case so violent that Charles had left the house and only come back 3 days after, crying and apologizing. Edwin had time to think in the meantime and forgave him rather quickly after.
Charles did leave with Crystal.
“Y’know you have to cut Edwin some slack, he spent a bunch of decades in Hell, so he forgets how to talk to people,” Charles said, walking along a bridge in London with Crystal, who looked unamused.
The two got talking about Edwin, how he wasn’t necessarily a bad person for ending up in Hell, or how the two of them weren’t cursed for choosing to stay on Earth as ghosts.
He felt pretty bummed when Crystal was trying to be mean to him, but he brushed it off as a joke, knowing that she didn’t really mean it that badly and so he shouldn’t feel bad about it or sad for that matter.
He started asking about her memories, if any of it seemed clearer than the day before, which all in all concluded to no, it wasn’t any better. This made him worry for Edwin’s sake, because he was very stubborn about keeping a person their age in their apartment, but he knew Edwin would possibly rip his head off in the process.
Crystal was going on about being angry or something, it made him reflect on himself while he was alive, how angry he had been, at himself, at his father, at the world. And how now, he was free of all those worries, he was finally free and he had an eternity living the best he could. He couldn’t help but smile at this, laughing slightly.
“Charles, you smile a lot.” Crystal made note of this.
“Well, I’m loving talking to somebody my age who’s actually still alive,” Charles said looking at Crystal, “We’ve met psychics before, but none as fit as you.”
She scoffed at him, “Did that work on girls back in the 80’s? You have to stop it.”
He gave her a confused look, before snapping back to reality with a smirk, “No, but it did work on guys.”
“Oh.” Crystal said, “Well, it’s a new dawn, be damned if a girl likes a girl or a guy likes a guy, I don’t care about that as much as others do.”
When Charles and Crystal arrived back at the apartment, Crystal was quick to make a bad impression on him yet again, he gave Charles an unimpressed stare, which made Charles walk over to sit on the desk, reaching out for Edwin's hand to hold, which he denied.
“The postman came around, while you two were out.”
“There’s a ghost postman?” Crystal asked.
Charles gave up on his try at being affectionate and turned to Crystal, “Not exactly sure how it works, really. He just showed up with potential cases.” He said, turning to Edwin, “Nice chap, a bit creepy, only ‘cause he sneaks up on us, right, Edwin?”
Feeling betrayed by Charles wandering off with an old client, he felt like he had a right to feel some sort of jealousy, “Perhaps you can ask him yourself. Oh wait, you were out.”
Charles obviously felt the tension in the air and decided to stay quiet, at least for a second before his mouth started babbling on about Crystal staying at their place, which made Edwin see a bit red, but he managed to contain it. It wasn’t that he had anything malicious against the girl, he simply was not interested in having her around while they did their work, and having a living would be quite strange, given the circumstances that they weren’t paying rent and if anyone found out someone living was living in the haunted room, then they would most likely have to find another place.
But, alas, Charles knew that he had him wrapped around his finger and convinced him that she could stay with them. Charles gave him those doe eyes when Crystal turned to look at their mail, which wasn’t ideal for him, but maybe that’s how she could help out, by being their secretary.
When Crystal, with a missing poster in her hands, suddenly exclaimed that one of their new cases was possibly a alive girl, then it all got more complicated. They never dealt with the living, simply because it was all too complicated, sure they’ve had disguises to interview the living with, but taking up a fully living case that the police could solve easily wasn’t what they stood for.
Which is why they were in the closet, whispering to each other, they would usually argue in the main room, but since Crystal was here, pushed Charles them both into the closet to talk about it.
“No,” Edwin stated, as clear as ever.
“C’mon, having a psychic is paying off!” Charles said, showing the missing poster for Edwin to see, “Dark, unnatural. It’s right up our street!”
Examining the poster, Edwin noticed that the poster was based in the States and they were certainly NOT going all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to solve one single case. Plus there wasn’t even a client on the poster, it just said missing with a bunch of numbers attached to it, so no, he was NOT crossing anything to say yes to this case.
Charles had been acting too strange because of one living teenage girl, so he tilted his head and asked directly, “Is that girl making your head spin, I thought it was going quite well the last 10 years.”
“What,” Charles asked, still in a low soft voice, “What, no, she’s just a new friend, why would you even think I would fall for a living girl? You know you’re the only one I care about this much, I just want to help her out, she reminds me of myself quite a lot. Also, if we say yes to the case, we have an excuse to go on a small adventure, I’ve never even been to the States before!”
Edwin sighed, resting a hand on the other's waist, pulling him in, “Very well then, off to the States.”
So they were in the States, of course, he could convince Edwin to say yes to this. It was very exciting to see something new other than old blokes who only knew how to yell at each other and call each other names and whatnot.
Everything that was happening was just amazing, which is why he exclaimed, “That ferry ride was brills!” He finally felt like he was living again, even though others couldn’t see him, but he felt almost human. Edwin had to dampen his mood by mentioning that going through a mirror would have been easier.
After a bit of walking, they got to a shop, which oddly was a butcher shop, not somewhere you thought would be renting rooms. Charles noted that it was run by an angsty woman who looked very impassive towards Crystal. And he got even more nervous when the same woman started walking towards Crystal with the big cleaver in her hand, thankfully he couldn’t die twice, right?
While Crystal sorted her room, he took a look around, not much to see but this was the place they had to settle in for the time being until their case was solved. It was a small place, but it was enough, plus he could always go back to London through a mirror if he started missing it too much. It wasn’t like he needed to sleep, but he did enjoy doing it when he got a chance.
He and Edwin looked around the other rental room, Niko was her name, she seemed nice enough, no serial killer vibes from her. The exact opposite to be correct, anime and cartoon-loving girl who was currently watching some sort of show with a talking dog in it.
It wasn’t like he had known what anime was until they had to go to something called Comic Con for a case a bit ago, so he knew what the gist of it was.
Charles had to pull Edwin out of the room before he started questioning everything. He knew how that went and did not want another episode of explaining what a wank was.
So after a bit of settling down, well more of Crystal settling, they went out to interview the parents of the missing child. They seemed well worried for their child like any good parent would be.
Crystal seemed to be emotional over the interview, but he didn’t ask any further questions, maybe it was best to let it simmer for a bit. Edwin seemed to be upset when he tried to assure him that having a psychic was good for the team. His heart dropped a bit when Edwin walked straight through a mirror instead of staying and talking it out first, in that way they were still stubborn teenagers.
“He’s trying to prove a point, isn’t he.” He answered Crystal when she asked where he went. “He’s a show-off.” He could care less about Edwin when he acted like this, all high and mighty.
Edwin showed up again, with a bag in his hand, clearly the shoes from the case, “We all have talents, Crystal.”
He noticed the burn on Edwin's hand immediately, walking up to him, “Hey, don’t be so careless next time, yeah?” This was clearly the work of iron. He took the hand in his to check for serious damage, but Edwin pulled his hand towards himself, brushing off his hand in his jacket.
“Don’t,” Edwin said, walking ahead of him.
Crystal asked if they couldn’t possess a person and be done with it, and sure they could, but they never did it and the afterlife would be after them if they did. It would be too chaotic and messy.
Edwin still seemed to be a bit sassy whenever he talked to Crystal, but he ignored that, knowing how Edwin still kept his manners, even when he was trying to be mean.
Crystal reading the shoes led them to a house, which made his guts go crazy, he felt uncomfortable being there. He turned to Edwin, trying to get his attention.
“This place is freaky.”
“Charles, it’s just a house, maybe a serial killer house, but still.”
“This is just aces.” He sarcastically said, pulling out his telescope to look inside the house’s windows. “Let’s take a quick sneak peak.” Everything seemed to be weird about this house, who kept a crow in a cage? His instincts said it must be one hella weird person or murderer, whatever was worse.
A cat walked by, their mortal enemies, because cats could see them and harm them by their scratches. He hated cats, and he hated that he hated them, because he had been the wildest cat person when he was alive, but that was before he knew that all cats were assholes, because they could talk. And this cat was no different when Edwin tried talking to it.
“Fuck you, I’m not telling you nothing about that house or the witch inside.” The cat said before running off.
Edwin did repeat that the house was a witch’s house, which he did notice. Witches were tricky, most of them could see ghosts, since they always made deals that involved their soul in some way. He did not enjoy witches.
They decided to go into a malt shop to lay down their plans about handling the witch. His plan was shot down immediately by both parties due to being too reckless. So, he shut his mouth for the time being, knowing that any more of his ideas would be apparently too ‘reckless’ for them.
Crystal stated that she wanted to wait in the bathroom until some girls left, if it was him he could care less if others saw him as mental.
“Do you think she’s embarrassed?” Edwin asked him once Crystal was gone.
Charles hit his shoulder, “What is up with you today? I get that she’s not up to your standards, but at least try to act friendly towards her, mate.”
Edwin raised an eyebrow, “Mate? Oh, I see how it is.” He stood up, “So I’m just your mate now, so you can go hook up with that downtown American girl.”
“C’mon now, don’t act so daft, it just came out of me automatically.” He looked pleading at Edwin, “Please look at me.”
They didn’t have time to argue before Crystal came out of the bathroom looking wildly into a direction, her eyes completely white out as she must be in some sort of trance. She whispered, “David the Demon.” Loud enough for some people at the malt shop to stare at her. She was having a conversation with nobody.
“So this is how those girls saw her,” Edwin noticed, standing by Charles’ side, “She does look kinda crazy.”
“Well this is brills, if she’s talking to the demon, shouldn’t we help her out of it?” Charles asked, in which Edwin shrugged.
They did find out, whilst observing Crystal, that she was talking about David stealing some of her memories, which couldn’t be good. Edwin sat back down, staring at Crystal, while he stood up to help her. Someone had to make sure she kept her social points up, it was painful to look at this any longer.
So, he pulled her jacket, “Oi, Crystal, are you alright? You just said some pretty crazy things in front of all of us.”
Crystal ran out of the malt shop.
So, they did as anyone would, they followed her. Edwin wanted answers about the demon, and frankly, he wanted some too, if their lives where in danger, maybe they should seriously drop the case. Everyone was yelling at him, Edwin, Crystal, and he was just the brawn of the group, why should he take responsibilities right now? Edwin was on about the with, which yeah, big problem if a witch and a demon met. And Crystal was scared, which he also got, because he would be scared too in her situation.
“He’s not gone! So maybe he’s our fucking demon now!” She ended before storming off.
“Has she gone quite mad?” Edwin said, “Yelling at us?”
Charles took a step forward, “She wasn’t trying to be mean, she was just scared.”
“Scared? Alright Charles,” Edwin turned to him with crossed arms, looking at him with judging eyes, “Ever since she showed up, you’ve been behaving differently.”
And sure, he maybe had been behaving differently, but so had Edwin, so he had no right to talk about him like that, which is why he tried to reminding him that he did it because Crystal lost her memories and he felt responsible for that, but it probably came out sounding wrong, because Edwin started talking about how he spent 70 years in Hell, and when he pulled out that card, he had instantly lost. Because he knew how much trauma that put on him, and he could never imagine living through that for 70 years in a row.
Edwin shoulder pushed him, while walking the opposite direction of Crystal.
“I’m not saying it’s a contest, love.” He said, knowing full well Edwin probably didn’t want to hear that.
He was down an alleyway when he heard a cat, the very same cat that they had encountered before. He had a plan to make the cat talk, but it required the cat to be one of low intelligence, which most cats were thankfully.
From his pocket, he fished up a small fish and steadily held his hand out for the cat to take the bait, which it of course did and then he trapped it in a magical leash. He had learned some spells that could come in handy, which they very much did right now.
“Using magic on a cat means trouble.” The cat stated, making him wonder what else in this town was out of the ordinary.
He started questioning the cat about the witch inside, and he got a name, Esther Finch, who had lived in this town since forever apparently, and was obsessed with being young. She kidnaps these young girls every few years and keeps them in her cupboard to steal their youth.
Before he went off to find Charles, he set the cat free.
“Fuck you.” The cat cursed at him before sprinting off.
When he entered the room, he found that Charles had found Crystal already, to which he rolled his eyes at that and sighed. He said he had found some important information on the witch, side eyeing Crystal who looked guilty. She then said that she would tell them the truth.
She had willingly let the demon possess her, and even bedded with him, this was certainly unacceptable. He went downstairs in rage, he had never known dafter people than this girl, to willingly let someone possess you because you thought it was love? Love did indeed make one blind.
This was brilliant, so brilliant in fact that he needed to get out of his clothes for a bit, it felt too tight in his jacket, so he pulled it off and threw it on a chair.
70 years in hell, and what for? Because he was a sacrifice to some god awful prank? He was perhaps pacing around, but he had a bloody good reason to be pacing around, because that American girl gave up her whole life perhaps to be with some demon, while he was DRAGGED down there unwillingly, how would that make him not pace around?
When Crystal showed up he let it all out, all his emotions, all his pent up anger these past 48 hours. She had a family who was probably searching for her, she had a whole life and here she was not even searching for them while he could have lived a whole life if those stupid boys hadn’t sacrificed him.
No one searched for him when he died, because it was an act of God. To hell with them all, he was in H E double hockey sticks, rotting and loosing hope about escaping. No God could or wanted to save him, he had to break his bones a thousand times over to even see the light of day again. He wasn’t even his original form, this must be his 10.000 form to be exact, he had lost himself on the stairway up. And when he limped back to the only place he knew he found a scared boy on the verge of death. Freezing and wet. He had offered a lamp because it was all he had, and offered to read for him, because it was all he could do.
That’s how he found Charles, on a cold winter night, reading to him until he suffered no longer.
“We didn’t matter, he and I,” He sighed, “So these cases matter. They HAVE to matter!”
Charles went to him, holding his arms, “You’re right.” And looking deeply into his own, his right arm wandered up to his cheek, holding him gently, “But we haven’t solved Crystal’s case either.” He leaned into the touch of the other, “Doesn’t have her memories back, does she?”
Charles must have noticed how he was breathing faster, because he started hugging him.
“I know how hard you must have it, but that doesn't mean that no one else can feel pain either.” His cheek was pecked before Charles pulled away from him.
He had calmed, so he finally listened to what Crystal had to say to him, she was worried if her parents were searching for her. She wanted to help them out, and he had to admit that she persuaded him a tiny bit, along with how Charles was staring him down from the back.
While all this was fine for now, he still needed something confirmed, because if Crystal wanted to help, she would have to forget about her demon for some time, at least until the case had been solved.
They had been planning all night for this moment, and now they stood outside her house while watching her get out and into her car, “Wow, she really does look like a witch.” He said.
A witch who apparently drives badly, not in a cool way.
They went in without Crystal, having her die on this case was not something either of them wanted to happen, plus as Edwin said, it was a punishment for her not telling them about the demon in her head.
Everything inside the house screamed witch, which wasn’t surprising given the person living here, it seemed eerie. The crow immediately saw them, no surprise there, it was the witch’s familiar.
It was Edwin who found a padlocked cabin, where the witch must be hiding the girl. He stood by his side before Edwin asked him to open it for him. A skill he had learned whilst being bored one day, he had to pick the lock to a locker, a stupid prank him and his old friends wanted to do to someone else. Poor soul. He had been a terrible person right until he had finally stood up for their bully victim.
But then he had been bullied relentlessly afterward, died because of it. No one gave a fuck about his death, and maybe it was best that way.
Edwin had volunteered to enter the scary dark cabin, taking off his jacket. Which was very attractive of him, he always loved watching him undress, it was a little crazy delusion he thought about one to many times. He had nearly fainted when Edwin had asked him to undress him of his jacket once before.
His heart did stop when Edwin got pulled quickly into the cabin without any warning. He screamed after him, asking if he was okay. Thankfully he was, he wouldn’t know what to do if anything bad happened to him.
They got the girl too easily, but maybe this was what they needed, a quick rescue and a quick escape.
Edwin rambled on about some sort of snake, whilst all he wanted to do was to get out of here. Which they did, finding Crystal on the ground with the witch towering over her.
“Leave her alone!” He said, pulling out his bat.
He was flung to the side easily when he tried attacking her, same was Edwin, poor boy was thrown into the greenhouse, if he had been alive that must hurt a bunch. Well, getting hit by an iron cane did hurt more than it should have.
While Crystal distracted the witch, he had a chance to get up and do what he did best.
BE RECKLESS.
So he was possessing a witch, something he had never tried or done before. It was a whole experience, it felt as if he was inside her mind, but also had a mind of his own, it was strange, he could hear all her thoughts and it was as if she cursed him, but he knew that she couldn’t since she would curse herself if she did.
He was slowly making his way up the stairs in a witch’s body, all while Edwin was yelling at him how stupid he was. And sure, maybe he was, but this did save their asses did it not?
He was thrown out of her body when she gained control over the body and started slamming her head into the pillar of the house wildly, throwing him off his balance and out of the body.
He rolled down every step of the staircase before getting helped up to stand by Edwin who held a hand behind his back protectively and gentle, so he knew that no one could harm him, bur also to remind him of the love and care the other felt for him.
Esther, the witch, tried to threaten them before slamming the door. She was yapping, which ran through one ear and out the other because all he could think about was all the young girl's faces he saw when he shared her body, the feeling of craving, the feeling of fear.
They closed the case by getting Crystal to mind fuck the poor little girl into not remembering her kidnapping, sure, the police would probably think nothing less of that, they were all pigs.
While walking to the rented room Edwin reminded him that he had possibly alerted the afterlife, which yikes. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was scared that he had gone and done it, after all these years he had finally done something worse than what he did in ’03. So yeah, was he scared, very much so, and he was also scared of how Edwin was reacting.
He was quite a worrisome sometimes. Nothing bad could happen to the two of them as long as they were together.