Chapter Text
Part 4 | The Pregame
Charles
The crux of the case is as follows:
There is a large Victorian estate on the outskirts of London, conveniently located within walking distance of a local college. The estate wasn’t completely abandoned by the living until relatively recently– some time in 2015, to be exact– the reasons for which included it’s reputation as a party house, and the associated deaths within it’s walls that had stacked up over the years as a result. Most deaths were not deemed foul play, instead attributed to alcohol poisoning, accidents while intoxicated, dangerous dares gone too far, some incidences of informal hazing, and so on; the death of one Taylor Young, aged 20, happened to be a prime example.
Taylor had died when, while totally shitfaced, he’d leaned back too far on one of the building’s ancient, wooden terrace railings, and suffered a three story drop when said railing snapped. “Railing snapped, neck snapped, and apparently they sounded pretty similar!” he’d said entirely too casually. After his untimely death, he lingered as a ghost, but not particularly voluntarily. Rather, he seemed to be stuck, and eventually he surmised that it had something to do with the house, and potentially the party he’d died during. The building was vacated after that night, and hasn’t been occupied by the living since. More importantly, it is condemned; set to be demolished in less than a week.
And there lies the problem; Taylor, along with a few other collegiate ghosts have somehow had their souls tied to this house and it’s ever-repeating party, and, as the agency knows well at this point, destruction of the building equals the destruction of it’s associated ghosts.
Both Charles and Edwin had landed on the same theory, simultaneously; someone from the fated party of 2015 is the origin point of the loop, and others who have died similarly traumatic deaths within the same walls are getting tied in. It is an unusual loop– one that allows for it’s hostages to move and think freely with a few exceptions (one being that ghosts like Taylor can leave the house, but every time the clock hits 11:26pm, they respawn back in the house as forced party attendees), but seems too resemblant of loops they’ve seen, or heard of before to call it anything else.
The obvious first step in addressing the loop and testing their theory, is to attend the party.
After all, not all attendees are ghosts tied to the building. Ever since the house had been vacated, it’s drawn more and more attention from wayward ghosts around the neighborhood and especially the nearby campus, and at this point it functions as the closest thing to a nightclub one could get on the ethereal plane. Since the party is, in itself, an ethereal phenomenon, so are it’s refreshments– meaning the nightly spread of liquor is accessible to ghosts, and moreover, affects them the same way corporeal liquor would affect the living. This causes it’s own set of problems, as the combination of alcohol and young adults tends to– but for the most part, because ghosts are a bit harder to kill than the average unhinged college student, those problems only go so far as to be a nuisance to neighbors.
The opportunity to A) attend a party with similar-aged ghosts, and B) actually, miraculously, drink at said party– should be enough to make Charles giddy with excitement.
It should be.
After a recap of the case details and the initial plan, the dynamic of the gang seems utterly backward. Niko nudges a tentatively intrigued Edwin into being eager, Crystal is not eager– simply because she’s realized that she’s doomed to be sober, thus something equivalent to a designated driver, and Charles…
He’s not sure how he feels, but it’s not good. Wary, maybe. He hates everything about the idea of taking on another loop, another haunted house, anything resembling that incident. But, he’d sooner go to hell than let all his friends go into the place without him. Crystal, predictably, showed some concern over the slight resemblance of the case to that of the Devlins, especially upon noticing Charles’ downtrodden, almost spacey demeanor– but it was relatively easy for her to figure out that the unsavory memories were more of an afterthought than anything. Considering the events of the previous night, he knows that she knows that whatever is going on with him is Edwin-related. She has theories and suspicions, but keeps them close to her chest for the time being. The way she looks at him, narrow-eyed and intense, feels like psychological dissection.
Niko is by far the most enthusiastic amongst them, but not for herself; she’s enthusiastic on behalf of Edwin. She’s excited that he gets to go to a party. It’s more than just the prospect of wingwomanhood, to give her due credit; she genuinely wants her best friend to do something fun and stupid that regular young people do– to indulge in some of the experiences he never got the chance to as a living boy. That he couldn’t possibly have the chance to as a living boy, in fact. And that point seems to be what resonates with Edwin the most; the almost unbelievable opportunity he has to– ironically– live as a gay boy, unapologetically, but moreover, actively. It’s more than just not hiding his orientation anymore, it’s the capability to own it. Thus, both him and Niko end up giddily chatting away by Edwin’s desk; from what little Charles tunes in for, he gathers that they’re mostly discussing clothes.
Finding himself in an introspective daze on the couch again, he wills away any thoughts of what Edwin may or may not end up wearing to this thing. He knows at this point that entertaining his imagination with a question like that is a slippery, slippery slope into the realm of indecent fantasy. Getting to that point would render him completely useless, so he deflects, and deflects, and deflects inside his own head. Unluckily for him, most other thoughts on his mind are chock full of dread, anxiety, and guilt, so it’s something like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
The drinking part of the whole party ordeal is getting more and more enticing by the second. Probably a bit too enticing. Or a lot too enticing.
Crystal abruptly falls backwards onto the couch beside him with a bounce upon impact and no care in the world for personal space– a typical, mutual stance, Charles isn’t bothered by how one of her legs is pressed up against his, and one of her arms is outstretched along the back of the couch, behind his head.
“I’m gonna guess you saw this coming, but–”
“If you say “I told you so” right now, I’m gonna bloody lose it–”
“But–” she continues, ignoring him on purpose, restraining herself from pestering him about talking over her for the billionth time, “I have to ask if you’re going to be alright. And I mean actually alright; not the “if I put on a smile and laugh everything off maybe I’ll convince myself I’m fine,” kind of alright.”
“I already told you, the case isn’t that similar to–”
She proceeds to cut him off this time, with a single blunt phrase.
“Not what I’m talking about.”
Charles is caught in her gaze; he can’t seem to look away at the floor, or the ceiling, or the wall, or anything– their eyes are locked. He genuinely can’t tell if it’s a psychic thing, or if she’s just really, really good at being imposing when she wants to be.
He swallows an imaginary lump in his throat. As much as he desperately wants to lie, or at least downplay what he’s actually feeling, it’s insanely hard to do so, he finds, when he’s staring her in the face. So, he’s honest, but as vague as possible.
“Maybe not, but what’s the worst that could happen?”
Horrible choice of words. Crystal openly, incredulously laughs.
“Are you trying to find out?” she’s so baffled by him saying such a thing with complete honesty that she brings her arm down, back into her lap, and leans in towards him, “you do know that no one on the face of the planet has ever said that and not regretted it. Like, seriously, you know that, right?”
“Can you be a little bit quieter, mate,” he grinds out through his teeth, gesturing with his eyes alone towards the other two occupying the room; both of which happen to be glancing in their direction before shrugging it off and returning to their own conversation.
“Ugh, honestly, at this point, who fucking cares. You keep so much shit hidden away in your brain, I think it’d do him some good to overhear something raw from you for once,” Crystal groans, but does abide by his request, lowering her voice to a casual-conversation-at-a-coffee-shop level, “but whatever, that’s not the point.”
She closes her eyes, takes a breath, and puts her hands together as if she’s praying. Her eyes open again, dark and intense as ever, when she continues to talk.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but shit’s gotten really fucking tense between you two, and yeah, you may not be on explicitly “bad” terms or anything, but, in a way, being unsure about what terms you’re on and basing all your actions on guesses and whatever narrative you’ve constructed in your head about what he’s probably thinking, is worse. You are literally driving each other insane.”
“What’s your point,” Charles deadpans, actively trying to keep a straight face, and even more actively trying not to make a scene.
“I don’t know what’s going to go down at this party, but something’s gonna go down if you can’t keep your shit together,” Crystal slows herself down, and despite her profanity, her eyes and her voice get softer, emanating genuine concern, “if one guy shooting his shot with Edwin makes you lash out, then what are you going to do when every other eligible bachelor in a room full of guys does the same thing, or more? I really don’t want you strolling into this without being prepared for that possibility.”
Charles goes quiet, and just breathes. The air is unimportant, but the meditative properties of the repeated motion help keep him grounded. Of course he’s considered the possibility; he sure did on his aimless night walk, somewhere in the midst of his spiraling. But, as expected, he keeps pushing the thought further and further back in his head, hoping it’ll go away, or that he’s making a mountain out of a molehill, or something. He doesn’t appreciate the reminder, but he does appreciate the concern. With a mere handful of hours to spare before the party’s started, he has to come up with at least some sort of coping mechanism in the event his fears manifest– and he needs to come up with it fast.
“I’m not totally unprepared, ‘cause at least I’ve thought about it this time, haven’t I?” he answers, again, not a lie, but not a very conclusive or substantial statement either.
She squints at him.
“That’s… a start,” she mutters, unimpressed.
“I’ll deal,” he lies, “I may not like it, but I’ll deal.”
Maybe it’s not a complete lie; he’ll certainly try to deal with whatever happens in a subdued manner. But, he avoids admitting to the only real plan he has floating around in his head; that being drinking heavily in the hopes that he eventually stops thinking, and by association, worrying. He really isn’t sure of anything at all, and as much as he’d like to live up to Crystal’s hopes, he can’t see himself doing anything to change the situation on any substantial level when he only has a number of hours left in the day. Sue him for not pre-conceiving a contingency plan for this one, very specific situation.
Maybe he’ll try to occupy himself by talking to other ghosts, playing their stupid party games or dancing with whoever. Maybe he’s overthinking things and Edwin will get bored or overwhelmed by the whole thing, allowing them to go home or actually, properly investigate the place. Maybe Taylor will find him, and he’ll finally follow up on his “private room” offer.
The best case scenario, he thinks, is that he blacks out and forgets everything.
Edwin
Edwin cares for his partner more than anyone in the world, and beyond. He feels for his pains, he resents any and all things that cause him to suffer, and he always wants what’s best for him, in the end.
That being said, he figures that whatever the fuck happened back in the park broke him. Broke something in him, anyway.
Again, he really, truly does not want to see Charles suffer, and that night he undeniably was suffering; regarding that, he did feel sympathetic, and his intentions were entirely for the sake of taking him home and piecing him back together. But… that can’t completely negate the fake-out.
Charles has been, on and off, flirtatious and borderline romantic for quite a while now, but he withdraws every time something starts to feel real. He never addresses it out loud, never clarifies his romantic status or the status of their friendship, and at this point Edwin doesn’t care very much for the “why”s. Whatever his reasons are, and despite the short bursts of overwhelming affection he gives off at random, the result is the same: Edwin is left feeling deprived, humiliated, and like he’s never quite good enough.
And then there’s the jealousy thing.
He didn’t know what he was expecting from Charles upon deciding to play along a little bit with a client who happened to be flirtatious and notably attractive, but it wasn’t that. The reason Edwin elected to consider Niko’s suggestion of “putting himself out there,” is because of Charles’ disinterest in claiming him. So, the idea of Charles going off the rails because some other guy was hitting on him, as if his ground was being encroached upon, makes no sense, and moreover, makes the almost-kiss in the park all the more maddening. Audacious. Confusing and audacious.
Counterintuitively, a tiny, shameful part of him did feel some sort of pleasure in seeing Charles get undeniably jealous in a very unplatonic way. If not for the emotional torment, he would’ve found it somewhat romantic. Jealousy is not an emotion one can easily fake, nor would one want to, so to see Charles act upon the feeling was, in a way, refreshing. Something real. And he can’t deny to himself that such a strong reaction makes him feel special, or valuable, or something–
But all of that is outweighed by the context of the situation. Edwin is frustrated. Confused and frustrated.
Ghosts cannot technically try on clothes. One would think that this would make department stores and boutiques something completely obsolete to the dead– and, to most ghosts, they are– but to Niko Sasaki they’re possibly even more enticing than when she was alive.
It’s the ideas that matter. It’s about being able to look through articles of clothing, find what’s most inspiring, see things three-dimensionally represented on mannequins, feel the weight of the fabrics, and so on– all tools that aid in recreating, or, maybe more accurately building an outfit by way of spectral manifestation. The better a piece of clothing is understood, and the more familiar it is to the subject, the easier, and more accurately, the subject can conjure it onto themselves. That’s, of course, a simplification, and despite Niko’s ghostly age being very, very young, the technique is relatively advanced for most ghosts and does not come naturally– at least, not beyond the manifestation of a few outfits well known to a ghost in life.
This is why, for the majority of Edwin’s time on the ethereal plane, he only ever presented in a few different variations of a small number of articles, all of which were known well to him as an Edwardian schoolboy and heir. It was a skill he knew existed, and knew he could practice if he felt like it, but he never really saw the point. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone beyond maintaining an air of respectability and class (his well-known clothes were more than enough, to him, to meet these ends), he could hardly comprehend the concept of “expressing” himself through his outfits, and for the sake of utility, Charles had his disguises. Said disguises, notably, aren’t quite the same thing as spectral manifestation; they’re a form of illusion magic, in Charles’ case attached to a form-shifting magic item (sometimes glasses, sometimes a scarf, sometimes a hat– but always something separate from Charles himself). That’s not to say his disguises do not take skill, or are any less valuable; it’s just like the bag of tricks, difficult to master, almost like wrangling a creature into doing your bidding. But, it is different. So, Edwin’s proper introduction to personalized spectral manifestation and the possibilities associated with it, was through Niko.
Niko, in life, practically never had recurring, set outfits. Even if she used and cycled through familiar clothing, she’d always pair them in unique ways, try out different uses for an item no one else would think to try, add accessories, take away accessories, and so on and so forth. With the exception of, maybe, a few sets of pajamas, her outfits were slightly different every single time. For this reason, Edwin theorizes, replicating, or even creating, clothing and accessories was basically automatic to her. She didn’t have a few sets of basic, familiar outfits like most ghosts, so inevitably, just like in life, her appearance is subject to change at her will. Edwin has taken extensive notes on the phenomenon, and at first that’s all he did– but eventually she managed to pull him away from his notebook and try it for himself. She’s very good at getting him to try new things, and a lot of the time it pays off. Like in this case.
As savvy as Edwin is at using magic, and as experienced as he is at being a supernatural entity, he still struggled at first to actually manifest something new. He pretty quickly got the hang of changing the color or material of various articles of clothing, and ever so slightly altering hems, necklines, and other such details; but, as much as that’s all well and good for his first steps, crossing the line into manifesting the truly unfamiliar has been an ongoing struggle.
He figures that a large part of it has to do with his age– or, rather his displacement in time. It would be one thing if he’d been on Earth, experiencing the progression of time, styles, and trends, for a full hundred-something years. It’s a completely different ordeal when one considers how he’d lived on Earth up until 1916, disappeared into the abyss for 73 years, and returned to Earth with the year somehow, jarringly, being 1989. For all intensive purposes, he may as well have time traveled.
Without the opportunity to gradually experience change, and to familiarize himself with things as they happened, the disconnect between himself and the world around him felt like a gaping chasm. It still often does. He doesn’t understand how many, many things got from point A to point B, only that, somehow, they had. And up until recently, he’d more or less given up on trying to understand, much less to adapt or assimilate. This applies to his appearance as much as anything else.
A lot of things have been changing recently. Perhaps, that climate of change, and all the factors involved, have made for an environment where embracing new things, incorporating them with the old, exploring himself and expressing himself– are in the realm of possibility. Niko happens to be something of a guide into the unknown. A very enthusiastic guide, at that.
With a handful of hours until the party, the number one priority, in Niko’s opinion, was to go “shopping”. This would’ve been her priority regardless of the circumstances, but the circumstances make it all the more urgent. That’s what they’d been talking about while Charles and Crystal had their strange interaction on the couch; mostly, primarily, where to go to scope out ideas. Edwin had assumed a department store would be best, due to the efficiency of having everything in one place and not having to jump from store to store with so little time on their hands. That was the wrong answer. Long story short, they’d ended up at a series of boutiques and shoppes, as predicted, taking up the bulk of their time, but making significant progress in their overall mission.
At one of the boutiques (Edwin fails to remember the name, as they all started blurring together after around the third location), Edwin found himself stuck staring at a wall of cubbies, each full of folded trousers, organized by size, fit, and color. There are several reasons why it stupefied him. For one, he’s still not used to the concept of mass production. He probably never entirely will be, mostly for good reason– the sheer scale of the factories and labor necessary to make so many units of product is grotesque. He had all his trousers custom-tailored starting from the time he started his schooling, and though this was in-part an upper class privilege, he knew fairly well that the lower classes couldn’t afford to buy mass produced wares in bulk. Factories, and therefore mass production, existed, sure, but mass consumption, largely, did not.
Secondly, there was the baffling assortment of fits and styles. It’s not that he wasn’t used to the presence of different fits and styles of trousers, among other types of clothing– of course there was variety in fashions a hundred years ago, as there is in the present. But, a limited assortment was available to him in life, thanks to the firm expectations of his parents, society, school, and church, and furthermore, many of these new fits and styles are wholly unusual to him. He’s seen the progression of such things from 1989 to the present, and in that time he’s seen huge shifts in trends, but always from an outsider’s perspective. To consider applying various modern fashions to himself is new, and almost scary.
When he’d adjusted the fit of his trousers the previous day, he did so subtly. If someone from his time were to see him in the adjusted article, they likely wouldn’t notice anything unusual, beyond a mild tightness to them. On the far right side of the wall, the fits being displayed are not, by any definition, subtle. The picture above the section portraying them as they’d be on a real young man, leaves little to the imagination.
“Skinny,” Niko says, cryptically, appearing seemingly out of nowhere (now that she’s incorporeal, that’s a literal possibility).
“Pardon?”
“The fit of those pants is ‘skinny’. Maybe even ‘super skinny’. It’s a staple in both women’s and men’s fashion; not as much as in, like, the 2000s and 2010s, but still,” she clarifies, clasping her hands behind her back and leaning in to look at him closer, clearly with an agenda, “aaand definitely a staple for pretty twinks with long legs. Like someone I know…”
The term “twink” has been applied to him so many times now that it no longer takes any time to comprehend.
“No,” he states firmly, hands out in front of him in an incredulous halting gesture, oddly reminiscent of one of Jenny’s go-to expressions; but unlike her, his face quickly starts to flush pink, and his pitch wavers with every subsequent word, “absolutely not. I– I mean, I do have a reputation, you know– I cannot be dressing in something akin to a swimming costume to go to a formal event–”
“Oh, Edwin…” Niko looks at him with the biggest, most pitying eyes in the world, “you don’t think people dress formally for house parties, do you?”
He shuts his mouth hard, almost audibly, turning his lips into a thin, straight line. His hands fall to his sides. He stares back at her like a wounded prey animal and accepts that he is absolutely, completely in over his head.
“For the sake of your outfit, but also for the sake of your sanity– I need you to know that people are going to be wearing a lot less than you were probably expecting,” she puts both her hands on his shoulders, and locks their eyes, “the demographic is horny college students. Remember how Taylor tried to hook up with you within the first half-hour of knowing you? That’s what you’re dressing for.”
She squeezes his shoulders on the last few words, then takes it a step further and holds his face in her hands.
“And it’s gonna be okay. We can do this. Do you trust me?”
“I–” Edwin trails off, looking somewhat shell shocked, which isn’t helped by her dramatics, “I… suppose…”
Niko gives him a big, sparkly smile, and to her credit, he does feel a little bit more okay. And, maybe nonsensically, he slowly starts to relax and reason when considering potential unfamiliar styles of dress. Perhaps he found himself looking at that section of trousers not entirely out of stupefaction; as scandalous as it feels to admit, he does like how something as sturdy and adaptable as denim can still outline the litheness of one’s form– and Niko wasn’t wrong, he does have the proportions to maximize that potential. Part of him compromises with himself by comparing it to the artistic appeal of a ballerino. Another part of him– a more exasperated part– wants him to accept that, as a ghost who is technically 124 years old, he’s allowed to want to look attractive in an adult sense, and moreover, want the (as Niko had put it) explicit attention of men.
As it happens, those parts of himself conflicting with one another would be the driving force of the two’s experimentation over the next few hours. Trying to find an adequate balance between (as Niko puts it) ‘sexy’, and elegant. “Just because I am open to less modest apparel, by certain standards, does not mean I want to present myself as a gigolo,” he’d said at one point, while she held up what he’d come to learn is a ‘crop top’. She pouted (holding back giggles at the silliness of the word “gigolo”) but understood that showing that much skin probably was a bit too far for him at such an early point in his exploration– both of clothing and his identity.
Eventually they settled.
When they reach the end of their stay at the last boutique of the day, Edwin has manifested, with great care, a slim-fit, floral dress shirt, colored in pastels; not too dissimilar to the shirts he’s used to in design, but simpler and, obviously, more floral. He has it buttoned to the top, but Niko assures him that, if he felt like it later on, unfastening one or two buttons would be perfectly acceptable, and even fashionable. He could roll up the sleeves in a warmer, or more casual setting, or he could even untuck it, if he wanted to– but something innate tells him that doing such a thing would look sloppy, and he is not one to underdress. The paired trousers are a cream beige, skinny, but not suffocating. He’s surprised by how quickly he adjusts to them.
Niko decides to match; a white shirt with short sleeves falling off the shoulders, and a long, flowy floral pastel skirt. The white of her hair, which she has in two loose braids tied off with pink ribbon, blends in with the overall color scheme harmoniously, and she’s very pleased by that fact.
Back in Niko’s room, while deciding on some final touches, to Edwin’s initial horror, she combs a hand through his hair, dislodging it from it’s perfect styled state and letting it fall loose on his forehead– the most it can at such a short length. He said he’d trust her, and he does, so as much as it takes him off guard, he doesn’t try and fix it. The sun has gone down, and about an hour remains before they’re set to regroup at the office. Edwin finds himself pacing– both out of anxiety and to get a feel for what he’s wearing. Niko sits on her bed, watching him go back and forth, chatting idly.
“If Taylor asks you to get a room again, do you think you’ll do it?”
Edwin’s pacing stops all at once. He slowly, cautiously turns to look at her.
“Where is this coming from all of a sudden?” he deflects with a half-hearted, nervous laugh.
“Hm, well I was wondering…” she starts, ominously, and Edwin braces himself, “I guess I was wondering if you’d go all the way, if a boy was hot enough, charming enough, and all that. You don’t have to answer that, but it might be good to know your limits and what to prepare for ahead of time, you know?”
He doesn’t really want to answer her, but she has a fair point. He’s never one to downplay the importance of being thoroughly prepared; not in any situation. After a decently long pause, he exhales, giving into the idea of opening up to her on such a sensitive topic. Sitting beside her on the bed, he looks into his lap, face matching the pastel pinks on his shirt.
“I’m not too sure, to be frank,” he softly replies, hands inconspicuously fidgeting, “I would say no, since I do not plan on pursuing strangers’ advances to that extent, but… I cannot say there is no chance.”
“Do you think you’re prepared for something like that?” Niko asks, innocently, tucking her hands in her lap and scooting towards him close enough that their legs touch.
As sensitive as her question is, and the whole subject is, the way she sits, the way she speaks, the way she tries her hardest to phrase her thoughts in a less-blunt way than she’s prone to– it all communicates to him that she’s asking not out of a selfish desire for gossip or entertainment, but because she cares about him.
It’s far too easy for someone like Edwin– historically repressed, emotionally stunted, prone to self-isolation, conditioned by puritanical authorities– to avoid addressing important questions if they’re too personal, too uncomfortable, too unseemly. Through the combination of his upbringing and decades of perceived punishment in Hell, shame had long since become less of a feeling for Edwin, and more of a personality trait. A fact of his existence. Niko, a proponent of shamelessness, challenges this in a way that no one else is allowed to, by Edwin’s rules. She may not be experienced, on a personal level, in the subjects she tends to bring up, but the essential point in bringing them up at all is more than anything to coax him into thinking about them, and to do so in a non-judgmental space where thinking about them with an open mind and a lack of shame is a possibility.
Edwin has practically never spoken to anyone about the “sex” part of “sexuality”. He’s hardly spoken to anyone in any real depth about his sexuality at all, for starters, but it’s safe to say that he’s at least out of the closet at this point, and capable of passively expressing where his preferences lie. Romanticism is something he’s become at least somewhat confident in identifying within himself, and accepting; especially in regards to Charles, as something about being in love with him feels so purely right that, even for someone as riddled with shame and Catholic guilt as himself, he finds it difficult to believe it possible for his feelings to be truly wrong, or at least anything less than authentic.
Sexuality, physicality, lust, however one wants to refer to it– is another situation entirely. It’s simultaneously confoundingly complex and brutally simple. There’s something about it that makes his otherwise intangible feelings for other men feel disturbingly real and unavoidable. That something, he supposes, being the fact that it is, literally, physical in sensation. He can’t control or completely avoid the formation of romantic feelings, sure, but since they exist mostly in the realm of the psychological, it’s easier to rationalize, excuse, or repress them than the overtly physical.
Using Charles as an example; Edwin’s not sure how long he’s been in love with him, but he can pretty confidently estimate that it’s been multiple decades. How that’s possible without Edwin ever fully realizing– or, maybe, accepting– that what he felt for his partner was romantic love, is because feelings are, by nature, up to one’s own interpretation. He could tell himself that the overwhelming, sometimes flustering amount of affection between them was simply a product of circumstance; they only had each other, after all, and had seen each other, and cared for each other, at such low, lonely points in their existences, it only made sense they’d be closer than the average “best mates”.
He could tell himself that since he is so inexperienced with the concept of friendship, and ignorant to how it’s supposed to feel, his feelings could very well be those associated with close friendship– it’s not like he had anything or anyone telling him otherwise. Charles never had a problem with their inexplicable closeness, and if anything has always been more affectionate than himself, so why question it? There’s a million reasons– a million excuses he gave himself over the span of decades, and he could do so because feelings and their meanings are subjective, malleable, only physical to a minor, usually manageable degree (at least, manageable for someone like himself, who’s been extensively conditioned to suppress any physical manifestations of his emotions).
So long as everything stayed the same, Edwin’s dynamic with his partner stayed the same, the way they took on cases stayed the same, their nearly-non-existent circle of peers stayed the same– he could mostly ignore, and successfully, deeply repress, the solely physical aspects of his orientation. But, even if it took decades, things inevitably could not stay the same forever, and when that time came, it became very, very evident to him just how painfully undeniable and unavoidable sexual attraction, and worse, sexual urges, are when they’re properly triggered and– thanks in no small part to the Cat King– waved teasingly, almost irresistibly in his face. Never in his life had he understood Eve’s plight in the garden of Eden better.
A particularly relevant aspect of the Cat King’s interference with his repression is how starkly separate the initiation of his sexual feelings was from that of the romantic. It was not difficult to determine that he felt nothing romantic for the Cat King– really, his feelings were of tolerance, at best– but the sexual attraction was, quite literally, tangible. Utterly and completely separate, utterly and completely physical, uncontrolled by logic or emotion. He’s not sure whether he resents or is grateful to him for it, but either way, he was forced to realize he could have sexual wants that don’t align with romance. That, so it seems, he will have those wants, whether he wants to want to or not.
Coming all the way back around to the simple reason for why sex is so incredibly difficult for Edwin to speak of, he can sum it up in one single unutterable word: sodomy.
In the modern era, sex is ever-present in media, in the lifestyles of young people, in advertisements and vernacular and everything else one can think of; it’s still baffling to him to hear how casually it’s referred to in everyday life. The caveat is that the normalized sex being referred to is almost strictly heterosexual in nature. He doesn’t get the privilege of a world desensitized to his desires. Of course, it’s a far better world to be in than the one he was born and raised in, but in the century since then, the stigma hasn’t ceased to exist– it’s there, and it’s apparent whenever anyone so much as tries to refer to gay sex out loud. It’s apparent in the way that anyone– including himself– hesitates, if not completely avoids, to say the mere term “gay sex”. God forbid anything gets more specific than that. There’s still the lingering presence of the label of sodomite. He may not be at risk of arrest, or worse, because of it anymore, but it’s still there, and still echoes in the back of his head constantly. Sodomite. Sodomite. Sodomite.
Niko had claimed that his indecent urges are the result of needs.
That was a first.
He’d thought about it plenty on and off ever since she’d said it. It sounded absurd, initially, but he also found it hard to completely discount her when she’d said it so casually, so without hesitation. She knows, better than anyone else he knows, what he fantasizes about, and what he wants to do (or, rather, be done to him) not because he’s told her, but because of what she, bizarrely, reads (he doesn’t have time to even begin to unpack the confusion he has around that phenomenon). So, he can’t exactly brush her off by telling himself she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. He still doesn’t know if he believes her entirely, but since he’s been introduced to the concept, it hasn’t left his head– because what if it really is that simple?
Edwin considers her question for what feels like far too long; but she never interrupts his thinking, or makes him feel in any way like he needs to hurry to come to a conclusion. Eventually, still avoiding eye contact, back far too rigid for someone sitting on a mattress, he gives an answer.
“...In theory,” his voice is soft, but stable, “physically, yes, I believe so– but emotionally… it’s difficult to say.”
“Mm… because it’d be your first time, or because of your feelings for Charles?”
“Both,” he answers, surprisingly quick and certain, “those two reasons are not mutually exclusive.”
“You’d rather your first time be with him, huh,” she asks, mostly rhetorical, somewhere between sad and touched. Her shoulders sink a little.
He nods slowly, cautiously.
“But, I am not so sure that is an option, or if it will be any time soon, so…” Edwin shrugs, weakly, “it is as if I must choose between my dignity and my loyalty.”
Niko pauses, letting the situation process. She stares blankly into her lap, deep in thought, and though Edwin knows she’d never say anything to scare him or hurt him, the suspense still eats at him as the seconds tick by. When she finally looks up again, she does so unhurried; careful, almost. She manages to get their eyes to meet; there’s no way she could look him in the eyes like this and be anything less than honest.
“In my opinion… if you love him, and it turns out that he loves you the same way, then the first time you get physical with one another, it’d be your first time making love– whether you’ve had sex with anyone else before that or not. It’d still be a ‘first time’, and a really, really special one too.”
It’s a sappy idea. Cliché, even. But as it sinks in, it makes more and more sense. Sure, the idea of “making love” is adolescent and melodramatic, but he can’t deny that it’s fitting, especially as to separate meaningful sensuality from the superficial. She’s right; no matter the history– no matter the purity that either of them have, the first time being intimate with the love of his life would have to be monumental, unmatched, special. Of course he’d prefer to give all of his firsts to Charles, but that isn’t a need so much as a fantasy. In this case, a fantasy reliant on purity having more value than, perhaps, it really does.
No one else could possibly make him feel the way he would underneath Charles. So, it really would be a kind of first.
“...Thank you, Niko,” Edwin’s lips upturn ever so slightly, into a small, bashful, grateful smile, “thinking of it that way makes me feel… a tad bit less anxious.”
Edwin is certainly still uncertain about what’s going to happen in the next few hours. He’s certainly still anxious. But what she’s managed to do is help chip away at a century’s worth of shame just enough that he can manage the anxiety. He even starts to believe that he can enjoy himself– after all, responding to Taylor’s flirtations was easy enough, and did feel natural, in a way– he can handle talking to boys who think he’s attractive, and he absolutely knows he can like it. It’s really not that serious, is it?
“I’m glad– It’s a party, you shouldn’t have to be anxious,” she beams, taking one of his hands in her own, then all at once, standing up in front of him, “especially when you look so handsome.”
It must be time to leave.
He allows her to help pull him up off the bed. As is typical, when they approach Niko’s bedroom mirror, he offers his arm to her, and she takes it. After one more shared look of reassurance, Edwin steps forward, and they’re off.