Chapter Text
Everything changed when Charles turned sixteen.
Well, not everything. Still the same old school full of posh wankers, the same old teachers and their judgemental stares, even though Charles worked twice as hard as his peers and had the marks to show for it. A couple of new faces in his year, but he still spent breaks with the same lads from the cricket team, still hung out with the girls from St. Bernadette’s, still sneaked out to shows whenever he had the chance. Still went home over the hols to the sight of his mum’s strained smile, his dad’s occasional outburst.
So it was more like nothing changed, really, except it did. Charles knew it did – could sense it like a winter-snap come early, rippling like water at the corner of his eye. All his life, he’d had to be good at knowing when he was being watched, and now that sense was pinging, near-constant.
All told, it should have been unsettling at the least, well creepy at the worst, like he was in a bloody horror movie. Except it… wasn’t. A bit mental to wrap his head around, yeah, but almost comforting at the end of it. Like he had a friend always keeping him company, an invisible shield when his mates’ jokes gained a nasty edge, the mirage of a comforting hand on his shoulder when he needed it most. And Charles might be a bit old for imaginary friends, but…
But.
There’d been this house party, and a circle of them had gathered for a game of spin-the-bottle. Only, when it’d been Charles’ turn, the bottle had stopped abruptly on – nothing. Even as the girls on either side had been arguing over whose kiss it was, Charles had felt that familiar coolness brush over his lips, even though all the windows were shut and the party had been overheated a minute before. Didn’t even feel much like a chilly breeze, did it? Just a pair of cold lips that needed some proper warming up.
Charles had spent the rest of the game blushing to the tips of his ears and useless.
‘S just… nice, innit? Having someone fancy him like that. Charles was more the flirt first, ask questions later type, which was fine, he loved flirting, but. He was always the pursuer, never the pursued. So having someone be going for him like that, all self-confident moves? Well, Charles couldn’t help but like it, could he?
Couldn’t help but be half in love with his sweetheart of a ghost already.
Charles liked a good detective story, had always kept an open mind, and he wasn’t completely thick, no matter what his dad liked to say. It was obvious he was being haunted – except not by any of those ghosts you saw in the movies. Not some poltergeist talking through the TV, or creepy twins at the end of the corridor, and definitely not someone Charles would be calling the Ghostbusters on. Just someone he could go home to when his single room got too quiet, someone he could talk to and still pretend it was to himself, someone he could keep all to himself.
Just for Charles.
Ever so slowly, things started changing. Charles spent more time in the library, never mind how his mates teased him, skimming through everything even slightly paranormal. Just in case. Sometimes he’d get to his room and his desk would be way neater than he’d left it; sometimes it’d be just the same, except that some old trinket had been pulled out from who-knows-where. There were flowers tucked in a couple of his books now, pressed flat and pretty, and Charles put them carefully back the few times they fell out, before he learnt how to hold the books up to prevent it. Once, when he was late for morning classes and stumbled out of his room with his tie all askew, he felt that cool brush like fingers at his throat, and no teacher gave him trouble for his appearance.
The day wasn’t anything special, except for that. Except that, at the end of it, Charles turned to the perpetual cold spot in his room and said, “Realise I never properly introduced myself, did I? My name’s Charlie – well, Charles, really. What’s yours?” And he pushed over the old notebook and pen he’d found in some or other attic, a peace offering and a gauntlet thrown all at once.
The air went noticeably stiller, as if something unseen was trying very hard not to move.
Charles sighed. Opened the notebook to the first page and tapped it. “Look, mate, I know you’re there, no use pretending now. Promise I don’t bite.” He flashed the corner his best grin.
Another tick of nothing. Doubt started to rise in Charles’ throat, acrid and unstoppable. What if he really had imagined it, all along? What if he finally turned around, only to find the space behind him empty, the way it’d always been?
And then – a ripple in the air. The pen moved.
Charles whooped, then ducked in, keen to see what was being written. That now-familiar cool breeze shuddered across his face before speedily retreating. “Sorry, sorry!” Charles said, laughing a little. “Didn’t mean to knock you away, did I? Go on, I want to know your name! Please?”
A breathless second of hesitation, and then the pen was lowering to the notebook again. Charles waited properly, even though he was near vibrating out of his seat, for the pen to be placed down before he peeked at the page. His ghost’s handwriting was mint, all swooping lines and elegant curls, pretty as anything. It took Charles a bit of effort to decipher the cursive into – “Edwin,” he said slowly, the sound unfurling in his mouth.
Unmistakeably a boy’s name, and Charles didn’t know why he was surprised, except that he’d only ever fancied girls before, and also he had some vague notion that boys weren’t much for flowers. Then again, Charles liked the flowers plenty, so fair cop. And his books on ghosts did say they were drawn to the place they died in, and there was no reason for a girl ghost to be hanging around St. Hilarion’s, then. No reason Charles could stomach, in any case.
Actually, he didn’t like to think why a boy ghost would be hanging around here, either.
As for fancying boys, it wasn’t like he’d ever let himself properly look, was it? The way his dad shouted slurs at the telly, there was no telling what he’d do if his own son turned out to be queer. Charles had noticed some dishy blokes in his time, had felt the desperate draw of what he’d thought was friendship to some of them, and had left it at that.
But his ghost… Edwin was dead already and invisible to boot, which meant none of those rules applied to him, now did they?
He’d been quiet way too long. “Edwin,” he said again, letting the name settle on his tongue sweet as syrup. “That’s a brills name. Pleased to finally meet you, mate!”
After that, there was little appeal to be found anywhere except his room. Not in the classes that stretched on forever, or the bland meals, or kicking around a ball while his mates either bragged or whined about their girlfriends. They ragged on Charles for his distraction, of course; his teachers complained about his focus, threatened him with discipline; his dad followed through. Charles couldn’t find it in himself to care, not when he had his room warm with Edwin’s cold presence, Edwin’s scrawled notes full of sarky comments and clever questions and the games they played (he was a bloody wonder at Cluedo), Edwin’s company that was easy and kind and unconditional. Charles always did his best to answer his loads of questions properly, and Edwin never complained if his stories got a bit long or veered off the point. Sometimes Charles would find himself halfway through an explanation, only to realise it’d been about schoolwork all along, and that he’d managed to talk himself into getting a concept he’d been struggling with before. His Edwin could be a tricksy bastard like that. Charles liked it more than he should, probably, although not as much as his marks did. No idea what his teachers were complaining for, then.
He was also happier than he’d maybe ever been, not that anyone seemed to care about that. Sure, there were things he wanted and couldn’t have – he wanted to go out into town with Edwin, wanted to take him to a show and offer him Charles’ jacket to wear and hold his hand, wanted to show him off to the whole world. He wanted, with embarrassing intensity, to know what Edwin looked like. To know exactly where he was at all times, so that Charles could just reach over and touch him and –
They hadn’t talked about the kiss. Charles was too nervous to bring it up, even though he would be up for a repeat performance – a proper snog, even – literally any time. What if Edwin hadn’t liked it, though? What if he’d tried it out once, out of the same curiosity he approached the rest of the world with, and decided Charles wasn’t the one he wanted to kiss? Better not to ask, then. Besides, Edwin would’ve brought it up by now if he wanted another try. If he even remembered the first time.
Maybe it would’ve gone on like that forever – or at least until Charles left St. Hilarion’s and had no reason to come back, or Edwin moved on to someone better. Maybe he would’ve grown old with Edwin at his side. Maybe he would’ve spent his days reminiscing about those glorious days, his notebooks filled with Edwin’s elegant handwriting, his ears filled with static from the telly and radio that could nearly be a voice calling to him, his heart filled with Edwin, Edwin, Edwin.
Maybe.
Except that it turned out, without him around to keep an eye on the cricket team’s behaviour, they’d set their eyes on a new target. Aysar was new to school, yeah, but he seemed perfectly alright every time Charles’d greeted him in passing. But that wasn’t why the lads were beating on him, was it? No, instead it all came down to where he’d been born. Where his parents had been born.
Only a border away from where Charles’ mum had been born, and what difference did it all make, really?
Turned out, the team couldn’t agree more.
Afterwards, huddled in the attic, Charles was the coldest he’d ever been. (The coldest he’ll ever be.) For now, the only aim was making it through the night, but what then? He still had to go to school with these wankers, had to play cricket with them, had to make sure they never hurt Aysar or anyone else. It wasn’t like he’d be able to change schools, not if his dad had any say in it, which he always did. His mum might try to convince him, but it was too risky. Charles didn’t want to cause her any more pain. He could survive another few years here.
Couldn’t he?
Well, so what if he didn’t? Except for his mum, would anyone really miss him?
Light, cutting through the murky depths. A lantern. An angel holding it out, all softly blurred edges and the gentlest of smiles. An angel in the shape of a boy.
“What do you want?” Charles asked, too-sharp. God knows he didn’t deserve an angel coming for him.
“You can see me?” the boy asked, voice full of something like wonder, as if he wasn’t the single brightest thing in existence. “I… I thought perhaps this lantern would help. You can simply extinguish it if any of those boys come up here.”
“You saw them?” Another witness for Charles getting chased around by his old mates. Bloody brills.
The boy’s voice stayed gentle, soft as down. Charles could nearly imagine it wrapping around him, warming him more than the thin wool blanket ever could. “I did. I went to school here a long time ago. We had bullies too.” He knelt down in front of Charles, elegant as anything. “Rest assured, I shan’t hurt you.”
Charles had to blink away tears at that even as he unravelled a bit of his cocoon, reaching out for the lantern. It rattled in time with his shivers. “Cheers, mate. I’m freezing. Never been this cold in my life.” He shot the boy a glance, then patted the spot on the ground next to him. “Come over here, yeah? No good, you bringing a lantern and not getting to warm yourself with it too.”
The boy blinked, but complied, folding down like he’d only ever sat properly in chairs, hands folded in his lap and everything. Charles nudged the lantern to sit halfway between them.
“My name’s Charles,” he said, belatedly. “What’s yours, then?”
Surprise flickered over the boy’s face like candlelight. “Oh! I thought – but of course not. My apologies for not introducing myself before. My name is Edwin. Edwin Payne.”
Never mind butterflies in his stomach, they’d all of them migrated north to his ears. Charles could barely hear himself over the rush in his ears as he said, “Hang on a tick, you’re Edwin? Fuck off, no you’re not!”
Because Edwin was a ghost, and Charles couldn’t see him. (Why would he now, when he never had before?) Because Charles had wanted so desperately to know what Edwin looked like, but he never wanted to start expecting something. Because, for all that, there was no way in hell that the most beautiful boy he’d ever clapped eyes on just started fancying Charles out of nowhere.
Maybe there were more ghosts at St. Hilarion’s than he knew. Maybe they thought it’d be a laugh, having Charles on, making him think he had any sort of chance with this boy.
This boy, who was not laughing, but staring down at his lap, where his fists were pressed knuckle-to-knuckle. The threat of them turned only inward. “Ah,” he said quietly. “I see. I – I am sorry that –”
Charles sat up straight. “Wait, you’re being for reals?” The interruption probably made him sound like a git, but he couldn’t take another moment of the boy’s pain, thick in his voice. Edwin’s pain, maybe, and Charles’d been the one to put it there. “You’re really my Edwin?”
“Yes,” Edwin said immediately, then cleared his throat and stared straight ahead. “That is to say, I am the Edwin you have been sharing correspondence with, yes.”
“Oh,” said Charles, and then, feeling his grin spread wide enough to hurt, “Oh, that’s brills, mate!”
“It is?”
“Yeah, always wanted to talk to you properly, didn’t I? Bit sad it had to happen like this, innit, but I’m just… really, really chuffed that I finally get to see you.”
Edwin’s face creased in something like concern, but he only said, “I am always glad to accompany you, Charles.”
And, oh, wasn’t that something? Hearing his own name with the lilt of Edwin’s posh accent, lingering in Edwin’s mouth long enough to dissolve like sugar on the tongue. What would it taste like, direct from Edwin’s lips? What would Edwin do? Gasp? Or say Charles’ name again?
Charles stayed where he was, leaned back against the wall. He’d always been a coward at heart.
The rest of the night blurred past, a tinge of the delirium of being knackered but unwilling to go to sleep, staying up long into the midnight hours just to talk. How could Charles sleep, when even blinking felt like missing some fundamental bit of Edwin that he’d never get back? They found ways to pass the time: Charles told him a bit about what happened to him and why; Edwin spoke about his own time at St. Hilarion’s, ages ago. It wasn’t all that different to what they’d spent the last couple months’ worth of evenings doing, except –
Except that now they were both of them talking and listening; no more waiting for Edwin to scribble his part of the conversation, then squinting to decipher the words. Now Charles got to see what Edwin looked like when he got carried away with a really good yarn, how animated his face got, his gestures delivered with the same flourishes as his handwriting. A bit mesmerising, really. Then again, not like any part of him wasn’t, was it?
There were the absolutely mint ghost powers Edwin could finally show off, walking through walls and waving his hand through solid objects and so on. But all of it paled in comparison to his smile – his laugh – when Charles cracked what was a pretty weak joke, all told. A bit hazily, Charles thought, I want to spend the rest of my life making him laugh.
They’d shifted around a bit, the lantern still keeping them in its constant glow, and Edwin was telling him about ghosts not being able to feel the things they touched.
He looked way too sweet, sat there with his knees tucked in all proper-like, orange lantern-light on one side of his face and the greenish tint from the window on the other, smiling tentatively at Charles throughout. Before Charles could blink, words were tripping off his tongue. “It’s stupid, but… I think I’d miss kissing.” Bloody hell, he’d not meant to say that. He could still rescue it, though, couldn’t he? “Do you miss kissing?”
Bollocks. Maybe if he whacked his head against the wall a couple times, Edwin would forget that he asked that?
Or maybe he was overreacting. Maybe that first kisser hadn’t even been Edwin at all, and nevermind that just the thought made him feel ill. Or – Edwin had said ghosts couldn’t feel, yeah? Maybe it’d been such an underwhelming experience that Edwin’d already forgot all about it?
Charles chanced a glance over at Edwin. This turned out to be an enormous mistake, because Edwin was blushing, so now Charles was blushing. Not to mention twice as useless as during the spin-the-bottle game, since this time he had Edwin sat right next to him, looking like that.
“My experience is admittedly limited,” Edwin said, gazing anywhere but at him. “But yes, I suppose I understand the appeal now.”
“Yeah?” Charles breathed, tilting closer. It turned out there wasn’t that much space between them, even though Charles wasn’t sure he could stay upright for all of it. Well, falling into Edwin’s lap wouldn’t exactly be a hardship, now would it? “D’you wanna get a bit more experience, then?” He wasn’t thinking about the lucky few that formed part of Edwin’s ‘limited’ experience. He wasn’t thinking about kissing the memory of them right out of Edwin’s mouth. He wasn’t.
“It is kind of you to offer.” Was Charles seeing things, or were Edwin’s cheeks tinted even pinker? It was a pretty look on him. “But you should rather conserve your energy, Charles. You have been through quite the ordeal today.” Gentle though it was, it was still a rejection, even as Edwin’s fingers white-knuckled his knees, as his eyes stayed caught on Charles’ lips only.
“Right,” Charles said, on something that was half-laugh, half-cough, and a painful one at that. He used it as an excuse to turn away from Edwin. Easier for both of them, innit?
A blink, and they’d shifted again, close to where they’d started out. Another blink, and Charles’ head was resting on Edwin’s shoulder. He’d been saying something – no, reading out loud, his voice low and soothing, only stuttering the slightest bit at the interruption. Charles must’ve fell against him. Didn’t much mind, not when he was starting to burn up, and knew Edwin would be lovely and cool. Except he wasn’t. For the first time Charles could remember, Edwin’s presence felt lukewarm instead of freezing. It was a bit uncomfortable, really, with how hot the attic had suddenly got, but Charles wasn’t moving until Edwin told him to.
With that in mind, it was only the most natural thing to nuzzle his face further into Edwin’s shoulder and close his eyes, letting Edwin’s sweet voice sweep him under like the only safe tide there was.
Sunrise.
There were so many clues, in the end. Seeing a ghost for the first time. The wracking cough that had taken up residence in his lungs. Feeling so cold it looped right back to warmth, until he was burning up in a draughty old attic with only a threadbare blanket to protect him. Craving the chill of Edwin’s presence, and even that not proving enough. How he’d barely had the energy to hold his eyes open, last he remembered, and now he was stood at the window, feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
More than enough clues to put it together, really, but somehow it still took the sight of his own body, still and lifeless and weighing Edwin down, for the cold shock of realisation to sink in. Not that cold, after all. Nothing much was, now. Except for his corpse lying in the corner.
“Not enjoying this one?” Edwin asked around a chuckle, reaching over with one hand to gently adjust the corpse’s blanket. “Carrados, the Blind Detective was just becoming quite popular in my day.” Charles must’ve done something then – shifted in place or made a noise or turned towards him, he wasn’t sure – because Edwin froze like he’d seen something from the corner of his eyes. His gaze shifted so easily from the dying boy to the dead boy, like he’d known from the start. He probably had, at that. Edwin confirmed it with a quiet, “When you could see me, I knew it was too late. But I simply… I could not bear to scare you.”
He looked gutted. Charles wanted to give him the world, but was forced to settle on, “Well, I’m glad you didn’t say anything. Like, I knew about ghosts and the lot already, but it’s different to feel it, innit? Not like I imagined. Feels okay, doesn’t it?”
“I… I sincerely wish we could’ve been friends for longer, Charles,” Edwin said, a bit formal, like he’d rehearsed the words. But under that, his voice was wobbling something terrible, cracking like splintering ice beneath careless feet. “But Death will come for you now. You must go with her when she arrives.”
He spun around, easy as that, turning his back on the best friendship Charles had ever had like it was nothing.
“Wait!” Charles said, without any plan, just knowing he wasn’t ready to lose Edwin. “Wait, I’m not… I don’t want to go somewhere else. Not without you.” Bloody hell, but that sounded way too desperate. What if all of this was just Edwin trying to get rid of him in the nicest way he could? “I’m – I can help out, I can be useful. Please don’t send me away, Edwin.”
Edwin finally turned back. Even with this unbridgeable distance between them, Charles could tell his eyes were too shiny for anything except tears. “Charles – you do not understand. If you come with me, you will always be running from her.” He glanced away. “You could have your pick of companions, you know. Don’t let sentiment blind you to my flaws.”
“What flaws exactly?” Charles demanded, because this was all sounding like a load of tosh. As if he’d just go out and pick a random ghost to replace Edwin! “What, that you nick my nice pens? Yeah, dunno how I’m going to survive that one now that I don’t have to go to school any more, mate.”
“I do not – Charles, be serious! I am not good with other people!”
“You seem aces to me. Y’know, the person you’ve been spending the last couple of months with every single day? Reckon I’m the authority on that, if nothing else. You’re my best friend, Edwin, and that’ll never change.”
Edwin was wavering, Charles was dead cert. Maybe he’d really let him… Abruptly, Edwin said, “When I met you – I had just come back to this school after escaping Hell. And I followed you before you were aware of me, for far longer than you know of, which is an unforgivable breach of your privacy. I have done more than enough. So when the blue light comes, you stay” – his hands extended towards Charles – “and I go.” His hands folded on his chest, cold and forbidding, the way you’d arrange a corpse.
Again, he turned. Again, Charles interrupted before he could take a single step away. “Not too sure about that one, mate. I knew you were around for a good long while, didn’t I? Since the kiss, at least.”
Edwin spun back, wide-eyed and pink-cheeked. “I – you knew?”
“As for the Hell thing, I’m just chuffed you got out,” Charles added gently. “That sounds hard.”
“That is not how you make decisions, just based on whatever you happen to be feeling in the moment,” Edwin said, eyes gone feverishly bright.
“Not really ‘in the moment’ when it’s been months coming, is it?” Charles’ gaze didn’t waver. “Doesn’t seem all that different now.” He smiled at Edwin, just like he had all night, just as he had all year, just as he’d waited his whole life to do. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”
Edwin inhaled sharply, no doubt winding up to another argument Charles couldn’t bear to hear.
Blue washed across his face, turning him into a monotone painting, a symbol of grief so obvious most teachers would scoff at it. The light came from somewhere behind Charles – he wasn’t exactly about to turn and check, was he? Something in him knew that this was it: the crossroads, the choice that would haunt the rest of his unlife, the moment of reckoning.
Charles smiled at Edwin, reached for his hand, and ran.