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It takes Charles an embarrassingly long time to notice, really. But Edwin always has been good at keeping secrets when it counts, burying his feelings so deep even he can't identify them. They're home, in London, and things are more or less back to normal aside from their new minder.
Charles is a good detective so eventually he spots the pattern. Edwin may be sharp as ever when they're on a case, but once the mystery is solved, when things are quiet at the agency again, he gets sort of on edge. Agitated. Restless.
Then he disappears for a bit. A few hours at a time, usually.
Charles doesn't know where Edwin goes between cases. He needs to know.
Part of him wonders if Edwin is avoiding him specifically, because of the whole love confession in Hell thing. But no, they've been aces. Closer than ever before, now that they actually talk about important stuff sometimes.
This, whatever it is that's going on with Edwin, feels like important stuff. It fills Charles with a familiar dread and he really, truly does not want to talk about it. But they can't go back to how things were before Port Townsend. Not entirely. Wouldn't be fair to Niko's memory, would it?
So, when Edwin walks through the mirror into their office at half past three in the morning, Charles is waiting. Not waiting in an angry way, mind you. Not like a pissed off spouse, or a sad dog either. Like a concerned friend. Yeah.
"Where you been, mate?"
Edwin freezes. So there is definitely something up.
"Ah, Charles. I was simply enjoying the evening. Stargazing."
He's lying. Why is he lying? Hang on, stars—this about that bloody crow? No, nope, focus!
"Not many stars in London, are there?" Charles says, expression carefully neutral.
Edwin tenses up. He'll crack like a teacup in three...two...
"I went for a run, if you must know."
He's got to be joking. One of those Edwin jokes people don't get because his tone hasn't changed.
But he looks too nervous for that.
"You? Out for a run in the middle of the night? By yourself?"
"Ghosts do not sleep, Charles," he replies, somehow tiredly.
"Where were you running?"
"Regent's Park. Then along the Thames. I hardly see how it is any concern of yours."
"But that's really—"
"Now, if you would kindly cease this interrogation, I'd quite like to read. Unless you want to scrutinize that diversion as well."
Edwin storms off.
"Not judging, Eds, just worried!" Charles calls after him, feeling helpless.
Charles does what he always does these days when he has a problem and he can't talk to Edwin about it, because he doesn't want to upset his best mate or, in this instance, because Edwin kind of is the problem.
He flops onto Crystal's bed.
"And you're sure he's really just running?" she asks.
"Sort of bribed a cat to follow him once. I'm not proud of it! But he's being so weird."
"Yeah, no, that is pretty weird even for Edwin."
"And he won't talk to me about anything. Thought we were getting better at that."
"Old habits. Besides, he's not one to confide in people."
"Not since Port Townsend."
Not since Niko goes unsaid. They let the moment pass. They both miss her, but he knows it's worse for Edwin, who's never found it easy to let people truly know him like Niko did.
Crystal takes out a little notebook; Charles grins. Gotta be Edwin's influence, that. He's proud of what a brilliant detective she's become.
"Okay. Secretive, withdrawn, bitchier than usual..."
"Oi!"
"I'm bitchy, too. The running thing is throwing me. He's dead so he's probably not working on his cardio," she continues. "If it's not physical, maybe it's mental?"
"What d'you mean?"
"I mean, Edwin's been through literal hell, you know?"
"Yeah. I was there."
"Look, I don't know how much people talked about capital T Trauma in the '80s."
"Basically never."
"And in his time they just had, like, Freud I guess which—wow, okay, that explains a lot about Edwin actually."
"What are you on about?"
"Have you ever heard of posttraumatic stress disorder? PTSD?"
"Like soldiers and that, yeah?"
"You know when you're scared, or something reminds you of your dad, you lash out. You want to fight."
Charles nods, old shame twisting in his gut despite knowing better. He has rage inside him but he isn't like his dad. He refuses to ever be that.
"I'm the same way," Crystal says. "Edwin gets angry too, but when he's really scared..."
"He runs. Hides." He remembers following Edwin's meticulous map, the result of decades of trial and error, through that horrible place. Remembers Edwin, cowering when he found him in Hell, making himself as small and quiet as he possibly could. Edwin, always running faster than Charles since the night they met. "Why now, though? He was in Hell for over seventy years before and—I mean, he wasn't fine after that, obviously, who would be, but he wasn't..."
In fact, Charles was the wreck back in '89, he recalls, a newly dead teenager, impulsive and hot-headed and prone to these like...panic spells, a nameless terror that washed over him at random. Edwin hadn't known how to handle it except reminding him, in an oddly comforting, albeit stilted way, that ghosts actually have no need to breathe. Neither of them wanted to talk about it, even if they'd had the words, so they didn't.
"You two finally don't have to worry about Death, or Hell. All that suffering and grief catches up with you. It's hard to stop doing what kept you safe for thirty years."
"So...he still doesn't feel safe."
It's like an iron knife to the heart. All he's ever wanted is for Edwin to be safe. He hates that there are apparently fears and memories Charles can't shield him from with his cricket bat.
"Maybe. Yeah. But like, I could be all wrong. You're asking someone who took an intro to psych class in high school once and barely showed up."
"Come on, you're the cleverest person I know," Charles says.
She raises an eyebrow.
"Fine. Cleverest living person," he amends, flashing a smile.
Charles likes to think he would have figured out a tactful way to bring up the subject with Edwin, but he doesn't get a chance to plan that conversation before a stupid haunted doll case does it for him.
"Tell us what brings you to the Dead Boy Detective Agency," Edwin prompts, notebook in hand.
"How can we help?" Charles asks their new client.
"Oh, not me. Madelaine needs your help."
"Who is Madelaine?"
The client, a 10-year-old ghost boy, reaches into his coat and retrieves, oh hell, an antique porcelain doll wrapped in cloth.
Edwin's eyes go wide, fearful.
"These the detectives? About bloody time," the doll, or the spirit using it as a vessel, sneers in a high-pitched childlike voice that's also somehow Cockney.
"She's nice once you're friends," the young boy says helpfully. "You okay, mister?"
Edwin is on his feet in an instant. He's pale, even for a ghost. Decidedly not okay at all.
"Perfectly well. Please excuse me," he says, and quickly flees into the next room.
Charles offers his apologies, asks that they wait here a few ticks, and follows his partner through the wall.
Edwin is curled up on the sofa bed they got for when Crystal stays over. His jacket and bowtie are gone, and his trembling hands tightly grip his hair as he draws unneeded breaths in rapid, shuddering gasps. Charles has never seen him like this. Outside of Hell, anyway.
Ghosts can't really touch, can't kiss, yet even dead they can still feel fear so viscerally. Doesn't seem fair. Not that anything about their existences before or after death ever has been.
"Edwin?" He keeps his voice low, slowly moving closer as one might approach a skittish animal.
"Charles," he whispers, like it's a prayer.
"I'm here, mate. Right here. Know where we are?"
It takes him a moment to answer. Charles doesn't know what to do except be here with him. Edwin lets go of his hair, which Charles is glad for because it looked like it hurt, and tucks his fists against his chest.
"London?"
"That's right. Our office. You're safe."
"I know that," he snaps, and strangely this is when Charles knows he'll be all right sooner or later. "Knowing does not help."
"Suppose it wouldn't help to remind you ghosts don't need air, either."
Edwin glares, but there's no real anger in it, and he understands the irony of this situation. His breathing eventually does slow. Charles joins him on the bed, taking unnecessary deep breaths of his own.
"Listen, Crystal's got this theory—"
"You told Crystal? Of course you did. I may simply die again of mortification."
"Not about this! But yeah, I did talk to her 'cause we're worried. She thinks—"
"That I am expierencing some form of shell shock? Yes, I expect so."
Figures he'd be two steps ahead of them.
"This why you've been going out so much? The running?"
"Quiets my mind, for a little while," Edwin murmurs. "I had it under control. It was not affecting cases."
"To hell with the cases!" Charles exclaims, blaspheming the only thing they both hold sacred. Poor choice of words, too, given his audience. "Shit, sorry. I just mean like, I care a lot more about you, Edwin. You could've talked to me. I could've--"
"What, Charles? What exactly could you have done? I did not see the point of burdening you with this foolish malady when, as you astutely observed, we are safe. Truly safe. It is senseless for me to feel this way. I won't ruin it for you."
"Edwin, you could never ruin anything. We've been running since we died, mate. You even longer," Charles says. "Not easy to adjust, is it? To remember how to stop. It's normal for—"
"For my own mind to torment me, relentless as any demon?"
"Well...yeah, sort of."
"Will I ever be free of Hell, then?"
What?
"What?"
"If I'm condemned to carry it with me. If I only ever feel at peace when I'm running from something. If every time I close my eyes I must relive the dollhouse, or the witch, or Niko—"
His voice catches, breaking, and his face crumples as he starts to sob. At least he isn't trying to be quiet anymore.
"Hey, hey, hey. C'mere."
Instinctively Charles gathers him into his arms. There was a time Edwin never would've let himself fall apart like this in front of anyone, maybe especially Charles. He'd been the same way; his dad's voice still echoes in his head, calling him a sissy girl for crying when he got the belt at five years old. But now they know there's courage in sharing your feelings with the people you love most.
Edwin cries until he's too exhausted for tears, which takes a long time for a ghost. He does try to apologize a few times, but Charles just holds him tighter, tucks him beneath his chin, says, "Shh, none of that. I've got you."
"But the client—"
"Oh, yeah, I'll tell them to go."
"No! No, I will not refuse a case solely due to my irrational fear."
"Mate, it's totally understandable."
"Madelaine deserves our assistance," he insists. "I will concede, however, that I am not presently at my best. Tell them to reschedule, perhaps?"
Edwin Payne is the best and bravest person he knows, no question about it.
"Sure, sounds like a plan. I'll let Charlie know."
"She will never answer to that name."
He's probably right. Usually is.
Charles decides in this moment he's going to do whatever he can to help Edwin feel safe again, as he'd done for Charles these past thirty years. He'll read books about PTSD. He'll find a ghost therapist; God knows they both need one. He'll run with Edwin until his stupid nonexistent lungs remember how to burn like they always do, and then keep running long after that, just so his best mate isn't alone. He'll never let him go and they could stay like this until the sun explodes. Whatever it takes.
They're going to be okay. He's certain of it. The cleverest ghost he knows told him so. They have forever, after all, to figure out how to be.
He suddenly has an overwhelming and inexplicable urge to press a quick kiss to the top of Edwin's head, and so he does just that before he can doubt himself or really think it through at all, like most of his actions.
"...Charles?"
Oh. Damn.
Now they're going to have to talk about this, too, aren't they.