Archive of Our Own ^beta

AN ARGUMENT

There's a dead boy hanging upside down on the couch of Crystal's new flat at 1 AM, because it's been a whole month after Port Townsend and her life is still in shambles. Case in point, even though she promised herself that she wouldn't muddle the waters any further by inviting Charles into her space alone, here they are, because Edwin got all prissy and kicked them out of the office.

"He doesn't mean it, though," Charles says cheerfully, because Edwin could spit on his face and he'd thank him. Or more like, Edwin could spit at someone else and Charles would think it endearingly bitchy, because he's a wreck. "He's just a tad wound up from the Niko thing. It's doin' his head in, yeah, that he hasn't found the answer in one of his big books yet. Not even the purple Aramaic one, and that one's got all sorts of odd shite."

"What, like we don't want to bring Niko back as much as he does?"

She heard herself snap, doesn't even care this time because she's right, but Charles only glances up to watch her pace across the room and shrugs. "Well, yeah. But he's— He gets like that, yeah? He can't focus if we're hanging 'bout chin-wagging like muffin-wallopers." He grins, because at least he thinks Edwin's wording is hilarious too. "Have to look that one up still, don't I."

"Oh please, he just hates my guts." What she really wants to say is that he's deadly jealous of Charles' attention, but she's trying to be a better person, and they've been so extra weird for this past month that she's not sure she wants to poke that bear just yet. Besides, Charles is already opening his mouth to disagree— she cuts him off just in time. "And that's whatever, you know, I don't even care." She does. "But there's no point in me being here if we can't even work together."

Not that she'd ever say that to Edwin, of course, he'd enjoy agreeing too much. And she's not giving up on whatever this Agency thing is because some stuffy Edwardian twink hates her. He doesn't really, anyway, she knows that much. He tolerates her for Charles' sake and because of all the mutual life-saving they did last month, and she can already tell that they can work themselves up to almost friendly arguments if they keep at it, but Crystal is sick and tired of people tolerating her. She wants Charles and Edwin to like her, is that a fucking crime. And Charles does, obviously, but he's easy. Charles likes everyone, and he isn't exactly a star judge of character, considering he thinks Edwin's the best thing since sliced bread.

Once again, case in point—

"'s not like that, Crys," Charles says, finally swinging back upright. "Look, Edwin's like— he's a bit like a cat, yeah? If you get your back up with him, he'll think you don't like him and it'll make it all worse."

"I thought cats always went to the person in the room who likes them the least," Crystal points out, because she hasn't quite grown out of being a bitch yet, but Charles laughs.

"Alright, fair, Edwin's not actually a cat. 'm just saying that you keep fallin' for that bit he does." At Crystal's uncomprehending face, he waves his hands around and puts on a terrible imitation of Edwin's insufferable accent, "I'm Edwin Payne and I'm bad at people. That bit. He's alright, really. Aces when he forgets himself, but you've got to let him— and not aces like, not the way that you'd think when you're thinking 'bout someone being good with people," he adds, frowning like he knows that he's not making any sense, "but proper sweet. He's the best person you'll ever meet."

"You're crazy," Crystal tells him, impatiently. "Cute, but crazy. Like one of those pedigree dogs."

Charles' scowl deepens. "Oi—"

"I can tell you really believe in the bullshit you're saying, though, so I'll let it go."

They've had this conversation several times over the past month, and this is usually where Charles smiles and lets it go as well, because even he knows he's stupidly biased where it comes to Edwin. And because he hates confrontation and standing up for himself, not that he'll listen to Crystal if she tries to point it out. But this time he taps his fingers on the arm rest of Crystal's lime green couch, fast and annoying enough that if he made any noise she'd have to ask him to stop, and the way he stares back at her is weirdly serious.

"Look, you've gotta trust me here, Crys," he says, with a light tone that doesn't match his face at all. "I've made bloody daft choices in mates in the past and I'm not 'bout to do it again. Edwin's— just give him a proper chance, yeah? You won't regret it."

So Crystal sighs deeply and sinks into the couch next to him. "Yeah, alright, whatever you say."

And then they watch Love Island until she's nodding off against his shoulder. He slides off the couch so she can rest her head on the armrest, pulls an afghan over her, and goes through the full-body mirror tilted against the wall and back to Edwin.

YET ANOTHER ARGUMENT

Let the record show that Crystal is full of good intentions, and it's not her fault that Edwin is as prickly as a porcupine and not even half as cute. She doesn't mind the arguing, it's kind of nice to be able to be a bitch to someone and have it not matter, but it'd be nicer if he smiled from time to time. Charles keeps saying that she has to look at Edwin's eyes, not his mouth, that he mostly smiles with his eyes— but the only time she can ever read anything in his eyes is when he's annoyed or clearly laughing at her. Not usually the friendly kind of laughing, either.

"No one forced you to take this case if you hate it so damn much," she reminds him for the fifth time. Charles, lounging on the other side of their rickety couch, kicks her ankle.

"Only we must," Edwin replies curtly, glaring at her over the office desk. "The agency is called Dead Boy Detectives, which suggests that we take on detective work. If we intend to give up every time we find the process trying, we might as well not try at all."

"Maybe it's just what we need, yeah?" Charles butts in with an easy smile. "A bit of a break from the Niko research, to get our brains goin' again."

"My brain never stops going," Edwin says, pointedly, but at least when he's being a dick to Charles his tone is lighter. Charles grins like he just told a funny joke. "But yes, aptly noted, Charles. Only, I wish we had a better idea of what the creature is before we begin the investigation on site."

Crystal takes her compact mirror out of her bag and touches up her lipstick, so she doesn't have to look at him and get pissed off. "What's there to be confused about? It's either a demon or a demon. Either way, we're fucked."

Sometimes she hears David whispering away in her mind, poisoning her thoughts like her ancestors told her he might. But she's pretty sure that some of those thoughts are already hers, anyway.

"It's hardly as simple as that—" Edwin's saying, but Charles has already jumped off the couch to go perch at the corner of the desk, and he's giving Edwin his big, dark puppy eyes of doom. He's also squeezing Edwin's shoulder, which is new and has Edwin blinking up at him like he doesn't understand what's happening. It gives them all about a second of peace before he turns back to Crystal to continue his tirade. "It is vital to understand what we're facing, and we have not yet settled on whether the creature is in fact a demon at all. I urge you to consider that of all of Hell's denizens, wraiths—"

"Mate, she knows, we've had this conversation. We're all just frustrated, but we haven't got to snap at each other over it."

They exchange one of their silent looks, only with their faces a few inches closer than usual. God, and to think that she didn't believe they could get any weirder. One of Edwin's eyebrows goes up an infinitesimal amount.

"I apologise," Edwin says after a moment, to Crystal, so stiffly that he might as well have a gun to his head. Yeah, right, he's real sorry.

"Did that hurt coming out?" she snaps. Edwin's face twitches, and he rubs briefly at his temples like Crystal is giving him a headache. For a repressed Edwardian guy, he sure shows frustration well whenever she's involved. "Because hearing it wasn't fun either. Maybe try making it a bit more sincere next time."

"Oi— alright there, if he says he's sorry then he's sorry," says Charles like a preschool teacher, holding up his hands.

The problem is, not that she'd ever feel comfortable telling Charles, that no matter what he says on the subject she can sense it. She can feel that Edwin doesn't like her, doesn't want her here, and it stings. It hurts like a motherfucker, actually, because for a moment there she thought she could be a part of something, be wanted somewhere, but all she's done so far is create tension between the two most married people she's ever met. That's all she ever does— ruin things. And she has enough of her memories back to know that when she's feeling upset and unwelcome, she makes people regret it. She still does, whether she really wants to or not.

"Fine," she sighs. She can be a better person. She's going to be a better person or else. "Let's go figure out if this thing is a demon or a wraith, before I die of old age."

She winces when she hears herself, but neither of them even twitch. Charles grins at her like she's just done something amazing, instead of the bare minimum of not letting herself get into a nasty argument with his teenage husband.

"Very well," says Edwin, steepling his fingers. "Charles, Arcane Arts volume nine, if you'd please."

"Yep," Charles replies, as he turns and lets his fingers trail over the compilation of them with a puzzled look.

Crystal doesn't really understand why she does it. She's still angry at Edwin, and it feels a little like letting him win and indulging his self-important tendencies, but she walks over to the bookcase behind his head and pulls out Arcane Arts Volume IX. It makes a dull thud as it lands on the desk. Charles stills, halfway to pulling out volume eleven.

"Thank you," Edwin says, sounding confused more than anything, as he blinks down at the book.

There's an unbearably awkward silence, during which clearly neither her nor Edwin know what to say to move on from this moment. Charles, in perfect Charles fashion, comes to their rescue with a cheerful, "Oh yeah, cheers Crys. I always get muddled when there's a few missing— always think it's the red one, don't I."

"We still have volume four and six in the backpack, that must be why," Edwin replies, inexplicably. He's still staring down at the book on the desk like Crystal went and handed him a math problem. "You can return volume four to its place, I very much doubt we will need it outside of an aquatic setting."

"Famous last words, mate. Remember the Cursed London Marathon of '95?"

But volume four goes back in its place, and volume nine into Charles' backpack, and she lets herself be flanked by the both of them on their walk to the train station as they try to explain the case of the London Marathon or whatever. It mostly seems to involve a whole lot of string and spells going wrong, and she finds herself cracking up as Charles describes it with flailing hands, watching Edwin shake his head in disapproval over Charles' shoulder whenever he exaggerates something.

THE INVESTIGATION

"We're never getting out of here," Crystal sighs to herself, watching Edwin examine every book display with the same single-minded focus. Even the trashy bodice-ripping ones. "If I'd known, I would've just let you guys go ahead through the mirror and give him the three-hour head start."

Charles pops his head through the bookcase to her left, right between two Animorphs books.

"Pity you're a medium and not a seer, yeah? Could've told you that one, though— you should see him in a proper library. Waterstones barely gets his blood flowing."

This is when Edwin would usually pipe in with something pedantic about how they're ghosts and don't have blood, but he's lost somewhere behind a shelf lovingly stroking the stock. It's for the best anyway, because he's been driving her up the wall all the way here, going on about the Kentish countryside until she wanted to ask him to take his fun facts and shove them up his ass. She didn't, because that's something the old Crystal would have done. Her feet hurt in these new sneakers, though, and they have a client to speak to.

"If you two are done gallivanting during work hours," Edwin says from behind her, nearly giving her a heart attack, "it would be helpful for us to speak with the client again."

"Hasn't shown yet," Charles replies, instead of the very rude thing at the tip of Crystal's tongue. He phases fully through the bookcase, stretching his neck and shoulders on his way out like it's made him stiff somehow. "But we're still not chargin' overtime, mate."

"We shall see. And—"

Edwin tilts his head pointedly towards the door. A girl with unflattering bangs and deep eyebags has just walked through in a hurry, followed closely by a younger girl in her pyjamas. They're still the same horrible shade of salmon with peach-colored hearts printed on the bottoms, but this time there's— blood. It has soaked through the pyjama shirt, blooming at the chest and spreading in every direction. The hem of her bottoms is stained too, and so is most of her armpit-length hair.

The silence is absolute for a moment, enough that Crystal can hear her own heartbeat race. Then Edwin clears his throat, exchanging another silent look with Charles, and gestures her over.

"Grace, what happened?" Crystal says as soon as she's close enough. She's trying to sound reassuring, but fuck if she manages it. God, the blood—

"You have to help Sophie." Her eyes are very wide and scared, just like they were when she first arrived at the office. A child's eyes. "Something's wrong. Something's haunting her. Please. It's hurting her, and everyone around her is getting hurt but it isn't her fault, she's—"

"You've told us this, Grace," Charles interrupts in his kindest tone. "Yesterday, at the office. Remember? We're here to help."

Grace's eyes glance over the three of them. She blinks, and her ghost form— flickers, like a lightbulb just starting to fail. "I remember. You had me hold that creepy ceramic eye," she says to Edwin. She took a shine to him because, apparently, he reminds her of her favorite English teacher. Edwin's face had twitched like he couldn't decide if he was pleased or not when he heard that. "Sorry I'm late. Sophie took like, forty minutes to do her hair and I had to wait for her. She's so late for her shift."

There's something so unbearably little sister about it that Crystal's throat clamps closed. God, Becky Aspen was bad enough and she wasn't even dead, they could save her. Grace is dead and watching her sister slot behind the counter with a resigned smile. If you can call that a smile, anyway, but again, she's dead. She's thirteen and she's dead, and her sister is being harassed by a demon, so it's not like Crystal can blame her.

"A common occurrence," Edwin suggests, already taking out his notepad and pen, and Grace nods. "Very well. I can't help but notice that you're substantially— bloodier than last time we met. Do you happen to remember how you died now?"

"What he means is, sometimes it's confusing for a tick, but then it all starts coming back, yeah? Sometimes the body remembers first. We don't want to press if you're not ready, but it'd be proper helpful if you had any more details you could tell us."

She gives Charles such a clear look of scorn that Crystal muffles a laugh into her hand.

"Yeah, I got that, thanks. I'm not four, you can just ask your questions."

"Thank you," Edwin says, pointedly. He taps his pen against his notepad and nods, looking like it's more directed at himself than Grace. "Kindly tell us what you remember."

It's more than she did yesterday, but still not very much. She was in her bedroom, trying to sleep, but she could hear Sophie crying through their shared wall. Again. Then she started thinking about that time she almost drowned as a toddler, it kept going around in her head even though she hadn't thought about it in years, like she couldn't stop, until she felt the tears tickling her face and opened her eyes to fumble in her bedside drawer for a tissue. She can't remember what she saw, if anything. The memory skips until her eyes are closed again and all she feels is agony, and then she dies. Not immediately, but not slowly— which is the kind of information that Crystal really wishes Edwin hadn't insisted on clarifying. And since then, she's had the feeling that there was something wrong, something she has to save her sister from. Something that has been making Sophie and all her friends suffer— have relationship breakdowns, mental breakdowns, never sleep. Something that she needs help to fix before she can move on.

Edwin's pen clicks closed, then back open. And there it is again, his look of single-minded focus, this time directed at the blood spread on Grace's pyjamas. It's not telling Crystal anything aside from how fucking gruesome death is, but he'll get something. He's a nerd like that.

"It is very rare for a barely visible chest wound to cause death within minutes, and most of the blood appears to be concentrated in your hair and at your clavicle. You were laying down, so of course, that shall affect matters. However—" He hooks the pen on the notepad's cover and steps closer to Grace, raising his hand to float awkwardly in the space between them. "May I?"

At her shrug, he reaches out and gently brushes her bloodied hair away from her neck. There's a slashing wound in the middle of it, something Crystal had never seen before in real life and really regrets doing now. She swallows back the urge to retch. Meanwhile, Edwin nods like that's exactly what he had been expecting.

"He stabbed me in in the throat?" Grace hisses, trying to tilt her head in the right angle to see it.

"Precisely. And chest, as you have likely already surmised, but I suspect the throat wound damaged an artery and caused your death. I'm very sorry," he adds, and his tone is all wrong. It's polite, and he obviously means it, but for fuck's sake, Edwin, would it kill him to put some emotion into it. He sounds like a Starbucks employee announcing that they're out of coffee. Then the pen comes back out, click, and Edwin straightens all the way back into his usual stiffness. "Now, did you or your sister loiter near any crossroads during All Hallows' Eve? That is, Hallowen."

"No?"

"Did you attempt any mysterious rituals, or perhaps irresponsibly used a Ouija board?"

"Definitely not."

"Did you touch an object that felt cursed, malicious, or otherwise unsettling? The feeling is sometimes described as a hair-raising sort of instinct—"

While Edwin goes through his whole checklist with her, Charles edges closer to Crystal and tilts his head, mouth brushing her ear. It feels like nothing at all. There's no hot breath to raise goosebumps, either, which would be disappointing if she hadn't already learned it in Port Townsend and if she hadn't already decided that it doesn't matter, because they are not happening, ever, can't. But she lets him do it, annoying grief choking her a little, because he's not stupid enough to try to flirt with her in front of a dead girl with fresh stab wounds, so there must be another reason.

"She said he," is what he whispers, still looking in Edwin's direction. "He stabbed her."

"Fuck. You think Edwin noticed?"

"'course," Charles replies with his Edwin-specific gooey smile, which immediately makes Crystal regret asking. "He's bloody brilliant at those itsy-bitsy details."

"Well, he has to be good at something," she replies, which isn't fair or even true but it is funny, so whatever.

Of course, that's the moment Edwin chooses to twirl back around in their direction, raising a scathing eyebrow at her like he's heard her. He might have, too, she wasn't exactly quiet for that one. Then his eyes slide over to Charles', and he tilts his head. Charles tilts his head back. Crystal misses Niko so intensely for a moment that she almost doubles over, for the usual reasons but also because of this reminder that right, it'd be amazing to have someone else here who also isn't invited to these boys' weird telepathic conversations. Suddenly she regrets yelling at Edwin over his insane focus on figuring out a way to help her back— Niko's still working it out herself from wherever she is, but it would probably be quicker with Super Nerd on the case.

"Grace, what we were saying earlier 'bout memories not always being so clear after you die," Charles says, glancing back at Crystal. "They're still there, yeah, you just can't find them. But we're real lucky, 'cause we've got a medium on the payroll—"

"You don't pay me," Crystal reminds him acidly. "If anything, I pay you. I had to buy a new office couch because yours had pretty much disintegrated." Before the whole if that's okay with you routine starts, she turns to Grace and tries to smile. She's really not looking forward to whatever she's going to see. "If you let me, I can look into your head and find those memories. It could really help us."

Grace eyes her with the look of a pre-teen girl being asked to share her diary. "Just those?"

"Just those."

She takes Grace's hands in hers and squeezes. Just like Charles, she feels like nothing, and she knows that it's the same for Grace, but she gets a smile for it anyway. David's voice curls into her mind, reminding her of what kinds of thing she would say to this girl if she was just a few years older. Her old self rarely bothered messing with children unless they really pissed her off, they were always more trouble than they were worth.

"If you would allow it on your sister's behalf," says Edwin from behind her, startling the fuck out of her again, "while Crystal does her— thing, Charles and I would like to examine her bedroom."

"Yeah, alright."

"Much appreciated. But first— Crystal, a word?"

Grace shrugs and wanders to the counter, standing in front it to watch her sister argue with a coworker. A costumer walks right through her and interrupts whatever the argument about, holding up a fantasy book that Edwin was eyeing earlier.

"What?" she asks Edwin's severe face. She crosses her arms over chest and gives him a huge, shinning smile. "Let me guess, it's not a fucking wraith."

"Unlikely," Edwin admits sourly, over Charles' snort of laughter. "But there are no signs of any Hell involvement, so I would be hard-pressed to deem our mystery killer a demon."

"You can't ever admit when you're wrong, can you? You're just deadly allergic to not being a smug little—"

"I shall admit to a mistake when there is enough evidence to do so. For the moment, all we have is conjecture and clues that—"

"The proper odd thing, though—" Charles says loudly over the both of them. They both turn to him. Crystal is mostly annoyed rather than repentant, and it only gets worse when she realises that Edwin has the same expression on. Charles is giving them an impatient look, eyebrows raised. "Right, mate? The thing we wanted to tell Crystal about? The proper odd thing 's that Grace is unravelling, fast. And it's getting worse as time goes on, yeah? That's not s'posed to happen."

Edwin nods, smoothly slipping into his lecture mode. "When a ghost undergoes trauma in death, they might show disorientation, missing memories, and an appearance that mimics the circumstances of their passing." He pauses. "But if it were to occur, it would do so immediately after death or quite a while afterwards. I cannot recall many cases where the ghost appeared relatively settled in recent death, but quickly became more unsettled with time. It's— disorganised. Unusual."

"It's a bloody big sign of trouble, 's what he's sayin'. Dangerous, yeah?"

"Precisely. Take care, Crystal."

They exchange yet another one of their looks and phase through the nearest bookcase, probably in search of a mirror. Crystal takes in a deep breath, lets it out, and desperately tries to ignore her building headache.

Well, fucking fantastic. This is going to be fun.

GRACE'S HEAD

Black. All is black. Black above and black around, with swirling winds that threaten to drown her. Drown. Her. She is here. She is her. She is mind and she is body and she is Crystal Palace, Crystal Palace Surname-Von Hoverkraft. The winds and darkness want her to forget herself, but she won't, not again. She looks down. There is a sea of dark blue rippling under her feet. This mind is disjointed. This mind is lost. This mind aches.

"You like?" says a voice. David's voice, mocking and smug as usual. "Pretty nifty, right?"

She can't speak. She can't always speak in visions, but this is different. This mind aches and so does she. Someone has touched this mind, razed it. Someone psychic, but not a medium— there's no stillness of death to it, her bones don't vibrate. There is more to this mind that she can't read, because that someone buried it all under the dark sea, the black, they touched every agonising feeling like running a finger over the rim of a glass, until it resonated again and again into echoes of pain. This mind is nothing but distress, has forgotten that it ever was anything else.

But even the distress feels empty. Taken. The sea ripples but does not devour.

"I do love a good nibble."

This mind aches. This mind is a sacrifice.

"Don't you worry, doll, the dead are still delicious. Nothing but feeling, and their hearts can't give out."

What really scares her is that she couldn't do this, even if she wanted to. Her powers don't work like this, she knows it to the depths of herself. David keeps talking to her, but it's not David, David is inside her own head still, he's not this shadowed imprint of the empath who made this mind hurt.

If she stays here any longer, she will hurt too. Every medium is one tenth of an empath.

Beneath her feet, between the ripples of the dark sea, a toddler plays at the edge of a pool. The woman next to her has her eyes closed and her head tilted upwards. She's crying, expressionless, shoulders shaking. The toddler swishes at the water with a chubby hand, tilting forwards.

"You know, Grace, you really brought it on yourself. If you weren't such as a difficult child, your poor mum might have—"

"Fuck!" she screams as she emerges from the vision, gasping for air. "Fucking fuck."

There's a hand on her arm, barely the impression of a feeling. She's at a Waterstones with the only two friends she has on this plane, both of whom are dead, and one of them is touching her arm. The store swings back into focus all at once, overwhelmingly bright. She just knew this was going to be a bad reading. Grace is still standing in front of her, and she has a look on her face that says she's now figured it out, too.

"That bad?" Charles says, softly. She makes a wordless noise of irritation and pulls her arm free, which does make her stumble on her own feet like she's drunk until Edwin steadies her, but whatever. "Right. So, we've got bad news and worse news."

"The bad news is that we have found nothing of use," Edwin informs her with a questioning glance at Charles, who nods. "No cursed objects, or clues that may give us a working hypothesis of the sort of creature we're seeking."

"And the worse news?"

"Whatever you just saw," Charles replies, frowning. "Seemed bloody awful, it did."

So after Edwin firmly asks Grace to excuse them, they hide behind the biographies bookcase and she tells them about the vision. She gets how confusing visions are to people who aren't psychic, and the very few times she's tried to explain one to someone else it hasn't gone so well, but the great thing about having ghost friends who have been working in the supernatural field for three decades is that they've heard weirder. They both listen with the same patient interest, even though they can't possibly understand what all her vague feelings mean, because even she isn't sure yet. Edwin still takes notes.

"Y'know," says Charles, slowly, after a moment, "we did find this box. It was all wrapped up with an address on it, but no stamp or anythin', and there was a letter from Sophie with it all 'bout how some bloke ruined her self-esteem or something, so she was sending his stuff back 'cause she didn't want to see his bloody smug face again. That's a quote. Might be nothing, but—"

"That's brilliant, Charles," Edwin interrupts, and Charles blinks and beams so enthusiastically that it has to hurt. "An unpleasant relationship breakdown is a perfectly adequate motive. We've seen it by the hundredths. And a scorned teenage empath is neither a wraith nor a demon," he adds smugly at Crystal. "Which is precisely why it's best to avoid jumping to conclusions without enough evidence to support them."

"You're such a dick. You really have to rub that in my face right now? It's not like we have a little girl's murder to solve, right? Plenty of time for your little jabs."

Charles sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. For once it works as intended— Crystal actually feels sort of ashamed. He takes difficult cases extra hard when it's children, Edwin told her two weeks ago, which makes him uncharacteristically irritable. She wonders if Edwin knows that Charles said the same thing about him.

"Regardless," says Edwin, stiffly, with a quick glance at Charles. "You're— not mistaken in saying that we should continue our work."

If Crystal didn't know him, she'd think that he's remembering the same conversation and trying to make things easier for Charles. Unfortunately she does know him. He cares a lot more than he lets on, but he's not exactly the most observant when it comes to other people's feelings. Still. As her own peace offering, she ignores him and walks back to the counter, smiling at Grace when she turns towards her. She tries to meet Grace's eyes, mainly so she doesn't have to look at the blood or the wound on her neck.

"We're going to find out who or what did this to you," she tells her, squeezing her shoulder. "And we're going to take care of it. We're the best in the business, right boys?"

They're already at her back again. It's actually kind of comforting, if she thinks about it.

"That's right," Charles says in a reassuring tone, because at least he has people skills. "You just keep an eye on your sister, yeah? We'll be back."

THE EX-BOYFRIEND

"I never realized how much of detective work is just being creepy."

Edwin gives her a quelling look, but she knows she's in the right. They're creeping around in the bushes by some rich guy's house, about to do some old-fashioned trespassing, and she can't pretend that it's normal just because Charles is humming to himself like it's a regular Thursday morning for them. She tried to convince them to let her talk to this guy first, but apparently it's too dangerous. Like Port Townsend wasn't dangerous, like David isn't dangerous, and she's managing just fine. So now they've jumped a fence and they're skulking in some bushes while they try to figure out if it's safe to even go in.

"Not the Missive to Rudolph one again, Charles, please."

"Like I don't know you know what it's actually called," Charles replies with laughter in his voice, because he genuinely seems to think Edwin's funny. He dips his head through the wall and then back out, impatiently waiting for Edwin to give them the go ahead while humming some more. "Mate, I must've played the Specials a million times."

"Oh, I'm well aware." Edwin is still scowling down at his magic artifact thingy, which vaguely looks like a Blackberry if it was made of stained glass and feathers. "And it's got nothing to do with being creepy, as you say, Crystal. It's reconnaissance."

He says it with a perfect French accent, too. Asshole.

The front door swings open, just in time to cut Crystal's reply off before it starts and reminder her that she's standing in front of someone's house, inside the fence. Someone who is rich and probably a way bigger asshole than Edwin. It's not like she's going to get arrested for it, but it's still fucking embarrassing. The worst part of being part of the agency is definitely all the bullshitting she has to do when she gets caught in the middle of stuff like this. The guy's tall, broad-shouldered, with dirty blond hair slicked upwards and the confident posture of someone who gets away with doing whatever he wants, always. And she'd know. Standing near him feels like he's taking up more space than he's supposed to, like he owns it.

"Hi," she tries, with her biggest smile. "I—"

"Well, come on in, don't just stand there darkening my doorway," he says through a sharp grin that Crystal does not trust. Then his eyes shift to the side, almost like he's looking at Charles and Edwin. "You two might need to get hosed down, though. The stink of Hell on you, ugh."

Fuck. He can see the boys but he's so real, so unlike what Crystal is used to, that she almost missed it. If she squints, she can see the outline of him waver, purple energy fading into black. He's a fucking ghost.

"Excuse us," Edwin says. His voice sounds tight, like he's clocked the guy as a major asshole too. "We're the Dead Boy Detectives agency. We solve supernatural mysteries. We were hoping to speak with you about a woman you used to associate with. Sophie Walters?"

The guy doesn't look like he's listening at all. He's staring at Edwin, which has been happening way too often for as long as Crystal has known him, but his interest has nothing of the Cat King or Monty in it. She can't place the feeling it gives her, but it's nothing good. He has a very faint smile on his face, like he's amused by something, and Charles shifts closer to Edwin in response, so obviously wound up by whatever the fuck is going on that she imagines smoke coming out of his head. That just gets the guy to stare at him instead, with the exact same expression, until Charles actually looks kind of disturbed.

"Not coming in, then? Probably for the best, I'd never get the smell out of the carpet." She suddenly becomes the object of his weird stare, which raises every hair in her body. "Now you, I'd fancy smelling all over."

"What?"

"Oi, mate." And in comes Charles like a knight in shinning armor, because she was a second too late in processing that fucking bizarre shit. Usually she'd be annoyed, but she's too creeped out right now. "Justin, is it? You can't talk to her like that. That's so bloody inappropriate."

She grits her teeth. "Yes, thank you, Charles." Another look at the guy's unbearably smug grin and she snaps, "Keep your creepy thoughts to yourself, Justin."

It has about the same effect as calls from her school ever did on her own behavior. Every year her parents would get at least twenty of them, before the teachers gave up anyway, doing everything but directly calling her a mean bitch, and it was obvious that the restraint had more to do with not getting fired than with any kind of giving a shit on their part. She wishes Justin hadn't just reminded her of that. She wishes she was home, as much of a home as her new flat can be anyway, but she'd also take being at the office having another stupid argument with Edwin, or dodging Charles' attempts to get her to listen to his old person music. There's something very wrong here and she can't figure out what it is and it's driving her fucking crazy, and now she's thinking about her shitty past self and how it's not nearly as past as she likes to pretend, because she'd like nothing more than to deck this guy.

Justin lounges back against the door, even though he's a fucking ghost, and smiles at Charles. "It's so darling that you think she's going to thank you for that. Always hanging about where you're not wanted, aren't you? Just desperate to—"

"If you would kindly stick to the facts," Edwin interrupts in his curtest tone, before something much more biting leaves Crystal's mouth. It's fine, he's got it. If there's one thing she and Edwin agree on is that no one should be a dick to Charles, or there will be consequences. He pulls out his notepad and pen in one no-nonsense movement, which is how she knows for sure he's pissed off. "Did you or did you not court Sophie Walters? When was the last time you saw her? How would you describe said meeting? Which were the date and circumstances of your death?"

"Yes, yes, I remember Sophie. Dull as dishwater—"

"I suspect you mean ditchwater. Dull as ditchwater. The pronunciation became warped in the past century, but that is a rather poor excuse for—"

"Either way. I've got more important things to think about now, don't I? With dying and all." Justin's still smiling. "Very tragic. Motorbike accident, you see. I can assure you everyone is devastated. It was wicked, though."

"And you refused to go, yeah?" Charles says, also smiling, with about the same amount of sincerity.

"Quite a big assumption, but yes, I did," Justin replies dismissively, and raises his eyebrows in Edwin's direction. "It's only alright if you two do it, then? Bit hypocritical, isn't it. Now, I thought it was unfair that I died at eighteen, but I suppose you're right, who am I to decide that and stick hanging about to play house with the first bloke who finds me tolerable. Oh wait, I didn't go quite that far. It's a laugh for sure, though, your little agency. Staying busy, eh? My dad collects race cars, but I suppose we all have our things."

Crystal can almost see a muscle in Edwin's jaw twitching, which definitely shouldn't be happening, so she shoves past him and a murderous-looking Charles to give Justin her very best look of scorn. She's practically made a fucking career out of it, it made one of her parents' friends cry once.

"Listen, big man— I get it. You're obsessed with yourself and everyone around you was too busy using you for your credit card to tell you that you're not actually hot shit. You're just the exact same sad, insecure guy I've met a million times. You can't kick a fucking rock somewhere without a bunch of you crawling out to leer at women and like, put people's heads in toilets, or whatever it is you like to do all day. Liked, I guess. I know you're dead, but you can still grow the fuck up, so why don't you answer his fucking questions and then go do that."

The hair at the back of her neck stands up, and the feeling of standing in the middle of a storm is so strong that she can taste the rain. Justin laughs, leaning forwards with a hand on the door jamb, and Charles and Edwin step in front of her in perfect synchrony.

"Oh, Crystal, you're so fun. I can only imagine how fun you were before you met these two stiffs, you must've been such a little terror. Maybe come find me after they get tired of this love triangle bit you've got going on, I'll show you how to keep people's interest for longer than a shag." His eyes are very dark brown, almost black. "You have a nice afternoon, doll. You too, lads. Not too nice, though."

He winks and steps back inside. The door slams on their faces.

And her first fucking thought is David. Her first thought is a hundred memories of David just like this, telling her she's nothing, telling her she's going to have to work hard to not be nothing. Not like that, of course. She would've kicked him in the balls if he had tried to put it like that. But he got his fucking point across anyway, didn't he, and she hasn't been able to forget it. Her heartbeat is in her throat, and Charles and Edwin are exchanging worried looks, and she's really going to find a way to kill them again if they don't fucking stop it.

"What the fuck was that?"

She hates the way her voice comes out, shrill and panicked.

"Not here," Edwin hisses, glancing back at the house like most people would a venomous snake.

He shakes his head every time she tries to speak as he leads them out of the fence. Charles doesn't try at all, lips pressed tight together, and gestures at her to keep following when Edwin walks past every other house on the street, past the park they had passed to get to it, and all the way back to the town center. Then Edwin turns on his heels, phases into a McDonald's, and leads them to the deserted second floor, which is only deserted because there's a closed sign at the bottom of the stairs, which she had to step over. She sits on a booth, Charles sliding into the one in front of her, and puts her head in her hands for a moment.

When she lifts her head again, Edwin's still standing, grimly looking down at them.

"So, that was fucked, yeah?" Charles says, understatement of the fucking century. "Like, there's something awfully wrong with that bloke."

"I would describe our current situation as fucked, yes," replies Edwin, sharply, which is actually really concerning. "Let us count the ways, shall we? He could smell Hell on us, which no normal ghost is supposed to be able to do. He felt malevolent, which I'm perfectly aware sounds like tosh, but I can assure you there is a very particular sensation associated with true supernatural evil and I have not felt it that strongly in a full decade. He was self-important and entitled, of course, and refused to cooperate with our investigations. He knew Crystal's name—"

"Oh, fuck. How did he? No one said my fucking name."

"He must've been investigating us right back," Charles says, scowling. "The bloody bastard."

"Are we sure he's not a demon? He sounds just like David."

"As you rightly said, every man of his nature sounds the very same," Edwin snaps, harsh enough that it takes her a second to process that he's half-agreeing with her. "No, what I would be most concerned about is that he was— in his miscreant ways, he was, well. Observant, in a sense." His mouth twists. "I saw your expression after he spoke to you. It seems that he has an odd ability to twist the knife, as it were."

It's the absolutely wrong thing to say, because Crystal has been trying real hard to forget what just happened, and now Charles is shifting back towards her with those earnest eyes of his. She glares back.

"Don't even say it. I'm fine."

"Obviously not," Edwin says, with a judgemental glance over her. She bites her tongue so that she won't say what's on the tip of it, that he sure looked fucking shell-shocked at the backtalk he got from Justin too. "But we shall leave it. Again, I'm far more concerned with the possibility that he very well could be the empath you sensed in Grace's mind. Charles, I hate to ask this of you, but—"

"Yeah, I know. Trip to the apothecary, yeah? Mortimer's?"

Edwin is already writing on his notepad at a furious pace. Crystal stands so she can read it over his shoulder, although his handwriting is atrocious for half of it. Very pretty in an Edwardian rich person way, probably, but the most painful cursive she's ever seen. She can make out some of it, though, presumably the part that is meant for Charles' eyes, but it makes about as much sense as the parts that she can't read at all.

"Quite. But be careful, please."

Charles grins, not that Crystal is stupid enough to take it at face value. "Always am, mate. Here, give it over." The list changes hands, and Charles slides out of the booth with a wriggle. He scans the notepad page, eyes widening as he goes on. "Bloody hell, you're worried, aren't you?"

"Best to be prepared."

"He's worried," Charles tells her, as he goes to stand over Edwin's other shoulder. He curls a hand over it, and she sees Edwin jump before he relaxes again, tilting his head towards Charles. She can't read his expression at all, if there's one, but Charles smiles and tilts his head towards him too, so that their faces are way too close. For fuck's sake. "You can go on your recce at the uni, yeah? He pr'bly went to Sophie's, the other one here's shite. More shite, anyways. Maybe Crystal can help you look him up on the internet."

Edwin blinks. "Yes, of course. Very clever, Charles, since we can hardly continue our investigation at his home address. I shall endeavor to gather some evidence, perhaps find some of his old friends— or victims, most likely. It may be illuminating."

It's almost sad to have to interrupt their little moment, but she's right here and they're kind of the middle of something. A case, even, with a probably very dangerous, definitely very dickish empath who might have scrambled Grace's brain. And frankly, she's sick of seeing them flirt or not flirt or whatever it is they've got going on. She clears her throat. Slowly, like she's woken them up from a dream, they turn their heads to look at her. Charles' hand stays on Edwin's shoulder, but it's fine, she can't win them all.

"What can I do?" At their non-comprehending stares, she adds, "After I'm done helping Grandpa here with the World Wide Web."

She gets the really bad feeling that this is about to go sideways. Charles has started looking apologetic, and Edwin is raising his stupid fucking eyebrows at her. She realizes, suddenly, that she's wrapped her arms around herself like she's freezing cold— which she isn't, it's McDonald's, they have temperature controls, but it's not like Charles and Edwin would be able to tell anyway. She still lets her arms fall, clenching her jaw.

"Wouldn't you rather, like," Charles starts, gently, "take a minute, maybe? 'cause I know David—"

"No," she snaps. "Fuck that, actually. Why don't I join you on your little shopping trip?"

But Charles immediately winces. "Can't. It's all the way back in London, and I might have to go to a few if Mortimer hasn't got what we need. Some of those other ones can't even be gone into if you aren't dead, like, Isobel's shop is brills but it's in the middle of the bloody ocean. And I mean under it."

They both turn to look at Edwin. She doesn't have to turn her head again to know that Charles is giving him some kind of puppy eyes.

"You needn't go to Isobel's," Edwin says after a moment. There's the lightest of furrows between his eyebrows, as close as she's seen him get to confused scowling, like he really doesn't get what's happening. "Our straits aren't quite that dire just yet, and I would hardly ask you to when I can just as well— oh, no. Absolutely not."

"Really? Because I'm thinking that it would be super helpful to have someone around who, you know, can actually talk to people?"

"Yeah, mate, and maybe she can get a good reading off sumthin'. Efficient, yeah? You love efficient, and so does Charlie."

Edwin sighs dramatically, staring off into the distance like he can sense the Night Nurse's approval from here. "Yes, I suppose we do," he says, with so much reluctance that Crystal clenches her teeth until her head hurts. She's not going to get into an argument right before Charles leaves them alone together for who knows how long. She's not. "Very well. Crystal." He twirls to face her again, then nods. "We're partners for the moment. Please do try to cooperate."

"Mate—"

"No, it's okay." She beams up at Edwin as sweet as she can. He looks faintly concerned— good. "We're gonna get along just fine."

GETTING ALONG JUST FINE

Of course the fucking buses aren't running, and of course the fucking uni is in the middle of nowhere. Just what she needed, Edwin having yet another excuse to complain about her feeble little alive body or whatever. He doesn't say a thing on their way up, but she can practically feel him thinking, and it doesn't help that their trip ends up being pretty much useless. Justin really was just a standard fuckboy raised by rich, uncaring parents and using his privilege in every selfish way possible— uncaring of whom it hurt, loving that it did even, all to make himself feel less insignificant.

She tries not to think about why that makes her nauseous.

"This kind of guy, they love mind games," she tries to explain to Edwin, on their walk back down towards the town center. "He must've been making her miserable since way before they broke up. Stopped fucking, whatever. She moved on, he didn't, and now he's kept up ruining her life for his own sick amusement."

Her feet are killing her and she's exhausted. That's way more worthy of worrying about, since there isn't much she can do right now about her shitty past or the demon ex-boyfriend trapped in her mind.

"And harming her loved ones alongside that," Edwin says, thoughtfully. "Despicable. It seems as if his penchant for inflicting pain and distress on others carried on past his death, as is often the case. Sophie's letter was quite clear— she called him a mistake, toxic. I can't imagine he took that positively, if he saw it. And psychic empaths, of course, have a particular knack for understanding people's natures, which can easily be perverted into a thorough knowledge of their weaknesses to exploit. Although it is unusual." He's giving a longing glance at the empty bus stop as they walk past. For once, Crystal agrees wholeheartedly. "I have the distinct feeling that we are missing something. Quite a few things, even."

"He killed Grace. That's what doesn't make sense— he didn't kill anyone else. Guys like him, they're not usually the type to anyway, they don't have to get their hands dirty."

Edwin almost looks approving for a moment, which is of course when her luck runs out and her feet slip out from under her. She has just enough time to curse this fucking hill in her head before something catches her. Someone. Edwin's wrapped an arm around her and held her up, which is the kind of quick reflexes that she'd expect from Charles. To be honest, it's also the kind of thoughtful reaction that she'd expect from Charles, too. Not that she had necessarily been imagining that Edwin would stand there and judgementally watch her fall on her ass without lifting a finger to help, but— maybe she had been, a little.

He still doesn't say anything, either. He clears his throat and springs away from her the second she recovers her balance, but the bitchy comment doesn't materialize. Charles must have really laid into him at some point, or done the puppy eyes thing again— something.

They walk in the world's longest, most awkward silence for a good while. Every time Edwin glances at the countryside or a random building, she holds her breath, waiting for one of those Kent facts that had driven her crazy on the way here, but if that's what he's thinking, he keeps it to himself. This isn't the ideal time to realize that they don't talk much when they're not arguing or discussing a case, because she's kind of in the middle of this situation right now, it's not like she can ask Charles what Edwin actually likes to engage in conversation about that won't turn him too irritating. She scours her mind for anything she knows about him and comes up empty, which she tries not to feel guilty about. It's not like he knows her either.

So, silence it is. That's fine.

"Charles must have told you that I'm not very good with people," Edwin suddenly says out of nowhere, in a matter of fact tone.

Crystal feels herself smile despite herself. "Kind of."

WHAT CHARLES TOLD CRYSTAL

"So tell me what's so fucking great about Edwin, then!"

If she has to deal with Charles making one more vague comment about how she and Edwin would get along just fine if they tried, really, she's going to lose it. She's going to fucking lose it. He never explains himself properly, either, he's like one of those seers in the Illiad giving away shitty prophecies that don't actually help anyone. Anytime now she's expecting a nonsensical riddle to go along with his bullshit.

Charles, who clearly doesn't get what a huge concession it is that he's in her flat again, stares back at her with a look of utter confusion on his face.

"Uhm," he says, insightfully. Then he turns on Crystal's kettle, which is what she asked him to do in the first place, but he seems to really take his time somehow. "It sort of doesn't sound like you wanna hear it, though."

"No, really, I'd love to." She adds an extra scoop of coffee to her mug, since she's obviously going to need it. Her hair is a disaster this morning, she's been way too aware of it since he showed twenty minutes ago, but she tries to remind herself that she's pissed off at him right now and he's not someone she's trying to impress anyway. That way to terrible life choices, and all. "Please tell me more about how we're fated to be besties if only we'd get our shit together. I wanna know what's so great that you won't shut up about him, even when you're in my flat at nine in the fucking morning to hang out." She makes air quotes on that one. "Like I don't know he kicked you out so he can focus on his Niko research. Again."

He wavers, uncertain, like he either can't decide what he wants to share or if he wants to at all. The kettle whistles, thank fucking god, and she pours herself a goddamn coffee, even though what she's really feeling right now is Starbucks. There's not enough sugar in her flat for this conversation.

"So," Charles finally says, expression shifting into determination. "Well, he's bloody brilliant—"

"I know he's the smartest motherfucker on the planet, okay," she snaps. She's almost willing to burn her tongue so she can get at the coffee right now, almost. "He's a real boy genius. Tell me—" A faint memory of another one of these conversations, soon after Port Townsend. "Tell me how he's great with people when he's also not great with people."

Someone honks their horn right outside her kitchen window— this is what she gets for moving somewhere so close to the office. Charles is tapping across the counter, stopping to pick up her sugar jar.

"I told you, he's proper sweet when he doesn't think 'bout it," he says. He seems fully focused on twirling the jar's ceramic lid between his fingers. "He's— he cares so much, Crys. More than anyone, yeah? Takes a tick to get used to the way he shows it, I s'pose. Like, the first month we were together— I sort of thought he hated me, sometimes, but then he'd answer all my daft questions and he taught me how to switch clothes as a ghost 'cause I said once that I was sick of being in my singlet. 's not like it mattered, yeah, can't get cold or anythin'."

"Okay, that's kind of sweet," Crystal admits, because she can see that.

"Yeah," Charles replies, smiling a little. This one's honest, as far as she can tell. "He doesn't mean to be rude, y'know, a whole lot of the time. I mean, sometimes he does. Mostly he just says stuff straight out, which is sort of aces, really. If you're not sure what he means or what he's thinkin' or whatever, you can ask. That's another thing— you can ask him a million daft questions and he won't get miffed at you for it, usually. He's got those eyes, yeah, you can tell when you've got his full attention. It's brills. Like, when he listens, he really listens. Even if he doesn't always get it." Charles is staring down at the lid in his hand with as much fondness as it if were Edwin's face. "He— he's got a huge heart. Doesn't always trust it, though, does he."

She knows she's lost him because he blinks, like he's waking up from a dream, and puts the lid back on the jar with a smile that is no longer totally real. It's whatever, though. All that Crystal is getting from this conversation is that Charles is stupidly in love with Edwin, even though he doesn't seem to realize this somehow, and that she doesn't know the boy that Charles is describing at all. She's never met him. She would like to, though, and she'd like to be talked about the way Charles talks about Edwin.

Before Charles can say whatever empty shit he's about to so he can move the conversation along, she steps away from the counter with her coffee and puts on her own fake smile.

"Well, I hope you're talking me up at Edwin with at least as much enthusiasm as you're talking him up at me."

"You know it, Crys," Charles grins, and that's that.

STILL GETTING ALONG JUST FINE

"What did Charles tell you about me?"

Edwin is quiet for so long that she thinks he isn't going to answer at all. Which is probably fair, because it's not like she told him much at all, either. For a while there's only the birds chirping around them, and her lonely footsteps on the barely maintained sidewalk. If she closed her eyes, it'd be just like walking alone. Her feet still hurt, but at least she doesn't have a twisted ankle on top of that, which she has Edwin to thank for. She can't wait to get back to civilization.

"He said that you're like us," Edwin finally says, and Crystal bursts into the kind of laughter that hurts coming out.

"He'd say that, wouldn't he. He did it with those assholes Brad and Hunter, so of course he'd do it for me too, since he wants us to get along so fucking bad. He loves to make excuses for everyone."

Another silence. Then, "Sometimes he's right to."

She laughs again so she doesn't have to hear what the little David in her mind is telling her— it's not even the real one, she's pretty sure. Anger is rolling through her chest, and if she were Charles maybe she'd turn it into a joke, get Edwin talking about other stupid decisions Charles has made when it comes to people so that they can both roll their eyes fondly in shared exasperation. But she's not Charles, she's not even Edwin. She can't just put it all away for later or never at all, she's not that kind of person. She can't fucking be that kind of person, it would kill the few parts of her that she still likes.

"You don't get it," she says sharply instead. "I'm not like you at all. Nothing bad in my life happened because I was too smart or too nice and the world is fucking unfair when you're a good person. Everything bad that's ever happened to me is because I'm a bitch, alright, I'm horrible, I ruin people's lives. That's why David liked me— he didn't even know I was a medium in the beginning. Fucking Justin even said it, I'm just the kind of girl he likes too. I could've been right there with the group of boys who killed you and Charles, just because I had nothing better to do."

Edwin is watching her quietly, with a very solemn gaze that she can't read. She can finally see it, isn't that hilarious, the focused attention that Charles told her about, and she can't imagine why he talked so fondly about it because it feels like being stripped down to her bones, like he can see every ugly thing in her and is deliberating on what he thinks about it.

"You're like us," he says, calmly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with what she just said. "I'm afraid I can't say I understood what Charles meant, when he first said it. I see it now. No one has ever cared what happens to you, either."

Maybe a normal person would find that reassuring, or kind. Crystal, she's mostly just angrier.

"You don't know what I've done. How can you say—"

"I know," he interrupts, with an undertone of his usual curtness, "that the ghost of a little girl came to see us because she was worried about you. I know that sometimes one is forced by the circumstances to turn oneself into something ugly and shameful to survive. But there is always a choice, after, on what one becomes." His mouth twists into something bitter she has never seen before on his face. "I like to think so, if nothing else. If you are the monster that you claim to be, then what am I?"

For all the times that he's talked about Hell, and she's pretty sure that's what he's obliquely referencing now, he's never talked about it like this. Like it's real, like it mattered. Like he's actually thinking about it as he speaks. His eyes are so dark, and she feels sick, because she doesn't want him to make sense about this. And she most of all doesn't want to think about a boy dragged to Hell kicking and screaming at sixteen because people like the girl she used to be thought it would be funny. She really doesn't want to think about what it is that he had to do to survive. If there's one thing she hasn't doubted since she met him is that Edwin is not someone made for violence.

Neither is she, really. Maybe that matters.

She looks away so they can both pretend she's not tearing up. Acid burns her tongue when she says, "Great, thank you so much— I'm really starting to think I was maybe bit unfair to you. Feels awesome, by the way."

Edwin sighs, which is pretty dramatic considering he doesn't actually have to breathe. "Perhaps I— well, I can't say I was particularly fair to you either," he says, in a tone like he's being held at gunpoint. Maybe Charles' insanity is starting to get to her, because she still feels touched for a moment. "I don't like change. I don't like—"

He doesn't say anything else, but that's fine. This whole conversation has already been way too sincere for the two of them, she's about done with it. Maybe one day he'll tell her why he disliked her presence so damn much at first. Even if he doesn't, she already has some ideas, although she suspects that bringing them up would kill their temporary truce pretty damn quick. They walk in silence all the way back to civilization, but this time it doesn't hurt.

"Maybe Charles was right," she says, as they reach the main street, "maybe we are similar after all."

"You needn't be rude," Edwin replies haughtily, but she can kind of see the smile in his eyes now. They look warmer than usual. They look kind. "Let us agree to never tell him you said that. He'd be insufferable."

There's only one problem with all this getting along thing— a knot has built in Crystal's throat because, fuck, now she wants Edwin to like her more than anything. She wants him to like her as much as Charles does, because she suspects that he might genuinely be a really good person, and she knows for a fact that when he likes someone it's not out of some fucked up protective instinct like Charles, who is the dictionary definition of pathologically needing to get along with everyone. It'd mean something else, with Edwin. Maybe he's just pinging all her daddy issues, grandpa issues, whatever. It's stupid, but she still says it.

"I'm trying to be better."

It comes out all wobbly and she doesn't recognize herself, but that might actually be better. She doesn't like what she knows of herself very much, anyway.

"Yes," Edwin replies, sounding mostly confused. "I know."

"Okay, well, I'm going to hug you now."

She gets a long-suffering look for her trouble, and a lot of weird glances from the people walking by, but she hugs him right there in the middle of the street anyway. He feels like nothing and he smells like nothing but he's real, and that's got to count for something.

Right before she lets go, there's the phantom brush of his hand on her back.

A MESSAGE

"Maybe he just got turned around," Crystal snaps, and Edwin shoots her a glare that would make a weaker person cower.

Well, that getting along thing sure lasted long. Not.

"Charles rarely gets turned around, and certainly never for this long." He's all tight-lipped and tense, ramrod straight, in front of the Waterstones, which would be a funny image if Crystal wasn't starting to lose her patience. "Mirror travel, in case you endeavored to learn nothing in all the interminable weeks we have known you for, is instant. He should be here as agreed, but he's not. That is a cause for concern, and I frankly lack the time and interest to argue with you about this."

Then he turns and walks away. A flash of white hot rage stuns her for a moment, before the world reasserts itself and she finds herself following at his heels. He's not finding a mirror and actually leaving her behind, so he must be expecting her to follow him, and somehow that's even worse in some way she can't pinpoint right now.

"Why do you keep looking for things to be stressed about? Oh, right, because then you wouldn't have a Charles-approved excuse to be a ginormous dick!"

Something must splinter. Something she said— Edwin swings on his heels with a wild look around the eyes.

"Why must you keep refusing to trust me?!" His eyes squeeze closed, just for a second, before his face rearranges itself and he corrects what he's just said like that will make Crystal forget. "Trust— my professional experience."

The truth is that she hasn't slept very well this past week because she keeps having nightmares about David, and that other one that might be worse as well as trite about calling for her parents but they keep vanishing at the end of the road without turning back. And now she's tired, and in pain, and sick of Justin's stupid face already and sick in a different way whenever she thinks about Grace, and here's Edwin, prissily going on about a gut instinct of his that seems more like codependent separation anxiety over being away from Charles for more than a few hours. It would be annoying enough if she saw him as someone who gets gut instincts, but she doesn't, and now she's really starting to worry that he might be right anyway. See, she's self-aware. It doesn't mean she can do anything about it, but at least she knows why she's helping waste their time arguing.

She can rag on Edwin all she wants about his apologies sounding insincere, but it's not like she's learned any better. She covers her face with a hand, sighs into it, lets it go.

"Let's just go ask Grace then. Maybe he left a message for us."

It's a special kind of torture, to have to wait outside Grace's house because Sophie's shift finished an hour ago and a living human can't just walk straight through the front door unseen. They have enough problems without Crystal giving Sophie a heart attack. So she lets Edwin go in with a pointed reminder that this is exactly why they should get phones. Then she entertains herself by planning how she's going to sell that idea to Charles, who has by now revealed himself to be at least half of the grandpa Edwin is. He helped her badger Edwin into allowing a landline in the office, at the explicit agreement that he would never have to interact with it, but whenever she talks about mobile phones he somehow finds something important to do that requires his whole attention.

Her train of thought derails entirely when Edwin phases back through the door, with burning eyes and a shuttered expression. She knows before he says anything at all. Her stomach drops.

"It is Justin who left us a message," he says, placidly. His fingers are crumpling the letter in his hands, so she can't make out what it says. She thinks, more than a little hysterically, that if the agency had a mobile phone he might've just sent a text. "Empty boasts and goading, of course, very little of use, although he did reveal that he's holding Charles at his place of residence. Grace was in quite a state. She remembered, you see. She saw his face and recalled seeing him moments before he killed her for doing so."

"Holy shit," Crystal says through numb lips. "Edwin, we have to get Charles out of there."

Maybe it's the urgency in her voice, or that Edwin is also thinking about how there's something very wrong with Justin and they still don't know what. But where he could have said something cutting, he doesn't. His burning eyes tear through her, and something in her gives in from sheer relief. This, she knows. It's how her eyes could have looked like when her old self was ready to raise hell, if only she'd had any reasons that mattered behind it. Now she does, and she can use it.

Edwin taps the letter with a finger, contemplating it with his usual focus. "Yes— Justin did invite us, after all."

"Let's go, right now."

"Don't be ridiculous, Crystal." His eyes snap back to her, and she tries not to show her teeth like an animal. Last time someone who wasn't David used that tone with her, it didn't go so well for them. "This is obviously a trap. I hardly meant we should go now, without even a shred of a plan."

She wants to turn on him because he's just positioned himself as the first obstacle between her and getting Charles back, because she has to tear something apart. But she doesn't actually want to. She breathes in and thinks of Charles, grappling for his advice, as if it can be as good as having him here to say it.

"He could be doing anything to Charles," she reminds Edwin, biting her tongue. "You get that, right? We don't even know what Justin is—"

"Indeed," Edwin replies, unflinchingly polite, like he's doing the same thing. "We don't know. We're utterly unprepared, we are without the ingredients Charles intended to gather, and all we will achieve if we go now is play our parts in whichever nauseating pantomime Justin has designed for us. I can assure you, from past experience, that we'd do best to avoid that. Whichever creature he is, he is also the sort of man who cannot conceive of not recklessly rushing into a situation— he will hardly be expecting us to do better. And do better we shall." In the flickering light of the porch, she can suddenly see the faint tremble of his hands, the tension in every finger still curled over the letter. He's not as composed as he pretends. "I have some ideas. It is merely a matter of— finalizing."

"You get an hour. And then we wreck his shit," she warns. She means to sound sure of herself, in control, it's a trick she perfected long ago after all— but she mostly sounds scared.

Edwin himself sounds like a bare shadow of his usual bitchy self when he replies, "See now, that is a plan."

FINALIZING

It goes like this: they set up in the upstairs of the McDonald's again, even though the staff definitely sees Crystal jump the sign this time. She paces and tries not to snap while Edwin complains about not having the books in Charles' backpack, takes notes at dizzying speeds, and pops in and out of the bathroom mirror to bring weird shit from the office. A crowbar, three of Niko's old pens with the fluffy pink feathers, a jar of wildflowers and another full of something dark but iridescent like an oil spill.

"I'd prefer to verify my suspicions against the Compendium of Poneros and Kakos," he says, setting a handful marbles on the table. She keeps expecting them to roll away, but they don't move one bit. "Unfortunately, we must do with what we have. I do suspect that we may be facing a possession by an algea wraith—"

"Are you fucking serious?"

Edwin gives her icy look. "Kindly refrain from reviving that childish argument—"

"Which you started."

"Yes, maybe so." His tone is frustrated enough that Crystal bites her lip, forces herself to let it go. They don't have time. "However, it's entirely irrelevant to my current hypothesis. What you sensed in Grace's mind and what she remembered were experiences of immense emotional distress. Agony, I believe was your wording. You described it as a sacrifice, which was admittedly perplexing at the time, but it makes perfect sense in the context of the Algea." He knocks on the lid of the flower jar, then brushes a finger alongside the bottom and nods to himself. She stares at it when he offers it up to her. "Kindly put it in your bag— yes, thank you. The Algea, since I can't imagine you've done the reading I suggested, are the personified spirits of human suffering. Misery wraiths such as the one we encountered at the Devlin house are opportunistic, but algea wraiths are rather partial to creating suffering. On rare occasions, they may possess a particularly well-suited host for this purpose."

"And you think one of those things is in Justin. Controlling him, making him make everyone miserable so they can feed on it."

"Psychic empaths attract all sorts of malign creatures wishing to make use of them," Edwin replies, briskly, as he drops a fistful of the pens and marbles into his jacket's pocket. "It wouldn't be outside of the realm of possibility."

So what he's saying is, he's not actually sure of what the hell is going on, but that's all they've got. So they have to clap their hands and believe really hard, because they're fucked if they're wrong. Charles is fucked if they're wrong. Once, right after Port Townsend, he had told her that most of their cases don't usually go to shit like that, so she really has to wonder if he was just being Charles and putting on a brave face or if she's some kind of bad luck magnet, because this is definitely going to shit. Edwin might not seem all that worried now, but he basically thinks emotions have cooties— she can't trust him and his mild face.

Her heart is pounding a wild rhythm that is making her dizzy. When she grabs his coat at the elbow, he winces but doesn't dislodge her. "Please say you know how to get rid of it."

"Of course. There are spells, although it's hardly ideal to attempt them without the books Charles took with him, and we have bait," he says, pointing at his pocket with a flourish. "Iron, for insurance." He holds the crowbar by the head, apparently unbothered by the way his palm starts to lightly smoke, and slips it under his coat. She never noticed if there was any sort of hook or tag on the inside, but there has to be something, because the crowbar stays. "And— a last resort, if things come to it."

He hands her the oil jar with obvious care. It's warm, pulsing, and she wants to drop it on the floor really badly. How does Charles do this, how can he just take whatever disgusting magic shit Edwin throws at him and put it in his backpack without asking any questions. She has loads of questions, not that she actually wants them answered. Like—

"Holy fuck, Edwin, it's moving. What is this?"

"Nevermind that," he replies, flicking a dismissive hand, but he watches her put the jar in her bag with a worrying amount of attention. She's not expecting his eyes to snap back to meet hers, darkly serious, with none of their usual bite. "Now, listen carefully," he says, in the same voice that he used at the Devlin house when they saw the misery wraith. A shiver runs down her spine, half human instinct and half psychic premonition. "Do not engage Justin directly. Your priority is to find Charles— he's most likely to be restrained, he'd hardly stay put otherwise. Release him and do whatever he says, unless what he says is patently reckless. If it is, do all that you can so that you both exit the house as quick as possible. Do not worry about me."

"No promises," Crystal snaps, and Edwin shakes his head.

He eyes her like he can't tell if she's serious, which is so fucking sad that she might be sick. For him or herself.

"Right," he clears his throat. "One very last thing."

And then pulls a fucking knife out of his boot. The curve of it is obviously razor-sharp and shines under the ceiling lights in a way that makes Crystal think of old blood, and the handle is light-colored and looks weirdly textured. Threatening. It's stupid to think that a knife can look any more threatening than any other, but this one does. This one feels dark, and has a drawing of sharp angles carved into the handle. She doesn't want to ask Edwin what it means and she doesn't want to touch it at all, won't. Not for fucking anything.

"Great, thanks, but I don't think a knife is going to help anything. He's a ghost— wraith, whatever. If you're gonna give me a weapon, how about one that actually works?"

"It's not for you to use," Edwin says primly as he drops it into the pocket inside Crystal's bag. He's making a grimace of distaste, like he was just holding a slimy squirming fish. "I deeply hope it's not for anyone to use. In any case, don't touch it under any circumstances, I dread to think of the sort of psychic feedback you'd receive. If you cannot find Charles' backpack and he does not immediately find himself a weapon, allow him to take it."

"God, I miss Charles," she mutters, partly because her bag is full to bursting with things she'd rather not think about and would very much prefer in Charles' backpack.

But mostly because it's Charles and he's stuck in some psychopathic possessed idiot's house, and as she blinked just now she realized that Edwin's ghostly form is starting to get some really concerning manic energy around the edges. Her mind keeps whirling with all the horrible things that could be happening to Charles and Edwin's acting like they're preparing for a fucking picnic, and if she couldn't see otherwise she might have believed that he didn't care. But he does care, he has to, or he wouldn't be blurring at the edges. As Charles said, his single-minded focus is a way of caring. She can imagine it now, as she watches him flick through his notepad in stiff movements— gathering all his fear and love and panic, folding it all into something small enough to fit in his pocket for later.

She's tried it enough times to know that it doesn't work for her, makes her into something hard and cruel. Maybe the trick is in remembering why it mattered to put it all away in the first place.

"We're as ready as we could possibly be," Edwin sighs, closing his notepad with an air of forced finality. His eyes shine with the same desperation she feels when he says, "Let us go retrieve Charles."

RETRIEVING CHARLES

"Come on in," Justin says pleasantly at the door, with a big fat smile, and turns to walk deeper into the house.

They follow. Edwin didn't want to try phasing in because of the possibility of traps, but now Crystal wonders if the trap was this all along, letting themselves be led into the living room to see Charles chained at the neck to a fucking hook on the wall like a dog, tear tracks stark on his cheeks. Bile rises up her throat. His eyes widen in panic when he sees them, and he shoots to his feet and starts clawing at the thick black chain— which isn't turning him into smoke. So it's not iron, but if it's not iron why hasn't he lockpicked it already.

"Get out," Charles says quickly. "Edwin, we were wrong. We were so bloody—"

"See, I told you they'd come," Justin interrupts, wrapping the chain around his fist and tugging. It makes Charles stumble, but he still walks towards them until the chain stops him, and Crystal has to dig her nails into her palms hard to prevent herself from reaching for him. "It'd be terrible optics if they didn't show, wouldn't it now."

"How deeply unimaginative," Edwin says in a bored tone, glancing at the scene with disinterest like Crystal didn't feel his form sputter and spike the second they walked in. Which is very bad— the last thing they need is an unstable ghost savior. "Kindly spare us whichever loyal dog comment you were gearing yourself to share, I assure you we have heard them all in the past three decades. Unchain my partner and we shall leave you to your afterlife post-haste."

Justin lets the chain go and leans against the back of the couch, like the overly confident asshole he is. He moves like David. He talks like David, too. Crystal can't let herself get caught up in it or she'll be useless, and Charles is still shaking his head behind Justin and mouthing desperately at them. She can't understand what he's trying to say. Fuck, why didn't they practice this if he was going to be mouthing at them.

"No, I'm afraid not. I can't, for one— the chain is his own pathetic guilt over letting himself be caught. Neat trick, right? But I also don't believe you."

"I assure you that—"

"My new best mate Oizys says you're lying," Justin grins. That means absolutely nothing to Crystal, but Edwin has gone very still. "You see— sometimes, if your death is unfair enough, powers beyond belief take an interest. I'm sorry about Gracie, I really am— but she made things difficult, and her pain wasn't worth the bother. Now, Sophie's? That's some proper fun, at least." He turns to look back at Charles. "And your Charles? Can't say I've gotten a good taste of it just yet, but really, it feels just—"

It's quicker than she would've expected, but she was waiting for it. Edwin steps forward, grabs the crowbar out of his jacket and swings, and she runs in front of the couch towards Charles, heart pounding— and is thrown into the wall on her right in a single blow. Her chest freezes, pain radiating through her as she falls to the floor, she can't breathe— fuck, she can't breathe. She can hear herself gasping desperately for air.

"'s alright," Charles is mumbling at her, eyes huge and wet. He kneels, reaches down with his left hand and scrabbles at the air until Crystal crawls to him, and they hold on tight to each other's fingers. "You're alright, Crystal, bad hit is all. Give it a mo'."

"Bloody hell, see, this is what I mean," Justin snaps behind her. There's the sound of something shattering. "No, don't look at me like that, I knew you were going to be a pain in the arse, you love your little detective game so much. I didn't even throw either of you that hard. As for your trick just now, in case you happen to have more crowbars hanging about— don't bother to try that one again. I'm not one of you two-a-penny ghosts anymore, iron doesn't do anything to me."

That's obviously horrible news, but at least Crystal can breathe again, even if the pain of it is a bitch. And she can't see Charles' backpack anywhere. Slowly, so that Justin won't get curious enough to glance their way, she takes off her bag and nudges it close to Charles, zipper open. The creepy knife glints ominously in the pocket, but she's never been fucking happier to see anything.

She meets Charles' eyes and tilts her head towards it. His mouth falls open.

"I shall take that under advisement," says Edwin's icy voice, followed by a string of chanting in a language she can't recognize.

Light bursts in the room for a blinding instant, so bright it's almost painful, as if he'd just let a firework loose. Charles lets go of Crystal's hand and reaches into her bag, curling his fingers around the knife's handle like he's grabbing someone's raw organs or a poisonous bug against his better judgement. It's probably good that he's wearing his gloves. Or it might not matter at all, it's not like she would know.

"Let me tell you something," Justin says, and at Charles' widening eyes, she turns around to look. Justin is pulling a blank-faced Edwin towards them by the arm, and Crystal glances back at Charles, panicked, but he's already hidden the knife somewhere. He's also still fucking chained. "You like advice, right? None of you are leaving until I say so, which is never, because I'm having way too much fun and I want to see how strong your pain can make me. You can't hurt me and you can't destroy me, so you can stop wasting your energy anytime now."

Well, in that fucking case. Crystal reaches into her bag, blindly finds the evil jar of oil, and throws it at Justin's feet.

It breaks almost comically well. Whatever dark and iridescent thing was in it bubbles out fast, lapping at Justin's Veja sneakers. Pity they won't stain, they're expensive. He leans forward, watching the thing grow and tug at his legs and start to shine in every color. It's actually kind of hypnotic. Almost like—

"Crystal!" She can't see Edwin's face or anything anymore, because he's shaken off Justin's grip and thrown himself in front of her and Charles on the floor, but she can hear his pinched tone just fine. "That is absolutely not the way to use the Nemeton Lucetius," he hisses.

His cheek is almost pressed against hers, Charles close by his other side. They're gathered tight in a huddle, Edwin's arms around them both, blocking whatever is happening behind him with his back. It almost feels safe for a moment. It's nice. Which is stupid, because they're not in a fucking sleepover exchanging friendship bracelets, they're in the middle of a case that went to shit hours ago, but she can feel tears gathering anyway. She blinks them away.

"I'm sorry, did I mess up your plans of getting us kidnapped forever by the creepy possessed freak?"

"Is this really the bloody time?" Charles snaps. His face is drawn and there's still tear tracks on his face somehow— he looks fucking awful. "Edwin, how do we stop him?"

"I don't know," Edwin replies tersely. "I was hardly expecting a Oizys protege— Charles, you're still chained to the wall."

"I know."

She really wishes Charles' was the face she couldn't see, because it's doing the most fucking horrible twist of shame. Her hand finds one of his again. She's half-expecting him to shake it off, but he doesn't, his fingers grip hers just as tight as earlier. Edwin's hand was already curled protectively around Charles' furthest shoulder, but she sees him squeeze.

"You have to let it go," she reminds Charles, who winces. Behind Edwin, there's a gurgling noise that turns the stomach, and she's almost hopeful for a moment, but then Justin starts laughing under it. "That's what he said, right? You're holding onto your guilt, which is stupid, by the way— talking from experience. And it's not like we were expecting him to kidnap you." She can see from Charles' face that it's not sinking in, he's just curling further into himself like she's being a dick, when she knows for a fucking fact she's not. "For fuck's sake, Charles, please!"

"Crystal, that's enough," Edwin says, voice sharp like his creepy knife. Then he takes in a deep breath, she can feel it where they're touching, and he says, "Charles."

It's stupidly gentle. It's a tone she's never heard him use before, that she never would've thought he knew how to use, and it curls around Charles' name with an intimacy that shouldn't take her by surprise as much as it does. And nausea churns in her stomach almost instantly, because this is one of those things she knows she shouldn't be here for, but they don't exactly have a choice.

"I know," Charles says again, in an entirely different tone himself.

"Do you recall the Case of the Creeping Cult?" Edwin goes on, softly still. Crystal is too close to see where he's looking, but it must be Charles, because Charles is staring back at him with another one of those expressions she wishes she couldn't see, this time because it's not for her at all. "We found the ivy challenging to banish, and you said—"

"Thank you for the lovely nibble." They all still and turn around. Justin is standing by the couch, hair shining black and iridescent for a moment before it turns back blond. "We had a laugh, now that thing's all gone, and I'm proper interested in figuring out why you thought that would work," he says, pointing at Crystal. "I mean, I suppose I can see it. Our mate Edwin here's the smart one with the shrivelled little heart, dear Charles is the human shield who fails at even that, and you, doll, are the one with no power or skills of your own. Of course you'd try your hand at borrowing someone else's trick, that's all you ever do. Love the medium bit, by the way." He grins, bright and cruel. "Not yours either, says Oizys. Well, they can't all be winners. Clearly none of you are."

They're fucked. Crystal should be focusing on that, but she can't despite the rising panic, because Justin's not wrong. It wasn't her monster jar and it isn't her power. She's a psychic medium like the dozens of psychic mediums in her family before her, all of her power is theirs, and it hurts, but she can make it hers if only she can fucking focus—

"You feel real good 'bout yourself, yeah?" Charles says darkly. The chain is stark against his throat, but he's gripping Edwin's arm with his right hand, the left somewhere under his jacket. "Making people feel small. Talkin' to them like they're nothing."

"Well, yes," Justin replies, unbothered. "You should try it, instead of walking around making a fool out of yourself, begging for the slightest bit of attention you don't deserve. Have a touch of dignity, why don't you, it's hard to watch."

"Don't listen to him," says Edwin to the room at large, eyes never leaving Justin. Crystal would love to do what he says, but it's kind of really fucking hard when Justin won't shut up. "His power feeds on distress, he will—"

There's a sound like the wind blowing, if the wind hated them all specifically and wanted them torn to pieces. Justin's eyes have turned deep black, just like David's at his worst. Crystal suddenly gets one of those psychic red alerts that she can't never interpret right, although this one's pretty clear. Get out. Get out right now. Whatever Justin is, whatever power he's already built, it's blooming oppressively in the living room and curling into almost invisible black ribbons. As she watches, some of them try to wrap themselves around their wrists, their arms, any part of them they float by.

"You can't stick your fingers in your ears and hum until I get bored. To clarify." Justin looks back at Charles' tense, closed-off face and smiles pleasantly. "As I was saying, you're pathetic. But you already know that, so no harm done. You can twist yourself into whatever shapes you'd like, but that isn't about to make you good enough just like that. You've never been that, have you."

Crystal meets Edwin's eyes and tilts her head towards the ribbons. He nods somberly— he's seen. She can't read the expression on his face at all, but it's something cold, much better closed-off than Charles', and almost calculating. The problem is that she can't tell for sure if he's frozen or examining the situation, making a plan, the kind of things that they really fucking need right now. Either way, she can barely think over the droll of Justin's voice and the screaming of her own mind. She's losing herself. Just like in Grace's mind, if she lets it, there will be only agony. She can hear the echoes of David's voice under the hubbub, as always, joining almost perfectly with Justin's.

But her ancestors are whispering in her mind, too, and she trusts them better. There's only one thing she can do.

She reaches up and grabs Justin's fingers.

JUSTIN'S HEAD

She falls straight into icy waters with a splash that hurts every cell of her. Inky darkness at her feet, something buried at the bottom that she mustn't touch. No, not buried— waiting. Not chained, but chaining. She can suddenly see it, the black chain beside her, and it'd be easier to use it to pull herself up but it'd take something from her that she can't get back. Over her head, pink leaves. She kicks her legs and swims up, up, until her head breaks the surface. This mind is— hers?

No. The leaves are hers, the light that she can't see but can still feel, trying to guide her home. But there's only this cold hallway with white walls, not quite alien but still not hers. This mind is hers and not hers. This mind is hers and— his. As she reads him, he's reading her. It was a mistake to come here and make them one, but she remembers why she did it, and that still matters. He can and will hurt her, but he already knew her. Now she will know and hurt him back.

The hallway never ends, cold and empty, and the black chain follows. This mind hurts and wants for more. This mind is hungry. There's a god at the other end of the chain, under the waters that she's pulled herself out of, and his blessings are a different flavor of curse. She can taste power. Much more intense than the power of a psychic empath, much darker.

She aches. Her mind and his, they echo each other. They're kin. She knows this endless hallway and it hurts more than anything, she would leave it behind if she could, but she can't. She is Crystal, friend. Crystal, psychic medium. Those are gifts she has been given that she cannot forsake, even if this mind pulls at her ankles and begs. She pounds on the hallway wall until it cracks, and cracks some more, and light slips through the cracks and there's no freedom, of course, but there's a window. On the other side of the window, a door. She sees her own hands open the door and sees— herself.

There's herself, and CharlesandEdwin to her side like one entity. Some months ago, this mind would have strained to see what it does now. She knows this in a flash of pride, even as the ribbons curl pink and purple and red around the group until his— her heart curdles. Jealousy. Anger. Fear?

"Sickening, isn't it?" says David's— Justin's voice. "New bonds are bad enough, but those old ones positively reek with weakness. Turns one's stomach, really does."

They're beautiful. Pinks and purples and reds, like a sunrise of love. They lick at the wrists of other-her, tangle sweetly around her waist, in her hair, keeping her connected to the EdwinandCharles entity, which is not one but two, but they're so lost within the ribbons that it hardly matters. It's beautiful. She wants to— make it hurt?

"Let's have a laugh, why don't we. It all can turn against you so easily— we can show them how."

This mind burns. She wanted to be loved too, once, but that was a very long time ago. Now she knows better. Now she can teach them better. Now she can hook them in and watch them squirm, and feed until the pain blurs so close together that it stops hurting. She— no, she's Crystal Palace and this is not her mind. This shouldn't be happening at all. She shouldn't be able to see this, feel this, this is not how her power works, but she's him and he's her and if she can do this, then—

No—

Pink leaves—

She's not him and he's not her. She's Crystal Palace and this is her mind. They are not one.

GET OUT

JUSTIN'S MISERABLY UGLY LIVING ROOM

Sight is the first thing to come back. She's in Justin's miserably ugly living room and he's on his knees at her left, eyes blank, their fingers still linked— not that she can't find the strength to move them away just yet. At her right, Edwin has his forehead pressed tight to Charles' for an instant, Charles' eyes closed and expression almost peaceful, before he steps away and pulls them both up. Oh, thank fuck— there's no chain around Charles' neck.

Then her hearing comes back too, just in time to hear Edwin scream her name.

It happens so fast that she can barely process it. Justin comes swinging with half of a crowbar, teeth clenched and bared in a snarl, which is a weird detail to notice when she's about to get killed. Only she doesn't, because Charles jumps in front of her and takes the hit. She can feel it in her own side, the pain of it and burn of the iron, like Justin's empathy hasn't left her yet, but of course that's fucking impossible, it just hurts because she's watching Charles fall back to his knees holding his smoking side with a grimace.

Justin steps around him like he's less than nothing. Her blood starts burning, and she knows, she just knows, that Edwin is vibrating at the exact same frequency behind her.

"No, you're right. You're absolutely right, Charles, thank you, physical pain is a waste of time and won't get me any stronger. It's no fun, anyways."

He glances over Crystal's shoulder and nods. He drops the crowbar and turns his palm up, black sparks covering it until they solidify into another one of his fucking black chains, curled around his hand and slowly growing more links towards them. Whatever that's about, it can't be good. She reaches out to tug Charles back to his feet. He stumbles back into her, but Edwin's shifted closer sometime in the last few seconds and he steadies them both, muttering fast under his breath.

"Edwin, what in the hells is that?" Charles hisses, apparently out of instinct at seeing the chain, because he immediately seems to realize that Edwin's busy. "Oh bloody hell, not Welsh."

By now she's heard Charles complain about every one of Edwin's past and present quests to learn every language under the sun. Aramaic is ancient, took forever, and they always carry around at least one of its spell books because it's almost impossible to use without and too useful not to. Latin barely needed a review, because Edwin was already fluent, but it's an everyday kind of spell thing. And so on and on. At the time she had wanted to strangle Charles a little, but now she's glad that in the confusing disaster that is today, at least she knows that Welsh comes out when they need the big guns of protection and Edwin's really not on the mood for fucking around.

That means two things: one, they continue to be fucked. But two, they're not completely fucked yet— Justin's mysteriously evil chain isn't growing anymore.

Edwin's fallen silent, but if Crystal squints, she can make out his form shining warm yellow at the edges. Whatever he was doing, it's still holding, thank fuck. The next link of the chain keeps coming in and out of existence, like he and Justin are playing tug-of-war with it.

"Alright then, boy wonder," Justin says with a hint of irritation. He still sits on the couch's armrest like he couldn't give less of a shit. "Not about to answer your boyfriend, then? Oh, sorry— he's nothing of yours, right, might have something to do with how you're fucking unbearable to be around. Seriously, don't be surprised when he finally loses his patience with you and leaves, I know you've been on tenterhooks waiting for it." He smiles at Charles. "To answer your question, Mr Sunshine, your friend Crystal has pissed me off proper, and I've noticed that you're not wearing your bling anymore. So I figure, if I bind you all here, maybe you can stop being fucking pests. Your witch or magician or whatever he likes to call himself, he's giving it a proper go, but he can't keep it up forever. Brilliant contributions on your part so far, by the way. Have you ever thought about not utterly failing at the one thing he keeps you around for?"

There's something wrong with what Justin's saying. It's bullshit, right. She knows it's bullshit, he's trying to hurt them and he's doing something with his borrowed power and it's working, but she's so fucking exhausted and she can still feel him brushing her mind, invading her like David did, has. She can't let him win, though. She'll get the fucking words out if she has to wade through all the icy waters in her mind until she drowns—

"Have you noticed that you contradict your own observations at increasing frequency?" Edwin says in his most pedantic tone. He raises an eyebrow at Justin's glare. "Merely an observation of my own. I would very much appreciate the clarification, however— is it Charles who honorably suffers my presence, or is it myself who keeps him close due to practical considerations?"

From the corner of her eye, she can see Charles smile faintly, although he's still tense and frozen in place between her and Edwin. Justin's power is obviously getting to him too, trapping him in a spiral of the words that press on every bruise like a compulsion. And after Port Townsend, too. After Port Townsend, the both of them are already torn to shreds— that has to be why Edwin's the last man standing. He shifts so he's between her and Charles, stepping forward like he's shielding them again.

"I do love how you seem to think that anything you do matters," Justin says, pulling a leg up to his chest, head casually resting on the knee. "Love the optimism, honest. But you do realize that it's meaningless, right? And I don't just mean the little game we've got going on right now. Your agency thing— you're play-acting at making a difference, Edwin, because it makes you feel better about yourself. I feel you. It can be a bit of a laugh, to pretend you're not the selfish, uncaring bastard that you are. But eventually, you've got to— how did Crystal put it earlier? Grow up. Accept the truth. There's something wrong with you— you've always known this, everyone around you has always known this. For fuck's sake, I met you today and I can tell. And nothing you do will ever be good enough to make up for it."

"Your input is noted, although hardly worth the effort wasted on it," Edwin replies, stiffly.

It turns out he's not as immune as he looks, because the chain stretching towards them flickers and another link grows, then two more. The smugness in Justin's face makes Crystal angry enough that she can feel herself almost breaking through. She digs her nails into her palms, clenches her teeth. Come on, come the fuck on.

"Fine, if you fancy keeping your delusions, I'm not about to tear them away from you. I'm only saying, whatever you get, you deserve it— but it's not all your fault, is it? Hard to be full of warmth and love for humanity when you know the truth as well as I do." Justin's smile twists, and for the first time maybe since they've met him, Crystal can see something real behind it. "All people are selfish, and when they've got a moment to spare, they're cruel instead. The world is fucking selfish and cruel. No one gives a toss about anyone else, and better to learn this sooner rather than later, right?"

"I don't believe that."

Edwin's voice cuts through the fog again, wavering now, but just enough times. Still sharp like a blade, familiar. Crystal suddenly understands, at the worst possible moment, that she's barely been fooling herself by pretending she didn't already love him. She's been holding onto his voice like an anchor because she trusts him, after everything, and she trusts him despite being fucking terrified of how much it will hurt when they disappoint each other. It's already happened some, with her and Charles, and it did hurt like all fucking hell— but he hadn't let it get nearly as vicious as what she and Edwin could do together. What they might do together.

Then again, they didn't exactly have the best start to a friendship anyway. No masks, no holds barred. He can take it, and so can she.

Crystal swallows and smiles. The words are burning on the tip of her tongue, but Charles is faster.

"Oi, don't you ever get tired of talkin' tosh," he tells Justin, with one of those shining grins that look like a threat. He steps forward and slips his hand into Edwin's, which— alright, that's new. "Edwin's in the world, isn't he? Bit dead, but still. And he cared 'bout me before he even bloody knew me. He cares about everyone, all the time. And I care, Crystal cares. That's why we do what we do, innit."

"I do care," she agrees, with a dangerous grin of her own. She doesn't feel bad for relishing the hell out of what she's about to say. This one's a freebie. "I care a whole lot, actually, even about major fucking assholes like you. And I feel sorry for you. You're trying real fucking hard to pretend you're above caring, but deep down you know you're devastated 'cause no one's ever given a shit about you. Not your parents, not Sophie— you just wanted them to love you and they didn't even do it right. Boo-fucking-hoo. So yeah, I'll say it again— grow up, dead boy. These ones did."

Edwin glances at her, his hand somehow even more tangled up in Charles' now, and there's an approving curl at the corner of his mouth that Crystal would almost call fondness, if that didn't feel totally insane.

Then Justin starts laughing hysterically, hard enough that he phases through the couch's armrest for a moment. He grips the chain tight, like he gripped Charles' earlier, like he's about to tug at it and whip them with it. "That's so bloody adorable, I—"

"You say that all people are selfish," Edwin interrupts, all of his usual composure recovered and enveloping him like a king's cape. "I once read a novel which said that is true for witches in particular. That is what you called me, correct? A witch." Charles, who had been slowly moving his free hand back under his jacket where Crystal suspects he hid the knife, freezes in place. Edwin isn't smiling, but he kind of looks like he wants to be. "What do you believe the spell holding you at bay to be, Justin?"

"What?"

With the cadence Crystal's heard him use when he's reading out loud, Edwin says, "All witches are selfish, so turn selfishness into a weapon. Make all things yours. Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours. Protect them, save them." He glances at Crystal and Charles, face stiff as always, and yet. When he looks back at Justin, his stiffness is something else entirely. "My world, my friends. Charles, Crystal, the clients we help, and those who have left us to later return— all mine. How dare you try to harm them or make them meaningless, when they're mine?"

Something in Crystal is— hurting, something so old she had forgotten was there. Charles is staring at Edwin like the sun is rising inside him, and there's context she's missing for sure, as always, but this time it doesn't make the moment any less hers. Fingers brush her wrist and she startles, but when she looks down it's only Edwin, still holding tight to Charles with one hand and gently offering the other one to her.

She takes it.

Fire rushes through her, burning her clean of everything else in an instant. It almost hurts in that one instant, but then the intensity softens, until it's only warming her from the inside like hot soup when she's sick or standing in front of a fireplace. Through the warmth, she sees— the chain, wrapped around Justin's hand, tightening around it. It's still reaching out for them, but several black links at the end have started flickering, almost shivering.

"The world is cruel and selfish and no one cares about each other," says Edwin, to Justin, blinking serenely in that way that usually drives Crystal up the wall. It means he knows he's about to devastatingly win an argument and he's trying to be gracious about it. "That is your thesis. So why, do you think, is your spell unravelling?"

Justin's face twists into something animalistic, monumentally angry, the kind of face on a man that Crystal knows to step away from unless she has back-up. But she does. For fucking once in her life, she does, and Justin knows it, too, because his wild, desperate eyes flicker between their linked hands. She smiles. He's trying to find a weak point, because he's nothing without his powers, and his stupid fucking powers are nothing if he can't suck in their distress like a cheap vampire. But he's fucked, because they're solid. That doesn't mean she doesn't feel a spark of fear or anger, too similar to tell apart, lick at her insides when Justin's eyes land on Charles.

"How does it feel, Charlie," he says, fingers rubbing the chain links in his hands, "to know that even he will turn on you in the end? He's a clever chap, isn't he, eventually he'll realize you don't love him right. You can't. You're already hurting him." He tilts his head and squints, like he's straining to hear something beyond their comprehension. "He gave you the most precious present in the world and all you can give him return is— this. How tragic. What do you think, will you always make the lives of people you care about worse, or will you learn better someday? If you even can. If you're not too daft for that, of course, or too angry. Oh, soz, did I hit a nerve there?"

"Nah, mate," Charles replies, with a smile stretching painfully across his face. "Just thinkin', wasn't I. Like, what went wrong with you that you're such a massive fucking cunt, and such."

"Steady on, Mr Sunshine, at least I'm actually easygoing instead of a consummated actor," Justin says, like he isn't obviously furious still. "For your sake, I hope your witch doesn't find your astounding amounts of baggage too much to deal with. You already hardly deserve him, do you? I'll give you that much, you're self-aware enough to know it. Some things never change no matter how much you wish upon a star for them to— some people, Charles, are just born fundamentally unlovable."

"That is enough."

Edwin's eyes are blazing, and he lets go of Charles' hand. Crystal shivers, but doesn't look away— she's so fucking angry that she could kill this guy, but she can't, so she needs Edwin to tell her how. As if he's read her mind, he glances back at her and squeezes her hand before letting go. She can't interpret his expression at all, but he tilts his head at her and then at Justin, a movement so quick that she would've missed it if she wasn't already paying close attention. What does he mean. Seriously, they should've practiced Psychic Communication 101 beforehand if he and Charles were going to start using it with her on cases.

"No, I don't think we're done," Justin tells Edwin, after another glance at Charles. "See, I'm a lad's lad. So I feel it's only fair if I warn you—"

Hang on. He wants Crystal to talk to Justin. He must, because there's nothing else she can do— she's tried her medium powers and Edwin's evil oil jar, and Charles is unchained no thanks to her, and that's all she could help with really. She doesn't have thirty years of experience with the supernatural, and Edwin knows that, but clearly he's trusting her enough for this. And he's fucking right to. Because she may not be able to do much, but fuck if she can't draw some fuckboy's ire and distract him. Justin's just like David, after all.

And she's never let fucking David make her truly helpless.

"Hey, asshole!"

Justin turns to grin at her. But from the corner of her eye, she can see Edwin reaching back towards Charles, palm open in a silent demand, and Charles' blank face before understanding blooms across it. God, this telepathic language of theirs is so fucking annoying at all times but rare moments like this one, when it's so incredibly useful.

"Sorry, doll— forgot about you for a mo' there, didn't I? I'm sure that happens a fair bit already, no need for me to rub it in. I mean, just look at those two." She doesn't, because Charles is slipping his hand under his jacket, and thankfully neither does Justin. "They can't see a fucking inch past each other, must drive you utterly mad."

"I can deal," Crystal replies. "Unlike you, I don't actually need everyone's fucking attention on me at all times. But yeah, sorry true love is real and that makes you sad. Is that hard for you?"

"I suppose this is what happens when your parents can't be arsed to raise you," Justin tsks, shaking his head. Oh, that's just fucking rich of him. "No manners. No self-awareness. Did they know you weren't worth the bother from birth, do you think? Word of advice, doll— your bad bitch impression is slipping. We can all see you're just a weak, helpless child who never grew up and makes up for it by making everyone else miserable, too. That's all you've ever liked to do, isn't it. All you're really skilled at, and all you'll ever be."

"Do you fucking hear yourself?"

Because surely he can't lack that much self-awareness, right. Surely he's hearing himself tear into her and realizing—

"Stop fooling yourself, Crystal." Justin leans forward from the couch, with a sickeningly earnest expression. "You can't change, and you don't fancy doing so anyways, because you know you're irredeemable. You deserved all that's happened to you, and no one will ever give a toss about you even if you try to turn yourself into Mr Sunshine over there. Do you understand? No one ever could give a toss."

Crystal breathes in, past the tangle in her throat and her anger and everything else she doesn't want to think about, then out. "Are you talking about me or about yourself?"

The half-formed chain rattles like it's being blown away, and it must be, because they're suddenly in the center of a hurricane. Hot wind whips at the living room, smashing stupid decorative vases into walls and setting expensive paintings on fire. The furniture creaks. Edwin is walking over to the couch and Justin, creepy knife on his right hand, left arm bleeding from a pointy sigil carved there— his blood looks red and real, alive, but it's smoking. Blood isn't supposed to fucking smoke, and ghosts aren't supposed to bleed anyway. His aura is— oh, fuck.

"And what have you done now, boy wonder?" Justin chuckles, like he really can't tell he should be worried.

But it's Charles who replies, strangely somber, "What he had to."

Then, something even stranger happens. Crystal feels it rushing through her body like bile, like desperate fear that she didn't know she had in her. She doesn't mean to do it and she can't tell if this is what she was really holding behind her teeth this whole time, but she steps forward before Edwin can do whatever he's going to and holds up a hand. It's shaking.

"Wait! Edwin, wait." She stares straight into Justin's cold, cruel face. "You're like me. Like us. You're like David too, but you're not a demon from Hell, that doesn't have to be all you are." He might or might not have felt David in her mind, but that's the least of her problems, because she can't tell if he's listening at all anyway. "You can do better. I'm trying to do better. So if I fucking hate you or if you hate yourself, it doesn't matter— I'm not exactly a huge fan of mine right now, either, but I'm not letting that stop me. Just— fucking try."

"Crystal, what the fuck are you doing?" Charles says angrily, but when she glances back at him, he mostly looks upset.

He doesn't understand. She doesn't understand, either, not really. What Justin has done is— unimaginable cruelty, worse than even she has done, although not for her lack of trying. And that's only what they know about. What she's seen him do to her, and Charles, and Edwin, just now. So she gets it, why Charles doesn't understand why she can despise Justin and also beg with tears in her eyes for him to get a fucking grip. Charles doesn't understand because he never seems to believe that she really was a bad person, she was Justin. A part of her still is. He doesn't understand that she has to believe that Justin can change, because if she doesn't, then what the fuck is she even doing.

Justin is still holding onto the chain in his hands, but it keeps rattling and no new links are forming. She wants to believe that it's a choice he's making and not something Edwin is forcing on him, but she can't quite convince herself. He's watching them silently, though, an eyebrow raised, as if waiting for them to agree on their approach. There's an amused curl to his mouth that she doesn't want to think about too closely.

After a moment, Edwin and Charles exchange one of their looks. It's a long one, and as usual, Crystal can't read it at all.

"I am truly sorry that no one has ever cared about you," Edwin finally says, not actually sounding that sorry. "But you had a choice." A pause, then one of those judging glances of his that tends to find things lacking most often than not. It seems to this time too. But despite it, he adds, "You have a choice. You may try to release yourself from the hold of Oizys. It will most likely hurt, but it's certainly worth trying. We can help you."

Charles stands back at this— shoulders tense and hands curled into fists like he's missing his cricket bat, but he stands back. Crystal closes her eyes for a second, just to breathe, and tries not to feel too relieved. The silence is a good sign, right, maybe Justin's actually using his fucking head for a minute—

"How touching," he says, slowly. "I feel absolutely awful— for the three of you. Specially you two dead boyfriends, you've been around for decades and you haven't learned a bloody thing. Release myself. Try to be better. Shall we hold hands and skip into the sunset afterwards? Ugh, how bloody innocent are you?" His eyes are feverish, far away, and Crystal feels her stomach sink because she knows. She knows for sure. "You're giving it a proper go, I'll admit, stunning speech. But you can't fool me— you're out of options. Soz. I'm afraid you're still at my mercy, so why don't we all start playing nice, huh? You can't hurt me and you can't extinguish me, we've been over this."

"Allow me to try," Edwin replies, calmly.

In the end, it's almost gentle. He drops the knife, steps closer, and grips Justin's wrists, which immediately start smoking. Ghostly blood is still running down his arm, then further down to slick their linked hands and wrists, but it doesn't seem to bother him. Justin beams at him, full of teeth, but it drops when he realizes he can't tug himself free or do his evil power thing or whatever it is he's trying.

"You're not nearly as clever as you like to think, boy wonder. I can feel you now. I can taste you. Something happened to you, didn't it, that made you all wrong—"

"Yes," Edwin says. "And you're an empath, are you not? Would you like to properly feel it?"

The first rule of knowing Edwin is this: when he asks a question that isn't actually a question, don't fucking fall for it. It's never going to go well. If he's asking, it's because he already knows, and he's completely certain that you're about to do or say something monumentally stupid and he's going to get to say I told you so a million times after. Crystal could've told Justin this, if he'd bothered listening. She tried. But he's decided to continue to be a psycho, and it hurts, but not as much as whatever Hell feelings Edwin is about to— fuck, and there goes the screaming. And on, and on, and on, until she genuinely thinks she's going to double over and puke.

Edwin still doesn't let go. Hot wind keeps threatening to blow the room apart, and Justin is smoking much more than Edwin's arm now, and the screaming— fuck, but Edwin doesn't let go. And then, finally, he does, and Justin slumps over himself for a moment before he straightens back up, shaking, blood all over his wrists.

"You're so fucking daft," Justin hisses between gritted teeth. "You're doing this for them? The one who hates you and the one who can't even love you right? That's pathetic enough, but there's no point to it at all. Can't you see? I'm trying to do you a favor here, Edwin. Poor Crystal is a stone-cold cunt, nothing more to it, and your dear Charles? A pathetic, broken mess of a lad. They're less than worthless. So why don't you stop pretending you can delay things with your lovely little tricks and fucking give it up already?"

"Worry not," Edwin says. His voice is— Crystal's psychic intuition screams, then falls silent. "I was merely waiting for you to give me a reason to be angry enough for this."

She blindly grabs for Charles' hand, which feels like nothing and the most comforting thing in the world at the same time, and then glances back at him. He's watching Edwin with unreadable eyes.

"Angry enough for what?" she whispers, because she needs to know right the fuck now if she has to look away.

Charles' expression doesn't change. He doesn't look away from Edwin, but his hand tightens around Crystal's. He's maybe the most solemn she has ever seen him, and it sends a shiver down her spine. But all Charles says is, like a full sentence—

"Irish."

Then Edwin says— something. Irish, presumably. One word, maybe two, while standing straight and stiff as always with his burning eyes meeting Justin's. And Justin is smoke. There's no transition that she can see, no moment to process it. There's Justin, the ugly twist of his face and the blood on his wrists and the chain still clanking in his hands, and then there's dark smoke where he was sitting. Gone. Fucking gone, just like that. The psychopathic idiot chained by a god, with a mind vast and deep from powers that Crystal would rather forget— turned to smoke with a fucking word. No red or blue light, just extinguished.

The hurricane in the living room stops. As papers flutter slowly downwards and ceramic shards shatter on impact with the wooden floor, Edwin kneels, picks up his creepy knife by the blade, and hands it over to Charles handle-first. It goes back under his jacket, just like that. Just like fucking that.

"Holy fucking shit."

Edwin glances her way, like he can't read her tone anymore that she can sort through her feelings about this. It was violent and it wasn't. It was a show of strength of the kind that David loves, and also not at all. It was someone stupid, cruel, and just like her disappearing forever because he wouldn't take their hand, because he wouldn't listen to her and he kept using Charles as a weapon and he pushed Edwin to a breaking point. Irish. Possibly the only language Charles has never mentioned in his rants— she gets it, now, it was a kindness. Charles, who wraps an arm over Edwin's shoulders and tugs him tight against his own body, warily staring back at her.

And after all of fucking this, all Edwin says is, curtly sincere, "I am sorry you had to see that."

Crystal wipes the tears from her face with the sleeve of her coat. Thoughts are buzzing in her head like bees, and she now has a fucking headache alongside aching feet, a bruise on her diaphragm, and nightmares forever. She meets Edwin's sad, uncertain eyes.

"I'm sorry you had to do it."

CASE CLOSED

It should be simple. It's not simple.

Crystal is numb through most of the aftermath— through recovering Charles' backpack from where Justin kicked it, through their trek back to Grace's house. She lets Charles and Edwin talk to Grace, even, not that Charles is doing that well himself, eyes glazing over even as he speaks cheerfully as always. Edwin picks up the slack, fine when it comes to payment and not very well feelings-wise, but reliably, like some sort of— tall, safe tree or shield thing. Something like that. He's as composed as ever, so she doesn't actually know if anything Justin said or did affected him. Anything he did. But she doesn't have the strength to care right now.

Their ride back to London is silent. She puts on her AirPods and stares blankly out the window, exhausted, feeling every one of her very alive cells screaming at her. Charles and Edwin cram themselves together on the seat opposite her— they pick the seats with the table between them because Charles always says it makes it more awkward for people to join her, even while being visibly alone. Right now she appreciates the extra distance, anyway.

At some point they start whispering to each other, but she can't hear what about and doesn't want to. She must fall asleep for a moment, because when she blinks again, Charles' head is on Edwin's shoulder, eyes closed, which doesn't make any sense because ghosts don't sleep. She gets it when she notices the book in Edwin's hands, something with a group of blue-skinned, red-headed gnome things on the cover. They must've gotten it from Charles' backpack. She turns off her music and— yep, just as she thought, Edwin is reading it out loud. It's sickeningly sweet.

A part of her is so jealous of their closeness that she could fucking bite, but it also feels comforting, like she imagines other people might feel when their parents hug each other on the couch. If that's a real thing, anyway, and not just an unrealistic image that the media has sold to her. It's peaceful, though. Nice. Like things are right in the world, as long as Charles can muffle a laugh into Edwin's shoulder when Edwin reads a funny section. She closes her eyes again and lets Edwin's voice lull her too.

Later, though, back in London, things get— awkward.

"'s alright, really, Crystal," Charles says, with a particularly strained smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "You can give this one a skip, Edwin and I are just gonna sort out some paperwork, yeah? Take stock of the stuff I bought at the apothecary. Proper dull. And you need a kip, you can join tomorrow for the debrief." He glances nervously at Edwin like he's looking for backup. "Can't miss the debrief, right, Edwin?"

"It promises to be interesting," is Edwin's only contribution. Not exactly a stellar review, he thinks the weirdest shit is interesting.

And the thing is, she's not fucking stupid. Like hell are they going to do paperwork and take stock, it's like Charles thinks she hasn't met them. What he's trying to do is dig himself a nice little lonely hole to break down in where no one can see him and give a shit. Well, maybe she wants to join him in the fucking hole. Maybe she doesn't want to be alone with her thoughts. But it's selfish to want to join them, she knows, because Edwin is giving Charles a thoughtful look like he actually doesn't believe the shit coming out of his mouth either. Like maybe he notices more than she thought, back in Port Townsend, and she underestimated him— maybe he's going to take charge and make Charles talk about his feelings about this whole thing instead of shutting down, for once.

So she's being selfish, because if that's the case then she owes it to them to let it happen. Without her. Which is obviously the better option, because she's too tired to deal with their shit right now and Charles has already plastered a reassuring smile on for her benefit as if he wasn't the one to get fucking kidnapped.

"Yes, fine, see you tomorrow," she snaps, and then gives Edwin a very pointed look. She can't tell if he gets it at all, but at least she tried.

Then Crystal goes home and she eats, and she watches mindless TV, and she falls asleep. Case fucking closed.

PROCRASTINATING

It takes until her first morning coffee for Crystal to start feeling like an idiot. Rookie mistake, to listen to what Charles is telling you to do with that talking to distressed clients smile, especially because Edwin most likely did too and they got nowhere, and she'll have to go into the office in a few hours and pretend that Charles is absolutely fine and not irritating the hell out of her with his denial, not at all. She's already not looking forward to their stupid fucking debrief, because she already hasn't processed what happened and knowing herself, which she unfortunately is starting to, she's going to blow up on them the second she's through the door.

So she delays it some more. Not the most responsible adult choice, but at least she gets more coffee in her, which should help.

Then Edwin pops through the full-body mirror.

"How's Charles?" are the first words out of her mouth, because she was just thinking about it and can't help herself.

"Hello to you as well, Crystal," Edwin replies pointedly, hands interlaced behind his back, but it only has half of the bite it usually would. Which means either things are fucked, or things are very fucked, but she can't tell if that's between him and Charles in particular or just in general. She's irritated anyway. "Charles is well enough, considering the circumstances."

"Is that what he said, or is that what is actually happening? Because you should know by now that those are not the same thing at all."

"He's well enough."

He repeats it slowly, with a raised eyebrow, like there's something she should be getting from it that he's not saying. Unfortunately it's way too early in the morning still, she kind of had an incredibly shit day yesterday, and her body hurts all over. Besides, Edwin's being bitchy and uncooperative in her flat, in her open space kitchen-living room, and she doesn't have to take it.

"So did you or did you not actually have a conversation? Like, an actual word conversation, where you say things to each other out loud and talk about your feelings. Feelings, you know that one? Or should I bring you a dictionary? Because Charles has kind of a lot of them and he's really bad at sharing them, even when he really should."

"Yes, I'm very well aware," Edwin replies sharply. "Would you kindly trust my expertise with Charles? Considering I've known him since 1989, and I can assure you I have his best interests at heart just like you, if only far more deeply felt. When did you first meet him, again?"

Crystal can see the moment develop like a roll of old film. She can taste the words at the tip of her tongue, and she can imagine what Edwin will say in return, although he might be more creative than she gives him credit for. But she doesn't feel like an argument in the middle of her morning, before they even get to the office. And she's trying to be better. She's decided that, that she'll try not to bite Edwin's head off as a first resort even when he really, really deserves it. And— she remembers him yesterday, saying why won't you trust me with more feeling than she's heard from him in a while. So, fuck. Big girl pants it is.

"I'm choosing to believe that you're right and he's fine," she says, so controlled it hurts, but it totally pays off when Edwin blinks in shock and doesn't reply, like she's taken him off guard. She could get used to it. "So— why are you here?"

Edwin makes an even more interesting expression, or what passes for an expression with him anyway. It mostly looks haughty, but off. If Charles was here, he'd read him like a book— she keeps hearing him make the most unhinged interpretations of Edwin's micro-expressions. Although that seems to work for him, since he's managed not to strangle Edwin out of exasperation for three decades, so maybe she should start listening to what he has to say. She watches Edwin shuffle in place and clear his throat. Right. She can totally be open and understanding about whatever this is.

"At times, in the course of our work, there are cases that take a particular toll. It is perfectly natural to feel— unsettled." He scans her face, wringing his hands at waist level. "In the absence of Niko, I thought that I may be of use. If you wish to— talk."

The word is said with a stress that sounds like disdain, except if she really squints, and then it just sounds awkward. She opens her mouth to make a comment about him not sending Charles over in his stead and closes it again without doing so. Edwin might not be the most observant where other people's feelings are concerned, but clearly they both know Charles isn't in a state to talk about anyone else's trauma right now.

"So what you're saying is, you're being sweet," she tries instead, grinning, and Edwin sighs.

"Not you too."

Crystal puts her coffee mug down on the counter and hugs him like an impulse. Like— a sincere try, she's trying. If she wants to think about it cynically, it's a test too, but she hasn't thought about how he could fail it. It doesn't matter, anyway. He stiffens in her hold like he always does before he hugs her back, properly, fully, for the first fucking time. She would've expected it to feel perfunctory, reluctant, like the few times her parents have hugged her, but he's so strangely sincere about it. Warm. Just like Charles described him, and oh if she isn't furious that he was right. Edwin hugs like he's saying everything's alright, but like he'll only tell you that if it's true.

She hopes her hug says Charles isn't the only one who would go to Hell for you.

"Don't worry," she tells him when they pull away. She can feel herself smiling. "I won't get used to it."

"Good," Edwin replies, with a terse nod. "Now, your concerns?" he adds, in a tone like his hands are twitching with the urge to take his notepad out of his pocket and start scribbling down notes. She's too asleep and amused to be offended, but something must show on her face, because he sighs. "This is why Charles ordinarily does this. I only meant—"

"I know what you meant." Crystal recovers her coffee and leans against the counter. If this was Charles she'd sit on the couch, but it feels less weird to be standing when it's Edwin. "But I'm fine, or as fine as I can be after that shitshow. It just wasn't fun, seeing myself and David in that asshole. Like the world's most fucked up this is what your baby would look like website. Yes, I know you didn't get that, I'll show you later," she adds quickly, and Edwin lowers his enquiring finger. "Like, fuck, that could've been me."

Her counter needs a wipe down. She can't remember the last time she cleaned it, which is bad, because she's supposed to be a functioning adult. Then again, at least she cleans her own fucking counters, unlike her parents, so maybe she's doing fucking amazing, actually. There's a light streak of blue nail polish on it, though. When did that happen.

"I must confess I'm finding it difficult to see a resemblance," Edwin says. "Considering you took to your second chance, as it were, quite well."

Right, okay. That's fine and touching and not something she wants to think about, because it doesn't so much feel like she got a second chance and there it is, she fixed herself. It feels more like getting a bunch of continuous new chances and fucking up more than half of them. Still, Edwin seems to think that she's rocking it, apparently. That's worth something.

"Are you okay? Because Justin said a lot of fucked up stuff to you too, and I know you like to pretend nothing bothers you—"

"I assure you I'm fine," Edwin interrupts, with an incredulous look.

"Good for you."

If she's a little snappier than she meant to, it's whatever. Fine. This is what she gets for trying. She doesn't need Edwin's confirmation that the whole case was fucked up, anyway, she can tell all by herself. And that spell he used— She can still see it behind her eyelids, could see it all night as she was trying to fall asleep. A few words and then smoke. They told her it's the worst thing that can happen to a ghost and then they did it anyway. It doesn't make any sense. At least it wasn't Charles this time, face screwed up in anger as he hit someone off a fucking cliff like it was nothing— but she can't decide if it makes it better or worse that it was Edwin instead, steady and solemn.

She wants to ask how many times Edwin's used the Irish spells, but she can't bring herself to. Not without Charles here to mediate. And Edwin allows the silence, turning to examine the fairy lights over the couch with patient interest.

"I hope your choice in footwear didn't make things more difficult than they were due."

It takes Crystal a minute to process that he's even spoken. "What?"

"Your feet," Edwin replies, bending forward to look at the potpourri on her coffee table. "They hurt, did they not? Throughout the case?" At her stunned silence, because why the fuck would he notice that, he huffs. "I'm aware I can become somewhat overly immersed in case work, but we spent a significant amount of time together and it was obvious that you were in pain at times. You had said before we left London that your shoes were new. I can certainly interpret evidence, if nothing else."

"Holy shit, I was joking before, but you're actually being sweet."

All this time, and he's actually cared about her. Not just Charles. She's seen him put thought into things for Charles a few times, although it took her weeks to understand what she was seeing— giving Charles something to do when he starts pacing across the office, stepping in on a client interview when Charles' sunny disposition slips. When he's not buried in a book or a case, or halfway out of his mind from stress and mindfuckery from a bunch of small town supernatural guys, apparently Edwin has the empathy range of at least a moderately domesticated cat. And he's choosing to use some of it on her.

"Will you please take this seriously?" Edwin snaps irritably, turning to glare, but it's too late. She knows.

"I'm gonna be open with you now," she warns him. "So I need to know if you'll do the same."

Edwin eyes her warily, but he says, "Go ahead."

"No, I mean overall. I'll try to be less of a bitch unless I don't mean it. Wait— that doesn't make any sense." But Edwin's straightened back up, not to full stiffness but to his standard semi-relaxed posture, so she chooses to take that as understanding. "Okay, so. I'll stay away from Charles. A normal amount, we're still friends— but us, romantically? Not happening. For the record."

About a hundred different expressions flash through Edwin's face, none that she could read even if they went slower. "It's hardly any of my business what you—"

"Yeah, whatever, I get it. But I want you to know anyway. I'm not doing it for you, but it's still the truth, so— I'm not getting in the middle of whatever you and Charles have going on."

"It is good for Charles to have more friends," Edwin says, slowly. It's so telling that he hasn't denied anything she's said, but she doesn't point it out, because she's not entirely heartless. "He deserves to be appreciated for who he is. And I know he enjoys your company."

Then Crystal has the stupidest, most awful thought. It's because of the eyes— she's finally listening to Charles' advice, and Edwin's face gives nothing away, but his eyes are very far away, like he's barely even listening to her. Like she must have looked when she was staring at him and Charles in the train, staring at something she can't have and isn't sure she deserves, but that a part of her hungers for anyway. And Charles has said a few times that they're more similar than they think, so maybe, if she didn't realize that he cares—

"You and I are friends too, you know," she says, choked up, and Edwin's eyes snap back to the present. "I feel like we've already talked about this, but I meant it. I want to be your friend, that's the whole point of this conversation. God, that's pathetic, but fine. I do. I want you to like me." It's pathetic. She can hear herself, but it's too late, and Edwin's stupid fucking eyes are widening, and she says, sharply, "Which is why I'll try to be less of a ginormous bitch if you also try to be less of a ginormous bitch. Just don't be too nice or I'll freak. I can only stand so much of Charles' positivity, kumbaya, love for everyone bullshit."

"Very well."

Edwin actually ducks his head, lips curling at the corners, like he's shy now. She's losing her fucking mind. He's a bitch and he's sweet and he's completely hopeless at human interaction. They'll be okay.

"Now go sit down, I haven't introduced you to Love Island yet. I wanna see what you think."

As it turns out, what he thinks is so devastatingly biting that it couldn't even be aired by ITV. Crystal laughs until her stomach hurts, and then gets up to retrieve her Chinese leftovers from the fridge. Sometimes she thinks she sees his eyes crinkle when she says something bitchy, but that might just be wishful thinking. It's nice, anyway. It's easier than she would have imagined back at Port Townsend, or even two weeks ago.

Two hours in, Charles comes wandering in through the mirror. He stares at them on the couch like he can't believe his eyes, but then a giant smile spreads across his face. He jumps on the couch without a word, balancing on the armrest with his socked feet in Edwin's lap.

"Isn't that Tanya bird just like the flower lady from '09?" he says cheerfully. "The one who paid us in homemade energy drinks?"

"See, that's precisely what I told Crystal," Edwin replies, with a pleased look. Then, to Crystal, "I cannot imagine why you'd think I was joking."

"Me neither, you're not funny enough for that."

But Charles laughs, and Edwin lifts his eyes to the ceiling like he's praying for patience, and it's so fucking nice. So she lets herself have it.

CASE DEBRIEF

"Okay, so I think I've been really patient with your chronic lack of communication issues, but— what the fuck happened with Justin?"

Edwin, standing in front of the case board, gives her an exasperated look. "What do you believe a case debrief to be for, Crystal?"

At the corner of the desk, Charles swings his legs, paying no attention to either of them. It's cold as balls in the office, not that ghosts can tell, so Crystal hasn't taken off her coat. That's not what's weird. What's weird is that Charles hasn't taken off his jacket, because he always does that at the office, but when she tries to meaningfully meet Edwin's eyes and glance at Charles, she only gets a raised eyebrow in response. It's probably fine. She still feels like there's something off, but if anything happened to Charles at Justin's to make him feel the cold, she's pretty sure that at least one of them would tell her about it. Probably.

"Can I ask who Oizys is exactly, or are you gonna pencil me in for another lecture on doin' the reading?" Charles says, breaking the tense silence.

"Yes and yes," Edwin replies, shaking his head. He takes his notepad out of his pocket and writes something down. Knowing him, it probably says something like Thursday 8pm, tell Charles off re lack of research in latest case. "Oizys, as you may have surmised, is a personification of emotional pain and distress. A god, in a sense. There are cases in the literature of such gods giving blessings onto humans, although it is quite rare for it to occur after their deaths. I presume it was Justin's psychic empath power that drew Oizys to him. And of course, a certain predisposition towards causing pain."

It bursts out of her like a tidal wave.

"Did you have to kill him, though?" She grits her teeth at Charles' expression shuttering closed. Edwin hasn't even blinked, of course. "Extinguish him forever, whatever. God, that's actually worse. You get how that's worse, right?"

"Not like we had any other bloody choices, though, did we?"

There's a bite in Charles' voice that she can't fucking stand right now, and the way he's straightened up on the desk, legs pressed tight to the closest wooden leg and palms flat on the surface of it. Like he needs to protect Edwin from her. Like it's not totally fucking insane that they turned a guy into nothing, shitty as he was, after Edwin's little rant about needing to be angry enough for it—

"It was an unfortunate outcome," Edwin says, smoothly cutting through her thoughts. "We do try to avoid complete obliteration of supernatural entities, but we're not always given the choice. Justin did not consent to freely reject Oizys' blessing, and we were unable to force the matter with the limited tools at our disposal."

"So you're telling me that after your whole speech about the power of love protecting us from his binding chain thing, you couldn't hold it for ten more minutes to let Charles get some shit from the office?"

"Fuck's sake, Crystal— we're good, but not that good," Charles snaps, before he visibly reels himself in. The forced understanding in his voice is even more irritating than his anger, when he says, "Some of those spells are proper complicated, yeah? Welsh is all intent-based and fiddly, that's why it's a last resort sort of thing. And whichever spells we would've needed to banish that Oizys fella, those must be mad— it's already hard enough to banish ghosts. Who was gonna cast them, do you think? You? 'Cause I'm pants at ritual magic, and Edwin can't do two bloody things at once."

He glances at Edwin, as if looking for approval. And Edwin, who had been staring back and forth between them with a pinched face, gives a deep sigh and steps forward to rest a hand on Charles' shoulder. Some of Charles' tension melts. Crystal just barely resists the urge to grab them and shake them and knock their stupid fucking heads together.

"That is correct, Charles. You're once again far more informed than what I gave you credit for," Edwin says, almost kindly. He takes his hand away from Charles' shoulder, and Charles stares after it longingly like he doesn't even care that he just got out of a lecture. They're in the middle of an argument and he seems to have forgotten that too, because he's too busy wishing he was being petted some more— it's fucking infuriating. At least Edwin is looking back at her to say, "There is also the matter of Justin's binding spell. The chains, as you say. I wasn't so much protecting us from it as preventing it from becoming independent from Justin's casting, as it did with Charles earlier. If we had attempted to leave, we would have been unable to."

Crystal winces, but she can't tell if it's the building headache or the strain of possibly having to admit to Edwin that she was wrong about something.

"So we were super fucked."

"Basically, yeah," Charles says, relaxing back on the desk at her unsaid admission. Edwin glances between them again with a confused scowl. "Must've been the blessing thing, but we really couldn't do anythin' to him. I tried the bat and some proper nasty stuff I had in my bag before you even turned up."

"Not the bees," Edwin sighs.

Charles grimaces, then pats his arm. "Sorry, mate. If it's any consolation, he didn't eat those. They wouldn't come out."

The temptation to say something horrible like pot, kettle is strong, but Crystal is a better person now. Tries to be, anyway. Besides, she still doesn't get what exactly is going on between him and Edwin, and she's not looking forward to Edwin getting all prissy at her being mean to Charles and trying out some of those fucked up Irish spells on her. Which reminds her—

"I get it, we were trapped at Justin's tender mercies and out of options. What's with the Irish spell? What the fuck was that?"

God, not another one of those shared looks.

"Irish cursing is notably powerful," Edwin finally replies, as he writes something down on his notepad. "I'm afraid I don't normally have a knack for it. It relies far too much on strong emotion and belief in what you're saying, rather than traditional expertise." At Charles' pointed grin and eyebrow raise, he sighs and admits grudgingly, "For that matter, my Irish is hardly up to standard. I used one of the simplest curses I could recall, in the hopes that it would apply widely— faigh bás. A command to die, or most exactly, to find death."

"But he didn't," Crystal reminds him. "He just disappeared. Forever."

"It is not a banishing spell, it's a bloody curse," Edwin snaps. "And an Irish one, at that. You can't be reaped by Death when you're chained to a god, but you can be destroyed. It was all I had— forgive me for not having a complete repository of Irish spells at your convenience, but it was difficult enough to cast the one with the right intent. Contrary to what you may believe, I do not enjoy senseless death."

"I didn't—"

"Lay off it, Crystal," Charles says, gently, but it sounds like a warning anyway. Then he turns on his megawatt smile of smoothing things over and tugs Edwin closer by the back of his jacket, so he can hook his head on Edwin's shoulder. "Now, the most important bit— we've got to name the case, yeah? We're already way late on it."

There's a moment when things seem like they're hanging in the balance, like they're all waiting to see if the argument has to keep going. And it's not like Crystal feels any less sick about what happened, but it doesn't feel the same, either. It wasn't senseless violence. It didn't happen because it was easier, or fun, or because someone was angry. She tries to let it settle the curdling of her stomach, but it only works halfway. It was awful, she reminds herself, but it happened because Edwin, who hangs back whenever there's a fight like he's allergic to it, saw that they were trapped in an impossible situation and did, according to Charles, what he had to do.

It doesn't mean they'd do the same to her.

"I get it," she says, trying not to look at Charles' wary eyes. Edwin's face is smooth, steady, and for once, a relief. "It was shit for you too, but it's what you had to do. Like I said, sorry you had to." The lightening of Edwin's tension, which she hadn't even noticed was there, is suddenly obvious enough that she feels like she's been repeatedly kicking a puppy for the past hour. Fuck. "Um. It was cool, though. The spell."

What a stupid fucking thing to say. This is why she doesn't try to be nicer more often. Edwin's nervously readjusting his jacket, as if making time to figure out what to respond.

"Oh, I see how it is," Charles says, cheerfully but with the undertone of a sharp edge. That his face is still smushed against Edwin's shoulder doesn't actually make it any better. "I hit a lady off a cliff, with nothin' bad even happening to her, and you're livid at me. Now, Edwin extinguishes someone's whole existence and that's cool."

She really can't tell how much he means it, so she says, "Charles, it wasn't like that."

"I believe we have readily established that in the past hour," Edwin interrupts, wearily. "Let us leave that particular argument behind."

"I was thinking of the Welsh one anyway," Crystal adds, quickly. It's a lie, of course, but it's not like they can tell. Probably. "The one that helped us not get trapped forever at Justin's fugly house. That one was cool."

Edwin shuffles awkwardly in place, drops his shoulders, and says, to Crystal, "Thank you for your feedback. Welsh spells require a different sort of focus than the one I'm most suited to, as well as an understanding of protection magic. You may be unsurprised to hear that I hardly have experience with how protection is meant to feel— present company excluded, of course. I had to gather inspiration from a series of novels that Charles and I read in 2015. I'm gratified that it was effective."

So she got that one right, anyway, the heartbreaking shit that Edwin just admitted to aside. Even Charles seems to think so, because he beams at her before going back to giving Edwin his usual fond heart eyes. From that up close, Edwin doesn't notice, but it's not like he usually does.

"Crystal's right, though, mate," Charles says to the side of Edwin's face. "It was brills. With that sort of focus, you could've taken someone's head clean off, like— if it was that Welsh spell from '09."

"The flower lady?"

They both give Crystal a baffled look, like she's the weird one.

"Of course not," Edwin replies, slowly. "That case hardly necessitated such measures." Then he blinks down in Charles' direction, looks back at Crystal, and adds, "Anyhow, would you like to name the current case?"

"Oi— it's my turn, innit?"

Charles unplasters himself from Edwin's back to give him a sour look. In response, Edwin slides his notepad back into his pocket, picks up the case card from the desk, and walks back to the case board. He moves with a grace that Crystal can envy, now that she doesn't actively want to strangle him— right now, anyway.

"Indeed. Which is, of course, why I'm offering. This was a serious case, we can't possibly have another one of your puns or—"

"The Case of the Teenage Heart-breaker."

It's so mind-numbingly stupid, that Crystal actually feels bad for mocking the agency name to Edwin's face when they first met. He was so defensive about it that she thought it had been his choice, but now, faced with Charles' terrible life choices, she's not so sure anymore. Edwin taps his pen on the case card once, with a long-suffering sigh.

"Well, I suppose at least there's no puns involved. Although I feel the name is a tad too glib for what the actual case involved, and not entirely relevant. Crystal?"

Edwin is looking at her almost hopefully, like he really wants her to dash all of Charles' idiot hopes and dreams. The problem is, Charles is also looking back at her with wide eyes, and he's the one she's pissed off most recently. Also—

"It sounds like a MARINA song."

"A what?" says Edwin.

Unfortunately for him, that seals it, because she's played her music for Charles before and Charles won't stop laughing for long enough to explain it to Edwin. So eventually Edwin writes down the name with a flourish and a resigned expression, and slips it into the case board, on the Closed section.

NOT AN ARGUMENT, FOR ONCE

The Jenga tower shakes, but doesn't fall apart. Charles grins gleefully at her, even though he's definitely going to lose within the next five minutes, if she doesn't kick the tower down herself. This is what she gets for refusing to walk half an hour in the cold— sitting on the dusty office carpet, playing an old person's game with Charles until her underground line gets its shit together again. At least it's not Cluedo. She didn't allow him to convince her to play Cluedo and she stands by it, his and Edwin's obsession with it is fucking disturbing.

She almost envies Edwin right now, though. Paperwork almost sounds more interesting.

"He's taken off his jacket, see?" Charles mutters, catching her eye and nodding towards the desk.

"Yeah, and he still has twenty more layers on," Crystal replies, because it's true. Edwin's taken off his coat and his jacket is hanging prissily on the chair, but he still has his whole vest and fancy shirt get-up on, and not one hair out of place. Of all the fucking things to be into. "Get a grip, Charles. Ogle him in your own time."

Charles gives her a really weird look, then visibly shakes it off. "Right. He's grown on you, though, hasn't he?"

She makes him wait, because she's in the middle of something. The tower shakes some more, but if she pinches the piece carefully and tugs at it slow, it looks like it might hold. Might take a lot of stops and starts, but she has nothing better to do, anyway, so she might as well demolish Charles at Jenga. Plus, it gives her time to think.

"Like a pimple," she decides. "Annoying and hard to ignore. But sometimes you look at it and think, at least it'll get me out of that bad date."

The nicest thing she's done today so far is not adding that Charles is the bad date in this scenario. It's mostly not true, anyway. She's just pissed because Charles is grinning at her like he knows she's full of shit, which she is, because Edwin is maybe not the worst person in the world.

"It's gonna fall," Charles warns, way too happy about it.

"It's not, shut up." She pushes the piece back in, brushing over the nearby ones for a better choice. Charles has learned better than to claim it's cheating— that one only works on Edwin. They're playing with wild west rules, because she can't be bothered otherwise. "I still don't get why you like him so much, for the record. Like, I don't get your relationship at all. But I guess it's none of my business. And you're like, maybe the only thing that he cares about, so I can see some of the appeal."

"C'mon, Crys, you know that's not right." He nudges her with his elbow. "He cares loads. You've seen, yeah? 'bout you and Niko and every client we help, just in different ways."

"Uh-huh. He's just obsessed with you in particular." At Charles' instinctive face of outrage, she adds, "That's fine, by the way, I think someone should be kind of obsessed with you. It's healthy. And it's not like you're not equally obsessed with him."

Charles nudges her again, probably because he's a dick who wants her to lose. "Admit it, you love him now."

No one could possibly blame her for this. She's been trying every day to not be a bitch, but she's good at it, and she's tired. She wants to be home with her fuzzy slippers and scroll mindlessly on her phone for a few hours. Instead she's here, and Charles won't stop trying to get her to tug at the Jenga piece in her hand wrong, when she almost has it out. So he kind of deserves it, really—

"I will, when you admit that you love him."

"'course I love him, it's Edwin," says Charles, cheerfully, and she startles so hard that the Jenga piece twitches, and after a second, the whole tower crumbles.

"You can't be fucking serious."

But he's staring back at her with an amused, completely innocent expression, like he really didn't mean anything by it. She looks down at the ruins of the Jenga tower and gives up. Fuck the game and fuck whatever Charles thinks he has going on with Edwin, if he's thinking anything at all. It hurt like hell to close herself off to what could have been, with Charles, but every week that passes she's more and more convinced that it was the best choice. For everyone. But especially for her sanity.

"Hullo," Charles says, in his pleased, embarrassingly intimate Edwin's here voice. "Come for a round?"

Edwin, who is in fact looming over them now, examines the remains of their game and shakes his head. "Certainly not with whichever loose rules you're playing. Besides, I believe I'm making strides in Niko's research— I would rather return to that for the afternoon. I was only going to ask you to sign the case card. It was an inadmissible oversight, yesterday."

"Ah, Charlie threw a fit, did she?" Charles says, as he signs. He braces himself on Edwin's wrist to do it, pressing the card into his palm.

"That she did," Edwin tsks, closing his hand around the case card and recovering the pen from Charles. It takes longer than it should— like, it's a really long few seconds of meaningful eye contact and finger brushing, which is pretty fucking awkward, but who's counting. "Crystal?"

"Yes, we'll pick up in a minute, relax." Crystal rolls her eyes, but apparently that's not what Edwin was trying to say for once, because he hands her the pen and case card with one of his patented judgy looks. She freezes. "Oh."

"Neatly, if you'd please."

Which is just so fucking rich, considering Charles' shitty handwriting, but she lets him have it. She signs and hands him back the card and pen. Edwin nods in approval, so she smiles at him, just to see what he'll do. Just because her body's full of electricity that she needs to do something with. Her signature is next to his and Charles', like she belongs. She's never belonged anywhere before.

Edwin smiles back, just a light tilt of his lips. She hates that she can see it now. She hates that she knows how much she cares, but it's too late.

"Fine," she sighs to Charles. "You win. He's okay."

Charles practically glows with smugness for the entirety of their next round of Jenga. It makes it all the more sweet when she wins it, and then wins the next one too for good measure.