1 - 20 of 349 Works in Crystal Palace & Charles Rowland (DCU)
Navigation
Listing Works
-
Missed Connections And Lost Opportunities by UneducatedAuthor for JUBE514
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
06 Sep 2025
Tags
Summary
Charles can't help but miss his best friend. It's been a long time since they've seen each other, but when you know what it is to have Edwin Payne as your best friend, you can't really forget it. But he has a good life now, he's building something Edwin would be happy to see. He even has a new favourite podcast, and the host of Dead Boy Detective is pretty aces. It would be awesome to ever meet him, but the guy is kind of famous for his privacy. Charles gets it.
(In which Charles is a Youtuber who loves the host of his favourite podcast, and Edwin is the infamous Dead Boy Detective, who never plans a face reveal, but misses his friend from high school, who he considers the love of his life. When Charles past comes back to bite him, old rocks are underturned, but the two find each other again.)
-
Tags
Summary
While investigating a witch's house for a ring for a client, Charles and Crystal find a mirror that doesn't show people's reflections.
-
A Deathly Attraction | Edwin Paine x Original male Character by Shooshooshoo
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
02 Sep 2025
Tags
Summary
After such an intense stream of adventures back in Port Townsen. Edwin, Charles and Crystal make their way back to London with a few more people than when they first left. With Crystal still trying to track down her parents and the boys taking a break from detective work. They stumbled across a revamped theater which holds a whole new stream of adventures that can change their very ‘lives’ as they know it (SLOW UPDATES)
-
Tags
Summary
Most ghosts didn’t celebrate their birthdays.
But Charles Rowland wasn’t ‘most ghosts’.
Indeed, Charles’ birthday was a high point of the year, a guaranteed day of fun for himself and Edwin. The fun always helped to push down the unvoiced emotions below: the loss, the unresolved pain of his death, the feelings of failure and inadequacy. Charles saw no reason why this state of affairs shouldn’t continue forever.
But then he turned fifty.
Or:
How a medieval poem changed Charles’ afterlife forever.
-
Tags
Summary
“Mystery, Inc.?” Niko suggests.
Crystal smiles wryly. “I think that one’s been taken.”
“The Scoobies?”
“Isn’t that the same thing?” Crystal asks.
“No, that's what they call themselves in Buffy.”
Crystal laughs. “You know, for someone who died in 1963, you know a lot about pop culture.”
Niko shrugs. “I guess you have a lot of time to watch TV when you don't leave your room for 60 years.”
*
In which Niko is a ghost, she and Crystal form their own detective agency, and along the way maybe fall in love.
Series
- Part 1 of Psychic & Spirit Investigations
-
Tags
Summary
“Charles?” The boy asked, startling him from his thoughts. His voice was soft and kind, like his mum’s often was after a particularly rough night with his dad.
Charles looked up, his good eye blinking owlishly. “Who’re you?”
He looked back at Charles, lips set in a wobbly frown. If Charles had to guess, he’d say the strange, stuffy-looking boy was trying not to cry.
There was a long beat of silence. And then:
“Oh, my dear. What has she done to you?”
---
Or, after tangling with the spirit of a mad scientist, Edwin is left with a seven-year-old Charles that has no memory of him or their afterlife together. Edwin learns about Charles’s childhood in steps, as Charles finds his way back to the family he’s built by working through the trauma of his past. -
This is a gift (The high cost of living) by foolishgames
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
22 Aug 2025
Tags
Summary
“Tell me you feel it too,” says Edwin desperately, and Charles can feel the warmth of his breath and smell his skin and his wool trousers and his pomade and inside Charles’ own chest is something squeezing and fluttering and alive, alive, alive.
-
Tags
Summary
It was quite normal for recently deceased ghosts to come to them for help finding the person who killed them.
It wasn't very often, however, that the person they looked for was actually the victim.or: an amnesiac murderer knocks on the office door seeking to find the person he killed. charles, edwin and crystal find that the case is hitting them a little too close to home.
-
Tags
Summary
“So, what do you study at HFA?” Before the other boy can answer, Charles puts a hand on his shoulder. “No, wait, let me guess.” He puts a finger on his lips to think. “You don’t look like a sporty chap. No offense. And you’re taking your A-levels a year early, which means you got some brains inside that head of yours. You read. Very old books.”
“Sherlock Holmes is a classic!” Edwin looks offended.
“So… You’re definitely in the Humanities.” Charles turns with a smile for approval. “Am I right?”
“That is still sixteen different specialities.”
“Yeah, and I don’t know them all, so you’re gonna have to tell me, now."
-
Or: Charles, Crystal and Niko are considered the inseparable bus crew. No one messes with them. When Edwin gets bullied in front of them, Charles takes it upon himself to include him into their group. What ensues is a true kind of friendship and the discovery of what love can help get through, all in the span of their last sixth form year.
Featuring an (almost) independent trans Charles, an insecure Edwin, Jenny playing legal guardian, walking shelter dogs and being the teenagers that they are.
-
Tags
Summary
“You okay?” a voice asked, and Crystal turned to find a boy next to her, looking at her with concern.
For a brief moment she wondered what it might be like to be the sort of girl who could let herself get chatted up by a cute boy. To be a regular seventeen year old who could have a fun little fling, maybe even indulge in the kind of fluffy relationship that you saw in teen dramas…
Except she had never been that sort of girl. The last boy she had kissed had been a ghost. The one before that, a demon.
So yeah, the likelihood of a cute teen romance was basically nil.
~
OR: Crystal deserves good things, so I decided to give her a boyfriend. However, what started out as a single, fun idea became a sprawling story, delving into all her issues and then some… And she does get that teen romance, it’s just a bit more unusual.
-
Slipshod: One Agency’s Attempt to Bring Niko Sasaki Back From the Dead by The_IPRE for DontOffendTheBees
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
16 Aug 2025
Tags
Summary
It is a messy process, mud spattering across all of them, the canvas they work on, the tarp that Crystal draped over her couch before they began. There is something satisfying to it even so, and as the afternoon wears on into evening, Edwin finds himself putting his frustration into the motions, exorcising the anger and heartbreak and grief that has been festering within his spectral chest in the months since Niko died before his eyes while he lay bound and useless.
He is not made useless anymore, though, and so as the pile of wedged clay in the center of the room grows, so too does Edwin’s certainty in his work. He believes in the process and the craft with all his heart, in all of the messy pieces that will give them a fraction of a better chance at success.
He has to.–––
crystal, charles, and edwin work to bring niko back the old fashioned way: by building her a new body from clay
Series
- Part 6 of ash's post-canon timeline
- Part 10 of becoming crystal palace
-
Per aspera ad astra by ultraviolet_luves_converse
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV), The Maze Runner (Movies)
15 Aug 2025
Tags
Summary
They very rarely get live clients, mostly because most living people can’t see them, but also because they investigate the clients death, which is hard if the client is still alive. Gally nods, fixing his gaze on Edwin.
‘We, I need your help. Finding someone. Alive’ he has an american accent, which is unusual for them, seeing as most of their clients are born and raised londoneers, or at least from England.
‘Alive?Mate, did you have trouble reading the name? The DEAD Boy Detectives?’ Charles asks incredulously, eyes widening as he looks at Edwin and Crystal, who mirror his look of surprise.
‘Why us?’ Edwin asks, trying to smooth over Charles’s rude inquiry, while still getting some form of context from their perhaps-clients. Minho still hasn’t said anything, nails digging into his arms through the material of his jacket, pointedly looking away as Gally answers.
'Because, you’ve been in hell, and escaped’
Series
- Part 6 of The glader and the demigod
-
So Much Universe and So Little Time by Starcrossedstarfishes
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV), The Dead Boy Detectives (DC Comics)
15 Aug 2025
Tags
Summary
Prince Edwin Payne, heir to the Edwardian Realm's crown, wishes he had met Charles Rowland under different circumstances. He unfortunately doesn't have such a luxury, as Charles is an enemy of the Realm, champion of the Resistance and is kidnapping him just at the moment.
Oh and did I mention they're in space?
-
The Case Of The Lovelorn Lyricist by ObamaTurnedMyFrogIntoAHomosexual
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
15 Aug 2025
Tags
Summary
While working a case Edwin gets himself unknowingly cursed to make everyone who can perceive him fall madly in love with him. Everyone but Charles that is. As the agency tries to figure out a cure, the affected grow more and more desperate for Edwin. If only Edwin could figure out why Charles isn't affected, he might be able to understand the curse better.
Basically a really long version of that season 2 episode of Buffy the vampire slayer, but make it gay and less toxic
-
Tags
Summary
“Now if I appear to be carefree,
It’s only to camouflage my sadness.
And honey, to shield my pride I try
To cover this hurt with a show of gladness.”-
Post-lighthouse episode. In an attempt to help Charles talk about his past, Crystal goes digging in his memories without permission. Things go south from there.
-
The Case of Edwin Payne’s Odd Behavior by strangekiddo
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
09 Aug 2025
Tags
Summary
In which Charles sees the Cat King shapeshift into him in an attempt to seduce Edwin, confronts Edwin about it, and still doesn’t realize that Edwin is in love with him. Cue the arguing and angst.
-
Tags
Summary
The apocalypse had come slowly, as if the earth itself were trying to delay it. It started in the plants, growing where they weren’t supposed to, whole redwoods poking their ways through skyscrapers, wild gardens taking over office buildings. People tried to remove them, but eventually, it just became easier to let them stay. Then, the creatures. The first incident was reported by a distraught son who'd gone deer hunting with his dad. He said that when his dad tried to shoot the deer, it just ate the older man, leaving bloody bones behind. The son lost his hand trying to get away from it. The animals turned, creatures of every kind becoming violent to the point where people were putting down their own dogs before they could be betrayed.
Cell towers were covered in vines and Wi-fi routers were grown through with roots and wandering branches, rendering phones almost completely useless. Governments had been mostly dismantled, leaders either dead or in hiding.
Niko's dead, Edwin needs to find somewhere safe before Crystal loses her mind, and Charles just hopes he stops finding corpses.
(DBDA ApocalAugust event Day 2: Natural Disaster/Reunion)
-
You Look Like My Sweetest Dream (Wake Up I Beg You Please) by UneducatedAuthor
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
03 Aug 2025
Tags
Summary
Charles lived a pretty normal life, and he could never understand why that almost felt like a surprise to him.
He had breakfast, studied hard, hung out with his mates, and all of it was so precious, because he knows how much you have to appreciate Living.
It's just... It feels like there's dreams, at the corner of his eyes. Feels like the two girls, Niko and Crystal he met by accident know more about him then they should. Feels like someone is supposed to be at his side and isn't.
It feels like he's missing something.
(Charles is cursed to live as a human, with no memories of his afterlife and unable to interact with the paranormal world. The Dead Boy Detective Agency need him back.)
-
Tags
Summary
Crystal and Charles has a short conversation about what Charles wanted to be when he grew up.
-
Season 2 If Netflix Weren’t Cowards by LifeIsGoodIThink, NotBanana, TheOriginalDuckLord
Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
02 Aug 2025
Tags
Summary
When the Dead Boy Detectives find a chance that Niko could still be alive, they embark on a case to get her back. Crystal deals with David. Charles is confused. Edwin is slaying, as per usual — though gayer than usual. Cases are solved, shenanigans ensue, and Charles gets there eventually.