Chapter Text
It was a Monday when she knocked on the door to the office.
Edwin was sitting back in his chair with his feet up on the desk. It was a habit he had picked up from Charles two decades back, and gleefully continued, imagining his old teachers seeing him. Charles was laying across the desk reading one of the comics that he hid around the office. He and Edwin used to argue about it, but over the years, he warmed up to it, mostly because Charles pointed out that he couldn't mess up the papers unless he really wanted to.
When the knock came at the door, Charles tried to roll gracefully off the desk and landed on the floor with a thud that would have shook the building. Edwin quickly tucked his feet under the desk and called: "Come in!"
The door swung open and Death stepped through it, looking like she didn't quite know what she was doing there.
Ghosts didn't have blood, meaning that they couldn't have it all drain out of their faces. However, human instincts are a powerful thing, and the two faces that greeted Death looked exactly as pale as most people would have pictured ghosts.
"Ex-excuse me," Edwin said. "What can we do for you?"
"Well, I was hoping that you could help me find someone. This is a detective agency, right?"
Charles, who had been laying on the floor, stood up and dusted the nonexistent dust off his pants, then stuck out a hand for Death to shake. "Of course we are. I'm Charles and this is my partner Edwin, and we are the Dead Boy Detectives."
Death took his hand bemusedly, as though this wasn't a common occurrence. In fact, it was not. Most people's first reaction to meeting the Grim Reaper was not a friendly handshake.
"As you were saying, yes, we are capable of helping you find someone. You didn't need to come to our office personally though," Edwin said.
Death looked a bit sheepish. "This isn't exactly an on-the-books operation. It's my day off, and I needed some help with a problem." She paused, weighing the words. I need you to help me find my brother."
Charles shot Edwin a questioning look. Edwin shrugged back.
Death sighed. "I know we didn't have a lot of time to talk about my family when you were running away, so yes, I have siblings, yes, I'm on decent terms with the one I want you to spy on, no, he doesn't have anything to do with death or the afterlife or anything that could threaten your continued existence of this plane."
Edwin composed himself. Before he could- politely- ask what she wanted, Charles jumped in. "It's not exactly what we do, but we could definitely try. What is it that you want us to do?"
"He... He's been acting weird and I want to know why. He's always been a little strange, but he's been more closed off for the past few months and he ignores me for days. That isn't actually weird, but he always used to explain himself when he vanished."
"So you would like us to follow him and see what he is doing?" Edwin pulled his notebook from under a stack of arcane books and started scribbling.
"That's the gist of it."
Now that Edwin had an idea of the case, he could set aside how odd this was and focus on the plan. "I need to know everything that you think might be important about him."
Death looked at her watch. "I don't have that much time, but I can give you the basics. His name's Dream, he looks... wait, I think I have a picture of him." She stuck a hand deep into her black jeans and pulled out a photo of a man with dark, spiky hair dressed all in black. "He's always grumpy, so he looks like this all the time."
Edwin cleared his throat and asked politely "If his name is Dream, I would assume he is your counterpart but for dreams."
"Yeah, King of dreams and nightmares, ruler of the dreaming. The realm of dreams, I guess you'd say."
Charles perked up. "Is that where we could find him? How would we get there?"
"Unfortunately, I don't think you could get there. That is where he spends most of his time, but the last time someone dead tried to stay there, the whole place began to crumble. Besides, he's the king of the place and he could figure out what you were doing there. I really don't want him to know that I'm trying to spy on him."
Edwin had never come this close to kicking someone out without doing it. Death had burned through his curiosity, sense of professionalism, and the manners implanted so deeply in him that he had almost forgotten that they were there. The only thing left was his unwillingness to go back to hell, which was starting to crack, even though you could replace one of the seven seals with it and forever prevent the apocalypse. Spying on someone, even though she knew that wasn't their job, who was practically a god. In fact, spying on someone without knowing what they were looking for, or where they were half the time.
"Excellent." He tried not to sound like he was gritting his teeth and succeeded well enough to fool Death. "Where would we be able to find him when he isn't there, or do you know someone else who would have any idea?"
"I know he's been meeting up with a man named Hob Gadling for the past few hundred years, and the last time was... about six months ago."
"Great." The wall was holding strong, but the frustration had found its way over it. He scribbled more in his notebook, although it was mostly a list of books he thought he could find more information in. He would only need to cash in every favor he'd ever accumulated in this job.
"I don't know if your disguises would work on him," Death added, looking at her watch again. "Dreams and illusions are kind of what he does."
Charles, noticing how close to snapping his pen Edwin was, stepped in. "Brills. Anything else important, or can you just send over some information?"
"If all else fails, you might be able to find him at the park. Oh! He has a raven that's usually around and if you tell him I sent you, he'll probably tell you something." She looked at the door. "Sorry, I have to take someone; I'm already late." With that, she left, letting the door slam behind her.
The boys stared at the door in silence until they were sure she was gone, then looked at each other.
"Find her brother-"
"I know, and all we have to go on is this picture-"
"-spy on him? That's not even what we do-"
"-in a park? Brills, only about a million of those in the world-"
"-six months ago is the freshest lead and all we have is a name-"
"-not like we have anything else to do right?"
They both fell silent until Charles sighed. "I guess we have to, right?"
"I'm certain we can at least try."
"Well, lets go try to track down a god, I guess."