Chapter Text
Edwin tended to associate prolonged time in his parents’ presence with headaches.
Not the bad kind that used to hit him sometimes in the weeks before exams, or that snuck up when he’d had a few too many late nights, when even the light of the sun through curtains seemed too bright.
There had been more of those lately, now that he didn’t sleep much.
No, this was a headache of a different sort. It started in his head, like any other, pounding against his temples and pushing relentlessly against the backs of his eyes, but it also seemed to radiate out, through his jaw and down the back of his neck and into his spine, into each of his limbs and out to the tip of each finger. It wasn’t a headache so much as a warning, like something had crawled into Edwin’s very skin and was screaming caution at him from the inside out.
There was also the matter of his parents, of course, being cooped up in their too-large, too-empty house for months on end. And the matter of sleep, which he’d largely gone without, since April.
At least his grades hadn’t suffered, with the extra time studying, so they had nothing to complain about. He’d even spent some particularly dire early morning hours at school putting order to Charles’ more chaotic attempts at notetaking.
Not that Charles needed the help, no matter what he claimed of his own inadequacies, but it gave Edwin’s hands and his brain something routine to focus on, a pattern to trap the darkened corners of his thoughts. It also allowed him to think, tangentially, of Charles himself, which felt more like safely than Edwin ever had any claim to, burrowed beneath the covers in his dormitory bed with only the scratch of a pen and the dull light of a torch for company.
That and the sounds of life all around him, each breath and snore and creaked bedspring tightening Edwin’s knuckles around his pen and hunching his shoulders and his knees into smaller and smaller shapes like he might disappear entirely if he could only condense himself into nothing and if Edwin himself ceased to be then maybe it wouldn’t happen again maybe he would simply -
The problem with this particular summer holiday was that Edwin’s headache had already reached a level of tedious discomfort.
It had to do with the aforementioned revision and exam season and the haze of everything that had built up around him since April. And though his parents were uninterested enough to leave him to his own devices most days, he always ran the risk of scrutiny, one way or another.
Even a walk down the hall past his father’s study required precautions: thinking through the way he walked, the careful quiet placement of each footfall, keeping an ear out for the phone, and each time praying it was nothing to do with school or Simon or any of it. The more time Edwin spent locked away in his room, awake and alone, the better.
And so the first month of summer passed in glorious tedium.
Edwin read next semester’s English curriculum. He took an extensive set of notes on Virgil’s Aeneid , to refer to in the coming semester. He saw Charles once and spent the time fielding far too many worried questions about his obvious exhaustion. He woke screaming each of the three times he tried to sleep through the night - the last of which resulted in a particularly harrowing conversation with his mother - and gave up trying, after that.
He rested his forehead on Charles’ shoulder when they hugged goodbye and felt, for the first time in a long, long time, something close to safety.
A month into summer, the headache was reaching new heights.
The Paynes always threw a party the weekend before their yearly holiday to the south of France. Its attendees consisted mostly of Edwin’s father’s business associates and whomever his mother most wanted to show off to that month. Edwin’s presence was always required - to show a united family unit - but his participation was not enforced.
His family had long since seemed to accept that Edwin’s version of upholding his end of the bargain, struck by the very fact of his own surname, involved standing silently in the quietest corner he could find with a glass in one hand. Sometimes, he plastered the approximation of a smile on his face when an unwary guest wandered too close.
This year, even the thought of the party made Edwin’s head pound.
The thought of people was horrid, and the thought of being alone even worse, with his parents in France and their big empty house pressing in around him on all sides, each sound like a breath or a snore or the creak of a bedspring, whitening the knuckles of Edwin’s clasped fists and hunching his shoulders into something small enough to be overlooked.
It was an oxymoron of the most egregious kind and Edwin found himself hurtling towards it faster with each passing day.
***
The night the call came Edwin already knew, somehow, that it was for him.
It was already late enough that it wasn’t likely to be for his parents, but early enough that the last of summer light still clung to the sky, and Edwin was on one of his regular forays down to the kitchen for tea. He drank a frankly copious amount lately, at first in the vague hope that the caffeine might mitigate the way the world had started to swim at the edges of his vision, and later, once it became clear that his choices in the realm of sleep were to either wake screaming or not at all, tea was simply another unit to measure the endlessness that had become Edwin’s existence since the end of term: dark and light and pressure at his temples.
The call came on his way to the kitchen, and he paused by the phone on the little table in the hallway, listening. It rang once, twice, and the beginning of a third time before cutting off, suddenly.
Edwin froze, one hand already outstretched.
It was Charles, of course, a code of sorts they’d thought up the summer before. It wasn’t an SOS in the traditional sense, but they only used it for things urgent or best not overheard.
Edwin snatched up the phone the moment the next call came through; put it to his ear.
“Payne residence.”
For a moment, all he could hear was a breathy sort of static. Then, “Oh, mate.” Another burst of static. “Thank god.”
The fingers of Edwin’s free hand clenched around the edge of the table.
“Charles. Are you -” Alright? Clearly not, Payne. Pull it together. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” Charles said, too fast. “‘S aces. I just.” Breath. “I’m in the area, you know? I was thinking maybe you could -”
Something about the barely concealed emotion in Charles’ tone did more to snap Edwin’s brain back into gear than any cups of tea in the past week. He barely felt the haze of exhaustion in the face of it.
“Where are you?” Edwin was pleased that his own voice came out steady enough.
“Sorry,” Charles said, instead of an answer. “I didn’t mean to -”
“Charles. Where are you?”
Another breath on Charles’ end, decidedly unsteady.
“Phone box, just round the corner from the station. You know that posh place with the flowers?”
“Stay there. I’m on my way.”
***
Charles was right where he said, just as always.
He stood a little ways from the phone box, hands in his pockets, posture hunched and tense. He kicked at the curb of the pavement with the toe of one loafer as Edwin approached, looking up only briefly, when Edwin came to a stop beside him, close but not too close. It was more than close enough, however, to see the crinkles of discomfort turning down the corners of his mouth. His eyes were red-rimmed, eyeliner smeared slightly over one cheekbone.
He jerked his chin in something that might have been a nod.
“Cheers, mate.” He sounded better than he had on the phone, at least, his voice less like static, in a way that had very little to do with crossed wires. “You didn’t have to.”
Edwin rolled his eyes. “Of course not.”
He looked back over his shoulder, up where the road wound toward his parents’ townhouse. It wasn’t far and Charles seemed alright enough, at least able to get across the city. Besides, Edwin had yet to figure out a way to inquire after Charles’ wellbeing that didn’t set him on edge.
So, he decided to forgo the question entirely in favour of, “Come on, then.”
That made Charles look up at him properly.
“You don’t have to take care of me, or whatever. I just wanted to see you, yeah? Don’t have to ruin your whole night over this.”
Edwin refrained from rolling his eyes this time, but only just.
“I’m not sure why you seem to think I lead some sort of thriving social life in my time away from St Hilarions, but I assure you that is not the case.”
And finally, something seemed to give a little in Charles, in the rigidity of his posture and the tightness at the corners of his eyes. He took a few steps until he was alongside Edwin, shoulders almost brushing.
“Don’t know what they’re missing, do they?” He took a hand out of his pocket. “I’ll say it as many times as I need to.”
Edwin ducked his head; could already feel the hint of a blush darkening his cheeks. It was frankly embarrassing, how Charles could get such a rise out of him with so little, even in his own disheveled state.
“Come on,” Edwin said, in lieu of putting voice to any of it. “My parents are still awake, I believe. We’ll have to be quiet when we get there.”
They didn’t speak much on the walk back, and Edwin used the time to monitor the situation on a mental scale labeled Charles Wellbeing that he very much wished he’d never had to think up.
It didn’t seem nearly as bad as the time Charles came back from Christmas holidays with a bruise darkening the entire left side of his jaw. But it was definitely worse than what Edwin understood to be a normal altercation in the Rowland household: something that left Charles angry and wincing for a day or two, but had never caused him to show up in the middle of the night like this, with a look of shuttered-off panic in his eyes.
Charles hadn’t complained once, which wasn’t anything new, but when Edwin looked closely enough, he could see the stiffness in each of Charles’ movements, the tense line of his jaw. All of which Charles seemed more and more determined to ignore, as he commented offhand on inconsequential things like his mum’s reaction to the latest episode of Eastenders, or the England test match he’d caught on telly the night before.
Edwin took it in as well as he could, replied with vague assent and his usual misunderstanding of sport, where cricket was concerned.
A large part of his mental capacity was taken up thinking unkind thoughts of Charles’ father, and the other part still fumbling against restraints in the dark of St Hilarion’s cellar. And, really, if he couldn’t even get a hold of himself when Charles was so clearly in need, maybe Edwin's aforementioned lack of a social life was entirely for the best.
Charles paused to light a cigarette at the base of a hill, and Edwin took the opportunity to rub a hand against one temple in some forgone attempt to push back the mounting spike of pain.
They walked slowly, while Charles smoked.
The whole thing made Edwin feel dangerously close to…well, it didn’t much matter what it made Edwin feel, in the end. All he could do was his level best to be what Charles needed.
***
The front entrance was darkened and empty when they reached the house. Edwin let them in, clicked the door shut softly behind them, then mentioned for Charles to follow down the hall, up the stairs, down another hall.
Charles was quiet, as requested. In fact, it might well have been the quietest Edwin had ever seen him. Or maybe it was just the effect the Paynes’ house had, sucking away life and joy and goodness, withering it away into an ancient sort of monotony.
When he reached his bedroom, Edwin opened the door and nodded to Charles, who went where indicated, still strangely and worryingly placid. He walked to the centre of the room and then stood, like his strings had been cut. He looked around at the bed, the dresser, the desk, full of neat piles of Edwin’s notes and a single empty mug. A saucer with a small pile of tea bags.
“Never seen your room before, mate,” Charles said, voice hushed.
Edwin shrugged. “It’s not really mine, so to speak. My mother had my childhood bedroom redecorated when I was accepted as a boarder at St Hilarion’s. To make better use of the space, I believe.”
Charles made a face.
“I didn’t mind much,” Edwin said. “I barely spend time here anymore, with school.”
“Right.” Charles didn’t sound happy, but at least he wasn’t making the face anymore.
“I…” Edwin began, then stopped. Tried again, “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Charles made his way over to the desk with a few small steps. He seemed to be holding himself gingerly now, his shoulders more relaxed by a centimeter or two than they had been outside: his defenses coming down layer by careful layer. Edwin knew how precious that trust was; he knew it each time Charles handed him a small piece of the huge and lurking thing he carried every day with a casual sort of grace, and Edwin could only do his best to cradle that trust in his unpracticed hands and try not to do any more damage.
Things like this had never come easily to Edwin: compassion or gentleness.
Charles waved a hand in a vague motion, like he could bat the question away if he feigned enough nonchalance.
“Not much to tell, really. Said something stupid, got on the wrong side of my dad. Had it out, you know.”
But Edwin didn’t know, which was rather the point.
His hands itched at his sides, suddenly desperate to reach out and do what he could do soothe some of the tension in Charles’ shoulders.
And even though he was standing a little like he was waiting for the next blow, Charles seemed to be coming back to himself, now that they were alone and the door was locked against any unwelcome intrusions. He glanced over to Edwin’s neatly made bed, studied the view of the neighbour’s garden from the window. It was obscured slightly by the branches of a tree that never grew much in the way of leaves or flowers. Edwin had always appreciated the privacy it gave him, even when the curtains weren’t drawn.
“Mate, this place is bloody depressing.”
Clearly, Charles had other ideas.
“It’s not depressing,” Edwin muttered, doing his best to tap into something of the fond exasperation that always made Charles grin a particularly sheepish sort of smile. “I’m hardly going to cover my walls in band posters, like you do.”
“Maybe you should, mate! You’d at least have some colour in the place. I’ll bring some next time I’m over.”
“And I can teach you how to make your bed next term.”
And finally, Charles smiled, just a little, and rolled his eyes, a bleak imitation of his usual good humour, but Edwin took it in stride.
“Feel free to, you know,” he indicated with a small wave of his hand. “Make yourself at home. I was just about to make tea when you got here if - ?”
As indicated, Charles had started to slip off his jacket in slow, cautious movements. And Edwin wasn’t looking, really. He knew better than anyone how much privacy was worth in times like this, how much Charles especially hated to be watched when his defenses were down. But when he glanced over and spotted the darkening line of blood, drying thick and tacky just below Charles’ shoulder blade, he couldn’t help the gasp of breath that escaped him any more than he could stop his hand from reaching out, helplessly, across the space between them.
Charles’ head snapped back, defiance in the tired shapes of his face.
“You’re bleeding,” Edwin said, softly. “Or were. I can’t tell from here.”
“Am I?” Charles made a show of craning his head over one shoulder, then stopped when the motion made him wince. “Bollocks.”
It was what he said when he dropped something inconsequential, or when he slept in late enough to miss breakfast. The association made Edwin’s chest clench.
“Would you like me to -”
Edwin moved forward; Charles jerked back.
For a moment, they stared across the small stretch of stark white carpet, Edwin watching Charles watching him.
Charles broke first.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to…” He pressed the heel of his hand into one eye, like maybe he had a headache too. “I’m aces. It’s aces. It’s just that I like this shirt.”
Edwin did not stop staring.
“You like the shirt?” He repeated, deadpan.
“Yeah.” Charles dropped his hand and offered up a smile, or the suggestion of one. “I like red. Brings out my eyes, doesn't it? Also bloody amazing to wear something that isn't a uniform.”
Edwin couldn’t hold back a snort, at that. It was so very Charles to complain about stifled creativity as he was actively bleeding through his clothes, and a spike of affection cut through the weight of Edwin’s helplessness. It was familiarity at its core, the hint of spark that came back to Charles’ eyes when he spoke of things like gigs and clothes and cricket. It made Edwin realise, as if for the first time that night, that Charles was still here.
Charles was here , beside him, in what remained of his childhood bedroom . Charles came to him when he needed help, the way Edwin always asked him to, the way Charles always shrugged aside like it was something casual and not the very fact of his own wellbeing.
Edwin took a breath, then another, trying to calm the familiar rushing sound that filled his head each time this part of Charles showed through: a bruise or a wince or the flicker of panic on his handsome face. It was horrible; of course, it was horrible, but Edwin had all the time in the world to succumb to his own weakness later. Right now, Charles had come to him for help. The least Edwin could do was stumble through the motions.
“If we soak it there should be no lasting damage.” He opened a drawer and picked through it for a moment until he came up with a t-shirt. Plain black, cotton, hopefully soft enough that it wouldn’t make any of the injuries Charles was likely hiding any worse.
He offered it over. “Here. The bathroom is down the hall. I can show you.”
Charles hesitated. “Nah, mate. I don't want to get your shirt -”
“I don’t care about the shirt, Charles!” It came out louder than Edwin intended and more than a touch unsteady. Surely, it was obvious by now what it was he cared about. And who.
He already regretted it, as Charles froze there in the middle of Edwin’s bland former-bedroom.
The thin material of the t-shirt crinkled between his fingers.
There was something in the depths of Charles’ gold-flecked eyes that hadn’t been before, a carefully hidden sort of vulnerability that he only ever seemed to show by accident. And here Edwin was, breaking down that solid barrier of protection by shouting , which was the last thing Charles needed.
That something, perhaps, might have been catching, because after a moment, Charles softened, in a way he only usually did in times like this when Edwin’s reaction was particularly dire. He reached for shirt and, briefly, they held it between them. Fingers against cotton against fingers.
“Thanks,” Charles said, quietly.
“It’s just a shirt,” Edwin muttered, though it wasn’t really what he meant.
He ducked his head, suddenly unable to stand the sight at all: Charles, with exhaustion written into the cut-glass lines of his features and pain in the stiffness of his back and still he managed to look at Edwin with gratitude for handing over a fucking t-shirt.
Something was burning inside him, deep in the recesses of his chest, something protective and furious, that made him want to wrap Charles up in his arms - and in a t-shirt and his maroon jacket with the red plaid lining and his new black coat with its steadily-growing collection of lapel pins and maybe a blanket on top of that, and bundle him away somewhere that he would never be cold or hurt again. Somewhere Charles could be safe; maybe somewhere they both could.
Edwin stepped back, away from the shirt and the warmth of Charles’ hand.
“Come on.” He indicated with a tilt of his head. “Lets see about soaking that.”
***
Once he set Charles up in the small bathroom down the hall, Edwin retreated back to his room and panicked.
That was to say, he sat on the corner of the bed and found it utterly unhelpful in the process of calming the racing in his nerves and the renewed pounding at his temples.
Something about the immediacy of Charles’ presence had pushed the headache back into manageable territory for the past hour or so, but with Charles out of sight, Edwin felt as if he’d been shoved underwater with no warning, and no final gulp of air before the plunge.
Charles needed him.
No, Charles needed far, far more than Edwin could ever hope to give him. Charles was brightness and joy and warm light shining in the dimmest corners Edwin’s poor excuse for life had to offer. Charles was everything.
Edwin was pacing now, hands clenched into fists at this waist.
Charles needed him. And all Edwin had to offer was a t-shirt and a house that gave him a headache when he spent too long between its walls.
When the door opened again, Edwin froze mid-stride. He turned away from the desk, doing his best impression of someone who hadn’t just been fretting hard enough to wear holes in his parents’ expensive carpet.
Charles was wearing the black t-shirt, just as Edwin had instructed, and it looked better on him than it had any right to.
Charles’ shoulders were a touch broader than his, likely from all the time Ediwn didn’t spend out on the cricket pitch swinging a bat around, and the shirt was pulled just a little tighter than it sat on Edwin, giving him a delightful hint of the wiry muscles in Charles’ shoulders. The neck sat just at the start of his collarbones.
Edwin pressed his fists tighter, enough that his knuckles ached.
Charles had travelled 40 miles of city while bleeding through his shirt for the pretense of Edwin’s assistance and it was the very least Edwin could do not to bloody ogle him. Charles was in his bedroom, wearing his shirt, and more vulnerable than Edwin had seen him in a long time. Everything about this was wrong: Edwin, the shirt, the way the crinkles of laughter at the corners of Charles’ eyes made him -
“Mate? Everything alright?”
“Yes,” Edwin said, hoarsely. He cleared his throat, tried again. “Yes, it’s just. I should be asking you that, I think.”
Charles offered him a little smile, tired but genuine enough.
“I told you, I’m aces.”
He sank down on the closest corner of the bed, his movements still stiff and a little cautious, like he was trying not to jostle himself too much.
Edwin looked down at his fists. “You did say that.”
He should say something comforting, he knew. He should sit beside Charles and pull some priceless words of wisdom and the promise of safety out from the hollow place between his ribs that even now sang with the very fact of Charles’ nearness. He should say something like any of the things Charles had said to him, when Edwin’s defenses wore down and his weakness showed through.
“I’ll be out of your hair in a couple hours tops.” Charles was still speaking, oblivious to the internal war raging in Edwin’s pounding head. “Won’t keep you awake or get you in trouble, or anything. I promise.”
“You won't!” Edwin didn’t realize he’d crossed the room, in the matter of a few short strides, until his knees hit the bed. “You aren’t.”
Charles looked up at him, a soft open thing, and patted the space beside him.
Edwin sat down like his strings had been cut, fast enough that it made his already pounding head spin.
He took a short breath through his nose.
“You aren’t keeping me awake,” he repeated. And again, that strings cut sensation, like he couldn’t quite stop the words once he’d started. “I have found it challenging lately…I mean, it’s like it was at the end of term, I suppose.”
He couldn’t even say the basic fact of it out loud: I can’t sleep. Because then, he supposed, he would have to think about the reasons why.
“I was worried, you know.” Charles sounded suddenly lost, more than he had all night. “I knew you were knackered, when I saw you before, but I didn’t realize it was still so bad.”
Edwin looked down at his hands again, clasped in his lap.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. And then, when Charles made a face, “It is bad, I suppose. But I only meant that you’re not keeping me awake. I wouldn’t be asleep, anyway.”
Charles’ arm nudged him a little, a small stifled motion that made Edwin’s bare skin tingle with sudden warmth.
“Can’t say I’m not glad you were up.”
“I’m glad too.” He moved his own arm a bit, until it bumped Charles’ back, gentle as he could be. “Do you - Will you stay? If you want to?”
There were shadows under Charles’ eyes, which got more pronounced when he squeezed them shut; took a deep breath in through his nose and let it out through pursed lips, the way he had coached Edwin too many times before. It helped Edwin feel like he was back in his own body, whenever he started spiralling out somewhere in the recesses of his thoughts, lost in dark basement corners.
He wondered if Charles felt that way, only whatever help his body might have been for him usually, out on the cricket pitch and in the casual stoop of his shoulders, right now he just seemed to hurt.
“Charles?”
“Yeah,” Charles said, down to his own knees. “I’ll stay.”
***
Charles lay down in a way that Edwin could only describe as cautious: maneuvering himself to the far side of the double mattress and slowly listing sideways until he could roll onto his stomach. He hesitated, then, while Edwin busied himself rearranging his own pillow.
Only once Edwin was reclining too, did Charles drop his head face down into the pillow and release a pent-up sounding sigh.
He’d left the room’s overhead light on, and it showed the sight of Edwin’s wallowing in stark, unmissable detail. His Latin textbook was on the bedside table, bookmarked to the revision table for the 5th declension. Edwin hadn’t forgotten much in the way of translation since the end of term, but it was a mindless enough and tedious enough activity to help whenever his exhausted brain slipped too far. At the very least, if he spent his nights reciting verb endings, he wasn’t waking his parents screaming.
Charles shuffled a little beside him, turning his head out from the death cocoon of the pillow.
“Should we talk about it, then?” Charles sounded tired, but his gaze was steady enough.
The no was on the tip of Edwin’s tongue, jagged and bitter, like everything seemed to be when he swallowed it down without speaking.
Instead, he said, “I should be the one asking you that, I think.”
Charles favoured him with the soft huff of a laugh.
“‘S fine, mate. Nothing new, anyway.”
“You sounded rather…distressed on the phone earlier.” Edwin did his best to pitch his voice conversational and flat, without the worry and protectiveness that curled through him at the memory of each time Charles had let Edwin glimpse that side of him, bruised and shaken and afraid.
“I guess.”
Edwin waited, but it didn't seem like Charles was going to elaborate.
So instead, he did what he always seemed to, alone in the halls of St Hilarions, or sneaking past his father’s study to avoid detection and unwanted questions. He let Charles be, with that hollow look in his warm brown eyes, his body bruised and bleeding beneath Edwin’s thin t-shirt. With the cadence of Charles’ panic still ringing in his ears, Edwin didn’t push him. Instead, he let the jagged thing in his throat take over.
Like a coward, Edwin asked for help.
“My parents are having a party tomorrow,” he said.
Charles’ dark-rimmed eyes blinked.
“I’ll be out of here in the morning then, don’t - ”
“No!” Edwin cut him off, too fast, too needy. “No. That’s not what I meant. I just wondered if you might stay for it?”
“For your parents’ party?” Charles repeated. “Probably a bit posh for me, innit?”
“Probably,” Edwin admitted. It was a bit posh even for his own admittedly skewed tastes. “You wouldn’t have to do anything, though. It’s just people they work with, and I have to be there to show that the family is…functioning properly. It’s quite boring, really.”
Edwin was rambling, by the end, building up to something that would likely end with taking back the invitation just as he’d given it out. There was also the fact that he didn’t, strictly speaking, have the authority to add anyone to the guest list, but if Edwin’s own attendance was dependent on Charles’ he doubted his parents would be able to refuse.
“Does sound boring.” Charles’ tone had turned careful in a way that didn’t match his words. “People your parents work with, hm?”
Edwin kept his eyes trained carefully on the high ceiling. There was a small dot of darkness just above his bed that wasn’t covered by the overhead light or the lamp at his bedside. A strange little oversight, tucked away and forgotten until Edwin caught a glimpse of it on the nights he bothered to sleep at all.
“Didn’t you say that,” Charles hesitated. “That Simon’s dad worked with yours?”
Ah . So that was the uncertainty: whether he could say Simon’s name out loud without Edwin breaking apart at the seams.
The dark spot above Edwin swam a little in his vision. The pressure at his temples picked up.
“Yes,” Edwin said. “He does.”
“And will he be at -”
“I don’t know.” It was truth enough for the time being. Edwin certainly wasn’t privy to any sort of guest list for the event The thing unsaid still hung between them with a heavy, physical weight. Edwin’s chest was tight with it.
“Course I’ll be there, mate.”
Edwin managed to look over again and found Charles already watching him, wearing an expression so set and so serious he might have been pledging himself to a lifetime of unyielding service, rather than a night putting himself between Edwin and a blonde boy with rich parents.
The shame that curled through him was familiar, at least. It was something to hold onto as he floundered, helpless in his soft bed, in his parents’ house, with his best friend in the world beside him.
Edwin sucked in a breath, less steady than he intended. The sensation wasn’t unfamiliar, a gradually building pressure in his chest, like something huge and terrifying had grabbed him in its fist and was doing its best to squish him between its fingers. His lungs felt too small for the amount of air he was trying, with sudden desperation, to breathe in. His ribs felt like they were constricting over the place where his heart raced.
He startled slightly at the feeling of fingers around his wrist.
“Hey,” Charles murmured. “It’s alright, yeah? Just the two of us here. And if that wanker does show up tomorrow, I’ll take care of him. I’m not going anywhere.”
Edwin nodded, harder than he needed to. His eyes felt simultaneously too hot and too dry, sleepless days and nights blending into an endless, internal rhythm that pounded through his veins and into his temples and spooled out in a mass of chaos and darkness and the way voices echoed strangely through the corners of St Hilarion’s cellar.
The bed shifted beside him as Charles moved, and, a moment later, his hand slid down from Edwin’s wrist to take his hand properly. Edwin clung back just as tightly, the unconscious, instinctive gesture of a drowning boy offered one final piece of stability.
It took a moment for Edwin to get his breathing back under control, and another for him to squeeze his eyes closed hard enough that they stopped burning at the corners.
Charles’ thumb rubbed absently against the back of his knuckles, a soft, grounding pressure. The bed creaked, when one of them shifted. A car or two passed by in the late night street beyond the window.
“That’s it.” Charles’ eyes were on him, when Edwin finally pulled it together enough to open his own. He was also half-rolled onto his side, with his free hand braced against the mattress between them, as if he’d been contemplating whether movement would be necessary, or worth the pain.
And oh god, Charles was in pain . He had come to Edwin for help and here Edwin was, falling to pieces in front of him and demanding his protection at a social gathering like some sort of -
“Oi, Stop that.” Charles’ voice cut through. “I can hear you thinking.”
Edwin rolled his eyes; fixed Charles with the best approximation of a glare he could manage, given the circumstances.
“It does tend to happen, now and then.”
Charles didn’t rise to the bait, but he did flop back down on his stomach with a quiet oof , clearly deciding that Edwin’s condition wasn’t so dire as to necessitate immediate action.
The dark spot on the ceiling was still there above them, watching Edwin back.
“I apologise,” he said, to the spot more than Charles. “I didn’t intend to complain while you’re -”
“Edwin. I’m fine. Honest. You don’t need to keep asking.”
“Alright,” Edwin agreed, slowly. “But if you ever do want to talk…about anything…”
Charles sighed, then, a harsh sound that carried more than just annoyance: a helpless sort of emotion that Edwin couldn’t quite place.
Charles hadn’t let go of his hand, though. Their fingers were still clasped on top of the duvet, both of them clinging with an intensity that felt at odds with the quiet normalcy of the room.
“Told you the cricket was on yesterday, didn’t I?”
Neither of them was looking at the other, Edwin on his back with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, Charles on his stomach with his face half-hidden in the pillow. Edwin nodded anyway, on principle.
“Dad gets worked up, you know, when England loses. Doesn’t take much to set him off after that. There’s really nothing to say.”
After a short, held-breath of a pause, Edwin rubbed his thumb over the back of Charles’ hand, the way Charles had done for him. Charles shifted slightly at the touch, so their arms pressed more firmly together, which Edwin took as an indication to keep stroking.
Charles had a couple of scars on his knuckles, from cricket, perhaps, or any of the number of fights he’d gotten into over the years, but otherwise his skin was soft. Edwin felt the textures of it carefully under the pad of his thumb and did his best to swallow down a rush of affection so strong it threatened to choke him all over again.
Any time Charles offered up the soft, bruised parts of himself, it struck Edwin as something he would never allow himself to get used to. It was a gift so huge and so meaningful that it would never stop scaring him, each and every time: up in the attic at St Hilarions, or late at night over the phone, or now, curled together in Edwin’s childhood bedroom, clinging to each other and not quite doing enough to pretend otherwise.
He could tell when Charles fell asleep because his breathing evened out and his hand went slack, a gentle weight in Edwin’s palm. That was good. He clearly needed the rest.
And Edwin didn’t have plans to sleep any time soon; he could watch over Charles for as long as he needed. It was long past time he returned the favour.
Chapter 2
Summary:
So, Edwin perched himself on the end of the bed, a little primly, and asked, “What did you have in mind?”
Charles grinned. “Right. It’ll be like an undercover operation, yeah?”
Hm. “Will we have code names?”
“Mate. Obviously we’re gonna have code names.”
Notes:
Hello!!! I'm so sorry it's taken so long for me to get this up and yes it's become three chapters - oops! (I have most of the third chapter written, it just worked a bit better pacing-wise this way.)
This fic is honestly just a gratuitous outpouring of h/c for me personally. Someone commented on the last chapter that it feels soft despite all the violence around them and that is EXACTLY what I wanted! I just wanted to follow the boys through an entire situation and wrap them in softness, and in each other, throughout it. Like, I wanted to help them feel okay amidst horrors, idk. Even though I'm the one putting them through the horrors....sorry lads.
Thank you all for your lovely incredible comments on the first chapter. <3 Genuinely, you all fill me with joy and I have on many occasions just scrolled through ao3 comments on everything I've written when I need to feel better. I love you guys!!!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Edwin was falling, which was a nice change because only a moment before he’d been shoved down on a cold concrete surface hard enough that the points of his shoulder blades scraped the ground. He almost cried out - around the knot clenching his throat shut, tight enough that he couldn’t draw in enough air - but the sound wouldn’t come. And there were hands on him now: tight, hard, grabbing, pulling, shoulder blades scraping, and Edwin was trapped.
He was trapped and no one was coming and he was utterly and completely alone he was -
falling.
One moment trapped and the next, instead of cold hard discomfort beneath him there was nothing. Blackness and strangeness funneling all around and dull stale air rushing by, stirring the hair around his ears. He reached with both hands, scrambling for something to break the descent - down and down and down and at least there weren’t hands anymore and -
Edwin woke up.
His eyes opened and his breathing spiked and his throat tightened, but none of that changed the fact that…Edwin woke up .
Which meant, in the way of these things, that before the aforementioned waking up, he had been asleep.
Charles was beside him, Edwin saw when he turned his head, curled into a shape like a parenthesis, with his hands tucked up by his chest and his forehead pressed to the side of Edwin’s shoulder. He seemed to have moved closer in sleep, burrowed into the little corner formed by Edwin’s shoulder and the mattress beneath. Edwin could feel each of his breaths: slow, even, and warm, through his t-shirt.
Edwin had woken up. He had woken up next to Charles, who had functional hearing, despite the number of gigs he regularly snuck into underage. All of which was evidence for a very important hypothesis: he had managed to weather his dreams without screaming, waking half the household, or otherwise embarrassing himself.
Edwin felt…well, frankly, he felt incredible.
When he moved his head to look up at the ceiling - rather than watch the way Charles’ eyelashes fluttered over his sculpted cheekbones in his sleep - there was no jarring spike of headache that followed. He didn’t feel like he’d left the contents of his brain behind, watching Charles, while the rest of his head shifted.
It was all terribly, blissfully, normal , and Edwin could have cried with relief as early morning sun filtered through the gaps in the curtains and didn’t result in anything resembling pain. The sun got rid of the dark spot on the ceiling too; in the light of the morning, it was all the same shade of bland, unassuming white.
For a while, Edwin let himself float. The relief was nearly strong enough to drive the dregs of the dream from the hollows of his mind, as much as they ever fully went away.
For a long breath of a moment, the stillness stayed. Charles was a warm weight at his side and there were no shadows in the corners and Edwin could barely feel the imprints of hands on his chest, when he closed his eyes.
Then Charles woke up and it all came crashing back down.
When Charles first blinked his eyes open, dark brown and hazy with sleep, he just shifted a bit, crushing his curls against Edwin’s arm. He made a little mmph of a noise when he saw Edwin looking that was frankly more adorable than it had any right to be.
“Good morning,” Edwin said, a little stiffly, and had to steel himself against the sharp intake of breath Charles made when he started to roll over and stretch out his arms. He came to a stop with his head buried in the pillow, face down.
His “Morning, mate” was soft, muffled by pillow and morning grogginess.
Edwin sat up carefully, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Charles shifted around behind him.
Edwin thought about the dried blood on his red polo, and the stiffness in his movements when he thought Edwin’s attention was elsewhere, and had to physically swallow down another are you alright ? He already knew the answer; he’d watched Charles shrug off his concern more than enough times before that he knew better than to try again. Besides, what could Edwin offer that would help at all, other than a half-hearted murder attempt which Charles would laugh off with the same good humour he used to take everything in stride.
“I didn’t, ah, wake you up, did I?” Edwin tried to pitch the question as casually as he could.
“Nah.” Behind him, Charles’ voice was still muffled. “Slept like the fucking dead to be honest. I’m not sure I would have noticed, like, a full on haunting.”
It felt necessary to roll his eyes, even though Charles couldn’t see it.
“I’m glad I didn’t,” Edwin started, paused, tried again, “That is, I didn’t intend to sleep.”
“Right, I forgot you don’t go in for stuff like that.”
There was another shuffle behind him, the creak of bed springs, and a moment later Charles appeared next to him, maneuvering his own feet onto the floor beside Edwin. He was still moving a bit stiffly, but he seemed in better spirits than the previous night, at least.
Edwin glanced sideways at him. “Stuff like what?”
“Human stuff, you know. Sleeping, eating, all that shite.” Charles was smiling, a tired thing with softened edges.
Edwin didn’t grace that with a response. Beside him, Charles stifled a yawn with one hand, then bumped an arm against Edwin’s companionably.
“Speaking of human shite, you don't happen to have any food around here, do you? ‘M bloody starving.”
Edwin’s head jerked up. Of course, Charles was hungry. Edwin knew better than anyone how often Charles complained about not eating. He did it most of the time that he wasn’t actively doing it: in class, in the halls, in the middle of the night as he watched Edwin study. Up in the attic with his head tipped back against the wall, waxing poetic about spaghetti, and the other elements of what sounded to Edwin like an entire feast.
Charles was right in that regard too, when it came to Edwin. Eating was another piece of the daily maintenance of things that always seemed to slip through the cracks, when Edwin was left to his own devices. It never seemed as important as other things: school or safety. Or Charles.
Edwin swallowed it all down; it was too early for feelings like that, for anything so much .
“Let’s go downstairs,” Edwin said, instead of anything else on the tip of his tongue. “People will be setting up for the event tonight. We’ll have to stay out of the way.”
Edwin had done his best so far to ignore the impending presence of the party, something surprisingly easy when he spent a good portion of the night actually asleep, like a functional, normal person.
“Don’t worry,” Charles said, taking it in easily, as he always did with the idiosyncrasies of Edwin’s life. “I’m sure I can charm anyone we run into.”
“You’re welcome to try,” Edwin said, dry. He was fairly certain that Charles would know, in that innate way he seemed to know most things, that trying to ingratiate himself with either one of Edwin’s parents would likely not result in the outcome he was imagining.
In the end, Charles managed to do more than charm. He flashed a sheepish smile at one of the caterers around the corner from the kitchen and came away carrying a tray piled high with toast, sausages, eggs, and two precariously balanced mugs of tea that Edwin grabbed for as soon as Charles came back into view.
They found an empty corner of the unused sitting room with a table big enough for their tray and room for Edwin to curl his legs up underneath it when they sat down. He could see Charles shift a little uncomfortably as he slid to the floor himself, but Edwin didn’t comment.
He took a sip of tea and watched mildly as Charles tore into a sausage with such voracity that it might have rivaled an Athenian feast.
After a moment, Charles caught him looking and grinned around a mouthful of eggs. Edwin tucked his knees up closer to his chest and reached, tentatively, for a piece of toast. It felt simultaneously perfect and deeply wrong, to be smiling at Charles across a tray of breakfast.
He could nearly hear his mother’s voice in his head as he took a bite, telling him to sit up straight, stop folding his legs like that. He couldn’t imagine what she might say if she saw him eating on the floor. But the sun was streaming through the windows and Charles was sitting across from him; Charles had charmed his way into the most charmless house in London, and Edwin couldn’t bring himself to be anything but selfishly grateful for Charles’ presence amidst the pre-party bustle, holding him steady.
“So this party today,” Charles said, when a significant amount of his plate was empty. “What time does it start?”
He wasn’t really asking about the time, Edwin knew, or not entirely. He was navigating the perilous tripwires of Ediwn’s brain in that glorious Charles-ian way of his, giving Edwin an in for the murkier elements, if he wanted it. Which he didn’t particularly. But talking through the particulars with Charles was far, far preferable to running in blind and risking…well, Edwin wasn’t entirely certain what he was risking, which was itself a large part of the problem.
“3pm,” he said. “Though I assume my presence will be required sometime earlier for, ah, briefing I suppose.”
Charles made a face.
“Briefing? You’re not going to war, mate.”
Edwin ducked his head, smiling, despite himself. “Not exactly, no. But it is a party and I am, well, me.”
“Oi.” Charles set his mug down with a hard thump and met Edwin’s eyes with a suddenly serious expression. “Let’s have a ground rule for today, yeah? None of that talk.”
“I’m not talking like anything,” Edwin protested. And then, when Charles didn’t seem convinced, “Honestly, have you ever seen me attend a social function voluntarily?”
“I’ve never seen you attend one, full stop.”
The serious glint in Charles’ eyes had softened, and Edwin found himself relaxing in turn.
“It’s boring at worst,” Edwin said, trying his best to sound reassuring. “Just small talk which is grating enough, but that’s the worst of it, usually.”
Charles reached down and picked at a spot of the rug with his thumb and forefinger.
When he met Edwin’s eyes again, something seemed to have steeled in him.
“But this won’t be like it usually is, will it? Cause I'll be there to deal with all that toss. You just need to stand there and look pretty.”
Edwin narrowly avoided snorting tea through his nose.
He swallowed the lukewarm liquid down as quickly as he could, his cheeks heating in a way that had nothing to do with drinking. Across from him, Charles was laughing quietly: warm and genuine. Maybe the day would turn out alright after all.
***
12.00
Ediwn left Charles in his room; swallowed back all there was of discomfort, the hard knot in his throat. He made his way down the hall to his father’s study, where both of his parents were leaning over the desk, along with a few hassled-looking people, likely caterers or organizing staff.
Edwin came to stand in the entrance, and then, when no one noticed him, knocked lightly on the door frame.
Every head in the room turned towards him; each pair of eyes narrowed. He forced himself to meet his mother’s as he spoke, even though what he really wanted was to make a hole in the rug at his feet and crawl inside of it.
“Edwin.” It was his father who spoke. He didn’t say the name with a question mark, but Edwin heard it there implicitly.
“I apologize for interrupting,” he said, first. And then when his father waved at him to continue, “I was hoping to invite a friend to the event this afternoon.”
His parents shared a look across the expanse of oak desk. Edwin might have thought to be insulted by the surprise he saw there, years ago. Now, it was more than understandable, given that he’d only ever had one real friend to speak of. He hadn’t brought Charles up to his parents before. Things like that never came up between them, certainly; but there was also the fact that his friendship with Charles had gone from feeling fragile and too good to be true, to so deeply precious that he couldn’t bear to hand the specifics of it to anyone else. Especially to his parents.
Now, his mother cocked her head to the side, so one earring caught the light in a distracting sparkle, and asked, “A friend of yours? What is his name?”
“Rowland,” Edwin answered, automatically. “Charles Rowland. We go to school together.”
The mention of school all but sealed the deal, just as Edwin had suspected.
“He’s at St Hilarion’s with you?” His father repeated, a vague sort of approval in his tone, the one he used when someone had made a decision that lined up perfectly with his own views. Like being sent to the same expensive boarding school as a child with little to no choice in the matter.
“Yes,” Edwin said, nodding. “He’s in my year.”
And that was that, as far as securing Charles’ invitation was concerned.
Edwin reassured his mother that Charles wouldn’t get in the way of his own hosting duties , agreed politely that the two of them could spend time with the other St Hilarion’s boys in attendance, and declined entirely to mention the fact that Charles had already spent the night under their roof, in their son’s bed, and that he’d spent a large portion of that very night holding Edwin’s hand. None of that would have helped his case, in the end.
So, he thanked them and turned on his heel, back of the stairs to Charles.
***
13.45
Edwin changed clothes, and then spent far too much time waving Charles off as he swore up and down that undoing the top two buttons of the shirt was just the thing that would bring the look together.
Edwin declined, more because of his parents than his own modesty, but he did nothing to dissuade Charles of the notion himself, when Edwin dug a black button-down out of his wardrobe and passed it over. Charles didn’t put up any fuss about borrowing it this time, which was good, but Edwin was fairly certain that had more to do with Charles being firmly in helping mode, than with any breakthroughs regarding his own self-worth.
If Edwin asked him to jump off tower bridge midway through the party to draw Simon’s attention away, he’d likely do it. Which would have been worrying, if Edwin had anything like that in mind.
As it was, he was mostly relishing the feeling of having someone at his side who actually cared about his well being. It was a thoroughly depressing sort of novelty, spelled out.
Charles took the button-down and draped it over the back of Edwin’s desk chair, rather than putting it on.
That was definitely creasing the arms, said a voice in the back of Edwin’s head that sounded a lot like his mother. Or maybe like his childhood nanny. The two blended together sometimes when he tried to think back far enough. He didn’t mention anything aloud, of course, but Charles must have caught him eyeing the shirt because he met Edwin’s eyes with a small shrug.
“No use getting dressed yet, is there? We have a while before the thing starts. Plenty of time for, uh,” he glanced around Edwin’s room. “A nap. Or whatever.”
Edwin looked up from fiddling with one of his cuffs.
“I don’t need a nap.” And then, “What’s that look for? I slept plenty last, you saw it yourself.” And wasn’t that a statement that implied more - and less - than Edwin intended? He hoped he wasn’t blushing.
Thankfully, Charles didn’t seem to notice any of his struggle.
“Sure,” he said, slowly. “And that’s great, honest. But you still seem a bit…tired, you know?” It wasn’t really what he meant, Edwin knew.
He got stuck for a moment when he looked up, lost somewhere in the dark brown depths of Charles’ eyes. There was something mesmerizing about it, the soft sincerity of the way Charles watched him, and the way he watched Edwin watch him back.
Voices carried up the hallway, raised with a particularly displeased form of polite cadence. It broke the moment; Charles glanced away quickly.
“I’m fine,” Edwin said, hands pressing together at his waist. “I did sleep last night.”
“Pretty sure you need more than one night a week, mate,” Charles muttered, but thankfully he didn’t press further, just made his way back over to the bed and threw himself down on his stomach again, steepling his fingers around a pillow as he tucked it under his chin.
“So,” he said, after barely half a moment of blissful silence. “What’s our plan?”
“I’m sorry?”
“For the Payne Party of summer ‘03, or whatever it's called. What’s the strategy here?”
“Charles.” Edwin couldn’t hold back a little snort of amusement. “I know for a fact that you hate planning.”
“Nah, that’s just when you make me map out my essays. Honestly, don't know why I can’t just write as it comes to me…”
“Because it’s helpful!” Edwin didn’t particularly want to sit down, now that he was dressed, but he felt a sort of pull towards the bed, like when Charles had patted the spot beside him the night before. There was something about the sight of Charles, sprawled and relaxed with his curls flopped over his forehead, that reeled Edwin in, the way the moon did with the tide. “I know you draw, sometimes,” Edwin continued, quieter. “I thought a visual element might make the writing easier for you. I didn’t mean to -”
“I know.” Charles was looking down at the pillow with sudden interest, and Edwin felt the need to steer them somewhere else, where Charles wasn’t in danger of being quite so sullen.
“Besides, you do this with cricket too. Remember when you told me your plans for the last match were to ‘hit the ball’?”
Charles brightened. “And it worked, mate! Got the best strike rate on the team, don’t I?”
He did, Edwin knew and was very proud of him, even though he didn't fully understand what the title meant.
Which only served to further his point that, “You’ve never made plans for things like this. There’s no need to do so on my behalf now.”
Charles shrugged into the pillow. “Not trying to make you uncomfortable or anything, mate, but you seem proper stressed about this.”
Edwin opened his mouth, likely to say something stilted and embarrassing, but Charles saved him, as usual, by barrelling ahead, “I don’t mean any of that shite from April. It’s just, this is a lot. And you love planning out the details of stuff.”
Edwin was fairly certain that he’d gone through more emotions in the past day than he’d ever felt in his life. And Charles was just lying there, looking soft and earnest, and just the slightest bit mischievous, if the glint in his eye was anything to go by. It was almost like he hadn’t spent the previous evening being beaten so hard he bled through his shirt.
So, Edwin perched himself on the end of the bed, a little primly, and asked, “What did you have in mind?”
Charles grinned. “Right. It’ll be like an undercover operation, yeah?”
Hm . “Will we have code names?”
“Mate. Obviously we’re gonna have code names.”
***
14.15
Edwin was expected downstairs at 14.30, so he went early, leaving Charles on his own again.
He felt bad about it, even though Charles clearly didn’t mind and he wouldn’t come to any harm. It was the same protective thing that had clenched in Edwin’s chest the night before.
He told Charles to meet him downstairs just before 15.00, and smiled when Charles threw him a little two finger salute in response.
The last minute chaos was in full swing when Edwin arrived. People were setting up the bar, positioning trays of food and chairs. Someone was standing precariously on one by the far wall, straightening a painting that Edwin was fairly certain had already been perfectly level.
He hardly ever spent time in this part of the house. It was likely meant as a formal dining room and adjoining sitting space but from what he had experienced, they usually sat empty, dusted occasionally by a cleaner who cared even less than Edwin did. But on select occasions, the rooms were unveiled whenever his parents wanted to show off a picture-perfect business-meets-household hybrid. An extravagant house with refined tastes, a streamlined business model with a streamlined son who stayed quiet and kept his head down and also maintained the necessary social skills to make a splash with the lads who would one day be his coworkers, when they took over for their parents.
It was an endless cycle: Payne after Payne staring down at him through his parents’ halfhearted glances. It made Edwin want to curl up in the smallest corner he could find and never emerge.
Instead, he nodded to his mother when she caught sight of him, directing the scene with a wine glass in one hand and a guest list in the other.
He stepped around a man carrying two trays loaded with canapes and came to a stop beside her, letting his eyes follow the dark red pattern in the rug beneath his feet. The colour was nearly identical to his mother’s lipstick, he registered vaguely, as she leaned down to murmur in his ear, “Fix your shirt.”
Edwin did, as subtly as he could manage while surrounded by people, smoothing out the wrinkles at his waist from leaning back in bed with Charles.
Edwin was jostled around a bit, moved from one corner to another, sent on an excursion to the kitchens to tell someone off for an incorrect arrangement of cheese. He relegated himself to a far wall after that and fiddled with his cuffs until his father appeared from the bowels of his study and stilled Edwin’s hands with a single movement of his severe eyebrows.
Edwin had inherited those brows himself, but he had yet to refine his father’s technique when it came to using them. His father could silence a room with a single sardonic twitch or displeased frown. The most Edwin had ever managed was to make Charles stop laughing openly and instead fix him with a soft, aching sort of smile, barely suppressed.
“Edwin, beside me.”
He snapped back to attention at the sound of his mother’s voice. The pre-event chaos had been quelled, and people and things now seemed to be mostly in place, with a held-breath anticipation of the onslaught to come. Only Edwin was missing.
He gave the buttons of his left cuff a final unnecessary twist, and made his way over to his parents, who had positioned themselves just to the side of the adjoining doorway, just on the casual side of purposeful, ready to greet their guests as they arrived.
Edwin took a deep breath. It began.
***
15.00
The whole purpose of the thing, Edwin had come to learn, was to put on a show. At first he’d assumed it was a show of wealth or status, or any of the privileges his parents made a point to coast on, when particular elements of society were at play. But what Edwin had come to realize was that these events were not a display of betterment, or a flexing of one home and business above others. Far worse. They weren't a show at all, but a plea. An application, due promptly and notably each year, to maintain a foothold in the very wealth and status that the Paynes were so fond of showing off.
It had been a shock when Edwin had pieced the reality together; a shock and a further destabilizing of the world beneath his feet. The family name, the wealth and stature that it carried, offered no more protection in the real world than it did at school.
His parents may have had fewer bruises to show for their failures to maintain the illusion, but it seemed to hurt all the same. Edwin could see it in the furrow of his father’s eyebrows and the tightness of his mother’s jaw.
They both shot him looks occasionally, when the stream of guests slowed, with a carefully discerning blankness. Edwin hardly needed those looks to understand what went unsaid: if there was a weakness to the Payne family performance, tonight and any night, it was Edwin.
“Rowland, I presume?”
Edwin tuned back in at the sound of a familiar voice.
“Yes, sir. That's me! Thank you for letting me come along last minute.”
Charles spoke with an easy familiarity that might have put his parents’ hackles up from anyone else, but as always, there was something innately personable and endlessly charming about Charles that allowed him to slip through the cracks of rules and society.
Indeed, Edwin’s father was already looking past him and onto the next guest, offering only a vague nod of greeting.
Charles didn’t seem bothered by the rudeness. He made a show of shaking Edwin’s hand, as if this was the first they were seeing each other over the holiday, and moved along with only a small, knowing smile in Edwin’s direction.
Already, something in Edwin’s chest felt looser, knowing Charles was nearby.
The Moulds hadn’t arrived yet either, and Edwin was riding a cautious sort of high about the evening. Perhaps all that would be required of him were polite smiles and the occasional nod, all conducted from the safety of a familiar position at Charles’ side.
And as if on cue, Charles appeared again not a moment later.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, all casual deference. “Someone over there was looking for -” Charles motioned behind him and before he could finish the sentence, Edwin’s mother was pushing at his shoulder with suddenly urgent fingers.
“Go deal with it, darling,” she muttered under her breath, shooting Charles a tight-lipped smile in thanks. And just like that, Edwin was free.
***
16.00
Edwin set his glass down carefully on the nearest coaster and rubbed a hand against one temple; a gesture he hoped was surreptitious enough to avoid detection.
Charles was beside him, of course, and had been focused, for a good few minutes, on a girl a little older than them, who Edwin recognized vaguely as the daughter of someone in his father’s office. Charles was good at talking to women; Edwin knew, as much as he hated to admit it.
Case in point, the girl on Charles’ other side had started off the conversation looking down her nose at them, asking generic questions about Edwin’s GCSEs with a familiar, uncaring blankness. It was a song and dance Edwin was more than familiar with, the same one that the adults engaged in: gauging each other’s achievements, sizing up competition, gathering details to bring back to family and coworkers when the night was over.
Edwin had watched with a feeling somewhere between awe and relief as Charles managed to break through the shattered-glass personas of nearly every person who approached them. He spoke to them about sport and bands and events Edwin had never heard of, and one by one, their shoulders came down and their expressions softened into something real.
Edwin might have been jealous of the whole thing, if Charles hadn’t interspersed each conversation with casual intimacies and little comments that never failed to bring Edwin’s mind back down from wherever it had wandered off to.
“Nice enough for an Arsenal fan,” he muttered at a man’s retreating back. Or, “Want another drink, mate?” and when Edwin shook his head, “I’ll get you some water.”
Now, he turned back after nodding goodbye to the girl and fixed Edwin with a hazy sort of smile.
“She’s at Cambridge, mate. Isn’t that - hey. You alright?”
Edwin snapped an arm out to pick up his drink again, giving his hands something to do.
“I’m fine,” he said, directed down to his half-empty water glass. “Cambridge is quite a feat for her, I think. Her family have been at Oxford for generations. Like mine.”
Charles didn’t roll his eyes, but Edwin could see that he was making a concerted effort.
“Not gonna comment on that one,” he muttered, a moment later. “I can put it on at St Hils well enough, but that’s too much even for me. Imagine my dad’s face if I told him I was going to Cambridge instead of Oxford. He’d have a bloody heart attack before I finished the sentence.”
Privately, Edwin didn’t see much of a downside to that circumstance, but he figured it wasn’t the time or place to discuss it. Instead, he shrugged; took another sip of water.
The sardonic look on Charles’ face slipped away into something softer.
“You sure you’re alright, mate? You look a little, uh, pinched.”
Edwin raised an eyebrow. Pinched ?
“You know, like when you disapprove of something I’m about to do, but you don’t want to tell me.”
They shared a little smile then that wasn’t quite a laugh, whether because it wasn’t the place to laugh at a joke like that or because neither of them could bring themselves to, Edwin didn’t know.
“It’s just a bit of a headache,” Edwin said, after a beat of silence. “Nothing to worry about.”
He could feel Charles’ eyes on him, heavy enough that the weight was nearly physical. He still wasn’t looking up when Charles leaned sideways, brushing their shoulders together in a pale, but welcome, imitation of the warmth of the night before.
***
17.23
Charles seemed to notice only a second later, or maybe it was Edwin’s sudden and desperate inability to function with anything resembling normality that he noticed. It was humiliating, at its core: a glimpse of dirty blond curls across the room sending him into a state like panic. Edwin might have laughed at the very notion, a year ago.
He forced his eyes to the floor, followed the tiny lines of the carpet’s pattern until they blurred into something unintelligible. Around his glass, his fingers had clenched so tightly that Edwin wondered how long it would be before it splintered.
He wondered if the shards of it would fall to the floor and hide themselves in the divots of patterns. Or if they would stay stubbornly in place, embedding themselves deeper and deeper under Edwin’s skin until he was just as shattered and irreparable as -
“Alright, mate. Time for a little break.”
Charles’ voice was deceptively calm and casual as anything. His hand landed between Edwin’s shoulder blades and he might have jumped a foot in the air at the touch if he hadn’t so recently refamiliarised himself with the warmth of Charles’ presence.
Vaguely, distantly, Edwin felt himself shaking his head.
“Can’t,” he managed, through a throat that was struggling to draw in air and produce sound at the same time. “I’m supposed to stay and - “
Charles’ other hand closed around the glass still held aloft in Edwin’s, like some sort of pale party beacon, drawing the Payne’s guests forward like flies to sugar.
“I’m sure your parents can handle things for a minute,” Charles said. “And if they can't, blame me. Come on.” Without further ado, Charles plucked the glass from Edwin’s hand and pushed lightly until Edwin stumbled forward. It was much easier to go where Charles indicated than it was to resist the warm, solid palm on Edwin’s back.
Charles ushered him through a door at the back of the room and out into a smaller hallway. It led to the kitchen and the sitting room where he and Charles had eaten breakfast that morning.
Thankfully, it was empty of catering staff at the moment. Edwin didn’t relish an audience for his rapidly increasing dishevelment.
Charles steered him in a small semi-circle, and brought him to a stop with his back against the wall. His hand skirted to Edwin’s shoulder and squeezed once before retreating. Edwin felt the spot where it had been with a strange little pang. He had to pull himself together. This was so far from acceptable behaviour it hardly bore thinking. And if either of his parents happened to burst through the door and see him, Edwin didn’t want to know what excuse he could even begin to concoct.
It took him an embarrassingly long moment to register that Charles had started speaking.
“- long as you need, mate. Just breathe, yeah? ‘S just me here. None of those wankers around, just you and me.”
Edwin let his head drop forward, lulled on the cadence of Charles’ words like they were his last remaining tie to reality. His chin bumped against his chest, and the too-quick rise and fall of his lungs beneath.
“They’re my parents,” Edwin said finally, likely nonsensically to anyone but Charles who only snored.
“Still wankers.”
Edwin smiled a little at that, despite himself, and despite the lingering feeling that something much larger than him was trying to crush his ribcage in a many-jointed fist.
The beginnings of the headache were still there, little pinches of pain at his temples that would eventually flare out into prolonged, pulsing pain. But when he looked back up and caught Charles’ eyes, soft and steady and warm brown familiar, Edwin felt like he could already breathe a bit easier, knowing that Charles was there, close enough to touch if he reached out.
“There you go.” Charles sounded relieved, which was odd, given that Edwin hadn’t done anything but raise his head a few centimeters.
“I’m alright,” he said, hoping it would quell at least a little of the emotion on Charles’ face. “I simply needed to…” What, panic? Feel the warmth of Charles’ palm on his back for all of two seconds? “Well, I’m fine now, in any case,” Edwin finished lamely.
Thankfully, Charles didn’t seem to have heard much at all.
“I can’t believe that tosser actually showed his face tonight.”
“I don’t imagine he had a choice.”
Edwin had never understood what motivated any of Simon’s actions beyond a seemingly ingrained disdain for everything wrong with Edwin himself. But that was a widespread issue, one that had been taken up by his parents and the boys in junior school and so many others in his life that he couldn’t possibly keep count.
Edwin couldn’t say whether Simon was here now of his own volition to check in on Edwin, or for a laugh, or whether his parents had dragged him along for the same reason Edwin was required to make an appearance himself.
“Look,” Charles was saying now. “I’m not above clocking him one if he tries anything, but I feel like that shouldn’t be the first strategy here. Unless you want me to?”
This time, the smile that spread across Edwin’s face was unexpected. Charles was truly the only reliable thing Edwin had ever known: Charles and his inexplicable, unwavering pledge of protection.
“There won’t be any need for violence,” Edwin said. “I think my parents would have more than a few things to say about you and Simon brawling in the middle of their networking event.”
Charles smiled too, now, one of those big goofy grins that never failed to make Edwin feel like he’d succeeded at something important.
“Brawling,” Charles repeated, the hint of a posher lilt to the word than usual. “Honestly, mate. I don’t know where you come up with this stuff sometimes. It’s proper adorable.”
Adorable . Edwin was only just parsing the word through his jittery brain when -
“Edwin! There you are.”
He couldn’t tell which of them jumped first, but one moment Edwin was ducking his head to hide the blush he was certain was spreading across his cheeks, and the next he and Charles both startled into action, stepping away to put space between them. Edwin’s spine stiffening instinctively at the sound of his mother’s voice, Charles’ arms locked into a defensive posture at his sides: hands not quite fists, but ready to be. There was no need for all that.
Edwin stepped forward carefully positioning himself in his mother’s line of sight before Charles.
“I apologize,” he began. “I was feeling unwell and Charles was kind enough to -”
“You shouldn’t have left,” she snapped, before he could finish, but thankfully there was little heat in it. She mostly seemed flustered.
Edwin nodded. He shouldn’t have left. He knew, even as he was doing it, but his head was hurting and Charles was warm and comforting. In the moment, it hadn’t seemed like a mistake at all.
For her part, his mother hardly acknowledged Charles, much less whatever part he had played in Edwin’s disappearance.
“Nicholas Turvy just arrived,” she said. “Your father told you about him. An old colleague from Oxford. He’s agreed to speak with you.”
Edwin didn’t recall his father having mentioned Nicholas Turvy or anyone else. Though that didn’t mean he hadn’t. In all honesty, Edwin had likely missed a great deal in the haze of the past weeks. Perhaps Charles was right. One night of proper sleep might not have done enough to mitigate the damage as Edwin thought.
“Come on.” His mother’s voice held a touch of irritation now, and she motioned him towards her, one manicured hand tight on the doorknob.
Edwin spared a glance to Charles, who was watching him with intense dark eyes. Edwin returned what he hoped was a reassuring expression, and then forced his legs to move, despite the renewed pressure in his temples that spiked again with each step.
When he was close enough, his mother grabbed the lapel of his jacket, straightening it with a rough little jerk.
“Dr Turvy can put in a word about your application next year, of course.” Her voice had dropped slightly, to an expectant-sounding hiss. “If you can make a good impression.” Edwin could read between the lines: make sure you do .
Do try not to embarrass us any further, darling , et cetera.
Edwin took a short breath in through his nose, pointedly ignored the instinct to look over his shoulder at Charles, and let his mother lead him back into the party. Her hand brushed the back of his shoulder as she ushered him through and Edwin imagined for a moment that he could feel the points of her nails digging through the fabric of his jacket, all the way into the flesh beneath.
They hadn’t, of course.
And when he turned back to look at her, she was already gone, just one body amidst a sea of them, with a fresh wine glass and a painted lipstick smile.
Edwin was alone
Notes:
Alive au Charles is such a Disney channel older brother to me...that boy just wants to eat in every scene and he deserves to!!
Thank you so much for reading, I love you all and I love your comments they fuel my soul. Please feel free to come yell at me on tumblr @williamvapespeare. <3
edit: i just wanted to add here that all throughout this i kept thinking about the interview where george rextrew said that edwin's mother never would have touched him with an ungloved hand - and then tried to modernize... :(
Chapter 3
Summary:
Dr. Turvey nodded, looking thoughtful.
“That is a good point,” he said. “I had wondered quite the opposite when I applied, years ago, of course.” Another flap of his hand. “I attended quite a prestigious school in Edinburgh, but it had none of the solid connections of somewhere like St. Hilarion’s. The place is practically next door to Oxford, isn’t it?”
Edwin shrugged. Then, realising that might read as rude, said, “Not quite next door. You have to take a bus.”
-
In which Edwin has an awkward conversation, Charles has low-self esteem, and the boys come to an understanding.
Notes:
HELLO I'M BACK!!! Here is the final chapter in this self-indulgent little feast of h/c.
A few random thoughts about this chapter: I went to St Andrews, which is where you go when you don't get into Oxford or Cambridge and I clearly hold a grudge (I don't actually lol), I also have no idea about any sort of law scholarships, I just pointed Edwin towards Edinburgh because that's where the boys are based in Bees' original fic :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Dr Nicholas Turvey turned out to be a man about his father’s age, in an expensive looking brown suit, with a sliver of what smelled like whiskey left in a glass at his elbow. He regarded Edwin over a pair of round spectacles as he approached, like he was measuring something: a degree of quality.
This kind of scrutiny, at least, Edwin could handle. He had top marks in every class, and a good grip on nearly every element of university application talking points that might be brought up.
It was just one in the long list of things he’d turned to in the endless sleepless hours of the holidays, something that let him imagine what a future might look like, out of the stifling tunnels of St Hilarion’s halls, and the chilly haven of his and Charles’ attic. Or that had been the theory, at least. In reality, he’d dug through some of his father’s old books, traced a finger down a list of St. John’s College alumni and felt less of the imminent freedom he’d expected and more like he was staring down the barrel of a familiar rifle with a different coat of paint.
“Edwin, I take it?” Dr. Turvey’s accent wasn’t what he expected, posh enough, of course, but with a slight lilt that was nearly indiscernible.
“Yes.” Edwin nodded, once. “Thank you for taking the time to speak to me.”
Dr. Turvey waved his free hand in a small jerky motion. “Of course. I’m certain I owe your father a favour or two, though I’d thank you not to pass that along to him. I value my time, as little of it as I have!”
It was probably a joke, meant to set Edwin at ease, or as at ease as he could be in a situation like this. Edwin raised his eyebrows slightly, just in case it wasn’t.
Dr. Turvey didn’t mind, one way or the other. He just took another sip of his whiskey and watched Edwin with an impatient, expectant sort of look. The kind of look that said I value my time. Don’t waste it. Which he had, unwittingly, just said aloud too.
Best for both of them to get this over with.
“I wondered if you might be willing to give me any advice about the admissions process at St. John’s?” Edwin asked. “I’m not garnering for special treatment, of course. I know it’s highly competitive.”
Dr. Turvey nodded. He looked a little bored, like he was just as aware as Edwin that they were going through the motions.
“I don’t know if you’d need special treatment, from what I’ve heard.”
Edwin ducked his head.
“I enjoy school.” It was an easy enough answer, and not quite a lie. He did enjoy learning a number of things, though whether or not law was one of them remained to be seen.
“Well that’s certainly a good start!” Dr. Turvey raised his glass to his lips again and seemed disappointed to find that it was empty. “Though you’ll need more than stellar marks for St. John’s. They value well-rounded candidates, especially for law. It’s about building out a new generation of a legacy, you see, not just picking a name from a hat of A Levels.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Edwin noticed that Charles had entered the room again. He was leaning against the corner of a bookcase, looking casual as ever, even as Edwin caught the warm weight of his gaze. It shouldn’t have relaxed him as much as it did.
“Yes,” he said, to Dr. Turvey. “I understand, that all makes sense.”
It didn’t really. The idea of building a new generation of legacy was about as far from the truth as the “next generation of gentlemen” lingo favoured by St. Hilarion’s. They wanted people with connections, who would put those connections to use in this institution’s favour, and, ideally, for its own monetary benefit.
Edwin knew he was supposed to swallow all of that down, like he did with most everything else the school handed him.
He asked his next question: “I understand that St. John’s receives a large amount of applicants from St. Hilarion’s each year. Could this put me at a disadvantage? Being one of many with similar qualifications?”
Dr. Turvey nodded, looking thoughtful.
“That is a good point,” he said. “I had wondered quite the opposite when I applied, years ago, of course.” Another flap of his hand. “I attended quite a prestigious school in Edinburgh, but it had none of the solid connections of somewhere like St. Hilarion’s. The place is practically next door to Oxford, isn’t it?”
Edwin shrugged. Then, realising that might read as rude, said, “Not quite next door. You have to take a bus.”
Dr. Turvey smiled in what looked like genuine amusement.
“Quite right,” he muttered. “A whole bus ride away.” He took a moment to set his whiskey glass aside, on the closest table and then leaned back in towards Edwin.
“Your name isn’t Scottish, is it?” Edwin couldn’t stop himself from asking. It was far more interesting to him than his chances of living up to his father’s Oxfordian legacy.
“No, my mother’s was, but my father is English. I just happened to grow up there.” Dr. Turvey nodded in an upwards motion, as if to indicate an immense and othering Northernness . “In all honesty, I sometimes wonder if it might have been easier if I’d come from somewhere like St. Hilarion’s. Fewer comments about my accent, or jokes about St Andrews being more suitable…someone even mentioned to me in passing that the University of Edinburgh offers a scholarship for law. Can you imagine! Well, I showed them, I suppose. And you won’t have any of that to worry about.”
“The University of Edinburgh offers a scholarship for law?” The words were out of Edwin’s mouth before he could stop them, his brain suddenly turning with something that sparked with life, intoxicating and foreign in its intensity.
This time, Dr. Turvey shrugged. “I suppose they used to. All well and good for those who need it.”
And that was the end of that. The conversation moved on to societies and A Levels, and the all other things Edwin was supposed to ask after.
But what had been a single unpleasant footnote in Nicholas Turvey’s otherwise privileged existence had cracked a door in Edwin’s mind that he hadn’t realized could open. It was a small and awkwardly shaped thing, a shape he would have to squeeze sideways to fit through entirely, but it was there: an escape from the narrow tunnels and stifling expectations that always spelled out his future. For the first time in a long, long time Edwin found that he had - well, if not hope then at least options. An option.
He couldn’t hold back a smile as he thanked Dr. Turvey for his time, and Edwin didn’t think he’d smiled at one of his parent’s parties since he was five years old and his nanny had appeared to take him back upstairs.
“Always a pleasure.” Dr. Turvey picked up his empty glass and raised it in Edwin’s direction in a kind of salute. “I’ll keep an eye out for your application, when it comes around.”
He didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic about the prospect, but that didn’t matter to Edwin. In fact, nothing mattered to him at the moment other than telling…where had Charles gone?
He wasn’t in the corner where Edwin had last spotted him, and a quick sweep of the room told him that Charles was indeed missing. Edwin didn’t blame him. Aside from the hiccup of Simon’s presence, the evening on the whole was a boring one, and there was very little Charles hated more than boredom. Maybe he’d stepped out, or retreated to the kitchens to acquire more food, or more interesting conversation.
Edwin left via the main door this time, thankfully unnoticed by either of his parents, and exchanged a few polite nods with the guests milling in the hallway. He had made it almost all the way to the front door and was about to give up and try his luck in the kitchens, when he caught sight of the familiar unruly curls at the back of Charles’ head.
“Charles!” He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice, even in one word.
Charles, however, froze. He had one arm in the sleeve of his jacket and glanced back at Edwin with a weary expression that suggested he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.
Edwin’s excitement stalled in his throat. “Are you…leaving?”
Charles’ eyes darted away as he tugged his other arm through its sleeve with a harsher motion than seemed strictly necessary.
“Nah, course not.” He shoved a hand into his pocket. “Just going for a fag while you were busy with that lawyer chap. Didn’t need to worry about Simon with him around, so.”
It wasn’t the end of a sentence, not a proper one anyway, but Charles didn’t seem particularly inclined to continue.
Edwin swallowed. “I understand if you don’t want to play bodyguard all night, of course.”
Charles made a curious face then, something halfway between confusion and annoyance. It was a sentiment Edwin was more than familiar with, but he could count on one hand the number of times it had been directed at him from Charles.
“It’s not that.” Charles let out a breath. “‘M always gonna be around for that. Just, you know, I didn’t want to be in the way.”
It was Edwin’s turn to frown.
“You aren’t - Charles, is this about what my mother said?” A beat of silence, condemning as anything. “You must know that wasn’t about you?”
It was about Edwin, as usual.
Charles shook his head. “No. Nothing like that. I just get the feeling your folks wouldn’t be too keen on me lighting up in the middle of their posh dining room. So I’m gonna -”
He was halfway out the door as he spoke, turning the knob with one hand and pushing the heavy thing open with his shoulder.
It was still light outside, but night was already closer than Edwin expected; the shadow of the house seemed to stretch longer than it should have over the road out front. It had rained sometime during the day, and a faint mist still clung to the air, a few puddles in the gutters of the pavement. Charles didn’t say anything when Edwin followed him down the front steps, but his shoulders stiffened noticeably.
Edwin was quiet, as Charles lit his cigarette. He pretended to watch the reflection of a leaf in the nearest puddle.
“Charles?”
“Hmm?”
“Is everything alright?”
The hand that wasn’t holding his cigarette clenched at Charles’ side, a sudden and instinctual looking gesture. It was the same one that he had made earlier, when Edwin’s mother interrupted them in the hallway.
“Yes, Edwin! Everything is fucking aces. Maybe I got a little sick of hearing rich twats brag about how good they are all night, but I’m good. I’m always good, yeah?”
Edwin’s body took a step back without conscious input from his mind. Charles wasn’t looking at him anymore. He took a long drag of his cigarette, and flicked ash to the ground beside one loafer.
“I don’t understand,” Edwin said, slowly, “Did someone say something to you while I was - oh, god, it wasn’t my mother, was it? Whatever she said, I’ll speak to her. She has…old fashioned ideas about people.”
“No, your mum didn’t have a go at me!” Charles cut him off with an outburst that started upset and trickled down to something closer to tired. “She didn’t need to say anything, did she?”
Edwin crossed his arms, feeling suddenly far colder and far more vulnerable than he had all night. He felt the way he might have if he suddenly went completely see-through: transparent, empty.
“What does that mean?”
Charles was no longer staring at the slowly growing pile of ash, and instead started poking his toe into a nearby puddle collected in the gap between pavement and gutter. Edwin had the vague thought that he wasn’t sure if the loafers were waterproof, then pushed it aside.
If there ever was a time he had the right to worry about things like that, this wasn’t it.
“What didn’t she need to say?” Edwin asked again, with sudden, humiliating desperation.
“That you’re too good for this!” It burst out of Charles like a punch or a gunshot, like something that had been held back for far too long to stay inside any longer. “For me.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Don’t make me spell it out, mate. This whole party, all these arseholes throwing their weight around? No wonder St Hils is full of wankers if this is where they all come from!”
“And I hate them just as much as you do, Charles.”
As much as Edwin hated anyone who made his life a living hell.
“Sure,” Charles muttered. “Of course, yeah. But you and that lawyer chap were getting on just fine. It made me think, you know, you could have a place here, like, an actual sodding life , if you didn’t have to spend all your time dealing with me.”
Edwin was familiar with the sensation of being punched in the stomach and what he felt now was similar, if amplified by thousands.
Charles was still talking, “And you’ll go off to bloody Oxford in a couple years and you can have that life then. I was just thinking, right, if it wasn’t for me you could have it now.”
And then Charles was crying, Ewdin realized, in that hunched-up way he always did, like he was angry at himself for doing it. He turned away a bit, and wiped harshly at his eyes with the hand that held his cigarette, bringing its burning end dangerously close to his face.
Edwin had never been good with softness at the best of times, but with Charles it always felt like any attempt just pushed him further away when what Edwin really wanted was to draw him close and never let him go. And Edwin was horrible at this, like he was with most feelings, so what burst out was something that anyone else might have made comforting, but he made it sound like a spoiled child gearing up for an argument. Perhaps, because that’s exactly what he was.
“I don’t want that life!” His hands clutched at his own elbows. “Oxford, law, all of that. It’s what my parents want! It’s the only future they’ve ever offered me and I know I should be grateful, I know it is such a fucking privilege to be the token family disappointment paraded around like a doll in a suit, but I that’s not what I want!” He finished, lamely, breathing far too heavily for someone who hadn’t just run a long distance at top speed.
In Charles’ hand, the cigarette was burning dangerously close to the tips of his fingers. He didn’t seem to notice.
When he spoke, his voice was harsh and wet. “What do you want, then?”
“I…” Edwin’s hands wanted to clench into fists, but his elbows were in the way, like his body always seemed to be. “I don’t know, honestly.” Well, that wasn’t quite true. “I want us to be okay.”
“What?” Charles wasn’t toeing the puddle anymore; he was completely still, watching Edwin with widening eyes.
“I want to figure out…whatever it is I’d like to do,” Edwin said, more confident now that Charles at least seemed to be open to the idea. “And I would very much like to do whatever it is with you. If that, I mean - if you are -”
He was saved from the horror of putting words to the writhing thing in his chest when Charles barrelled into him, burying his face in Edwin’s neck. The cigarette lay forgotten in the puddle, its cherry end slowly dimming.
For a moment, Edwin stood frozen. Then, he unwound his arms and maneuvered them up around Charles’ waist, careful not to squeeze or jostle his back too much.
The collar of Charles’ jacket dug into his cheek, and he smelled like tobacco, obviously, but with the hint of something fresher underneath it, like mint. Edwin closed his eyes and let himself float, listening to the soft hitch of Charles’ breaths and feeling the small puffs of air each one made against his neck. He hoped, in a vague, distant sort of way, that no one chose this moment to leave the house. Not even entirely because of the assumptions they might make. It was more that Edwin couldn’t imagine letting go of Charles any time soon, no matter who or what crossed their path.
And maybe, just maybe, in a few years time he wouldn’t have to let go of Charles at all.
“I want to leave,” Edwin said, softly enough into the protection of Charles’ shoulder that he wasn’t sure the words were audible to anyone but himself. “As far away as I can get, and I want you to come with me.”
Charles’ arms tightened around him in response, one of his hands rubbing a little pattern against Edwin’s back, reassuring and soothing all at once.
“Yeah, mate,” he said, just as soft. “I want that too.”
Charles seemed to cry himself out, eventually, and he shuffled a bit in Edwin’s arms.
“Will you do something for me?” Edwin asked as Charles pulled away. He didn’t go far, just enough to bring an arm up between them and swipe at his face. It wasn’t a particularly gentle movement, but Edwin preferred it immensely to him wiping his eyes with a lit cigarette centimeters from singing off an eyebrow.
“Course,” Charles’ voice was low but steady. “I kind of failed at my first job already, running off like that.”
Edwin shook his head harder than he meant to; a lock of hair flopped out of place and across his forehead.
“You have done nothing of the sort,” he said, as firmly as he could manage. “You stayed by my side and turned Simon away, and only left when someone actively requested it.” Edwin glanced down, studying the way the house lights reflected in the rain-slick pavement, so he wouldn’t have to look Charles in the eye when he said, “You’ve been the best bodyguard I could ask for. A model brawn .”
Charles’ hands slipped down to his arms and squeezed lightly.
“I’ll always protect you, mate.” He said it so simply, so sincerely, that Edwin had to duck his head against Charles’ shoulder again. “So what is it you need, hm? Who’s head am I bashing in now?”
Edwin snorted into the collar of Charles’ coat. If only.
“Nothing so extreme. I need you to help me break into my father’s study.”
They were close enough that Edwin felt the way Charles’ entire body stiffened.
“I’m not above a bit of breaking and entering, but is that not…” He didn’t finish the thought, but Edwin abruptly didn’t need him to. He had more than enough evidence at hand to guess what Charles might expect to happen when he crossed someone’s father, Edwin’s or his own.
“It’s nothing like that,” Edwin said, carefully. “I’d ask him to let me in himself, but he’s leaving with my mother later tonight, for their holiday. I want to look at some of his law books. I think I might find myself in need of them soon, if I want to be a competitive candidate for scholarships.”
He forced himself to pull back so he could see Charles’ face, which thankfully didn’t look worried anymore. In fact, he was smiling a little, despite the tears still clumping in his long, dark lashes.
“A scholarship, hm?”
“Yes, well.” Charles’ smile widened, the corners of his eyes scrunching up. “Don’t look at me like that, Charles. We will have to eat, you know.”
Edwin caught one more glimpse of the smile before Charles ducked closer, resting his forehead lightly against Edwin’s.
“Yeah, mate. I guess we will.”
Notes:
Thank you guys so so much for your lovely comments. <3 they make me so happy and appreciated. I go back and read them so often. I'm so glad people enjoyed this - this fic was kind of a gratuitous desire for comfort myself, so thank you for appreciating it!
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