Work Text:
Edwin’s hand rests casually on the armrest between them when Charles reaches over and takes it for the first time.
The world doesn't end. The film keeps on playing like nothing's happened.
Their fingers twist together in the near-darkness. They both hold a breath they don’t need. And Charles expects Edwin to move away, only... he doesn’t.
Charles doesn't dare glance over, because what if Edwin’s looking at him? Or… what if he’s not looking at him? Which would be worse? Which better?
Careful as anything, Charles runs one fingertip along the back of Edwin’s bare wrist at the edge of Edwin’s shirt cuff, light enough he could pretend it was an accident… at first.
But when Edwin doesn’t shift, endless seconds, maybe minutes, who knows how long later, Charles chances touching the inside of his wrist, slow—slow—like Edwin’ll disappear if he moves too fast.
He risks hooking a thumb under Edwin’s cuff, where his pulse should be but isn’t, where his skin feels soft and secret, and he thinks Edwin takes a shuddery, gasping breath, but... nah. That was a noise in the film, wasn’t it?
The film, and Charles’ wishful thinking.
---
The second time, Charles leaves his hand on the armrest, and it’s Edwin who finds it in the flickering dark.
Charles almost makes a sound as Edwin’s hand settles over his. It’s heavy and present and less tentative than it was the other night.
They squeeze each other’s hands so hard that it would hurt if they were living. Hold on so tight they would cut off their circulation if they had any.
And they don’t move, not one finger, not a hair’s breadth, the entire film.
---
The third time, Edwin offers his hand, palm up. Charles takes it like the gift it is.
He draws little patterns into Edwin’s skin with his pointer finger, aimless, butterflies going mad in his stomach all the while. He does it ‘til he runs out of things to trace and then keeps going, because he can’t run out of things, can he?
Runes of protection. Both of their names, one after the other. The whole alphabet. The name of the character he thinks did the murder in the film they're watching, letter by letter.
Edwin’s free hand clenches on the opposite armrest, where Charles can’t see it.
---
Edwin’s hand seeks out his so quickly the next time it's as though... he's got to have been waiting for it, Charles thinks, with a giddy sort of swooping feeling—their fingers interlacing, easy.
For a while they stay just like that.
But then Edwin picks up their entwined hands, and—Charles almost looks at him, because what’s he doing?—guides Charles’ hand to his knee. His knee.
Edwin covers Charles’ hand again with his, strokes his thumb along the side of Charles’ hand, once, like a question without words.
Charles swears he makes some kind of noise he hopes Edwin can’t hear, choked off and drowned out by the sound of the high-speed chase in the film. Charles hasn’t been able to feel much, in this last decade since he died. But he’s always been able to feel Edwin. And now he can feel the weave of Edwin’s trousers below his palm, the shape of Edwin’s knee through the fabric, and the weighted press of Edwin’s touch into his knuckles, grounding him there.
He barely musters the courage to squeeze back, just a bit, an answer to Edwin’s question, and he feels a tension go out of Edwin that he hadn’t known was there until it's gone.
---
They see three more films before Charles is brave enough to drag his hand just a bit higher. Solidly on Edwin’s thigh now, no mistaking it.
They’re already halfway through the runtime, which Charles sort of regrets, but it takes Charles about that long to work up to it, right? He'd skipped the armrest completely, gone right for Edwin like… now or never. Bloody stupid, really. If it’d backfired…
He’s still half-expecting Edwin to shrug him off, to stiffen up, to shrink away to the far edge of his seat.
But it doesn’t backfire. This time he hears Edwin gasp, clear in a lull between dialogue. It’s ragged and surprised, a tiny hint of sound in it at the very end that kicks off shivers all up and down Charles’ spine.
God, he likes being able to surprise Edwin. Just like he likes their detective films. And just like he likes this, whatever it is they’re doing here, each time a little more daring.
---
Several times later, he's rubbing Edwin off through his trousers while Edwin squirms into his touch. Tiny little movements of Edwin’s hips, almost easy enough to explain away. Charles is biting his lip to keep in the low, needy noise that his throat keeps wanting to make, because he can tell that Edwin’s proper hard, under his hand.
Charles has felt out the shape of him, and he’s sussed out that Edwin likes it when Charles presses in with the heel of his hand—he reckons it gives Edwin something to rub up against. He tries to get his hand as much around Edwin as he can, like this. It’d be easier, if Edwin’s trousers weren’t in the way, he thinks, a little bit deliriously, but—that’s not—they’re not doing that.
They’re not doing that.
Then… Edwin huffs, a fussy, impatient sort of sound like the one he makes when Charles hasn’t yet found the right antidote in their book on poisons and Edwin’s three thoughts ahead. God, Charles bloody adores that sound, doesn’t he, rolls his eyes every time while adoring it—
…Anyway, Edwin lets it out, that perfect little frustrated puff of air he pretends is unnecessary. And he covers Charles’ hand with his and he helps, molds Charles’ palm tight to himself. He twitches in their shared grasp, and Charles realizes with a hazy, delayed thrill of clarity that he’s, that they’re, making Edwin come, right now, together...
---
They've done this so many times Charles loses count before they ever get up the nerve to look at each other. Then countless more times before words come into the picture at all. But once they start with the looking and the talking, well...
Charles insists on drawing it out, now.
They're both panting, wedged together as near as they can be with the armrest in the way. Charles works Edwin over slow and firm through what still feels like too many damn layers, works him to the brink and watches him balance on it in the shifting shadowy glow of the big screen. His brow furrows, his eyes shut so tightly Charles would be sure he was in pain if he didn’t know that it’s the other extreme he’s making Edwin feel.
Even more eventually, Edwin’s eyes fly open and his hand flies to Charles’ wrist, keeping him close.
“Charles—I need—I—think I need—”
Charles near-winces in sympathy, in a wash of kindred sensations. On impulse he tips his forehead against Edwin’s.
“What is it? What do you need? Tell me, love, tell me and it’s yours—I’ve got you—” He doesn’t even think about any of what’s spilling out of him, no sense to it is what he’ll argue later if he has to. No sense, only the equal need to see Edwin fall apart, impatient now to give him whatever he asks.
So he’s unprepared for it when Edwin kisses him, messy, uncoordinated, open-mouthed. And… they’ve never kissed before, but suddenly Charles doesn’t understand how they haven’t.
How is it they’ve never done this? How are they meant to stop?
Edwin pulls away. “Charles,” he says, an urgent whisper, like he’s breaking apart, like he’s dying a second death. His eyes glimmer, fixed on Charles’ lips, tracking the ghosts of words. His grip tightens on Charles’ wrist, holding his hand steady. “Charles—what did you say? Tell me again—I did not...”
He heard. Charles knows he did. But—
“Love,” Charles says. Because… what else is there to say? What else is Charles supposed to do, except say that, and miss the heat of Edwin’s mouth, and weather the frantic earthquake of shivers cascading through his body? “I said—love—s’that it? That what you need? To get you there? A kiss. I can kiss you again—”
‘Course he’s half-gone, but it doesn’t matter, not if Edwin’s meeting him, matching him.
“Yes...” Edwin says, in a way he’s never sounded yet, all soft and out of breath. “Yes.”