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There is a mortal saying Edwin reads in a small, cramped bookstore in London–”the mind believes a familiar hell to be better than an unfamiliar heaven.”
Edwin snorts—quietly. It’s wonderfully still here, in the way Hell never truly is. Dust motes drift in the honeyed sunlight spilling through the windows. The very air smells of old paper and cracked leather. He has no desire to disrupt this sliver of peace.
Nevertheless, he thinks with bitter amusement—they have no idea how right they are.
—-----
1895, London
Angels of old, Edwin is told, wore a kind of battle armor molded from the skies themselves, which made them nearly invisible until they were separating demons' heads neatly from their shoulders. Chainmail of sky and cloud and gathering thunderclouds.
Edwins fingers slip over dove grey fabric, smooth as water, supple. There are few things he enjoys of Earth; good books, good tea, the quiet oases of antique shops, dusty motes drifting through bookshops that smell of paper and cracked leather, rugs that seem to eat sound, and the smooth slide of well made suits.
“Like silk,” he says admiringly.
Giancarlo nods approvingly. “You have an excellent eye.”
Edwin huffs. “There is no need for flattery. You have known me long enough.”
Giancarlo chuckles. “Very long indeed.”
Ginacarlo makes a running joke of hinting that he knows Edwin is something more than human. Normally, this would be alarming, but Giancarlo speaks the language of money, and his tailoring is, frankly, worth the risk.
Edwin smiles, touching the array of pocket squares, in rows of silver, cloud white and robins egg blue. Yes, Giancarlo knows him well indeed. He plucks a set of cufflinks from their shiny, pin neat row. Miniature cornflowers, frozen under glass.
“I shall take the lot,” he nods to the stack of clothes folded in the cushioned armchair. “Exemplary service, as always.”
Ginacarlo’s hair has gone grey, crinkles around his eyes deepened, and yet his hands are steady, graceful as he folds Edwins merchandise into crisp lines, slipped into a ink black bag with something like reverence.
Edwin understands. The shop with its gleaming hardwood floors, its rugs that swallow up footsteps, the rows of suits in their sharp lines, would be a place of worship to Edwin, if he believed in that sort of thing. He wonders if Charles touched the suits, if he would be able to tell how much care he put into each stitch, as he swears he can feel the love Edwin has for his books in their very binding.
________
The next time he faces angels across the aftermath of a battlefield, the iron tang of human blood thick in the air, eyes catch on his clothing– the precise shades of pale grey blue of their idiotic, ill fitting suits. He watches feathers fan out, mouths puckering as if they have tasted something sour.
Edwin does not grin in open victory, but it is a close thing.
————
2005, the Great Maw, Office 1272, Hell
Edwin understands, in theory, that Hell’s subjects are not supposed to enjoy any of their time here, but why in the seven circles that extends to the damned coffee machine always being broken, he does not understand.
“Goddamned fucking–” he smacks the thing again. It makes a pathetic gurgling noise not unlike a man bleeding out. Edwin nearly snarls at it.
He sighs, rubbing at his temples. He’s finished his fourth teetering stack of paperwork, damning some of the worst scum of humanity to ceaseless, unrelenting torture until either their unlikely escape or the heat death of the end of the universe. He is seeing thumbscrew measurements and torture devices imprinted on the inside of his eyes. Hsi desire to give in, to stop his and Crystals foolish crusade, is so powerful he can feel it in his teeth. He needs coffee.
A hissing from above, a disturbing sort of chittering that sends shivers down the spine.
“Broken again?”
Edwin grumbles unintelligibly.
“Want me to get that for you, little worm?”
“Without the oh so charming nicknames, please,” Edwin snaps.
Greg laughs. He is that sort of demon; affable, as he inflicts agony. Surprisingly good at poker, and losing gracefully.
There’s the skittering of many legs as he crawls down the wall, using one spindly leg to fiddle the machine open. He pops open its metal innards and fiddles about, pulling a– ah. Edwin averts his gaze as Greg tips his head back and eats the poor creature that had burrowed into the cogs searching for a safe place in one bite.
Greg pops the thing together and gives the thing a solid thwack. It gives a little gurgle and begins to spit out coffee. He pours Edwin a cup first and begins the process of making cups for the rest of his team.
“Gregory the Devourer,” Edwin says gravely. “You are a hero and a champion among men.”
Gregory-Call-me-Greg preens, chittering, mandibles rubbing together. “Ha. You're welcome, Payne–ah, worm.”
Edwin slumps against the wall in exhaustion, clutching his mug to his chest. Of all the horrors of Hell, he had never anticipated the boredom, the mundanity of the work. Of sentencing hundreds to horrific fates becoming–routine. Dull.
There’s a stretch of companionable quiet as Greg pours his last cup, nods at Edwin, and crawls back up the wall into the tunnels.
Edwin steadies himself in his wake, pressing his thumbs into the sockets of his eyes and breathing through his nose. Quiet. Hell should not be quiet.
He slips back into the room with two cups in hand, making his way through to his corner, the desk with the wobbly leg, Crystal behind it. She's rubbing at her forehead. The horns are just coming in, poking through the skin of her scalp, leaving scabs in their wake. Edwin winces sympathetically.
Edwin sets their mugs on the little spaces of table that are unoccupied by paperwork. It is unlikely the coffee will be poisoned. Not impossible, but unlikely, because Edwin has slowly, surely, made himself so invaluable that his deaths and subsequent resets set the offices work back by several days, and required a secretary he was able to choose himself.
“I'm afraid I can't do anything for the pain,” he says in a low tone. “Hell loves to worm its way in.”
“I really fucking hate it when you talk about this place like it’s alive,” Crystal swats a pest away from her sleeve with a hard thwack of a folder.
She hardly bats an eye, he notes with a spark of pride. Only months ago she screamed bloody murder when one latched onto her, and Edwin had watched blandly as their coworkers laughed themselves silly while she tried to smash the thing upon the desk.
“You cannot show any weakness in front of them,” he’d said, on a mission topside, years ago, watching their mark from a cafe table across the street. “I apologize. I will not be able to help you in that regard.”
“So, demons are just like mean girls in high school,” Crystal rasped, eyes darting from side to side, watchful. “Great. Got it.”
Edwin spared her a glance. Deep bags had formed under her eyes, her hair limp and dull. Her nails were bitten to a quick. A sight better than their first meeting, but the bar was, quite literally, in hell.
By habit, he had ordered two drinks. He pushed the sugary, cream laden concoction across the table to her, noting her hesitation with approval.
“If high-school girls possessed imbued scythes with which to stab each other in the back, then yes.”
”Jesus fuck. Youd think your shitbag demon ex using your body up on his binge through London would get you a fucking break, at least.”
“At the very least, we can rely on demons being a great deal stupider than teenage girls.”
Crystals mouth pinched as she waved a hand over herself. “Yeah? How about two for one specials?”
Edwin sighed brusquely. He forgot, at times, how very young she was, and prone to taking things the wrong way.
“But, um, stupider I can work with. Thanks.”
“Mm.” Edwin cleared his throat. He was under no illusion, as Crystal was, that hed done anything more than trade her hell for another, when hed selected her as his secretary from his pile of moldering manila folders. They shared a hatred of demons; Crystal was far too trusting…
—-
“Hell is, in a manner of speaking, sentient. Think of a maw, that instead of doing the sensible thing and swallowing you, would instead like to savor its prey—“
“Edwin. Respect the mug,” Crystal tapped the surface, which said don't talk to me until I’ve had my coffee.
Edwin nodded with mock gravity.
Crystal's lips twitched in a weary smile, and they went to work. A file; a serial killer, assigned as prey to Beltebeth's hunt. Another—a stalker, uncategorized, likely to wander the halls of hell alone. Through the slog, he is deeply, pathetically glad for Crystal, the exhausted line of her body beside him, the tiny stack of files slipped into the secret compartment in the desk drawer, souls they will perhaps be able to save.
It is not enough. It will never be enough. But it is something, and as she had said, they would likely go mad without a something.
Crystal nudges his shoulder. “Hey. Thanks. Still tasted like fucking shit, but it helps. Does the weird, uhh..” she shifts in her seat. “Does the itchy growing tail bones while I'm sitting down feeling ever go away?”
“No,” Edwin says dryly. “Not until it's done.”
“Awesome.” Crystal takes another bracing sip of coffee. “Huh. Not bad.”
“He has a gift.”
“You know he has a crush on you, right?”
Edwin blinks. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“The human centipede.”
“Greg? You have a very strange sense of humor.”
“Edwin, he hasnt poisoned you in months, thats practically a declaration down here–”
A small quake trembles up, from his feet, up his spine, through his arm. His coffee sloshes, a drop splattering over a file.
“Edwin?” A note of alarm in Crystals voice. Reasonable, as even through Hells shifting and groaning he has never made a mess. A cursory glance reveals that the room has not shifted at all.
“Not to worry,” Edwin says absently. There is a strange tugging sensation in his navel. Edwin frowns.
“--win?” Crystal says, low and urgent. “What is it? What's wrong?”
Another tug. Stronger, this time.
Demons are of hell flesh. They do not sicken, or tire, unless hell wishes them to, and Edwin has taken great pains to be a thing hell does not notice again. And this sensation, new and alarming, he has heard described—
Edwin jumps back from Crystal as a ring of blue flame bursts around his feet.
“Crystal, remember my instructions––” he gets out before the floor crumbles away beneath him, and he drops through the crust of the earth.
________
2005, unknown location
Edwin is.. mildly concerned.
He has heard of higher demons dealing with this nuisance; going about their days with the usual, tempting stockbrokers and priests and the like, or the usual maiming and torture, only to be pulled, landing in the basement of a satanist or–this. A ring of snickering teenage hooligans gathered around a circle of candles, holding hands as they chant. Their laughter cuts off abruptly at the sight of him.
Edwin tilts his head, surveying the scene; an abandoned room, perhaps a cellar by the cool, damp feel of the air, the floor strewn with old and new garbage, including many cans of alcohol and.. Twizzlers? Edwin presumes are the motivating force behind this idiotic dare. They have not even used proper candles, he notes disgustedly, but the cheap kind from a convenience shop.
Nevertheless. They are young; perhaps the situation can be salvaged with diplomacy?
“Good evening,” he says politely.
The children take off screaming, which Edwin thinks is a touch rude. Really, he swears humans used to be made of stronger stuff. The retreating mass of scrambling, khaki clad legs is rather pathetic. Boys shove at each other to get to the door, pushing a girl to the ground–by the betrayed look on her face, Edwin guesses they may be romantic partners–oh my, that does not bode well for his future prospects.
“Excuse me,” Edwin begins, hoping at least she will be curious enough to turn, or hear him out. No such luck. She takes after her soon to be ex-partner, shouting expletives.
The ensuing quiet, at least, leaves room for him to think. He bends to examine the summoning ring. Strands of magic are woven into an intricate braid, each individual piece–a shoddy binding spell, a naming spell, a summoning–made worryingly strong together.
He feels at his temple with his free hand. As he thought, the enchantments stripped him of the cloaking spells Edwin had charmed to activate upon entry to earth. Damn it all. Without a disguise.. He is absolutely abysmal at pretending at humanity–Charles usually deals with that entire mess, smoothing over any odd looks with an easy grin and carefully crafted lies– posh boys, they forget how the rest of us live, or my handsome friend here has never had insert-human-thing-here, isnt that a tragedy?
There is not enough time. He collects data– crumpled snack bags strewn everywhere, a fat, spluttering candle whose label proclaims it a strawberry shortcake surprise (how is one surprised by the labels description?) and among the candy wrappers, a thick, leather bound book, sigils gleaming in the flickering light,.
Sigils Edwin cannot read because the idiot children left it cracked open, facedown on the disgusting floor. He curses and stands, pacing the circle, running a hand through his hair. He needs his books, his tools, he cannot recall a spell that will cut through this haphazard tangle of magic from memory, nor does he have the ingredients or tools to–
Footsteps in the hall.
His hand flies to his breast pocket, over the slim leather notebook Charles gifted him nine years ago. He tugs it loose, along with his fountain pen, jotting as much data as he can, frantic– the time on his watch, the position of the sun through the narrow window, the brand of wrappers strewn about, anything that may give him clues–
The ink sinks into the paper and vanishes just as steps round the corner.
—---------
The real trouble begins when the fathers of said terrified, screeching children are sent down into the basement, and when Edwins sheepish, flimsy lie that he was hired as a halloween prank is met with stony silence. Edwin notes the anti possession tattoos peeking out from behind button ups, the uniforms of cross necklaces and hard, assessing eyes. Demon hunters. Not the silly sort in films, but the kind who train for generations.
“It is impolite to stare at your guests as if they are an animal at a zoo,” Edwin says sharply.
“You are no guest of ours,” the Priest, in all his ludicrous garb, says in a trembling voice. He appears to be puffing himself up to appear larger, like a bird, staring Edwin down. “Go back to your pit.”
Edwin rolls his eyes. “I was quite happy in my pit until you summoned me here. Simply break the circle and I will no longer be your problem.”
They circle him with a mix of scientific fascination and revulsion that is..off putting. If they are frightened of him, they will not touch him. At least, he hopes.
What is more concerning is how they obtained his name to summon him in the first place. Edwin is only a lower level demon, hells equivalent of a pencil pusher. Hardly of note. Demons are conniving, backstabbing creatures, of course, but to sell his name to humans, let alone this kind of human—true believers— is a line they would not cross. He notes the long sleeves, the militaristic stances, crosses, the edges of anti-possession tattoos peeking out from behind button ups. Even as his stomach churns, wondering which demon he angered enough to cause this careful entrapment, his fingers itch for his notebook.
In the mix of strangers gawping at his horns, his tail, his eyes, there are two men who stay; scrawny, well groomed white men whose dress recalls Edwin of the wall street men charles turns his nose up at. By their posture and their hushed conversations, Edwin would guess they are waiting for their leader to arrive.
Edwin names them Idiot one and two.
The Priest advances slowly, eyes set on Edwins, and steps through the circle to the gasp of onlookers.
Edwin tries one last time, for— no, he will not think his name in this place.
“Hello,” he says, stepping carefully back to the circles edge, hands tucked politely behind himself, unsheathing his claws quietly. “A pleasure to make your acq—“
A gleam of metal drips from the priest's flowing sleeve, and he darts out with speed belying his age to leash Edwin’s throat, yanking viciously. Edwin lashes at him, snarling, opens deep cuts across his chest, scrabbling at the thin chain throttling him. Metallic prayer beads, soaked in holy water. It is burning into his flesh, he can smell his own skin—
His vision blacks out from pain. He thinks he retches. From black-edged vision, he watches the priest tilt his head back and forth as if he’s inspecting cattle.
Edwin waits until his grip has loosened somewhat to jerk his head back, and bite down on the meat of the priests hand, tearing.
The priest howls—it takes two men to pry him off, blood spurting, his believers cursing and pulling at Edwins skin, his hair. He receives a slap for his efforts, the force of which sends him toppling to the ground, choking as the beads press against his cheek, sizzling. The last thing he hears is the men’s faintly shaking, pride filled voices as they tend to their leader.
—-------
Edwin finds himself with an old companion— the exhausted wish that any amount of pain could prepare one for another kind. One would think after hell, torture would become rote. But no, there is always some fresh horror–now, in hearing men debate the morality of cutting him open.
“Why do you think it clothes itself in humanity?” Idiot two, clearly looking for approval from his leader, says, “why appear to our children?”
(It stings, of course, that his beloveds humans are the one tying him to a chair, cleansing their hands afterwards as if they have touched something foul, that humanity holds the knife that begins to carve.)
In other circumstances, Edwin might find the irony in their objective–playing at scientists, opening him up to find all the ways to maim and kill his kind, the pursuit of exterminating the “root of evil,” using methods which demons employ themselves, but Edwin is preoccupied with not giving them the bloody satisfaction of hearing him scream.
Hours stretch into the night.
Edwin's only reprieve from the usual roundabout of delights is the moon, and sleep. When the hunters retire for the evening, if Edwin manages to roll on his side in the small room, he can watch moonlight slip through the barred window the length of his forearm, silver blue and lovely as a familiar face.
Demons do not need sleep, technically sleeping, but Edwin is of the sort of flesh hell still likes to sink her teeth into— and it loves his exhaustion, his terror. Here, at least, out of Hells grasping reach, Edwin can dream of sweeter things. He closes his eyes and slips from his body, home.
——-
1691 / Fallen angel
Edwin tracks it through the bowed backs of broken trees, ducking under splintered branches. Liquid gleams, iridescent, dripping from the leaves. Easily mistaken for fat dewdrops, made iridescent by the light spilling through the trees, nothing more. He raises one clawed fingertip to a droplet, careful not to let it touch his skin. It slides along the curve of his nail, sizzling as it drops to the forest floor.
He had hoped he was wrong.
It is not difficult to track from there. The damage is staggering. Flattened trees fan out in a perfect circle, the epicenter of an impact that left cracks in the earth itself.
He is damnably, terribly foolish for coming here. He does not know what he is doing, other than he is desperate. The jeering of his peers follows him still, echoing in his ears. A demon, who has not yet made his first kill. He has managed for this long with clever deceptions, but they have begun to muffle laughter when he enters a room again... it will not be long before he returns to being—entertainment.
He has waited, excruciatingly patient, for the right opportunity, and if he is lucky–doubtful– perhaps it has been careless enough to leave a trace, something he can twist into a prop. A lurid war prize.
He is picking through the rubble when something in the crater moves.
Edwin goes still. His heart beats rabbit quick in his throat. But there is no blaze of purifying light, no howling choir.
Quickly, quietly, he ducks behind a tower of splintered trees, quieting his breath.
A small, choked cry. A shuffle. As if it is trying to move but.. cannot. Is it injured?
“Fuck,” it groans.
Edwin blinks. He had thought angels too wrapped in their own conceit to do something as lowly as swear.
“Fuck. Fuck!” A sniffle. The small, almost inaudible noises of a creature attempting to muffle sobs of pain.
Damn it. Damn it all. It was meant to be long gone, It was meant to be—how long has it been here? He noted the fall of a small meteor scientists were unable to find days ago. Has it been lying here all this time?
Slowly, he shifts, risking a glance between the gaps of wood.
It’s as if a star has fallen to earth. In a way, Edwin supposes bitterly, it has. A slick spray of ichor, iridescent as an oil spill in the shadow gold of the sunset. It is beautiful, in a sickening sort of way. Gleaming, jeweled as droplets of morning dew in a spider's web.
The angel struggles up onto their elbows. Rivulets of blood drip from the ruin of its wings. Oh. Its back is.. torn open, wet with ichor.
What sort of weapon could wound an angel? Only a demon would attack an angel from behind, but if they had such a weapon, Edwin would never hear the end of the bragging.
He could– it is weak. It would be easy. If he was anything like a pathetic excuse for a demon, he would drive a blade between its shoulders and drag its body back. He would be an angel killer. Respected. Even feared. They would never lay a hand on him again.
What a comforting lie–that the enemy was even less human than they.
He shuts his eyes, dragging in a tiny, shuddering breath. He feels ill. Has Hell stripped him bare of anything resembling kindness so quickly?
He had cloaked himself in four tightly interlaced spells as soon as he set foot on earth. No angel or demon will see him as anything other than an unremarkable human man. He could…
Slowly, he unfolds, knees creaking, and stands, creeps out from behind it, unable to look away, feet silent over the wet leaves..
“Who’s there?”
Edwin stills.
“A demon? Came to prey on scraps, did you? Fucking vultures ”
How had they sensed him? Does he smell of sulfur? Or–
The angels head, turned. His shadow, just visible in the low light. The curl of horns at his head. Fucking—damn it all.
“If you're gonna kill me, at least look me in the eye when you do it. Face to face.”
Admirable, Edwin thinks. Even with its voice shaking, the trappings of courage.
He kneels, slowly, examining the ruin of their back. A criss cross of new whip wounds over old, quite deep by the look of it.
“Oh, I get it,” the angel laughs, bitter. “You’re gonna play with your food first.”
Edwin ignores them, fishing in his pocket for the right—ah, yes. He shakes out the square of fabric and whispers a spell, neatly pulling the duplicated copies apart, and begins to lay them out on the biggest wound, overlapping. He so rarely gets to do magic in any productive way. All demons wish to see is beheadings.
“—fuck are you doing?!”
Hmm. Well. There is no point in explaining his own actions when he hardly understands them himself.
“I am collecting samples,” Edwin says dryly. “With enough study of your blood, I will engineer a poison that will wipe out the angelic race for good.”
“…what?”
“Poison? I’ve heard angels are mindless automata following their supposed masters orders, but surely you have heard of it.”
“I’ve heard of poison,” the angel says derisively. “You can’t.. what sort of stupid evil mastermind plan is that?”
Another chain of healing potion soaked kerchiefs. Half his stock, soaking up angel blood.
“..your course of action is to critique the plan of a creature who could, at this very moment, stab you through the back?”
“Think I’ll say whatever I like about your before you kill me.”
“Mm. Hardly a fair fight, is it? With you pinned like a flightless bird.”
The wounds are closing together, so slowly it is almost possible to miss. Wonderful, now he only has moments before the angel gathers enough strength to separate his head from his shoulders.
A low snarl. “Let me up and I’ll show you a fair fight.”
“I think not,” Edwin sighs, producing his sewing kit from the folds of the pocket universe in his coat. Handy bit of magic, that. Edwin must give him credit—the angel does possess some semblance of a brain stem. It is only a few stitches in when they stop struggling and say, bemused—
“Are you.. sewing me together?”
“I thought I would take it up. Practice, for all the sewing of the damneds mouths closed. They really ought to hold a tutoring session on these things. My stitches are always ever so uneven.”
The angel is quiet for a long moment. Edwin does not like the shape of that silence one bit—thoughtful. Calculating. Hell hs not made him a particularly good liar, despite his need for it.
“Demons need.. hobbies?”
“Well, hell is rather boring. All demons wish to talk about is maiming and torture. It is only so long before it all gets terribly dull.”
He does not know what he is doing, blabbering like this. He feels lightheaded, dizzy with fear. If angels are not as arrogant as he’s heard, if this one reports a demon helped him— if Hell is informed—
The angel snorts, a whuff of air that shakes it’s shoulders.
Edwin tsks. “For goodness sake, dont move! It’s not as if I have experience in healing wounds.”
“They didn’t tell me demons were funny.”
“Oh, yes, didnt you know there was a level in hell specifically designed for performing jesters?”
The angel volleys a few choice curse words.
Edwin rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, now hold still.”
————
It thunks onto his Superior's desk with a wet slap. Ichor oozes onto the surface, leaking into the neatly stacked manila files containing Hell’s relocation assignments.
The room has gone dead silent.
“My hunting prize, as suggested,” Edwin says primly. And then he turns on his heel and strides back to his desk, ignoring the wide eyes and slack jaws, mind so far past terror it has gone curiously blank, sits at his desk, crosses one leg over the other, and opens a book.
____
2005, Unknown location
They seem to be particularly fascinated by his blood. Namely, that it is the same color as theirs. The running theory seems to be that he is designed to appear like them, all the better to tempt. It is not an entirely terrible theory, he thinks, gritting his teeth as the scalpel slides down his sternum like a lovers kiss. He does not entirely know why he was made this way.
It does lend an unpleasant tinge each time Charles chooses some manner of his appearance to compliment, and Charles, in his ever perceptive manner, picked up on it a century or so a—
There is a hand in his innards. Edwin risks the threat of agony to snap at the nearest hand, missing fingers by a hairs breadth, shouting clamoring in his ears, why did no one secure its head, of course it didnt get fucking tired, it was a goddamned—
1692 / sweeter things
— not enough, that Edwin is an utter failure of a demon, saving an angel.
No, said angel has to spot him across a battlefield, and instead of exposing Edwin, take a thoughtful look at his armor, wait until the blood-thick clouds of dust had faded, the moans of the dying gone quiet, and find him. To thank him, of all things.
And if that was not awful enough, he had to follow Edwin about on his every mission, asking ridiculous questions such as what was his name, did he go around saving angels all the time, did he really think that hissing at him was going to put Charles off? (Edwin supposed when Heaven carved their glories into ones back demons hardly seemed intimidating, but it was still incredibly rude. He’d practiced his intimidation techniques in the best of Hell’s classes).
In an act of desperation, Edwin had appealed to the angels love of paltry games. If he won, Charles would bloody well leave him alone, and find another demon to project his blasted savior complex onto, and if Charles did— well, it didnt bear thinking, what an angel would want from him. And then—
“You really cant find a *single thing you like about them?”
“No,” Edwin said flatly. Tsk. He ought to know best, on the subject. “In this squalor of selfish, cruel children digging their knives deeper into each other's backs, I would commend you. I might even concede that you continue to follow me about like a stray.”
Charles' eyes took on a bright, considering gleam.
_______
.. Edwin was beginning to think hed made a mistake. They stood on the edge of a bakery, of all things. He did not normally frequent bakeries, or gardens, or the sort of places that exuded peace, grace, on his dubiously successful quests to tempt humanity into sin. The warmth of it itched at his skin.
“Your plan to redeem humanity is to.. ply me with desserts,” Edwin says dryly.
“You promised youd at least try it!” Charles protested.
“Hmmph.” Edwin took the pastry with a flourish that neatly concealed a poison-detecting charm. He didn’t know whether to be offended or not that Charles didn't even consider him worth the effort of murdering.
Feeling the keen irony of an angel leading a demon to temptation, he sank his teeth into the golden triangle. Flaky layers of delicate, honey soaked dough fell apart on his tongue. Edwin made an involuntary shocked noise. It was cloyingly, wonderfully– sweet. He had forgotten sweetness.
His eyes flew open. He berated himself for letting his guard down, and found Charles studying him with an unnervingly calculating expression, ever present smile gone.
“It is acceptable, I suppose,” Edwin said, brushing crumbs from his collar.
Charles whooped. Edwin jumped. “Thats baklava one, hell zero! If its only acceptable, can i have a bite then?”
Charles reached, and Edwin– stuffed the rest down his throat chewing quickly.
Charles expression now was as shocked as anyone who had witnessed a demon act like some–dickensian street orphan, simply because–
“Ah. Pardon me. Demons are, well, not known for their table manners.”
“Right, pardoned,” Charles said, waving his hand as if flicking something away. “Should we get some more then? If I beat you in an eating contest, you'll ponder more on the complex nature of humanity, who are not a monolith?”
“As long as you don't bless me with those things,” Edwin tsked, gesturing at Charles' hands.
(As much of a fuss as Edwin put up, he admitted it was rather nice, when after winning the restaurants record due to not having human stomachs, they carved Charles and his name into the table– not Payne, or worm, or any other charming monikers, but a simple Edwin.)
1701, a small town near Moscow
“Well I need something to remember you by, don't I, but you won't let me take pictures,” Charles said, as if this were perfectly reasonable.
Edwin spluttered. “The risk an image of us, of me, on your person would pose–”
“I know, I know, youre such a worrier, Edwin,” Charles groaned. “Just dont move, alright, ive almost got your hair right. What do you do, gel it into a helmet?”
Edwin crossed his arms, obligingly keeping his head still if only to avoid the incessant complaining moving would create. He knew by the force of Charles grin that he was trying to goad Edwin into one of their playfights. He would not give him the satisfaction.
It was strangely soothing, being watched in such an idle manner. Charles had pilfered a menu from the cafe across the street, and sketched with his tongue darting out to wet his lips, an expression of utmost concentration on his face. Edwin watched raindrops chase each other down foggy glass, mind pleasantly drowsy. The rain in hell was hot; Edwin had flinched instinctively, only to find Charles with an umbrella in the corner of his vision.. This was a downpour that left the earth a rich brown, the plants in their best coats of dewdrops, and called the birds to singing. He closed his eyes and listened to the roar of it, something bigger and older than himself washing the earth clean, the scratch of Charles pencil, the clunk of the radiator.
It was minorly mortifying, falling asleep in front of a mortal enemy. In the quiet of his own mind, Edwin could admit they were something far more strange than that.
Charles only allowed him a brief glimpse of the drawing, arguing fiercely that it was abstract enough no one would recognize Edwin at first glance, before he shoved it in his infinite pockets, where Edwin could not snatch it away.
(from the notes of charles rowland).
1702, a small bookshop
Edwin’s plan goes to shit rather quickly, so much so that Edwin half wonders if he should do away with plans regarding getting the drop on angels entirely.
He had miscalculated. He thought the demon had left. Evidently he had not, given the corkscrew, of all bloody things, pressed into Edwins jugular. He would prefer, given the choice, for his end not to come at the hands of something so utterly ridiculous.
“Dont hurt the boy, Crowley!”
“Boy?!” The demon hisses. “Boy?! He was about to bloody torture you, Aziraphale–”
“Oh, he hardly even bruised me.”
“He said he was going to gut you like a—”
“I don't think he meant it, really,” the angel says thoughtfully.
“Oh you dont think! You–he’s a demon, angel! He’s not here to invite you to tea and crumpets!”
Edwin gets in several scratches and good kicks to the demon’s stomach before he’s tied down in some of the shoddiest knot work he’s seen. Then the imbeciles hold a whispered argument about who will be good cop and bad cop, as if Edwin cannot hear them. The demon allows the angel to be the “bad cop” after some rather sickening pleading. He cannot take this any longer.
Edwin clears his throat. “Excuse me. If you are going to torture and kill me, would you mind getting on with it?”
“I apologize,” the angel says as he steps forward, “But you see, you have put my friend in great danger. I will try to make this as quick as possible.”
Edwin has been pulled apart, gnawed on, savored, heard the snap of his own bone under teeth. At some point one begins to wonder–surely it cannot get worse?
He is always wrong.
Light, searing white, a wheel of flame, a thousand eyes floating above him, luminous, Edwin beneath it. Singing, a thousand voices, humming in his very bones, vibrating the very atoms of him apart, peeling flesh from bone. The slip of something–feathers, into his mind, not a crunching blow but the slide of a scalpel. His skin, his very bones, transparent as glass, that great eye looking into him, through him, he is prey pinned to rock, under the beating heart of the sun, pulsing, prying his ribs apart, sifting through his memories, a vulture through viscera.
Here, pulled into that sterile white light, seared against his eyelids–Charles, bouncing on his feet. Victorious. Skin awash in purpling blue pink’s off the whirring arcade games, presenting Edwin with an enormous stuffed bear. Hand outstretched, beaming, drawing Edwin into a crowd of writhing bodies, bass beating in his ribs. Whispering a prayer, and suddenly none of them even brush against Edwin’s skin. Shooting him a pleased grin. Charles, hands flying over a rubix cube. Charles, Charles, splayed on the forest floor, like a broken child’s toy.
And underneath it all, a single thought, sharp as a pulsar star– what sort of weapon could hurt an angel, but an angel's blade? Their whips of white fire?
“Oh,” a voice echoes softly above him. “I see.”
It stops. It stops–oh god.
He’s vaguely aware his chest is heaving, that his entire body is trembling. He swallows convulsively, narrowly avoiding being sick. He cannot–cannot force his eyes open to look into the eyes of a god that has seen down to his rotten, pulsing core and–pities him.
The sliver of light withdraws. He is set down gently.
Edwin clenches his jaw, biting his lip bloody, and manages not to sob. He has had plenty of practice.
“--not a danger,” the thing–the, angel, says, it is only an angel, Edwin reminds his racing mind. “--trying to help.. A friend.”
“--can't be serious–”
They do not kill him. They bring him.. tea. And sandwiches. There is not a trace of razors or poison in any of it, when they allow him to test them. Edwin is beginning to think they may be mad. He is too weak to even bite and snap at them as they hoist him over their shoulders and walk him from the shop.
What is more mortifying is the gentleness with which the angel withdrew, the apology that he did not know the commanding angel who had performed such a horrid thing on a fledgling, but he would most certainly be finding out. “
“Why don't you find a nice place to put him, hmm?”
“Will you be alright?”
“Come on, he’s like a bony giraffe.”
“Well, alright, if you're sure..” He walks ahead, peering at a bright, cheery volume titled the worlds most beautiful places.
“You're one of the new ones, aren't you?”
Edwin glares at the demon, bemused. Why on earth would he share information with someone who just nearly beheaded him? Why on earth would it matter?
“Thought so,” the demon says, quieter.
He is deposited, by miracle, into a field of flowers.
Perhaps he ought to stop trying to understand angels entirely.
______
—---——
1899
Edwin doesn't know why, in searching through the comfort of memory for an appropriate shield, his North Star, a golden shape as big as the sky to cower under while his body twitches through spasms of pain, that his mind drifts to—
Dust motes drift in thick beams of sunlight. In the spaces between lectures where Aziraphale had to draw breath, Edwin wandered, tracing the spines of books, their neat lettering. He did not think himself capable of reverence anymore, but the shape was familiar. He took deep, quiet breaths of the smell of aging paper and cracked leather like a deep sea diver preparing to sink. He traced gold embossing, plucked volumes from the shelves until he struggled to see atop them, and settled in Aziraphales favorite worn armchair to read. (He never interrupted anyone with a good book).
The trouble with threatening passive aggressive angels is for some reason they decide to invite you to tea multiple times over the slip of years, treating you like some lost puppy while they imply it would be impolite to not take a biscuit.
Still, the price of entry into such sanctums was steep.
“You dont— not at all? But you're a demon!” Aziraphale spluttered.
“Not especially, no,” Edwin said absently, flicking through a chapter of Minor Arcana Volume four that was not to leave the premises with lest he do dastardly and evil demonic things with it, he presumed.
Edwin had read it four times already. But it was an excellent diversion from where, under the counter's lip, safe from angelic eyes, he had slipped a simple bait and hook spell into Mr. Fell’s private book collection. A simple manner of concentration and a bait and hook spell attracted to the faint glow of angelic residue, but it was a pocket universe, and horribly tricky to maintain even that simple thread. He’d gotten the idea from one of Charles' terrible spy movies, watching a hacker dust fingerprints on a touch screen lock.
There was a visible struggle as Aziraphale tried to see from his point of view.
”Then. Ahem. What do you believe?” This was said in the tones of a grandmother indulging a particularly headstrong child.
A sharp, unexpected flare of anger. Interesting. He hadn't thought he felt that anymore.
Edwin shut the book crisply. Mr. Fell fidgeted, no doubt brimming over with apologies.
“I believe that if there ever was a god, which is a dubious statement indeed, not corroborated by any substantial fact, then they are a child with a blasted ant farm, and their experiment became boring some time ago.” Edwin smirked as Mr. Fell’s mouth fell open, stricken, his chest hot with bright satisfaction. He could feel the pull of the spell, now.
“Oh, dear,” Mr. Fell said faintly. “My boy, angels do not operate only on faith, or, or—”
”Follow orders blindly?” Edwin’s fingertips tingled with the phantom slip of angelic blood. He might have been convinced once, before the forest decimated, the thing in the crater. “Might I ask, Mr. Fell, whether you have ever seen Her?”
“I have not had the honor,” Mr. Fell huffed, mouth pinching.
Edwin met his eyes, burning an unnerving blue, and nodded politely. He wound the thread-weave around his hand and yanked sharply. There was a faint thud as the carefully stacked private collection displaced.
“Well, as riveting as our theological debates are, Mr. Fell, I'm afraid the conclusion will have to wait, as I must make my next appointment.” Edwin folded his coat under one arm, his prize tucked in its folds. “Eternal hellfire and damnation waits for no man.”
“I imagine not,” Mr. Fell said quietly.
Edwin frowned. He felt as if hed missed a step in their dance, somewhere. Aziraphale looked far too weary for a simple, (although embarrassing) loss in their battle of wits. But then, he was a proud creature.
“Good day.”
“Good say, and safe travels, Mr. Payne.”
Edwin had only moments. He withdrew strategically for the door, savoring the merry jingle of the bell. He let the book slip free of the coats cover, flashing in the low light of the sun just so, the cover of.. The Seduction of the Priest illuminated. Ah. One couldn't account for good taste.
Mr. Fell inhaled sharply. Hed gone a rather satisfying mottled red as outrage dawned on his features.
Edwin grinned too holy. By the time Mr. Fell stormed to the door, bellowing, so accustomed to their human legs he forgot he had wings and a blasted sword, Edwin had dropped neatly through a street grate into the belly of the London underground, and the fiery tunnels below.
2005, unknown location
It was a uniquely unpleasant situation, waking to find ones cheek glued to the floor by the tackiness of blood. He did not try to move. His stomach had not.. sealed, yet. He did not look down. Hed discovered at times that the disconnect between his mind seeing his own insides would, at times, numb his consciousness into a state of shock.
Perhaps it'd be a useful tool later, although Edwin doubted he could control his own fracturing psyche so neatly. His throat was thick with strangled cries, and yet even here Edwin could not let go of habit. The tears running down his face were silent.
He took shallow, slow breaths through his nose. Ran his chain of memories through his hands, held the thought of him in his mind like refracted, concentrated light, hearth warm. He thought, with a wry twist of irony, of prayer.
1979
“Coffee and ice cream, Edwin!” Charles crows across a white tablecloth in a patio in Italy. “What do you think they’ll come up with next?”
“A new atomic bomb, most likely,” Edwin says sourly.
Charles was obsessed with so many things human— arcades, the radio, chewing gum, ska, lollipops. He has a particular affection for those ridiculous claw games, which always remind Edwin of a level of Hell. Edwin has watched him lose at claw games a hundred and thirteen times over the last two decades, by his estimate, not counting the times he is sure Charles sneaks back at night. He is completely enamored by their every new invention— from rooftop cafes to paper airplanes to affogatos.
“Oi, dont be like that.”
Edwin rolls his eyes. Another of Charles newfangled human loves— along with peachy, mint, coolio, and greeting Edwin with finger guns, which he is determined will be their new secret handshake.
“I shall be however I like, and you may tell me how to feel about humanity once you have processed three serial killers in one evening,” Edwin snaps.
Instead of drawing back, defending himself or any such reasonable reaction, Charles softens, shoulders loosening. Edwin does not like that expression one bit.
He scoffs. The coffee has soured in his stomach.
It would be so much easier to hate Charles' habit of seeing the best in humanity, if it weren’t for how most angels seem to see humans as something nasty they stepped in. If it weren’t for the night they met. And so Edwin is left with his bitterness. What’s worse, Charles refuses to leave him alone in it. He cannot even pretend Charles positivity is out of some foolish naïveté, instead of a choice Edwin does not have the wherewithal or courage to make.
“I’m sorry,” Charles says softly. He slips a hand across the table, hesitates, and when Edwin doesn’t slap him away, traces the bumps of his knuckles. Over and over. “I don’t know what it’s like.”
He does not even use the opportunity to remind Edwin of the laundry list of things he cannot, will not share, to convince Edwin he could help him escape Hell, if only Edwin would let him help.
He makes an abysmal opponent.
(scribbled on a cafe napkin, tucked into an angels pocket)
1985
“What is the point of all this?”
Charles blinks up at him from where he is withdrawing another box from his ridiculous bag of his. He calls it his “Mary Poppins bag,” as fondly as if it is alive. Edwin does not know, it could be, with however his infernal, confounding miracles work.
“Point?” Charles pops open its lid; this one is a box of shiny candied strawberries, which joins its cohorts on the ( punk band ) picnic blanket with its cohorts, a loaf of seeded bread, chunks of sweet, soft cheese, a vine of grapes as big as coins.
“Yes, the point,” Edwin snips. “We do not need to eat.”
:Yeah, we dont need to do a lot of things,” Charles snorts. “Cause its fun? Cause it tastes good? Feels good?” The wiggle of his eyebrows is suggestive, as is the poke of his tongue in his cheek.
Edwin shoots him a look.
“Shit, does it tate bad to demons? Like ash or something?’
“No, of course not, dont be ridiculous,” Edwin sighs. “I simply dont understand, as usual.”
Now Charles has his arm shoulder deep in the bag, tongue poking out between his lips in concentration. Apparently the thing Charles created himself has “moods” and sometimes does not wish to cooperate. Because of course it does.
“Aha!” he brandishes the object before Edwins nose like a offering. Edwin nearly goes cross eyed squinting down at it and is forced to lean back.
It is a delicate teacup, laced with swirling ink blue patterns. It is quite beautiful. Edwin blinks at it, then at Charles outstretched hand blankly.
“Its for you, you numpty.” Charles sighs, smiling. “Saw it at a charity shop, reminded me of you.”
He takes it, slowly. Charles has already turned back to fishing through his bag.
The rim is dotted with tiny, bell like flowers, the brushstrokes delicate, hair thin. Here and ther, there are birds, soaring over fields of blue grain. Charles.. Sees birds and flowers and thinks of him? Or perhaps it is because Edwin wears blue often?
“Here we are, thank you,” Charles pats the bag. He is holding a thermos open, tipped over Edwin’s cup, and pours carefully, first for Edwin and then for himself, in a chipped red mug with a cartoon dog dancing on it.
Edwin sips. It is sweet, milky, just as indulgent as he likes it. Something he has never told Charles.
“You have just missed an excellent opportunity to finally poison me,” Edwin says coolly.
Charles chokes on his tea. “What?!”
Edwin laughs, and finds although he has forgotten how to make the sound, it has not forgotten him.
1986
“..dont know about all this newfangled thing of kneeling in the dark and whispering it,” Charles said thoughtfully. “Seems a bit miserable.”
“How would you pray, then, being an authority on the subject,” Edwin flipped another page of his notes, keeping his voice even, bored.
He was terribly interested in the answer, so much so his tail had begun to flick in slow little circles. Thank goodness he had the thing under several invisibility spells. Charles would be insufferable about such an obvious tell that Edwin cared about something, anything.
“I can show you,” Charles said. He was standing over Edwin at the desk, now, leaning into his space. Edwin blinked up at him, at the fingers tapping restlessly by Edwin's wrist, awaiting permission.
He gathered his papers into his notebook, slowly as to appear beleaguered and not eager, and nodded. A thwip, a warm wind buffeting them as Charles bent time and space, wings extending around them, a flash of gold-brown feathers, glowing in the light of the dawning sun, and they were alighting in a field of wheat, a wide summers sky above them—
Edwin stumbled as the worlds atoms rearranged themselves around him, clenching his teeth around the urge to be sick—
A gentle hand at the dip of Edwins waist, and he was righted easily as a crooked book on a shelf.
Charles smelled of freshly grown things, of mint and warm earth and oranges picked from the vine, his eyes doe brown, his smile teasing, and yet, as if it were a secret, something that belonged only to them. Of the two of them, Edwin was not the practiced hand in.. temptation.
Oh dear. Hed be fantasizing about the ease of that movement for decades, in furtive breaths between surfacing on earth and Charles visits.
“Ah,” Edwin cleared his throat. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Charles winked.
He was blushing. To the roots of his hell-made hair, and christ, why would hell create him with the ability to— no, he knew exactly why. One of his least favorite demons, who'd enjoyed watching blood pool in the skin where it exited the body. Or another, who was particularly fond of humiliation—
Edwin shoved the memories down.
“Charles,” he said, a thin, feeble warning.
Charles expression shuttered slightly, but it was not, Edwin noted, the sort of apologetic look that promised a thing would never happen again.
“You were going to show me how you would pray,” Edwin turned, as much as he could manage, to face another sun, studying the seemingly endless fields of gold-limned wheat, fat clouds drifting across the sky, birds singing in distant, low trees. Italy, perhaps? Charles did have a fondness for their sweets. Edwin ought to pick him some up from a bakery, their next meeting.
“Well, usually, yknow,” Charles tucked his hus hands into his pockets, “Id go to my knees, for something this beautiful.”
Edwin choked on air.
Charles grinned, ducking his head sheepishly. “Sorry. Centuries of thinking up pick up lines and Im no better at it. Them, I dunno, Id shout for the joy of it existing, and—“
“I–centuries?!”
“Centuries,” Charles shrugged, leaning back on his heels, hands flexing at his sides. “You were my knight in shining armor, you know. Always wanted to return the favor. Took me a while to figure out the um, wanting to keep you safe thing was also about wanting to keep you.”
Edwin found himself speechless for the first time in— centuries? Charles had wanted to— since—
“You don't need to say it back,” Charles blurted, “I just— when you go back down there, I want you to know I'm up here thinking of you every minute. That I'm gonna get you out. I promise.”
“Charles,” Edwin whispered. It seemed to be the only word his lips were capable of forming. He meant to say you cant, or dont say such things, Id kill to never see you in that place, but something sour and terrible had risen in its place, so heavy it choked.
All the horrid romance books Edwin pilfered seemed to leave out the crucial, simple fact that love was a terrible thing to do to another person.
“S’alright, love,” Charles' eyes crinkled into half moons. Edwin hated that awful smile. Self deprecating, horrible thing. “You don't have to say it. I know.”
He was crying, like an utter fool. Charles made a soft, wounded noise and crossed the scant distance, hands hovering over Edwin's shoulders, alighting like birds, smoothing gentle circles over Edwin's back, his spine.
Why, of all the goddamned things, after agony under hell’s unending, grinding wheel, was this the thing that broke him? He was tucked into Charles' shoulder, hiding there like a child because he couldn't bear for Charles to look at him. Utterly ridiculous, and yet he couldnt seem to stop himself.
“Can you look at me, love?” Charles fingers tipped his face up, gently, inexorably. His brow was creased, jaw clenched with worry, as if he had misstepped, when this was the loveliest thing anyone had ever—
Edwin hated that look. Charles ought not to hesitate, to ever doubt hismelf, Edwin hated that look with every fibre of his being—
If I am to be punished, Edwin thinks the first time he kisses Charles, it ought to be for something I actually— something—
He ought to be thinking of how each time he touches Charles he brings the only angel hes ever believed in closer to Hell. Edwin does not think himself overly dramatic, although Charles would likely laugh at him for arguing so. He means, in the literal sense, that Charles is kind and stubborn and so fucking infuriating, and he can never, ever leave well enough alone, and that if Edwin ever slips up, if Charles ever learns what he is, he will tear apart heaven and hell to fix things, and get himself killed in the process. There is no one else that Edwin believes in, but he will not subject Charles to the punishments of heaven and hell.
But instead as he reaches for the curve of Charles jaw, under that blue sky, for the soft, wondering part of his lips, he is thinking—
Something spectacular.
Reaching for heaven.
——
“ Hold him down, for Christs sake,” the priest snaps. Edwin thrashes and nearly headbutts him in the face. Oh, the crunch of his nose would have been so satisfying.
It was a mistake, of course. He should have reached for Charles with greedy, grasping hands and doomed them both from the start. Anything for a single new memory, for another bead on his rosary of prayers.
—---------------------
He tries to take it back, of course. He buries himself in the heart of his favorite library, books stacked around him elbow deep, and not a single one of them helping him not think about it, about how Charles had touched him as if he was something holy, about the bitten off, choked sounds he made and the heat of his mouth and those slender, clever pianists hands, and worse, his face as he drew back from that first awful, doomed, wonderful kiss, splitting into a slow, blinding grin.
He looks up and Charles is sitting across from him, splayed out because he can never sit properly, head propped on his hand, studying Edwin, eyes dark.
Edwin jolts, sending a scroll to the ground with a clatter. “How did you—“
Charles down picks it up rolls it. Edwin cannot recall the last time anyone snuck up on him. Fact that Charles has is clearly a sign that he is slipping, that this whole endeavor was a terrible idea—
“Thought to myself where would Edwin go? And I started looking at every library I remembered you mentioning. Just a process of elimination, from there.” He hands Edwin the scroll. “You know, you might as well try to stop running now.”
Edwin takes it. “And why is that, pray tell?”
Charles leans in, whispering. His eyes are sad. “Cause Id follow you anywhere, love.”
———-
At first, Edwin thinks the sun is rising. It is a welcome distraction from the sawing pain, the tacky sensation of half dried blood gluing his clothing to his skin. What is more irritating is that the men don’t complain about it, as they do everything from the cold to how they are missing the game, with the lack of cellular data in the basement. It is only Edwin squinting his eyes closed at the light pouring under the gap of the door.
The door. Not the narrow window, where the sun set long ago, but–
“--truder in the building,” the radio crackles. “-no idea how- in, looks like some–”
Edwin starts to laugh.
“Shut it up,” the priest says irritably.
Edwin’s laughter has drifted towards hysteria. It is actually rather painful.
”I understand the irony, believe me, but it is not me you ought to worry about.”
The priest’s mouth puckers as if he’s swallowed a lemon. He jerks his head at Idiot Two, who nods and lifts the thermos, unscrewing the lid.
Edwin suppresses a flinch, gritting his teeth. He cannot even thrash his head, sink his teeth into their grasping fingers, forcing his head back, worming their way to his mouth–it dawns on him, a dull spike of muted, shameful fear, that he is going to see–
There is a knock at the door. The men look up, glancing at each other, bemused.
Another knock, and the door–electronically locked, swings open.
Edwin sees him in double as he steps through the threshold. Wheeling crowns of burnished suns behind his head, the spill of wing-light, and the young man with a lost, sheepish smile.
The idiots flinch, jumping to block the newcomers view, and pause.
Edwin does not blame them for their confusion. Charles is, by design, not especially intimidating at first glance. His carefully stitched battle jacket, held together by safety pins and grace, its every patch and pin, proclaims him a safe space. He is a purveyor of small miracles; bending to return each spilled orange from the tubes floor and return them to their distressed owner, repairing broken sinks and washers that drain poor families budgets with a single touch, shifting into a silver haired man with gentle arms and a sign to offer free fatherly hugs at pride parades. In Edwins opinion, he is more human than anyone in the room.
“Er, I think I'm really lost,” Charles is saying, rubbing sheepishly at the back of his neck, leaving it exposed, prey-like, shoulders slumped, his body language loose, boyish. . “Any of you know the way to the bathroom? Took a wrong turn or three, looks like.”
Edwin sees him in double as he steps through the threshold. Wheeling crowns of burnished suns behind his head, the spill of wing-light, and the young man with a worn leather jacket and doe eyes.
Idiot Two relaxes. “Yeah, you really are, mate,” he chuckles, moving casually to block Charles' view. “Let's get you back. I can walk you out.”
Edwin makes an involuntary, fearful noise.
Charles' easy grin freezes on his face. HIs eyes drop to the idiot’s neck, looking directly through flesh and bone. He feels the moment Charles sees him, because something in his head– the trembling, fearful thing that has been screaming since he was summoned–quiets.
He knew, of course. It was only a matter of waiting.
Charles eyes drop from his face, and down.
The man is saying something, joking about what a maze this place is. Edwin does not hear it.
Charles is staring, frozen, as a drop slips off the lip of the bottle and falls, sizzling, onto the skin of his throat. Or what is left of it.
Idiot two has gone slightly tense, something in his poor monkey brain informing him that he has trifled with something far beyond his understanding.
And..oh. Because Charles has begun to glow from within. The hot flare of a dying star, an aurora, licks hungry flames arounf the dark silhouette of Charles skeleton, casts the shape of his teeth and the hollows of his eyes in deep shadow, the silhouette of his bones torch black, gold-white light pulsing through him, shuddering, a fluttering heartbeat.
Edwin does not see him move, only–
Splat.
The man’s hand falls to the ground, separated cleanly from the wrist. The thermos is still clutched in its fingers.
There is a moment of suspended silence as the poor fools try to process what has just happened. And then the shouting starts.
Idiot Two clutches at his wrist, howling, remaining fingers tightening over meat and exposed bone. Idiot One fumbles his gun free from his belt and fires, again when he realizes he has not drawn blood, again when Charles does not stagger and fall. Edwin would roll his eyes, if they were not occupied, staring at Charles, who—melts. Form sloughing off him, molten gold pouring through the gaps of his ribs, wings bursting from his back, more and more in a flurry of feathers, a wheeling blur of flame as he begins to move—
It is not necessary. The men are already clutching at their eyes, weeping blood, even as Charles burns, bright as an aurora, slashing, snapping bone.
It is rather beautiful to watch, truthfully. Edwin wishes, dreamily, that he was in a better state to appreciate the view of Charles wings. It has been decades, and it is not as if Edwin can ask to see them again. It would be dreadfully forward. He sighs, head lolling back. Not a single drop of holy water touched his skin when the hand went flying.
The priest, Edwin notes irritability, has knelt down, hands clasped in prayer, mouth open in ecstasy even as blood rolls down his face.
Charles turns to him. Asking. It is hard to tell, of course, when he is currently a wheel of wings and flame, but Edwin feels the press of him in his mind, grace fluttering over his skin. Like wind. Like sunlight.
Him, yes, Edwin thinks. Charles—
The priest's feet lift from the ground, kicking feebly. “I have cleansed him in your name,” he gasps. Confused, suddenly childish.
Edwin watches in satisfaction as the mans feet lifted from the ground, kicking pathetically as he struggles like a hooked fish. White silk, soaked through with blood and viscera. A rabbit mauled. A sacrificial lamb. Charles is kneeling next to him, hands fluttering around Edwin’s face, the ruin of his throat.
Edwin means to say something both clever and reassuring as Charles reaches him, eyes wide, wet, fearful, such as “You're late,” or more embarrassing, “I knew you would find me,” but instead what comes out is “Charles,” an awful, gurgling sound. Why on Earth did Charles have to arrive just when they had finally managed to force his jaw open?
“Oh, god, Edwin,” Charles is saying, hands cupping Edwins shoulders, light as birds, “Oh fuck, sweetheart, Ive got you, im here, im here, love--”
He is doing his best to pull the guise of his human form over himself like an ill fitting coat. Trying not to burn Edwin, with the fountain drip of tears slipping from his many eyes.
Again, Edwin means to make a joke about blasphemy from the mouths of the angels, only grey is creeping into the edges of his vision, and Charles is cupping his head and whispering “Im here, love, it's alright, you can let go, I won't let anyone touch you..” and he makes another horrid little wheeze as his chest heaves, darkness swallowing his vision as his body obeys without any input from his mind at all.