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They called it shell shock. 

The term was coined a year before Edwin’s death during the Battle of Loos, which he heard of only tangentially, the way all news of the War seemed to reach them. Always too much and too little, too late and far too soon for comfort simultaneously. 

It was a sign of weakness, Edwin heard his father say once, during leave to visit home that was, as always, cut short. It was cowardice masquerading as injury, simply men striving for a wounded stripe on their uniform taking up beds for the proper soldiers who got their legs blown off. They were the sort of men who lacked the countenance to be the soldiers England needed now: no honesty, no composure. 

Edwin was fairly pleased to note that whatever they called him - Molly, soft, weak, effeminate, wrong, Mary Anne, improperly made, incurably broken, gangly armed freak - there was one important thing that they could not take away. 

Edwin had structured his composure carefully, with years of childhood reprimands and hostile looks and a seething sort of discomfort that seemed always to be lurking just beneath the surface of his skin. Of course, they noticed it, the composure and the pride with which he carried it and very little else. They had to do a great deal to get a rise out of him, so much that it became a point of contention among the other boys. They could do what they liked and say what they liked, kick as hard as they could, rip his books, lock him in cupboards. It seemed to annoy them, sometimes, how much it took for him to cry out or to beg. 

It all became rather tedious, after a while, although he did understand their reasoning. 

Who was he , who was soft and crooked and bookish and wrong, to fight for them ? His classmates were doing a service for Europe, in the end, to toughen him up before the real fighting began. 

When they said things like “Never mind the foot, I’d shoot myself in the head if I had to ship out with Payne!” He understood it. 

And while Edwin might have been many things, his so-called composure had never once been a problem. Not at school, not braced in the bootprints of an officer’s commission, and certainly not in Hell, where any sort of momentary lapse had consequences more dire than he ever let himself imagine. 

It was not a problem then, and it certainly wasn’t for the handful of decades that followed, with Charles at his side ready with a cricket bat over his shoulder and an easy smile, not with the Agency and purpose and meaning trickling back into the empty spectral place inside of him that left Edwin feeling more whole than he ever had in his brief time alive. 

It had not once been a problem, that was, until Tuesday. 

***

It catches him off-guard the first time it happens, more of a shock than anything more detrimental. 

Edwin examines the details later, picking them carefully from his brain to add to his notebook one by one. It’s the way he puzzles through most problems they come across in research and on cases. Even back when he was alive, Edwin had amused himself sometimes by listing out clues in the novels he read: Sherlock Holmes and Max Carrados. He would try to solve the case himself with pages of notes before he read the endings, testing his own investigative skills alongside his literary heroes. 

It was a shamefully frivolous pastime, he knew it back then as well as he knew now, but 124 years had passed and Edwin is a real detective. He has 30 years of experience solving mysteries and he is more than certain that he can find the solution to this one, if he applies himself. 

The facts, as Edwin understands them, are thus: 

1. Edwin Payne spent 7 decades in hell
2. Edwin Payne spent the majority of those years being ripped apart by a spider demon made of doll heads 
3. On Tuesday 12 March, 2023, the Dead Boy Detectives investigated an old railway station on the outskirts of York which was home to a nest of unnaturally fast and magical spiders being bred by a local mage for unknown purposes. 
4. Approximately 5 minutes after entering the nest, Edwin Payne began to experience the following symptoms: shortness of breath, blurred vision, shaking hands, a curious sensation as if something very large was trying to crack ribs he does not have by squeezing him in its fist. 

Edwin was never overly fond of spiders, even before Hell. But he has seen enough of them since escaping to refamiliarise himself with the regular versions of the thing that held him in the dollhouse, small, skittering, easily avoidable. 

He could even call upon Charles to retrieve one in the office, if it was in a particularly undesirable location: on the spine of a book Edwin needed, or on the surface of his desk. Certainly, he had seen hundreds, if not thousands, of spiders since his time back on earth and none of them, even in the very earliest days after his escape, had affected him the way the den had. 

His first hypothesis is the number. Perhaps more than a certain number of spiders are required to cause this particular reaction. 

It is a thin hypothesis at best, Edwin knows, but he also knows that it’s always better to set out on a case with something in mind than nothing at all. He sets down his pen and does his best to ignore just how much he loathes the prospect of this particular investigation. 

*** 

The second time is equally unexpected. 

There isn’t much to expect about the situation, all told. They are in the throws of a case, down in the bowels of a church amidst what might well be untouched Roman ruins and Edwin has hardly finished whispering through the doorway not to touch anything when three things happen in very quick succession. 

There is a crash behind them. 

Charles shouts “Oi, Edwin!” with what sounds like barely concealed alarm. 

Two decidedly supernatural figures emerge from the depths of the room, and before Edwin can so much as struggle, before Charles can manage a single swing of his cricket bat, there is a pair of iron manacles clapped around Edwin’s wrists and he is being dragged back to an unpleasant looking contraption on the far wall. 

It is distressing, of course, but their work always contains a touch of the distressing every now and again, when a particularly heavy case goes a particular brand of sideways. 

And this one goes much the same as the others do, with Charles subduing one of the attackers with an ingenious combination of clever words and cricket bat and Edwin doing his best to distract the other. It works as well as it usually does. 

That is, until the half-formed spell fizzles out at his fingertips. 

The incantation is ready at the back of his throat, but he finds all of a sudden that he can’t open his mouth to finish reciting it. As if his jaw has locked itself closed the way it would back in the dollhouse, when he managed to crawl away without requiring a new body. He always did his best to keep from crying out, from drawing attention to himself unduly. 

It is a reflex Edwin is well aware of, but he is not, by any stretch of the imagination, at the point of pain which would require said reflex now. 

But even now, even as Charles handles the loose ends: the remaining spectral cultist, the handcuffs, pulling Edwin upright with gentle hands on his shoulders and soft words in his ear, Edwin cannot speak the spell. 

He does his best to delay it. He brushes off the charred edges of his cuffs and the burned skin beneath. He shakes away the warmth of Charles’ hands and only just manages to mutter something in the way of thanks before he pushes past, only just manages to phase through the wall before it starts.

The shortness of breath, the shaking hands, the blurred vision, et cetera. 

It gets rather tedious, after a while. 

***

The worst thing about it, Edwin finds, is that he has little to no empirical evidence for what sets off the reaction. They are all things he does not particularly enjoy, to be sure: spiders, being held down, iron cuffs, and, once, a box full of blank-faced dolls, but there is little else that connects the occurrences other than his own dislike of them. 

It is, to say the least, an annoyance. 

It is endlessly frustrating and the longer it goes on, alarming, to think that he might be incapacitated by something outside of his control with no warning. And the more Edwin tries to think his way through the problem, the worse and more frequent the attacks become. 

It is not long before he starts to worry for the sanctity of his investigative skills, his work, his existence in the very cycles of the universe as a detective alongside Charles. It is one of the only constants he has ever been able to rely on. The sky is blue, the earth is round, and Edwin Payne and Charles Rowland are two halves of a partnership that solves supernatural mysteries with skill, prowess, and style. There is little else worth considering, in the grand scheme of it all. 

The fact also remains that all of the discomforts Edwin now finds himself so weary of have always been present. There have been dolls and spiders and hard-edged officers of the Great War and bullies who go too far and cases where Edwin is chased about by all manner of things, and while he certainly never enjoyed those experiences when they cropped up in the previous 30 years of his existence, he was always able to brush them off, so to speak. 

He could tuck them back into a cupboard in the far corner of his mind and accept Charles’ hand to pull him to his feet. After a few minutes of easy back and forth, the way teasing and smiles and any sort of words always seemed to come with Charles, he could forget about the cupboard entirely. 

Shell shock, Edwin has since read, was symptomatic of the horrors of War itself, not cowardice or failure as his father believed. But Edwin has never been to war; he died before he had that honour.

This is not shell shock, Edwin hypothesizes next, nor any of its modern equivalents. This is a breaking of a different sort, a cracking at the very foundations of what he has relied upon for oh so many years. What he is more than content to continue relying on for an eternity more. 

No, this is something far worse. 

The cupboard in the back of his mind has sprung open, splintered wood and rusted hinges finally giving way, and the horrible writhing contents have spilled out to fill up every corner of him. Edwin is beginning to think that there is no amount of untangling that can ever put it right again. 

***

It is an unutterably stupid thing that sets it off this time. 

Edwin has only just phased through the door of his favourite alchemical shop. He’s chosen the necessary ingredients for a particularly tricky spell and left a few choice items from their collection on the shelves in exchange. It’s a system of payment that has served them well enough over the years, and London is an ancient enough city that its magical inhabitants never tend to ask too many questions when it comes to these sorts of traditions. 

Edwin is as much a part of the ecosystem here as anything living. 

And here, in the very heart of his most familiar habitat, Edwin rounds a corner and freezes in his spectral steps at the sound of a soft, childlike giggle. A baby’s, to be specific. 

And it happens as he has come to expect it. 

One moment Edwin is poised with one arm still phasing through the door of the little shop and the next he is listening to a baby’s giggle across the high street. No, right in his ear. No, in the very curvatures of his mind and also from far away, as if the sound is reaching him from around the curve of an endless green corridor or echoing up a spiral staircase and -

Edwin does not scream, of course, because he knows better than to draw that kind of attention when the creature is so near. In fact, he makes no sound at all as he flinches back through the solid wooden door and as he presses himself back against a wall full of rattling trinkets looking, frantically, for a mirror.

He finally spots one attached to a strange looking music box, a small thing no bigger than the palm of his hand, but it will work well enough for a quick escape. 

The creature’s size is one thing that always worked to his advantage, when he shoved himself into crevices and through holes that it needed precious seconds to bash its way through with sheer force and many-legged fury. 

He stretches out a finger, watches vaguely as the surface of the mirror ripples like water under the touch and already everything that is not a steady scream of danger beneath imaged layers of skin and bone and things beneath are getting hazy. As he squeezes himself through the space between the mirrors and stumbles out at the other end, even the familiarity of the office is dulled. 

The symptoms are happening on cue, as Edwin has come to expect them. Already it feels as if his rib cage is being constricted by a fist, large and otherworldly, a distinct sensation from the way the same bones used to crack beneath the pressure of porcelain and pincers. 

He’s gasping for air that he doesn’t need, and, somewhere, the rational part of his brain is crying out for a safety that it quite objectively already has. 

Edwin catches himself against the solid corner of his desk. 

There are enough lamps lit to cast the room in a soft, warm glow. Charles’ black coat is slung haphazardly over one arm of the sofa, and everything about the place radiates home . It radiates the very safety that he is grasping for with two white-knuckled fists, and Edwin, the horrible, broken thing that he is, still wants more. 

He takes a few steps more, placing himself in the most vulnerable position at the centre of the room. 

The thought comes to him unbidden that Charles would know what to do. 

He remembers Charles’ arms around his shoulders, warm and tender and oh so overwhelming. He thinks of Charles’ hands bracketing his face, his thumb stroking gently against his cheekbone, wiping away tears and grime and the memory of blood. Charles is warmth and brashness and half-amused smiles. 

Charles is also, it does not take much of Edwin’s investigative process to discover, missing.

He’s swanned into the office, deposited his jacket on the closest available surface, and moved on without it; Edwin has seen him in the act enough times that he can picture as if it’s happening before him. 

He takes another step, reaches out until he can touch the fabric of the coat. It doesn’t feel like much beneath his incorporeal fingers, not like when Charles wears it, when he slings an arm over Edwin’s shoulders with a soft little grin. 

It’s nothing like that now, of course, but it does something to calm the writhing thing in his mind and the wild banging of the doors to the cupboard that housed it. 

Edwin picks the coat up, folds it over one arm. The collection of pins on its lapels clink against each other with the motion. 

This is the first time. 

***

Eventually, Edwin adds to his list. There is a problem now that even the most carefully formulated investigation cannot solve. 

5. It does not stop. 

It does not stop and Edwin is more on edge than he’s been in a long time, certainly not since the start of Port Townsend and all the upheaval it represented. 

Charles, of course, has noticed. He sticks close to Edwin’s side and makes excuses to put his hand on the small of Edwin’s back or between his shoulder blades, as if Edwin’s weakness, his desire for comfort, is written on a brightly coloured sign above his head. 

It scares him a little, just how deeply Charles understands him. It digs into the newly empty cupboard which once held ideas like “gross indecency” amidst its contents; it makes Edwin snappier than usual. It makes him mean, sometimes, and Charles bears the brunt of it all with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

Edwin sits at his desk, back straight, wrist angled just so as he writes. 

Edwin bites through his own tongue to keep from screaming as he drags the remains of his leg down a corridor, away from laughter and into silence. 

Edwin reads the Aramaic incantation for a ritual to banish a lesser God that has been summoned in the back room of a nightclub. 

Edwin stumbles on a floor slick with blood and other fluids. He is pulled down by groping hands and half-lidded eyes. 

Edwin runs his fingers along the spines of a mage’s hidden library, feeling for curses. 

Edwin watches Charles collapse to his knees at the base of a lighthouse, sobbing. He imagines Charles, young and curly-haired and afraid, being taught over and over that he is not good enough. 

Edwin takes Charles’ coat from the back of his chair. 

Edwin jerks awake in bed with hands holding him down and a gag shoved between his teeth. 

Edwin is running. He is chased by horror itself, year after endless year. He is checking the newspapers for lists of confirmed casualties on the front and he does not feel much of anything when it is missing his father’s name. He is hiding himself away. He is huddled into Charles’ coat and the memory of warmth in its spectral fibers. Edwin is. 

“Oi, mate. Where’d you go? I was like ten minutes tops.” Charles’ voice comes to him muffled through the closet door. “If you fancied a break you could have come with us, you know. It’s not the most glamorous walk to the station, but you know how Crystal gets.” There’s fondness in his tone now. 

Edwin does know how Crystal gets, or at least he heard the story about how she nearly sent a man to his death when she caught him cornering a girl on the tube. 

It’s dark inside the closet, which doesn’t usually do much to help the process of equilibrium after an episode, it had seemed like a safe enough option. He’s enclosed on all sides, a door to hide him away, with just a thin strip of warm light shining through. 

“Edwin?” Charles calls out again. 

Edwin takes a breath through his nose, slowly, the way Charles always tells him, lets it out through pursed lips. He's the brains of the Agency, surely he can come up with a plausible explanation for his predicament. 

He takes another breath. 

He says, “Yes, Charles?”

A soft clatter from the office beyond in response. 

“You in the closet mate?”

There is little point pretending otherwise. 

“Yes,” Edwin says. “I am.” 

“Right.” Charles’s voice is closer now, right on the other side of the door. “Can I join you? Or is this like one of those secret research trips you take sometimes?” 

Edwin raises an arm, presses his face into his elbow to dry it. He’s smiling a little, despite himself. 

“They’re hardly secret,” he mutters. “I always tell you where I’m going. I just figure that trips to the British Library aren’t quite your speed.” 

There’s a little thump against the door then, like Charles has put a hand against it. 

“You didn’t answer the question, mate.” 

He hasn’t, Edwin supposes. 

He wraps his arms around his legs, hands gripping at his elbows. Dignity is a flimsy thing as it is. 

“You can enter.” 

Charles opens the door slowly, with an uncharacteristic hesitance, the little crack of light growing wider and Edwin watching it until it is obscured by the toe of Charles’ loafer. 

“What are you doing in here, then?” Charles starts to ask, until he gets the door most of the way open and there’s a bit of a pause, where his eyes meet Edwin’s and Edwin watches as his expression falls all the way from confusion to concern in a matter of seconds. 

Then, Charles drops down in front of him, close but not quite touching. 

He asks, “Is that my jacket?” 

“Oh,” Edwin says, nonsensically. “Apologies. I didn’t intend to -” he starts to move, feeling somewhat like he’s pulling his arms through unnaturally thick water, but Charles cuts in before he can start. 

“No, no, it’s fine.” 

“There’s hardly a reason for me to keep it.” He can’t bring himself to voice the truth of it, that the jacket feels like a poor imitation of Charles’ own strength wrapped around him. 

“Edwin, really, it’s aces. Just, what happened?” And he’s so very gentle that it makes Edwin want to scream. Or cry. 

Instead, he rubs a finger against the sensationless seam of the jacket, considering. It’s harder to get his thoughts in order than it should be, with the threads of things vague and tangential. He can’t seem to catch hold of them. 

So, he takes another breath and stops trying. 

“Nothing,” Edwin says, more of a sigh than a word. “Nothing happened.” 

He feels Charles’ reaction more than he sees it, with his attention still focused somewhere amongst the dusty floorboards. Charles rocks back on his heels, as if Edwin has physically pushed him away.

When Charles speaks again, he sounds about as tired as Edwin feels. “Are we really still keeping secrets like this?” 

“I don’t know what you mean.” Edwin bristles a little, curled up around the edges of himself. 

“Come off it, mate. We can’t keep doing this. After everything we went through in Port Townsend, hell and all of that? It’s like the bloody Cat King all over again.” 

“This is nothing at all like the Cat King, Charles!” And something in his voice must give him away then, despite the insistence he tries to put behind it. 

Charles shifts a little. “I’m worried about you, aren’t I? You’ve been off for weeks now! Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“I am not off. ” And of course, Charles has noticed. He is an excellent detective, far more clever than he gives himself credit for. He misses nothing. Edwin raises his head again just in time to catch Charles tip his back in frustration. 

The familiar backdrop of the cupboard looms above them, the corners of Cleudo boxes painted a strange almost-shadowed texture in the dim light. 

“When I say that nothing is wrong, I am not simply brushing away the problem, as you do.”

Charles interjects with a soft “Oi,” that holds surprisingly little heat. 

Edwin continues, “Something is, I suppose, upsetting me. But that is itself the problem. Nothing has happened to cause it.”

Charles tilts his head a bit, considering. His eyes are soft though, like he's already taking apart Edwin's defenses in his mind the way only he knows how, and Edwin figures he'd better get to the point before Charles can ask anything further.

“I don't know how to explain it,” he says, slowly, hesitantly. “It is all rather humiliating. I don’t want you to think I am…weak.” 

Charles leans forward in a movement so quick it must be a reflex, reaching out to put a hand on Edwin’s arm with something like urgency. Edwin studies his fingers on the dark material of the coat’s sleeve. Long, slender, light brown. Gentle. 

“Hey. Edwin. Mate, look at me.” Edwin does. “I have never once thought you were weak. I watched you immolate a vampire with your words yesterday. I know for a fact you have that spell that can slice a person clean in half.” Charles is closer now, his head tipped towards Edwin’s and Edwin can feel his breath catch in his throat at the nearness, at the uncomplicated sincerity that is so very Charles that it makes him feel warmth all the way down to his spectral bones. “ And no matter what you are, you're my best mate.”

Edwin glances away then, towards the crack in the closet door. “It might be easier if I showed you.”

They have to rearrange a bit for Edwin to retrieve the notebook from his blazer’s inside pocket. The pins on Charles’ jacket clink together a bit as he jostles them. 

He flicks to the pages with his list and initial observations as Charles moves around to settle beside him until his leg is pressed to Edwin’s, their shoulders brushing. It makes Edwin feel encased, in a strange sort of way, protected all around with the warmth of the office light on one side and the warmth of Charles on the other. 

“It’s all here.” Edwin hands the notebook over carefully, watches as Charles spreads it with his fingers, resting its little spine on one knee. “I’ve been recording my findings.” 

Charles gives him a little huff of amusement. “Course you have. Now shush while I read.” 

It is a strange reversal of their usual roles. Edwin could never hope to count the number of times he has requested Charles’ silence while he read, research, case notes, spellbooks. He usually chooses not to think too hard about the precise form of distraction posed by Charles’ presence. Even before his confession in Hell and everything that came along with it, he sometimes found himself tearing his eyes away from the line of Charles’ jaw or the wiry muscles of his shoulders when he stripped down to his vest. It was distracting, before Edwin had even allowed himself to wonder why. 

Edwin wishes for some form of distraction now, as Charles reads, slowly and thoroughly, with a level of focus he gives to the most important things: tricky locks and tricky people, or when he concentrates on keeping his football in the air with his knees. 

He leans in harder against Edwin’s shoulder as he turns a page, frowning, and Edwin finds himself wishing that the floor would open and swallow him whole, simply to escape the embarrassment of it. Not a portal to Hell, of course, but anywhere else will do. Edwin isn’t picky. 

Finally, after what feels like hours and seconds simultaneously, Charles closes the notebook. He blinks at it a few times, like he’s still reading over its contents in his head. 

Then, “Right.” Charles says. “Ok, alright. This has been happening since March?” 

Edwin nods. 

“And you’ve just been, what, wearing my jacket when it happens?”

Edwin chuckles, despite himself. A wet little sound. “This is a recent discovery. Before, I simply…weathered it.”

“Oh, mate.” Charles sounds devastated. “I’m sorry.” 

He is still warm against Edwin’s side and Edwin finds himself leaning into it, dipping his head down towards Charles’ shoulder. 

“It is,” he says. “Immensely frustrating.”

There’s another pause then, where Edwin can hear the strain in his own unnecessary breaths. He feels Charles move beside him, a little jerk of an aborted gesture, but when he speaks it’s just as certain as before. Just as soft and sincere as he was on the steps of Hell itself. 

“Here’s what we’re going to do. I want you to tell me when it gets like this, alright? I don't care when it is, in the middle of an investigation, in the middle of a bloody fight for all I care. Please, Edwin, you feel like this, you come to me. Okay?”

Edwin feels a tear drip down his cheek, soft and humiliating. 

Charles cups his chin in one hand, gentle, moving Edwin’s face up to meet his. Edwin has only been kissed once in his life and afterlife combined, but he thinks that this might be a delightful way to begin his second, on a different day, in a different spectral body. 

Charles, of course, does not let up; his eyes are dark and intent as they bore into Edwin’s. “Alright?”

Edwin says, “Alright.” 

And then he sways a bit, all the way into Charles’ space and Charles curls around him, his arm slotting between Edwin’s back and the sensationless wall of the cupboard behind him. He rests his cheek against Edwin’s head, and they sit, warm and entwined

Edwin hears the clock ticking softly, from the office beyond. He hears Charles’ breathing, only slightly steadier than his own, beneath his cheek. 

They sit until Charles turns his head a bit and says,

“When I was at St Hils, I used to freak out before I went home for holidays. It was weird. Kind of like I couldn't deal with it anymore after being away for three bloody months. I kept thinking what might happen if dad saw me like that? But then I’d go home and get on the wrong side of him almost immediately and it would be normal. Like, something in me knew I’d only get it worse if I let go then. Maybe he really did beat it out of me.” Charles laughs a little, a soft humourless sound against the top of Edwin’s head. “I know it’s not the same, but it’s only fair to tell you something too.”

And Edwin’s first thought is that he can no longer hear the ticking of the clock, over the sudden rushing in his ears, as if the anger that surges through him is a thing physical enough to have a sound. His second thought is that he should pull away and glare at Charles until he leaves that self-deprecating tone behind for good. 

His third thought is barely a thought at all, more of a need, the way he used to feel about food or oxygen. Edwin pulls away from Charles’ shoulder just long enough to wrap his own arms around Charles’ neck in a grip that is hard and forceful and likely too tight to be comfortable. Edwin has never hugged anyone like this before and Charles himself seems just as taken aback because he makes a little noise in his throat, even as he catches Edwin up, his hands grounding and solid against Edwin’s back.  

They hold each other, and Edwin does his best to pour everything into the embrace, the hollow place between his ribs that sings with closeness, that digs up words like love and forever and and cradles them between bloody palms. Charles nuzzles his head against Edwin’s neck and his palm rubs little circles into the small of his back and Edwin thinks that for the first time in a long, long time, he is safe. They both are. 

And later, when Charles pulls him to his feet and adjusts the collar of his own coat in a motion that reminds Edwin of his own, back in Port Townsend,  he says,

“It suits you.” 

Edwin rolls his eyes at that, hopes he’s retained enough dignity for it to come across at least a little haughty. 

“It does not.” 

Charles grins. “No it does, honest. You look brills with these patches. This one is you, mate.” 

He taps Edwin on the shoulder, and he twists his arm up to see Charles' finger resting on a black and white patch bearing the words Rude Boys .  

“Excuse me,” Edwin sniffs. “I know for a fact that this refers to a very specific subculture of your time. You told me so yourself. And besides, if either of us is being rude, it is you. Perhaps you weren't taught to interact in polite society.” 

Edwin only startles a little bit when Charles twines their fingers together. 

“I wasn't, was I?” Charles muses. His hand is warm in Edwin’s. “It’s a good thing I'm not in polite society now.” 

The closet door shuts behind them with a little click and Edwin decides that it might be time to update the list again: 

6. Charles helps.