singillatim | Part Two: The Detective

It's only a couple of days, like he promised. A few nights of decent sleep, even if Charles did whatever the hell he wanted during the day - he's not going to force Charles to stay in his cabin against the young man's will. But he still doesn't feel good about letting him go back to his own cabin and stay there alone again.

(He won't pretend it's not because he's gotten attached to the young man, protective instincts in overdrive at the thought of something happening to him, but that's only part of the reason.)

"Can you at least show me where you are staying, then?" he asks, dry and playfully lofty as he throws the last blanket back on the couch. "So I know where to find you if something else happens."

Charles can’t say that he hasn’t been grateful for the help, for the warm couch, the soft blankets, the windows that don’t let in the wind. His annoyance with Arthur has even drained away over the last couple of days, as he’s let himself ease into the idea of having someone other than Edwin watching his back.

But even so, there’s a been a discomfort prickling at the back of his mind. It’s what drives him out of the door as soon as the sun rises, neatly folding his blankets behind him as if in payment for being allowed to use them.

“Up behind town.” He points towards the front door, in the vague direction of his cabin. “It’s blue. Or it used to be.”

Now it’s mostly a faded grey, peeling to show the rotting wood beneath, with highlights of mildew green.

“There’s walls and a roof, it’s fine.”

Arthur scoffs in wry disdain. "So does the place next door," he points out. "Somewhere in all the rubble."

(Now, if it were him, he'd quite eagerly show the place off, demonstrate his comfort and eagerness to have his own space again - and then move to another street entirely the second his interrogator was over the horizon. But perhaps he's the odd one.)

"I'm not going to judge you, if that's your concern. Lord knows I've roughed it worse than you can show me."

...that's definitely him being the odd one, though.

This isn’t going to be a fight he wins. It wasn’t when he walked out of the gathering hall, his hair still stiff from drying blood, and it isn’t right now, with two-day fresh memories in the guy’s head. Arguing it further will just risk burning a bridge he’s not too stubborn to privately admit he might need.

Doesn’t mean he has to be nice about it, though.

“Yeah, sure. Aces.” The eye roll is practically audible, dripping with pure teenage sarcasm. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

He shoulders on his backpack. With a couple more pilfered layers beneath his wool coat, he’s rolled up the heavier one and tied it to the bottom of his bag. Sacrificing a bit of warmth for the sake of looking like himself, but it’s not a long walk.

He's a big strong teen who don't need no adult, sure. Doesn't stop Arthur caring about him.

"Yes, yes, let's get it all over with," he drawls, with a slight chuckle in his voice.

Arthur's got his breastplate on under his jackets again, a now-permanent feature that makes him look broader-chested than Charles now knows he actually is, and he tugs a satchel onto his shoulder as he closes the door behind them.

The bracing cold outside hasn't lost its element of surprise, and Charles clenches his jaw against it as he steps outside, not wanting to seem ill-prepared. It's almost sunny today, pale light sneaking through grey-white clouds, but it hasn't done much to warm the air.

"This way," he says, gesturing at where Thompson's Drive cuts through sparse forest, and steps forward to take the lead. His boots scuff on the gravely edge of the road. "It's over on Wolfjaw."

Not a long walk, if one goes there directly, but Charles has been taking the roundabout path through town every time he leaves Arthur's house, in order to head off this precise situation. From the center of town he could be going anywhere, back to any sort of dwelling.

Arthur won't pretend that he hasn't at least tried to watch Charles and see where he goes off to - and he expects Charles knows it - but he won't admit it, either, because he also didn't try very hard.

"It's easier staying close to town, at least," he comments. "I know I don't see a few faces here often enough, I-I assume they live down at Lakeside. It's nearly a day's walk, mind you."

Charles pulls a very teenage face at that notion.

"And people walk that on purpose?"

The trip to America was the longest he'd traveled in decades without slipping through a mirror, and while the novelty had held his interest for the first hour or so, he can't begin to imagine having to do it regularly. If living people have figured out how to fit an entire computer on their wrists, why haven't they whittled travel down to something that doesn't make his muscles itch and his brain want to explode?

"Well-" as he hitches his leg awkwardly over a tree root and directly into a snowdrift. "I-I guess some people find that- meditative, perhaps? Finding their stride on a good hike, just letting their body go through the motions so their mind can focus on other things." He chuckles dryly. "Personally the idea of just the hassle of it all, of- of getting halfway and realising I forgot something makes it completely undesirable."

Please ignore Charles nearly walking right into the aforementioned snow drift; even after a month, he's still getting used to the muscle memory required to swiftly avoid objects that he can longer phase through. While the wall and door incidents have decreased significantly, they aren't yet zero.

"Don't think I've meditated a second in my life, mate." That would require being still and quiet - two things he could never quite manage, much to adults' chagrin. "Used to pop on my Walkman whenever Edwin wanted to read a book, or I'd go mad."

He has no idea what a Walkman is, but context provides that it's a distraction, so that's all he needs.

"I'm the same, really. Always did a better job retaining our case work when we were in motion. Either pacing in the office with the bloody file in my hand, or-" a huff of exertion has a wry edge to it. "Or we'd gasbag about it over dinner. Nearly- threw a fork into someone's head once, because I cracked the case at the table."

Edited 2024-10-15 13:59 (UTC)

The reminiscing earns a fond half-smile. Just six weeks since he left London, and his life there already feels ages away, like something he's trying to grasp through memory.

"What's the weirdest one you've solved?"

It's partially out of curiosity at what Arthur's cases were like, but there's an edge beneath it, almost too eager. The walk to his cabin is uselessly short, and he can already see the intersection with Wolfjaw at the end of the cut-through. Any distraction is welcome.

That gets a short laugh. "Ah, well. That'll be everything that happened with me and John, but that's a long story. And we only really solved that a day or so before I arrived here."

No one crosses through the side strips to get between the streets, obviously, so Arthur makes a point of kicking a hole through the built-up snow that's been partly shovelled off the sidewalk and into their way, so Charles has a lesser chance of stumbling on it. "Everything before that was mostly- missing persons, stolen jewelry. Run-of-the-mill."

Edited 2024-10-15 14:25 (UTC)

Charles has been avoiding it himself, on his treks away from Arthur's house. Can't have the man following his solitary footprints through the untouched snow. Of course, none of that matters now, and it won't matter again once they get where they're going. He'll just have to worry about Arthur showing up at his door like a probation officer every day.

"Ours aren't far off, really. Missing jewelry, stolen bodies." So, basically the same thing. "We help dead people move on, mostly. Solve all their problems and let them walk into the light. Or make them, if they need a little shove."

The tentacles certainly help, when nasty fuckers don't want to go.

"So that's your world's afterlife, then?" he asks curiously with a glance back. It's genuinely, purely conversational. He just likes learning about other worlds, now he knows they exist. "Heaven and Hell - they're actually real for you. Y-you mentioned it before, as well, being the Orpheus going into Hell for your Edwin."

There's no judgement there, about it obviously being another young man. God only knew the things he'd do to get John back the same way, if he had to.

Charles shrugs, a vague thing with his hands shoved so deep inside his pockets.

"Don't know about Heaven, so much," he admits. "They don't tell you what's next 'til you agree to go. Could be Heaven, could be another life. But Death always tell 'em it's nice, doesn't she?"

And of course she would. She's trying to get them to join her.

"Hell's real for sure, though." In all of its grisly, horrific glory, the stench of blood and rot and sick heavy in the air. It's never quite left his nose. "And he wasn't even meant to be there, either. Bunch of fucking pricks' idea of a prank, summoning a bloody demon."

He's been avoiding the obvious elephant in the room, just because he's not sure if Charles remembers telling him. But he can't ignore the way the pieces are put together at this point without just blatantly ignoring the reality in front of him.

"It must be difficult," he says simply. "Helping people cross over, without lingering long enough that Death catches the two of you as well."

For a moment, Charles doesn't seem to react. His face stays steady, his eyes focused ahead, and he pointedly avoids looking at Arthur.

He does remember, hazy though it is. Slurred words as his feet trudged through snow, fighting pain and exhaustion, too relieved at being heard to take care at what Arthur was hearing. And it's never been some kind of big secret, has it? It's in their bloody business name, for fuck's sake. But there's one glaring difference here, one he didn't take into account when he was being led with desperate hands up to the gathering hall.

Back home, to know Charles was to already know the supernatural. Here, amongst the living, the truth startles, garners pity he doesn't want.

"Haven't been caught in thirty years," he answers, face still carefully blank. He can't let himself think about the fact that now, after all that time, they finally have. If he ever leaves this place, it will be into the clutches of the Lost and Found Department. "Just- just don't say you're sorry. I don't want that shit."

He desperately does; he just doesn't know how to accept it.

He knows that tone all too well. The all-too-familiar rallying cry of I don't want your pity, and there's another lurch of heartbreak that Charles has had to do this all so young.

"It's a fucking awful hand to be dealt," he says instead. His voice is steady, but there's a gentle weight to it, understanding. "You didn't deserve to die, nor to spend thirty years fearing for your afterlife. But I'm... glad, that you have Edwin, and that you've chosen to dedicate yourself to helping people with the time you've gotten."

Over thirty years and Charles never thought that he deserved to die, but... he also never thought that his death was the greatest tragedy, not when he compared himself with so many of their clients, or with Edwin. His death was a drop in an ocean compared to what Edwin went through. And sure, trauma isn't a competition; he's said that himself. But only when it applies to other people's pain.

"Wasn't so bad, really." And it wasn't, not the moment itself. Right up until the end, it hadn't occurred to him that he wouldn't make it. He'd thought he was only having a lie down, and he'd feel better after he rested. "He found me and just... read to me. Waited for it to happen."

Maybe that's why it doesn't feel sad, when he looks back on that night. It isn't dying that he remembers most - it's Edwin.

"Haven't been apart a day since, 'til now."

That gets a bit of a Look, but it's- apparently some form of Wry Paternal Disappointment, nothing particularly scathing. Just a mild are you fucking kidding me sort of look.

"Look, take it from someone who's died multiple times now - just because you got better, that doesn't mean it wasn't still bad. Especially for someone your age."

He doesn't know the exact number, but Charles is definitely a teenager. Something about the attitude is too reminiscent of his own teen years.

Charles' face stays carefully still as he takes in the words, trying to steel against the cold jab they cause. Multiple times, he hears, and he thinks of dank hallways, scraping roars. Shocks of familiar hair and lanky limbs, piled unnaturally. This is about Arthur, not Edwin, but the more he tries to focus on what the man's saying, the more the images flash. Some selfish shithead he is, thinking about what he's seen when Arthur's clearly been through his own hell.

He steps ahead, leading the way faster through the snow. Where the bank shallows towards the end of the cut-through, no footprints appear in his wake.

"It's up here, around the corner."

The trees are too dense to see it at first, but as they round the bend they turn sparser. A slouching screened porch appears, then peeling, mildewed boards, and windows too clouded to see through. Out front, a rusted station wagon sits useless and long-abandoned.

He definitely notices the lack of footsteps, when Charles darts ahead.

There's an odd sense of deja vu to the path, breaking through the forest like this, but it's only when they reach the dilapidated house that Arthur pins what's bothering him about it, and a cold twist throbs in his stomach as his hand unconsciously grabs at his stomach.

The last time he was in an abandoned house in a fucking forest, he got stabbed and bled out, lucky to have had John to have dragged him to safety and gotten to hospital.

It takes conscious effort to push that feeling of trepidation back down, and follow Charles towards the house. "Charles, this is..."

Look he said he wouldn't just Charles for it, but also he's not judging Charles is he? "I'm... not sure this place is safe to live in," he says, a little diplomatically.

Charles prickles at the response, his shoulders hunching in a defensive posture he's well practiced at.

"I've been in it a month. Haven't had no problems yet, have I?"

He hears the whine in his voice, recognizing it with frustration and prickling embarrassment, but the heat behind it is too strong to tamp down. It's the part of him he tries not to look at, tries not to think about, but Arthur's perception was right: no matter how many years Charles exists, he'll never get any older. Not in the way he feels, or the way he acts, or the way his brain works. Not when he's standing here reacting like a brat towards a reasonably concerned adult who's just trying to help.

"I didn't say that," he says evenly. Charles is arcing up, heated by pride and embarrassment, so Arthur has to stay calm and even. "Charles, you are a remarkable young man. Learning how to survive alone is a difficult feat for anyone, especially after thirty years with your partner - and not a day apart. I just..."

He steps into the clearing proper, a little closer to the building rather than threaten to crowd Charles. "I think that based on where we are - it's not a failure to ask for a hand. Especially not when I know how readily you'll give it in turn."

For Charles

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