#but meeting edwin

[panaceatthedisco]

Charles was actually so right we he told the Night Nurse that she didn't know anything about them.

She tries to prove him wrong by showing him that she knows his past, and more specifically, his trauma. She tries using that move on Kashi too. But the thing is, people are so much more than their pain, but as someone whose work is solely with dead children who were unable to pass on, I doubt she understands that.

The Night Nurse only begins to actually know who the boys are as people and what motivates them when she looks into Charles' mind the second time, to see the beginning of his greatest joys. She starts tearing up Charles' memories of Edwin and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the first time she'd seen one of the kids she was charged to find happy.

[coloursflyaway]

I think it's so interesting that when the Night Nurse goes through Charles' trauma, she does see him being attacked by the other boys, sees him running alone through the night, but she never sees him dying. That only comes later, when she is searching for love.

And there is no fear in that memory, even if there is pain, there is just Edwin and the light he is bringing, metaphorically and physically, into Charles' life, there is smiling and joking and listening to stories. There is Edwin.

So, yeah, I don't think dying was a bad experience for Charles. Not a good one, per se, but one that led to the best thing in his existence.

[tragedy-machine]

Post s1 au where Charles tries to bond with the Night Nurse and jokes that she needs to put herself out there and date someone, take advantage of the fact that she's on earth now and that maybe her great love is just around the corner, and she goes "and what would you have me do, just stumble in an attic somewhere with severe internal bleeding and wait for the love of my life to show up just because it somehow had worked for you? No thanks!"

Charles is startled by this, like "love of- what??" And then it hits him that the NN thinks him and Edwin are dating and that holy shit, they really did have quite a romantic meeting, didn't they, and does he actually want to date Edwin?? (Duh)

The Night Nurse doesn’t buy it when Charles tells her they're not dating so it becomes a running gag that Charles tries to stop the NN from saying things like "your beau" or any other lines referencing them being together to keep it from Edwin so he's constantly interrupting her or pushing Edwin into other rooms when she visits etc

Finally, Edwin catches on and corners Charles like: why on earth would the NN think we're dating?!

Charles: um, she saw my memories of how we met- of my death

Edwin: so? She saw it from your perspective, so why would it lead her to a conclusion that we're dating?

Charles:...

Edwin: Charles.

Charles: *silence intensifies*

[sweetlullabyebye]

Love to think about Charles very enthusiastically talking about the day him and Edwin met like 'we were in an attic and we spent all night together talking about our lives and stuff and he read to me until I fell asleep' and just forgetting to mention that he was dying of hypothermia and internal bleeding and probably in horrible pain

Main point of his story is that they haven't spent a day apart since then

[umbershift]

Honestly one of the things I like about Edwin’s character development and accepting he likes guys is that everyone else is so normal about it. He’s the only one going But. That’s Not Allowed? And Niko the others are like sure it is! They take Monty liking him as something normal and obvious. Being surrounded by people who take that kind of thing as a given is such a nice (and bizarre) feeling when you’re not used to it

And of course when he tells Charles and there’s no recoil no betrayal just “ok I can’t say I feel the same way but you ARE my best friend and I’m not going anywhere.” The confession didn’t make anything weird. They have as much time as they want to figure this out. I love them so much

[edwin-paynes-bowtie]

I think it would be so interesting if Edwin had a "friend" in Hell. Not someone he was close to, but someone that he ran into regularly and had short frenzied conversations with. I think it would be intreguing if this man were also something absolutely terrible, like a serial killer. But he was another human, and he was in Hell, and he was someone to talk to. So Edwin cared for him, because they were both souls trapped somewhere unimaginable.

[montyfinchirl]

Can we appreciate how Charles and Edwin both have very specific types

Charles: bitchy, sad, magic user, who’s mean to everyone but him and way stronger than people think

Edwin: funny, easy going guys with family related trauma who can be a little air-headed but most of the time are way smarter than people think OR whores

[yvainart]

confidence looks good on edwin

[samspiesonyou]

my poor detective cuties😭😭😭

[sthilarions]

Charles is moaning to Crystal because “Why me? He could have anyone, why would he want me?” and Crystal fails badly at muffling a snort. “He could have - ? Charles, you are deeply delusional. Sweet, but delusional.”

[shittalkerxox]

I want a Dead Boy Detectives rewrite fic, except Edwin and Charles have been dating for about 20 years, but absolutely nobody can tell, and every damn chapter they have to explain that Yes, we are dating, No, this isn't a new thing, catch up.

[morphean42]

Don’t give me soulmates, give me ‘I’ll find you in every universe not because we are meant to be, but because I chose you over everyone else’. Give me ‘we were never supposed to meet, but I will never love anyone more than you’. Give me ‘the universe didn’t tell us we were destined to be lovers, but I decided to love you anyway’

There’s something inherently more romantic about choosing someone on purpose than just loving them because that’s what is supposed to happen

[give-me-a-minute-to-think]

just rewatched your name and cried my eyes out so fuck it, payneland your name au

edwin is of course in 1916, while charles is in 1989

they figure out they're in separate timelines much sooner, inevitably. probably even right away.

they are having a significantly harder time in each other's bodies than the movie characters.

you'd think edwin would have much more troubles getting used to charles' life and the, like, invention of the television and shit, but even tho charles knew some things about the start of the 20th century and had access to history books, he's adjusting rather poorly to the time's etiquettes

so edwin is talking posh and proper and charles' friends are making fun of him, and charles is embarrassing edwin at latin class because he doesn't know any. they start off pretty pissed at each other.

but soon enough, they both agree to just keep their mouths shut as much as possible during switches, and everyone around them just starts to shrug it off and accepts that every now and then they will be a bit weird

edwin is improving charles' grades and making teachers send him pleased looks; charles is talking back to simon and the other bullies, making them think edwin is a feral lunatic yes, but also resulting in them bothering him less

things go on like this until suddenly one day they stop switching. charles tries to search what could have happened and discover the disappearance of the 6 boys. he's heartbroken and doesn't know what to do. the time pass. he forgets edwin's name. he forgets what it is that he lost.

a few weeks later, his friends attack this kid from pakistan, and charles has been so weird these last months that they kinda lost patience for him. when he interrupts their fun, they don't let it slide.

when he's up in the attic shivering, edwin shows up. for him it's been 73 years, and he forgot charles a long long time ago.

neither of them recognizes the other, not consciously. but they both feel like they found something at that moment, something important that they cannot allow to lose again.

[mrnightingale]

*The Cure playing on the background*

[edwinisms]

you ever think about how edwin got like. no warning, no time time to process, nothing, when he reappeared on earth faced with the fact that virtually everyone he knew in life is dead. his parents? probably died in the 1950s or so (at best) almost forty years prior to edwin’s return. if any of his classmates were still around, they’d have been elderly, possibly senile, and in a few years they’d all be gone– except, of course, edwin. nothing looks the same, cars look like spaceships, there actually are spaceships, he can no longer see the stars, and everyone he knew is dead.

[bluebugjay]

When they first meet and Charles finds out Edwin is dead before he realises he's dying himself, do you thinking he mourned him? The fact that, thinking he'd get better and survive the night, Charles would have to say goodbye to Edwin, that they wouldn't be able to be friends and go to classes together, etc. Charles thinking that he's finally made a real true friend and then it hitting him that it's only temporary, that he'd have to go about the rest of his life, grow up with only the memory of that one kind ghost boy who helped him when he needed it most. That maybe down the line he'd convince himself he was hallucinating and that maybe Edwin didn't exist at all, maybe he made up the whole thing, imagined the very thing he wanted most just to get himself through it.

And then he dies too and everything flips. He's no longer mourning for what could have been with Edwin, but what could have been with his life. And surely though it's tragic he realises there's not that much to miss. And now he has Edwin, it's so clear why he'd choose to stay on earth with him rather than move onto the afterlife. He literally is cheating death like the night nurse says, he sees a better life for himself with Edwin than he ever did when he was alive.