#charles thinking hes fucked up by confessing. and edwin is just So Fond.

[2deadboys]

ohhhmygodddddd

Charles confessing his feelings back to Edwin and Edwin starts crying.

Charles is immediately panicking and fluttering his hands around Edwin like, "oh! I fucked it up! Oh my god I knew this would happen, I'm so sor-"

and Edwin presses his fingers to Charles lips to shut him up and giggles a little and says "No Charles, you didn't mess up, these are happy tears."

[coloursflyaway]

I don't remember how (because I couldn't find an ask, so if I just misplaced that, I'm sorry), but some time ago @itsablueberrycow sent this little prompt and I had a bit of time so I thought I'd give it a shot!

Edwin and cat king have been spending a lot of time together which really pisses off Charles because that’s supposed to be his best friend (totally not bc he’s jealous and in love with him) and eventually after having to hear all about what Edwin and Cat king have been doing together Charles just looses it and is all, what does he have that I don’t, and ends up kissing him or confessing feelings or something because he’s so jealous he just can’t take it anymore.

Read on AO3

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“I don’t think you should spend so much time with that guy”, Charles tells Edwin as he saunters back into the agency, looking… well, looking like he always looks, but that doesn’t matter, because Charles’ teeth are already on edge. Because Edwin has been spending time with the fucking Cat King again.

By now, Charles has met the man three times, and every single time, he likes him less.

“Don’t be like that, Charles”, Edwin all but admonishes him, and oh, he hates that, too. He’s going to be like this whenever he feels like it, actually. “He’s quite an agreeable chap once you have gotten to know him, even if some of his attempts at humour might be rather crude. If you gave him a chance, I think you might end up rather fond of him.”

“Well, I don’t want to get to know him”, Charles shoots back and means it; he doesn’t need to know anything more about this git, with his stupid luscious hair and his outrageous clothes and mysterious best-friend-stealing-powers. Charles knows just enough. Too much, even. “I just want you to know less about him, too.”

The words feel wrong as they stumble off his lips, like they reveal too much, even if Charles isn’t sure what there is to reveal: it’s quite clear, isn’t it? Edwin has been spending a frankly outrageous amount of time away from the agency, and through that, away from Charles, and Charles doesn’t like it. At all.

And yet, it stops Edwin dead in his tracks too, one arm raised to slide the bow tie from his neck, and have his fingers always been this long, this elegant? All of a sudden, Charles isn’t sure anymore.

“Charles”, Edwin starts, and he isn’t admonishing anymore, instead he sounds like he isn’t sure of what he is saying, which is a first. He comes closer to where Charles is sitting, step by cautious step, and something about Edwin’s stance, his expression makes Charles get up, like this is something he should be at Edwin’s level for. “Are you… jealous?”

It’s.

Well.

It’s a thought.

Charles turns it around in his mind, looks at its edges and its curves, its imperfections and its flaws, and doesn’t find a lot of them. It feels unfamiliar, sure, but it doesn’t feel wrong.

Curious. Definitely worth being investigated.

Edwin is standing so close that Charles could reach out and touch him, and Charles cocks his head, imagines doing so. Imagines his hands in Edwin’s, their spectral breath mingling, their lips touching, and yes, Charles misses kissing, but does he miss kissing Edwin?

He hasn’t had time to think about it too much yet, with moving back to London and new cases and Edwin spending far too much time with that menace of a Cat King.

But looking at Edwin’s lips and thinking of him on the steps to Hell, looking up at Charles so earnestly, with so much unnecessary anguish, he thinks, yes.

Even if he has never done it before, or maybe because of it, he might miss kissing Edwin quite a lot.

“What if I am?”, Charles asks, and it sounds like a challenge; maybe it is supposed to be one.

Edwin sucks in a breath, and for a moment, his eyes drop to Charles’s lips and that sends a jolt through him that feels like electricity, feels like heat, feels like the affection he has always had for Edwin, just a little more of it.

“In that case”, Edwin says, and he sounds like he is still reaching for the words, like they are hard to grasp or maybe just hard to keep, or say out loud. “Why don’t you do something about it?”

It’s the most un-Edwin thing to say, and Charles almost feels himself gasping at it; the heat is back, and so is the electricity, so is, most of all, the bone-crushing love he has for this impossible boy with his perfect hair and his pink lips and the mind and the wit and the compassion that Charles has loved ever since he met Edwin, cold and scared and dying.

“You want me to?”, Charles asks, and the bravado drops from Edwin’s shoulder like a blanket he doesn’t need any longer, because he is warm already, like a coat he has outgrown. It makes it better, because this is the Edwin he knows, and in the end, that’s the Edwin he wants to kiss the most.

“If you are sure about it”, Edwin replies, and there is a question in his voice he doesn’t speak out-loud; Charles hears it anyway. I want this, if you want it too. If you will want it tomorrow and in a decade and in a century, then I want it more than life itself.

“Yeah”, Charles says, and in that moment knows he is, knows that he will be sure about it tomorrow and in a decade and in a century. “I am.”

And then, he does something about it, even before Edwin can say another word, have another thought; he leans in and kisses Edwin, kisses the sigh and the speech and the doubt right off Edwin’s lips, and kisses on them the electricity and the warmth and the affection instead.

And finds out he was right; he’s missed this, has missed this even before he knew what missing it would feel like.