#in the wise words of manicpixiedreamedwins these two are so freak4freak

[wordsinhaled]

Wild to me that photo-shoots like this exist and no one has yet written the AU where Charles has many outfits for Edwin to lose his mind over. But it’s about more than just the outfits, of course. It always is.

So... if I were to do it it'd be like this:

Charles’ history and childhood are the same, and he’s chock-full of confidence issues, anger, a profound need for validation. When he’s in front of a camera he can make that all disappear for a bit, and just be pretty.

But what is he worth when what he is isn’t pretty? When he’s full of spitting, incandescent rage so strong it scares him; when all he wants is to fight back against the people who hurt him?

He thinks it’s ugly how much he can’t stand his dad. How jagged he is inside. How much he wants to be loved and held safe. How deep he carries the shame for wanting to simply be admired, and for daring to think he could deserve it.

He learns his way around a cricket pitch because he has to. Because it’s the thing to do. The thing that’s going to get him the least hurt, at home and at school. But it’s not foolproof: He’s never quite one of the lads. Never quite the right sort of son, either.

Charles who saves up for ages for drapey, pretty things; lovely things; things that feel too nice and look too nice on him, and secrets them away because if his father or his friends find them he’ll be dead. Charles who finds a secondhand camera in a charity shop. Charles who takes secret photos in the middle of the night of himself wearing his secret clothes, photos in which he could maybe be the kind of person he wishes he could be all the time. Confident. Cool. Not just pretty but beautiful. Unbroken.

He stashes the photos even though it would be safer not to keep them at all. And maybe it should be enough just to know he took them. But some selfish and needy part of him wants the evidence, the physical proof. So he’s got this shoebox of photographs stashed under a loose floorboard in his dormitory room at St. Hilarion’s, and after he dies, he retrieves it before he and Edwin leave the school together forever.

He won’t let Edwin look inside the box, at first.

Charles doesn’t show up on film anymore, or in mirrors. He tries to keep it a secret from Edwin—that this might be the bit that hurts the worst about dying, the being invisible. But it’s harder to keep this a secret than other things about his past.

He doesn’t have to really actually say it. It’s the wistful glances that do him in, probably, the ones he fails to hide well enough. One day, with no preamble, Edwin presents him with a full-length mirror in an ornate frame. “We going somewhere, mate?” Charles asks. Edwin tells him no, this mirror is different. He’s enchanted it. “Look again, Charles,” he says gently. And Charles looks again, and realizes he can see himself.

And who the fuck is going to stop him choosing what he likes now, when he’s picking out his outfits for the afterlife? His cunt of a dad? The ignorant tossers who drowned him to death? Charles’d like to see any of them try.

It seems like it won’t be Edwin who stops him either—Edwin, who goes a little glazed round the eyes every time Charles draws up short to stare at a silk shirt in a highstreet window. Nah, Edwin Payne’s a bloody first-rate enabler of all of Charles’ base needs to feel worth it. Charles has got the best best mate in the world. He doesn’t say anything as Charles’ wardrobe slowly grows. Just smiles his little enigmatic smile, the one that's just for Charles with its tantalizing flash of teeth, and drags his gaze over Charles like he approves of Charles’ daring every time Charles wears something new.

So one day he shows Edwin the box. The photos. A month later Edwin brings him a vintage camera and a roll of spelled film. Offers to photograph him.

And Charles could cry. Could shake apart into tiny little pieces. He wants to be seen so fucking bad. By Edwin in specific. By Edwin, who wraps himself all up in tweed and pinstripes and flushes regularly at the sight of Charles’ collarbone. By prim and proper Edwin, who puts his hand on the small of Charles’ back and tells him to buy the silk shirt; that is why they get paid for taking on cases, isn’t it, after all? Port Townsend has changed him. Changed them both.

“We all have our pleasures,” Edwin says, and there’s that smile again, that raised eyebrow—and what does it mean? Charles wants to know Edwin’s pleasures. Wants to be one of them.

Can he be one of them?

There’s a tiny little thrift store in this little seaside town, crammed full of clothes Charles loves almost viscerally and just has to have - but he doesn’t try any of them on until they’re back home in London, in the familiar comfort of their cluttered, dimly-lit office. He digs the camera out of the bag of tricks backpack then, puts in the film; checks and rechecks that he’s put it in right.

One evening he sets the camera on the desk in front of Edwin, who is reading. Waits patiently for his attention to catch on it and for his curious eyes to lift to Charles’ face.

“Right,” Charles says. Past the lump of nerves in his throat and the phantom heat in his cheeks and the impending thrill of being looked at. “About those photographs. You asked if I’d...”

“Be amenable,” Edwin finishes for him, like he’s remembering their conversation precisely.

Charles wants to shrivel up. And he also wants to stand taller, prouder. Angle himself just right. Because Edwin’s watching him now, appraising, and the idea that he might like what he sees makes something unbearably good fizzle down Charles' spine. “Well, I'm. I'm a bit more than amenable, mate,” he says. His voice is a rasp in his throat.

“Are you indeed,” Edwin says evenly. He steeples his fingers. Like Charles is a case and he’s already solved him. Like Charles is one of his cherished first-edition detective magazines with a fraying binding and Edwin is going to fix him right up.

Maybe it'll be easy. Done in a flash. Or if not, maybe Edwin will be up for the challenge. Charles wants to find out which, more than he's ever wanted something in his entire short life and in his afterlife combined.