#song inspo: stargazing by myles smith

[waywardsonsandaughters]

They Say You Know It When You Know It, and I Know

Another little fic, because they live rent free in my head and one morning this song just turned into a story. I hope you enjoy.

Edwin used to sing when he was alive. But then, he used to do a lot of things.

He had a beautiful voice, full and rich, more in the back of his throat than his chest, high like a soft swift stream than a deep slow river. He could hold the notes, he had the breath work down. 

When he sang, people paid attention. In fact, when he did most things people paid attention. Edwin, in addition to singing, was becoming an accomplished equestrian, and learning to fence at school. 

He was the son, and only child, of a prominent family. When he was younger, a child, it was all right that people regarded him, he heard the whispers about him. About what he would become, following in the footsteps of his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather. 

As he grew older the attention turned sour. Glances with furrowed brows, huffs of impatience slipping between the tight lips of his parents who watched his increasing peculiarities with increasing disdain, restraining the biting words. 

Most of the time.

Edwin had to believe what his parents told him. They were his parents. 

He believed it when they told him to sit still because fidgeting was improper. He kept his hands pinned to his sides. Fingers stretching and retracting to keep them from wiggling. 

When they told him to speak gently because his candor was unwelcome. 

When they told him to keep a stiff upper lip because men are not soft, they did not cry. The inside of his cheek raw from where he worried the tender flesh to keep his emotions behind a carefully constructed mask of tightly held lips, a level expression and dour, downcast eyes. 

When they would pinch his sides to keep his back straight, or hold his wrists to keep his arms from swinging so widely, with grace and elegance. He kept his back stiff, picturing the heavy book on the crown of his head that he used in secret to force a slow purposeful walk.

Uncomfortable with the attentiveness of the people around town, his peers, his bullies, Edwin shrank, trying to find comfort within the blanket of the shadows, solace in isolation, and the silence that came with it.

He stopped riding when he saw school mates along the railing whisper behind their hands, casting furtive glances his way. 

He stopped fencing when thrusts from his opponents became reckless when their teacher turned away, and hits were aimed at his arms, his legs, his neck.

He stopped singing when malicious smiles met his gaze during choir practice late one December day, just before St. Hilarion's released for the winter. Edwin felt something move through him, like the damp, clammy feeling of illness, as a high, clear note rang in the silence of the nave. 

He threw himself into his studies, in solitary tasks and hobbies, in anything that kept him out of sight. Out of mind. And out of people's conversations. But the whispers grew into something his father could no longer ignore, and Edwin could no longer hide from.

And one day, not too long after that holiday concert, his father boxed his ears. Swearing they would make a man out of him yet, and that Edwin would no longer be a growing embarrassment.

His efforts never quite worked when he was alive. The carefully built walls were more like a sheet of ice that frosted the windows. The outline of shapes with none of the defining features.

His efforts never quite worked when he was in Hell. There simply was no time to think about how he held his hands when fingers were being pulled off slowly, one at a time, for hours days years. Or how to keep his arms at his sides when they were twisted, or trying to keep his back straight when it would arch unnaturally off the ground as a creature, grotesque and horrible, gripped and tore his body. 

Screaming, crying, there was no allowance for emotional comfort in Hell, and after a time far beyond when his voice was hoarse, cracked, and gasping, Edwin relented, the silence he had cultivated for years while alive persisting into his death. 

His efforts never quite worked in his afterlife.

Charles, Edwin found, loved music.

In the beginning, silence stretched into weeks, but during outings Charles would linger in homes, by storefronts, anywhere music floated through the air. Edwin could see the tension leave Charles, limbs shaking loose chased with a fond smile. 

As in life, music was a familiar constant. It required no taste, had no texture, and settled with the same intimate intensity. After time, and without conversation, Charles acquired a small stereo, holding both cassettes and CDs of which he amassed a considerable collection. A small pile of cassettes sat stacked next to the bookcase, then more along one of the lower shelves, beneath the open space of the sofa. Finally, they found a bin and Charles tipped his collection inside, but soon more began appearing stacked on top the lid of the bin, and growing out like roots from a tree. 

They fell into a comfortable rhythm, the hours of silence punctuated with melodies, moving them easily from one moment to the next.

Charles never questioned why Edwin didn’t so much as bop his head, to Queen or Yes! or Fleetwood Mac or any other music modern or classic that Charles thought Edwin would think to be “brills”. Or even to tap his fingers to the sound despite how often Edwin did drum the tips of his fingers against a surface. He found music from when Edwin was alive, jazz primarily, and Edwin awarded him with a sidelong glance, delicate smile tugging at his lips, as brass rebounded off the walls.

However, the music played within Edwin; notes flowing alongside passages in his book, the latest information in the case file, Charles bouncing a soccer ball against his knee the wall the floor. It stretched and blossomed, settling into him and he never felt without a melody even when it was nothing more than the quiet inhale exhale of their breathing.

Crystal, like Charles, was very enthusiastic about music. She was more “in the scene”, as Charles and Crystal called it, than Charles had been. Edwin was relieved they could share that, as they went to concerts, festivals, and local coffee shop music nights. The music playing in the agency office picked up, and now the silence was punctuation.

It was mid-morning, late in the fall. The sun was filtering in behind clouds, the window behind the desk was open, while he couldn’t feel it, Edwin knew the air would be crisp. 

Charles had left the stereo on, playing a playlist Crystal had curated through a cassette tape with a chord that connected to her phone. It was all new music which she proclaimed was just as good as the oldies Charles insisted they listen to. 

While Charles was lying on their sofa with a book open, pages down on his chest, tossing a small rock into the air, Edwin was facing the bookcase, book in hand, peering at the ones already on the shelf with a focused expression pursing his lips. 

Edwin heard the soft sound of the rock against Charles’s palm as it was thrown skyward. Down. Silence. Down. Silence. He could almost time it. He slid the book onto the top shelf, twisting to grab another off the pile stacked high up on top a slim chest of drawers to his left when there was no more rhythmic up and down, up and down, of the stone. 

Turning to face Charles he saw Charles was sitting up fully, book on the ground, pages bowing, staring at Edwin over the low wall that separated the front of the office where Edwin was to the back. Edwin grimaced, sour words on his lips ready to exclaim how books should be respected when he was met with an astonished expression and he swallowed heavily, feeling inexplicably nervous under Charles’ gaze.

“You can sing?”

Edwin froze. It was instantaneous, the shift, the shame. The matter that gave them form suffused into his face, he couldn’t feel the heat of the flush but it almost felt more solid as the energy gathered on his cheeks and embarrassingly into his ears. His arms came against his sides quickly, his back straightened, hands in his habitual triangle shape in front of him. His mouth felt stuffed with cotton, he felt phantom pinching on his ears. He could vaguely see the expression which had arrested him shift into something soft.

“No,” Edwin said primly.

He saw the expression level, a downward tug of Charles’s lips while a brow lifted slightly. It was a look Edwin had seen when Charles was doing puzzles.

“But, you can sing,” Charles repeated, squaring to face him. 

His fingers curled inward, fists nearly bumping, and then Edwin flexed and dropped his hands to his sides. 

“No.” with a small shake of his head.

Edwin saw the jigsaw pieces start to line up. Maybe not in all the ways, but there was a moment where Charles knitted his brows together, and Edwin considered what he thought Charles might guess.

He turned his head, huffing, “I do not sing, Charles.” and he lifted the next tome for the shelf.

“That wasn’t what I said, mate. I didn’t know you could sing.” a pause. “Why’d you stop?”

“Now, or before?” It came far too quick, with a bite that surprised him, and he knew would surprise Charles.

He heard more than saw the sigh, “Now. But, we can talk about before, too, yeah?”

Edwin pushed the book, finger lingered on the spine. The quiet in the room that stretched between them felt heavy. “I didn’t realize I was singing.” He made no effort to apologize, nor excuse himself, although his skin crawled with the desire to do both.

The song had switched at some point, the notes curling into the pause. “You have a nice voice,” Charles said simply, after some time.

His finger pressed too hard, and the book collided loudly with the back of the bookcase. “Thank you.” It was a statement. He turned to pick up the next book and saw Charles tapping the phone. The opening chord of the guitar, steady beat of the drums, the plucking notes of the piano filled the room, having skipped back to the prior track. 

The beat crescendoed, the chorus was quick. He heard Charles lilt the words, voice like a deep slow river, confident, singing for Edwin. “Take my heart, don’t break it-“

“-love me to my bones,” Edwin followed, soft, like a stream.

“-all this time I wasted, you were right there all along,” Charles answered, his notes carried on a smile.