Chapter Text
Charles was a peculiarity that Edwin had not quite yet mastered. He was fond of Charles – more than a bit fond, to be perfectly honest. And yet he did not entirely understand his new friend, the machine that he called a ‘Walkman’ and hooked up to his ears or the smile that spread across his face at the most mundane of things.
For example, the previous week, they had been wandering through the slush outside the abandoned building that they made house in. Charles had laughed over the mud not sticking to the ghost matter of his boots and exclaimed over the lack of cold seeping into his socks. Edwin had told him that it was because they were ghosts, and Charles’s face had fallen slightly. Edwin could not for the life of him comprehend why.
Now, though, he looked perfectly content to sit on the couch listening to the odd contraption that poured music directly into his ears. Edwin looked up from his book periodically to assess him, the only friend he had ever known; his hands were folded behind his head, and his legs were crossed over the armchair’s side as though he were incapable of sitting correctly.
(Perhaps he was.)
And perhaps Edwin ought not have been so shocked when Charles noticed him staring. Charles blinked one eye open lazily, and then the next; then, he turned his head toward Edwin and pulled the headpiece down from over his ears. “What’s up, mate?”
“The ceiling,” Edwin said in a lilting voice, having found the joke amusing as soon as he had learned the slang.
Charles chuckled and tossed his Walkman onto the adjacent cushion. “Look at you, getting all up-to-date with modern terms. Shouldn’t be so surprised, should I, since I already know you’re bang-on good at languages.”
“Your slang is a language in its own right, I suppose.” Edwin folded his hands atop his book. “Though I must say that ancient Aramaic is somewhat more challenging.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you were, uh,” Charles’s brows drew together. “Aramaic, though. Like, in that case, English slang would be the hard one to suss out, right?”
“Palestinian or Syrian,” Edwin corrected without much thought.
“What?”
“That is who speaks Aramaic. The Palestinians and the Syrians.”
“Right,” Charles said with a little chuckle. “I’ve heard of them, right, but don’t know much.”
Edwin smirked. “Perhaps one day I can teach you.”
“Maybe. I was no good in history class. Couldn’t pay attention for shit.”
“Well, I shall inform you that I am an excellent teacher. Far better than anyone that school could find.” Edwin was unsurprised by the disgust welling in his stomach; St. Hilarion’s was a dreadful place. And yet, he had thought himself composed enough to keep it from his tone. Apparently, he was wrong, and Charles tilted his head to the side. So Edwin cleared his throat and continued. “But in any event, Charles, besides the ceiling, a great deal is up. The lightbulb, for example-”
“Wanker,” Charles laughed, and Edwin rolled his eyes. Charles looked up at the lightbulb. It hung from a cable descending from the ceiling; Edwin had proposed the idea of getting a shade for it once, and Charles had agreed. Yet it had not happened, and the way that Charles was gazing at it now made Edwin fear that they never would. “I’ve got a question,” Charles continued, and Edwin hummed. “Do you think that… well, we’re ghosts, yeah? So we should be able to do… ghostly things. Making lightbulbs flicker and all that.”
Edwin’s eyebrows shot upward. “You wish to try and make a lightbulb flicker? Come now, Charles. This is not some penny dreadful that one might purchase at a newsstand.”
“Yeah, but those have got to be based on some kind of fact, right?”
“No, Charles,” Edwin chided, but he was smiling. “They are not.”
“Well, couldn’t hurt to try, could it?”
Edwin considered this. It would not hurt to try, he decided. “I do take your point.” He clicked his tongue. “From a purely experimental level, I suppose that we may as well perform a test to learn more about our capabilities and limitations.”
“That’s brills, mate. You can write it down in your little notebook!”
Edwin tried to find mockery in Charles’s voice, but none existed. He truly looked pleased at the prospect of undergoing the scientific method. So Edwin smiled at him, tight-lipped, and nodded downward as he had on the day that he and Charles had first bantered in the St. Hilarion’s attic. “Very well, then,” Edwin said, pulling his logbook from his pocket. “Make your attempt.”
So Charles did. Edwin could not help but smile as he watched Charles narrow his eyes at the lightbulb. He put his hand upward into the air inexplicably and began to circle it about, as though moving something. It failed, and he put a hand down with inexplicable sadness. “I’ve got nothing.”
But as he said it…
The lightbulb flashed.
“Holy shit,” Charles said. “Edwin! I did it.”
“Yes, I saw.” Edwin jotted down what Charles had done in his notebook. “What was that… odd hand gesture?”
“Spider-Man, Doctor Strange… those guys. Kind of like a superhero trying to use a power and all that. You’d like them, mate, the comics. Marvel and DC and whatever.”
“Perhaps I would,” Edwin agreed. “I do enjoy comics, as you well know. Do you think the gesture enabled the flickering?”
Charles narrowed his eyes at the bulb again, this time with his hands balled into his pockets. The lightbulb shut off briefly before flickering on again, the light swelling inside before flaring downward into a regular dull glow yet again.
“So I suppose that means it is not the gestures,” Edwin said.
“You should take a crack at it, mate,” Charles said, jumping up and walking toward Edwin. “Just think about how you want the light to go off and on or whatever. I really just, like, thought it into happening.”
Edwin did. The light flickered, and he felt a spark in his chest as it did so. “Charles, it truly works.”
“I told you. Isn’t it aces?”
“Yes,” Edwin agreed. “Brills, even.”
Charles grinned, and something inside Edwin felt a bit too warm for the spring day.
-
Seasons passed, and the lightbulb incident was all but forgotten by the time autumn came about. After all, there were a great deal of intriguing things about ghosthood. While they could make lights flicker at will, Charles had been disappointed to learn that he could not move objects telepathically. Edwin had gone in an altogether different direction, attempting to master a diverse array of spells and enchantments to improve the quality of their non-lives. He had just recently managed to enchant Charles’s favored cricket bat with a protection spell, one that meant it would always return to him if lost. Charles, as expected, adored it.
There was something odd about Halloween as a ghost, especially one who had been tortured in Hell for seventy-three years. Edwin might think himself beyond visceral emotions – after all, one ought to require a body before their stomach could lurch or their heart would sputter. But the first time he had faced down a massive decoration showcasing an enormous plastic spider running down a fake cobweb, he had felt himself back underneath the green glow of Hell. He had run off, as quickly as possible, and Charles had followed him. He had fortunately composed himself, but the shame clung to him for days after.
Charles had not seemed to mind, however.
Despite this, Charles only seemed to see inexplicable fun in Halloween. He enjoyed the decorations, the carved pumpkins and plastic skeletons, as much as Edwin enjoyed the crunching of leaves under his spectral boots. He had not realized how much he had missed that satisfying sound. But Charles…
“We’re ghosts, and it’s Halloween tomorrow,” he said. “We should do a proper haunting.”
Edwin steepled his hands together as he walked. “No, Charles. We should not haunt the living. As a matter of fact, we should not interact with the living at all.”
Charles chewed his lip. “What if we didn’t haunt, like, one specific person? We don’t have to single some poor bloke out. We could, go to a store and rearrange everything while the staff’s off.”
“I am certain that will get the staff terminated,” Edwin pointed out.
“Okay, yeah, bad idea then.” Charles’s eyes lit up. “I’ve got a better idea. How about we go to the Old Bailey and rattle some chains around? It’d be a great prank, wouldn’t it, and kind of a dream come true.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Edwin said.
“What? It’d be good fun, wouldn’t it, and we’d finally feel what it’s really like to be ghosts.”
Edwin sighed and threw his hands in the air. “Fine,” he agreed, not wishing to admit that it did indeed sound amusing. “Although may the record show that I declared it a poor decision.”
-
That night, the one leading into Halloween, Charles bounced on his heels in front of Old Bailey. He didn’t like being dead all that much, though hanging out with Edwin was brills. Almost made it worth the murdery part, didn’t it? And he didn’t have to deal with his old man anymore, which was a huge plus.
Usually when he felt like a ghost, he felt like a nothing. Like air that someone could stick their hand through, like a shadow that wasn’t there at all. But tonight he felt like a ghost in the fun sense of the word, and he couldn’t help but get pumped.
“I do not see any chains,” Edwin said lightly. “Shall we simply abandon out project?”
“No way,” Charles said. “They’ve got to be round back. I know there’ve got to be chains here.”
“Perhaps you have an untrue mental image of what this setting is actually like.”
“I definitely don’t.”
“I truly believe that this is simply something that you saw on your… television?”
“Well… yeah,” Charles scratched his head. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not true. See? Look.” He pointed a gloved hand to a random radiator-box outside the building. It had a chain link fence surrounding it, which made some sense. “Chains.”
He walked up to it excitedly, and Edwin followed with a sigh. Charles reached out, but –
“Wait,” Edwin slapped his palm away. He leaned in to assess the chain link before drawing off a glove. Charles watched him poke at it, wondering whether he’d gone mental.
But Edwin turned to him and nodded. “Aluminum, then, or steel. Go ahead, Charles.”
Iron. Edwin had been testing for iron. “Edwin, don’t just grab at things that might burn you.”
“You were about to do so,” Edwin reasoned.
“Yeah, but I didn’t think of it. Ugh.” Charles reached out and grabbed at the chains. “Grab the other side?”
“I am simply here to observe,” Edwin said lightly, though his eyes shone under the moonlight.
Charles glared, but began to shake the chain link. And it felt…
Well, it felt fun. Because he was a ghost, and this was what he –
A shriek cut through the air, and Edwin jumped. Charles turned to see some teenage blokes staring at the rattling chains. Edwin’s eyes were wide, and the boys on the other side of the road started laughing. Charles did, too.
It was the best he could do, right, to share a joke with kids his own age. He just had to do it from this side of the veil.