Fanfiction: The Hour of Separation - Chapter Two
The Hour of Separation - Chapter Two
It turned out that with the combination of Edwin's brain, Crystal's street smarts and a seemingly endless line of credit, and Niko's reading comprehension, getting Jenny the paperwork she needed was completed a lot faster than it would have taken anyone else. Crystal seemed positively giddy at the idea of taking her parent's money and investing it into Jenny's new store somewhere in the city because they couldn't get mad at her for investing in a business. Charles knew he wasn't much help regarding a paperwork issue, so he spent far too much time in his backpack trying to figure out the best way to help Jenny protect herself.
Niko and Crystal were closer to the line of fire, but he was usually there to put himself between them and anyone trying to get a hit in. Jenny was a different story. She was an adult who would be working and wouldn't be super close to the agency either. Closer than halfway across the world, but still not within walking distance, and while more than one mirror was absolutely necessary when she got her shop location, Charles wanted something more tangible.
He'd acquired a fair amount of shit over the years, and while some of it was extremely specific, some of it was more general, and others were damn near run of the mill. The idea of doing something to a meat clever came to mind, but Charles knew more than anyone that keeping some distance between you and your opponent was the way to survive a fight. It was why he liked using his cricket bat so much and tried to keep anything from getting up close and personal whenever possible. He had enough up close and personal beatings to last a lifetime, and the belt scars he knew were on his back itched when he thought about it too much, even though it was an itch that was only in his mind.
So when Charles saw the baseball bat sitting in a far corner, it almost seemed too perfect. Jenny had offhandedly mentioned the strict gun laws in the United Kingdom, and something else would look out of place. However, A baseball bat was only a weapon when used as such. Until then, it was only a piece of sports equipment. It was also a match to his own cricket bat that amused Charles more than he wanted to admit. There were modifications that they could make, so it was more than just a baseball bat; it seemed like a good place to start.
When he finally crawled out of his backpack, Charles was surprised to find that the sun was down, the girls were gone, and Edwin was stretched out comfortably on the couch reading a book like he didn't have a care in the world.
"I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to send a search party down there to find you," Edwin said.
"Very funny, but I think I found something for Jenny to keep in her shop that will help keep her safe but also won't draw too much attention," Charles replied as he pulled the bat out of his backpack. "I figured we could enhance it or make it better like we do with my bat." Edwin didn't like to admit it because tinkering with things was more Charles's thing, but Charles also knew that Edwin very much enjoyed screwing around with runes and magic to try and make things better.
"Excellent idea, Charles; let me see what I can find." So, while the girls were sleeping and between cases, they worked on making the bat as powerful as possible while not altering its outside appearance too much. When Charles suggested taking the wooden bat and putting iron nails on the outside as a joke, Edwin looked at him like he was deeply unimpressed and might be rethinking their partnership for half a moment. So it was a lot of looking up runes in ancient books, carving said runes into the wood, and all sorts of things that took as long as getting the paperwork approved.
By the time Jenny's bat was ready to take on the supernatural, Jenny herself was in the United Kingdom and had a storefront that she was working on putting together. Crystal's parents were not thrilled about the investment, but they took it much better than she thought they would.
"They said they were impressed I was doing something so mature as investing in a business, even if it was with their money," she explained one night they were working on getting everything ready. Charles knew that there was more to that statement because his dad wouldn't have just said a compliment without throwing in an insult or disparaging final world either. "However, they also wanted me to know that most small businesses fail, and this will probably be a waste."
Yeah, that sounded about right.
Jenny was far too amused when they presented her with the bat but seemed to understand that it was powerful when Edwin started listing everything they had done to it to make it capable of taking on the supernatural. She had already seen a few things wandering around the city that set her on edge, which is what they warned her about. She accepted the bat, and while Jenny didn't always come around, they certainly saw her regularly. Niko and Crystal both looked a little less tense when Jenny flipped that 'closed' sign to 'open' for the first time because it meant their all too human friend was closer and easier to protect. It was an instinct that Charles could relate to all too easily.
+++
It was ten months after the events of Port Townsend, and Charles really wanted to collapse on their terrible couch and maybe not move for the next day or two. The case they had just closed was grueling, and he nearly tripped over his own feet when he walked through the mirror and back into the office. It was Edwin's steady hand on his shoulder that kept Charles from faceplanting directly onto their carpet. Ghosts didn't feel exhaustion in the physical sense, but this case had a lot of moving parts, and mental exhaustion was very much something they could still feel.
"Edwin, mate, please tell me we can take a break. Just for a day?" Charles asked. Even though it had been months, the Night Nurse did her best to interact with them as little as possible. She would sweep into the office, drop a pile of cases on the desk, tell them to finish the work, and then leave without another word. Charles tried to get her to laugh once or twice by calling her Charlie, but the look she gave him made Charles stop that immediately. It wasn't fear, exactly, but she was cautious around him, which was fair, but he didn't like it.
She was a walking reminder of reliving being in the lake, the bone cold chill, the way he couldn't stop shivering, the way it hurt to move from where the rocks hit him, and he was a reminder to her of Angela and getting kicked into a monster. Apprehension toward each other wasn't surprising, but that didn't mean he liked it.
"We still have a lot of pending cases," Edwin said as he looked at the stack from the Night Nurse sitting on the desk. Charles could tell that Edwin was thinking the same thing he was; their continued safety from Death and hell was contingent on them being useful, and they weren't useful if they weren't solving cases. Edwin, as usual, was on the same wavelength and said what Charles was already thinking. "That being said, if we are not properly rested, we won't be at our sharpest, and it will take us longer to solve the cases to begin with."
"Brills, break it is, and that means for you, too. Grab an actual fiction book and get over here so you can do your version of relaxing," Charles said as he collapsed onto the couch. The couch wasn't large, but if he bent his legs, he could lie back, and Edwin would have a place to sit down comfortably. It took a moment or two, but eventually, Edwin joined him on the couch. Charles was content to zone out here for a little while when Edwin cleared his throat, and Charles sat up on his elbows.
"If you wanted to stretch out completely and put your feet in my lap, I would not mind," Edwin said carefully as if he were making sure each word was perfectly chosen. "You have to take your shoes off first." Charles blinked as he watched Edwin carefully, but Edwin was doing his best to look anywhere but Charles. He was about to ask if Edwin was sure, but Edwin rarely said things he didn't mean.
"That sounds great, thank you," Charles replied, trying to ignore just how breathless he sounded even though he did not need to breathe. He kicked off his shoes and very carefully stretched his legs out to their full length. He was tentative about it, but Edwin, as usual, took the direct approach and moved Charles' feet onto his lap like it was no big deal. Then, he started reading.
Charles folded his hands behind his head and tried to tell himself this wasn't a big deal. He and Edwin were more tactile when they were alone than people realized, but this was still new. The hand resting gently on his ankle and rubbing soft circles that Charles swore he could feel was new as well, but Edwin was reading like it was nothing, so Charles was also going to act like nothing was happening. He also refused to think about the fact that the hand on his ankle was more grounding than anything he had experienced in a long time. This was fine, everything was fine, and that was the mantra Charles repeated as he tried to zone out and let his mind rest.
It turned out that relaxing was not in the cards for the "Dead Boys" part of the Dead Boys Detective Agency. It was well into the night, so Charles didn't expect any company. Even though they worked at night often, Niko and Crystal did try to sleep during normal sleeping hours when possible. So when Crystal burst through the door at 3 AM, Charles wouldn't lie that he might have jumped straight out of his skin. Edwin had also startled hard enough that he had dropped the book he was reading.
Before either of them could say a word, Crystal said, "Someone broke into Jenny's shop, and they tried to hurt her. She had to use the bat." That was enough to get both of them moving quickly. A job like that sounded like something that Scottland Yard would try and solve, but he and Edwin weren't exactly good at letting the living do a job that a dead boy could do, even more so when someone they cared about was involved.
"We'll mirror hop and meet you there," Edwin said, and Crystal was out the door before he even completed his sentence. They gathered their things as quickly as possible and didn't even bother making themselves entirely presentable. This wasn't some normal client; this was Jenny, who looked out for Niko and Crystal in Port Townsend and kept an eye on all of them now; she wouldn't care if Edwin wasn't wearing a jacket or if Charles was in just his polo shirt. They mirror-hopped across town, emerged in the store's backroom, and made their way to the front.
The front door was smashed open, and glass was everywhere on the ground. There was evidence that Scottland Yard had been here and, if the fading sirens were anything to go by, had just left. Jenny was sitting on a chair in the middle of the shop with an ice pack pressed to her head and the bat sitting at her feet. Niko had her arms around her and seemed to be very nervous.
"You were right," Jenny said once she noticed that they had arrived, "the bat did pack a punch and is probably the only reason I'm alive." That statement was not what Charles wanted to hear if the way Edwin clenched his fists was anything to go by; it wasn't what he wanted to hear either.
"Can you tell us what happened?" Edwin asked, and Jenny stared without saying a word. Charles was about to ask Niko if medical had been by to make sure she didn't have a head injury when Jenny spoke again.
"Since when do the Dead Boy Detective's take on armed robbery?" she asked.
"When they involve our friends," Charles replied as Crystal made her way through the door. "We'd like to help you figure out who did this so you can at least send them the bill for the door." It wasn't a case they would normally take, and the Night Nurse would pitch a fit, but Charles was more than willing to bear the brunt of that screaming match. Just because they were working with the Lost and Found department didn't mean every case they took on had to be one of theirs, and this was different. It was like Crystal or Niko's cases, minus the supernatural element, but still involved one of the handful of living people that had wormed their way into their afterlives.
"I told you that they would help," Niko said with a bright smile. Jenny still didn't look entirely convinced, but that was okay.
"It was well past closing, and I was working in the storefront when someone smashed the door in," Jenny explained. "It was a group of three people, men; I couldn't tell how old they were. They saw me and weren't surprised; it was just me in the store. They didn't tell me to empty the drawer or the safe. They didn't ask me for money or anything. It was like the three of us were in a stalemate for half a second. One had a crowbar, another had a switchblade, and another had brass knuckles of some kind. I don't remember who broke the stalemate, but I grabbed the bat and fought for my life. I don't think they were expecting me to be armed, and they certainly weren't expecting what looked like a normal wooden baseball bat to pack that hard of a punch.
"I got some good hits in, and someone must have heard the door break because they took off as soon as the sirens started approaching," Jenny continued. "It wasn't until they were gone that I realized one of them got me in the head. From there, I got in touch with the police, Niko, and Crystal, and now you're here. Scottland Yard seemed to think it was just a bunch of kids running around looking to do some damage."
"But you don't think so, and neither do I," Edwin said as he looked up from the notes he was taking in his notebook. "They never demanded your money, so it wasn't a robbery, and you said they didn't seem surprised to see you."
"You think someone intentionally came here to hurt Jenny?" Crystal asked.
"Or someone hired those boys to do the job," Edwin said. "Did they leave anything behind that the police didn't collect?" Jenny shook her head and looked like she regretted that the second she did it. Crystal turned, walked toward the broken door, and carefully looked it over, but she shook her head.
"If there is something there, it's so small that I can't see it, and I won't be able to read it," Crystal replied.
"They might have ditched the weapons when Scottland Yard pulled up," Charles said. "We'll get the door boarded up and then see if we can find a random crowbar, knife, or brass knuckles lying in a gutter." There were still some boards left over from the initial construction of the store, and Niko insisted that Jenny stay the night in the flat she shared with Crystal. Once the two of them were safely in a taxi, they fanned out, hoping to find some lead for Jenny's case.
Charles didn't mind wandering the streets of London alone at night, but he was maybe a little distracted. That was the excuse he would use if anyone asked him about it. Crystal was out there, wandering around alone, and people were terrible, so that wasn't one of their smarter ideas. He was thinking about lying on that couch with Edwin, and his feet fell on Edwin's lap, and there was slight pressure on his ankle. Jenny was a friend, and she had just been attacked, and he was trying to find a weapon on the ground. Charles was distracted, and that was how someone had gotten the drop on him.
Iron did more than burn and cause extreme amounts of pain for a ghost. It knocked them straight on their asses and made them vulnerable to someone doing something nefarious. Charles sensed movement around him, but he turned around too late, and something iron smashed into his temple. The world around him immediately went blurry, and Charles hit the ground hard enough that if he'd been alive, he might have broken a bone. He didn't have a weapon in hand and nothing to defend himself, so whoever just got the drop on him was about to have the perfect opportunity to get another shot in, and Charles tried to brace himself for it.
But the hit never came.
The world around him slowly came back into focus, and there didn't appear to be anyone around him. The street he was exploring was basically deserted, and no one was running in any direction. It was like something dropped out of nowhere, smashed his head in, and then vanished. Charles could feel the burn on his head healing, but it was slow moving, and he was still feeling very unsteady on his feet, so standing up was not something he planned on doing. One moment, he was holding his head and trying to catch his bearings, and the next, Edwin and Crystal were sitting with him, and they both looked very worried.
"Charles, what happened to your head?" Edwin asked, looking rather horrified, which meant that whatever was going on still looked rather nasty.
"Not sure," Charles replied as they both helped him to his feet. "Something got the drop on me, smashed my head in with iron, and took off. I was a sitting duck, and they just left."
"We didn't see anyone when we made our way over here," Crystal said. "We did find brass knuckles, so I'm giving these to you. I'm catching a few hours of sleep, and I'll be back at the office to see if I can get anything from them." She reached forward and gently touched the still healing burn on his head; the touch of the living was still so different from Edwin's. He couldn't feel her, but he knew her hand was soft and caring as it touched his face, which was the feeling Charles latched onto.
"Excellent idea, Crystal. We will make sure you get into a taxi, and then I'll make sure he ends up safely back at the office," Edwin replied. It appeared that Charles's opinion on this matter wasn't being taken into consideration. However, when he realized how unsteady he was, he didn't blame Edwin for being a bit overprotective right now. Once Crystal was safely in a taxi on the way home, they mirror hopped back to the office, and once again, they both collapsed onto the sofa.
"How bad is it?" Charles asked, trying not to focus on Edwin gently cupping his jaw so he could inspect the burn. The late-night adventure meant that Edwin wasn't wearing his gloves, so the strange sense of energy and the slight sensation of touch came from skin-to-skin contact.
"It's bad enough that if they wanted to, they could have done significant damage to you, and the fact that they didn't is puzzling," Edwin replied. Charles was still very distracted by how close they were sitting, even though being distracted ended poorly for him. "It's healing slowly, and I should keep an eye on it, but I want you to rest."
"Oh, okay," Charles replied, a little confused by the fact that Edwin was making this sound like some massive life-changing announcement he was about to make.
"You should put your head in my lap. Then I can watch the burn, and you can rest," Edwin said, and Charles stood corrected; he was making life-changing announcements because Charles was briefly sure he blacked out for a second. There was the level of tactile, and he and Edwin usually were, and then there was this. However, despite how confident his voice sounded in this idea, the way Edwin held his hands showed just how anxious he was about this, and Charles would not let things get weird between them.
"You're the brains of this operation, mate; I follow your lead," he replied. It took a little awkward shifting around, but it ended with Charles resting his head in his best friend's lap as said best friend gently touched his head and hair. He refused to say that he was being petted, and he also refused to admit that it was a nice feeling. Those were thoughts for another time. For now, Charles closed his eyes and let himself doze off to the subtle feeling of Edwin's fingers gently checking that he was healing.
+++
By the time Crystal and Niko arrived in the office holding large coffees in both hands and looking like they hated their lives a little bit, Charles felt a little bad about how well-rested he felt. For a good portion of the night, he was comfortably lying on Edwin's lap, and eventually, after it was apparent that the wound from the iron had healed, Edwin didn't stop touching. Instead, Edwin began to gently run his fingers through Charles's hair like it was nothing unusual, and Charles let himself bask in it. Still, it wasn't fun to see how miserable the girls were when they got so little sleep, and even Niko could be a bit snippy when she was extremely sleep-deprived.
"Jenny is at home dealing with insurance," Crystal said. Charles watched with muted horror as she chugged one of the extra-large coffees in one go and dropped the cup into the trash can without flinching. A quick glance at Edwin revealed that he was also a little taken aback by this display. They really needed to get the girls sleeping more than a couple of hours a night.
"She wanted me to tell you guys that Scottland Yard called this morning, and they have absolutely no leads on who those three people who broke into the shop were," Niko said with a sigh. "She didn't sound surprised and also said that 'those two dead boys are probably going to be thrilled they get to do the job the living can't.'" Niko said the last part with air quotes, and she specifically put her coffee down to do said air quotes.
"Sometimes I'm really not sure whether or not she likes us," Charles said out loud, and Edwin hummed in agreement.
"All right, let's get this over with. Hand me the knuckles." Crystal was comfortable in one of the office chairs, her hand held out expectantly. Edwin picked up the brass knuckles they had managed to find last night, and they watched as her eyes went white. There was something about watching Crystal tap into her powers that still made Charles a little nervous for reasons that he couldn't quite put into words. However, she came back out of the trance rather quickly and began to scribble some notes in the leatherbound notebook she shameless stole from Edwin a week into her official return to London.
"Anything that is specifically useful to this case?" Edwin asked. When they started working together, Edwin would have just asked if she saw anything useful, which would have caused an argument. However, they were much better at not pushing each other's buttons now. The notebook writing was because Edwin would get twitchy, and Crystal would forget a detail or not share everything with them. Everyone was adapting.
"Yeah, this did belong to one of the guys that broke into the store, so we got lucky there," Crystal replied, but she didn't sound particularly happy about it. "There was something about his intentions that didn't feel right to me, but it was too vague for me to catch anything. I saw the pub where they like to meet so we could try to confront them in person. They just felt like normal, everyday assholes to me, but I can only get so much from an object someone had for a few hours." Charles wasn't super into the idea of meeting these guys, but when dealing with the living, you had to bring the living. Crystal and Niko pulled up pictures of all three men on the internet, and it still baffled him how many pictures of themselves were out there for people to see. He and Edwin mirror-hopped relatively close to the location while the girls took the tube, but something bothered Charles.
"Do you think these guys are also the ones that hit me that night?" he asked.
"They would have to be able to see us and know that iron harms us," Edwin replied as they stopped in front of the pub. "There's a very easy way to test that theory, though," and then Edwin phased through the wall of the pub. Charles wanted to strangle him because if this was the same person, he was walking right up to someone dangerous. However, no one in the pub reacted when Charles followed right behind him. The three guys who attacked Jenny had absolutely no reaction either of them, so they couldn't see ghosts, so they weren't the ones who tried to take Charles's head off.
The door opened, and the girls walked in, taking a seat far away from the three men. No one paid them much attention aside from the fact that two pretty young women walked into the room. The eyes of the three men were definitely on them, and Charles wanted to get his bat out to see what these men thought of a fair fight instead of three men to one woman, even if that one woman was Jenny.
"Judging by the lack of reaction, I'm guessing they can't see you," Crystal said, but she was facing Niko and made it look like they were having a conversation.
"It appears that they cannot, and the little bits of their conversation we have overheard have been decidedly boring as well," Edwin replied.
"Does this mean we get to do the direct approach?" Niko said, and she looked a little too excited about that, even though Charles didn't know what that was. Crystal wiggled her eyebrows, and the two of them got up and walked over to the bar and sat down right next to the three men. They ordered some food and began to chat with these men.
"The direct approach is more direct than I would like," Charles muttered. He wasn't jealous, not by a longshot, but he knew what men in pubs could be like with girls they thought were vulnerable. They had solved far too many cases of young women who didn't think the men they were chatting up were a threat either. Edwin moved a little closer to him so their shoulders touched, and it was a grounding feeling.
"They are strong and can take care of themselves," Edwin said softly, "and we're not going anywhere." It was enough to settle some of his nerves, but he still didn't like that the direct approach took the better part of the afternoon and into the evening. They could see the moment Crystal could touch one of them and get her reading while Niko distracted the other two with a story about Japan. It wasn't long after that that the girls finally paid for their food and left the pub, but not after giving them two fake phone numbers. Thankfully, the men didn't appear to be following them to the tube, but Charles and Edwin were not mirror-hopping home today.
"They were there to hurt Jenny," Crystal said softly as they waited for the train. "And not only were they there to hurt Jenny, they were hired to do it. Some guy paid the three of them a couple hundred pounds to go to Jenny's place and hurt her but didn't tell her why."
"Were you able to get a face? A name?" Edwin asked, but Crystal shook her head.
"It was like he had blurred his own face in his memory, like someone smudged it. It was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen," she replied. "I have names, and we can figure out how to get them to Scottland Yard. I know they have faces from the security camera and just needed names to go with those faces."
"Why would someone want to hurt Jenny?" Niko asked, but Charles glanced at Edwin. He didn't want to say it out loud, but of the four standing on the train platform, he and Edwin had enemies and people who weren't fond of them running around. They weren't subtle about their connection to Jenny, and someone could have noticed. Edwin shook his head subtly, and Charles said nothing; there wasn't any proof right now, but once they had some, they would let Jenny know and figure out some way to make it up to her.
Notes: Did this chapter get out of control? Yes, just roll with it. I certainly am. Will the other chapters in this story be nearly as long? I have absolutely no idea. We'll have to see how much trouble these guys want to get in. In the next chapter, we switch to Edwin's POV. Thank you so much for the support on this story so far. I'm trying to keep myself in check by posting on Tumblr on a semi-regular basis, so if you're looking for previews or anything like that, give me a follow over there. Or if you have prompts for what you'd like to see in this universe, shoot me an ask there as well.