Chapter Text
So long ago
It's a certain time
It's a certain place
You touched my hand and you smiled
All the way back you held out your hand
Fleetwood Mac, Seven Wonders
"You ever think about how lucky we are?" says Charles, apropos of nothing one evening, while the both of them are seated in the middle of the floor of their office.
On the desk, a gleaming egg of stars spills its light onto the ceiling, projecting galaxies that are dimmed, somewhat, by the fact that the table lamp is on, as well. The board game Life is spread out before them, with its little plastic hills and little plastic cars. Charles spins the wheel again, and he moves his car along the track.
In the background, the Victrola plays songs from Charles' time. A young lady with quite a remarkable voice is singing about a singular moment that could never be matched, not by all the world's wonders.
"It is rather a nice evening," Edwin allows.
"Not just tonight, though, is it?" says Charles. "All round, I mean."
Edwin considers this for a moment.
He reaches out, with great precision, to spin the wheel. "I imagine we have been luckier than a great deal of others," he says, at last.
"I mean," says Charles. "The actual getting killed part was pretty rubbish. And you being in hell so long was sort of pants. But you ever think, like, if you hadn't died, and I hadn't died, we'd never have met, would we?"
He is running a finger along one of the hilltops, absently. It occurs to Edwin that he really would rather like to take hold of Charles' hand and kiss it.
It occurs to him, too, with a frisson of dawning wonder, that there is absolutely nothing stopping him from doing just that.
He reaches out for Charles' fidgeting hand, with great fanfare. He presses a kiss to the knuckles, gently. And he says: "I admit that it has crossed my mind, from time to time."
"Cause the thing is," says Charles. "The thing is, if we'd've met when I was still up and kicking, we wouldn't have been able to – you know. Have this. Would we?"
Edwin presses another kiss to his knuckles.
"Nor when I was alive," he adds, softly.
"What I mean to say, I guess," says Charles. "Is – sometimes I miss being alive, don’t I."
Edwin's eyes dart up to his face; he draws in a quick, sharp breath. He finds that Charles has fixed him with an intent sort of a stare, from lovely brown eyes lined with kohl.
It feels as though someone has slipped a knife all of iron between Edwin's ribs.
Before Edwin can offer so much as a word of protest, however, Charles is pushing onward.
"But more than that," says Charles, "times like now, I think dying's about the best thing that ever happened to me."
"Charles," says Edwin, softly.
The song on the Victrola ends.
The young woman with the remarkable voice is singing now about wanting to be with someone everywhere. It is, all things considered, rather too on the nose.
Charles smiles. When he ducks his head, the motion is unaccountably, uncharacteristically shy. "Don't laugh at me, yeah? But sometimes I think it's like the universe sort of – gave us a nudge. Knew we wouldn't've had nothing like this, if we'd wound up where we got put. So it put us here, instead."
Edwin spends long moments in looking at him: the curve of his jaw, and the soft, soot-dark swoop of his eyelashes, and the careless tousle of his curls. He is so breathtaking that Edwin aches with it, that he feels dizzy, almost, with the notion that he has this. That he has Charles.
"That is absolutely absurd," Edwin tells him. He can see the way that Charles' smile falters, turning wry and a touch self-deprecating; he can see the way Charles glances up again, mouth open as though preparing to defend himself, or perhaps to laugh it away. Before he can, Edwin adds: "And quite lovely."
"Yeah, well, you're absolutely absurd," Charles tells him, with a cheeky little grin, "and quite lovely."
Edwin rolls his eyes. "That is not even a good rejoinder, Charles," he says, but he cannot entirely mask the amusement in his voice.
"Doesn't have to be a good anything," says Charles, with a great deal of satisfaction. "Got you to smile, didn't it?"
Edwin ought to have something to say to that. A quip is already on his tongue. Before he can voice it, however, Charles is leaning in over the game board to kiss him.
When he shuffles forward, his knee settles upon one of those green plastic hills. Edwin's car has been knocked entirely asunder.
Edwin does not mind in the slightest, he finds.
He winds his arms around Charles, and Charles crawls the rest of the way to him and settles in his lap, the weight of him solid and warm in the midst of a thousand things that Edwin cannot touch. In the whole of the world, sensation is barred to him, save for this, and he thinks, not for the first time, that he would give it all up as many times as he was asked, just so long as he could keep Charles.
Charles kisses him, and kisses him again, and then again after that, until the both of them are breathless with it. They do not need air, but they break for it all the same; they lean their foreheads together, and they allow their hands to wander, and they take their time in exploring one another.
In the aftermath, the little plastic pieces in the game of Life are scattered about the floor, quite thoroughly forgotten.
Edwin and Charles pay them no mind. They lie upon the floor of the office they call home, petting at one another with idle affection, all soft words and quiet laughter.
On the Victrola, the record has come to an end; the sweet strains of music have wound down to silence, leaving nothing but the reassuring crackle as the record spins ever onward.