Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Edwin’s feet pound against the grimy concrete beneath him, silent as he can make them. He isn’t running, not this time, but his hurried walk carries an urgency to it, nevertheless. He hasn’t heard a giggle in some time, and he doesn’t expect to for some time to come, but the habit of silence is a hard one to break. It isn’t a reprieve. (It never is. Besides, there are other things than his tormentor in these halls.) Sometimes the beast likes to let him bleed out, let him be slowly drained of energy. And then, when Edwin is languishing on the floor, barely conscious, it will return and eat him slowly, part by part, until he finally dies from the pain or further loss of blood.

Currently he is without his right hand, the appendage torn off at the wrist. A tourniquet torn from his own shirt and tied with his teeth had been enough to significantly slow but not stem the bleeding – the amputation is too jagged for that. Bits of flesh not fully severed dangle even now, sometimes joining the trail of Edwin’s blood on the ground. It seems twisted, that first aid would work so well in Hell, but it makes a twisted sort of sense too: the aid is never enough to save him, only enough to prolong his suffering. Even now he is slightly dazed from blood loss.

He knows better than to attempt an escape while he is so damaged – that is not the source of his urgency. He will be too slow and unlikely to add to his mental map, and too easily tracked with the blood trailing behind him. No, Edwin’s only hope now is to find a corner of the Dollhouse that is narrow and cluttered, somewhere he can tuck himself into until the wound does him in and he is reborn. Somewhere the creature cannot reach, large and unwieldy as it is. Somewhere where his suffering will not disappear but will not be added to.

Technically, there is another option. Technically, Edwin could remove the tourniquet and hasten his death here, in the open. Suicide may be a sin, but he is already in Hell – what difference would one additional sin make? Still, in the unfathomable stretch of time that Edwin has roamed the halls of the Dollhouse, he has only gone that route a scant handful of times. He would like to be able to say it is his own strength of character that prevents him from taking the easy way out; some inner toughness he’d lacked in life and shows only now in death. A determination to power through.

But this is Hell and Edwin a damned soul. He cannot be kind to himself, even in his own thoughts, the one safe haven he has left to him. The truth is simply that the beast’s rage seems all the stronger after Edwin spoils one of its games. True, hiding away will enrage it as well, especially if he is successful enough that it cannot reach him, but not so much as slitting his own throat had, that one time he’d been without feet and too full of despair to even make an attempt at crawling. (It’d been lucky, then, that he’d landed near a femur that had cracked violently in half at some point, sharp enough to tear flesh.)

The side of his right foot comes down on bone. It is a rounded thing, whole and unbroken; the flesh of Edwin’s foot does not tear. But it is more than enough to displace him, wounded and dizzy as he is. He stumbles. He makes to reach out for the wall to steady himself, lips slamming shut to muffle any sounds that would otherwise leave him. The twitch of his shoulder, the signal of nerves down his arm, sends fire racing to his brain that stops the movement in its tracks. He bites down on his lip to muffle a cry of pain and thanks his lucky stars. Fortune is on his side for once.

If the pain of moving his arm at all wasn’t so great he would have placed the torn flesh of his wrist against the wall thinking he still had a hand – and he doesn’t think he could remain silent if the open wound had touched the worn concrete. It is difficult enough as it is to remain silent with his arm feeling like it is on fire as he struggles to regain his footing.

By the time Edwin manages to straighten he is panting hard, vision blurrier than before thanks to the tears trickling down his cheeks. It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, and Edwin lets himself be sorry for a second of it, lets the tears silently fall and contemplates simply curling up here and now, in this narrow hallway.

The thought – tempting as it may be – is out of the question. As much as he hurts now, the future that would await him were he to do so would be a thousand times worse. He strides off before the tears even dry up, holding his right elbow close to his body without allowing the severed wrist to bump against anything. His steps are slower than before, between the pain and dizziness and tears dampening his vision – on top of the dim, ghastly lighting of the hall – but no less determined.

He rounds a corner, thinking he remembers a room in this vicinity – and comes to an abrupt halt. For a moment, he cannot contemplate the sight before him: it is too fantastical, too horrendous.

Sa’al, the first demon who had owned him, the only demon who has not tortured him in this place, stands before him, in the halls of the Dollhouse. His appearance is the same as Edwin remembers but it no longer seems gruesome. Much has changed since Sa’al had grown tired of Edwin’s crying, crammed in a too-small cage and tucked away out of sight as he’d been. Perhaps not for Sa’al, but for Edwin…

He blinks, dread tightening his throat. Sa’al had not tortured him, but he had not cared for Edwin either, despite his apology for dragging him to Hell. They’d chatted for a bit those first few days, actually. Sa’al had been interested in how Earth had changed since his last visit and Edwin had been desperate not to anger his captor. He’d tried his hand at pleading in the meantime, and Sa’al had quickly grown tired of that and his despair. He’d traded Edwin off to another demon without a second thought.

The thought that Sa’al might have come back for him fills Edwin with mixed emotions. On one hand, Sa’al’s cramped cage, with barely enough room for Edwin to move his limbs, seems like a luxury compared to the constant torture of the Dollhouse. On the other hand, he is so close. He is almost certain that it is not just false hope this time. If he can just get to the top of those stairs past Limbo, if he can just make it further than only a few steps upward… Surely the way out of Hell must be upward, surely the Christian notion of Hell existing below must be true to some extent.

Here in the Dollhouse, he has freedom of movement. Freedom to be chased and hunted down like a fox before a foxhound but freedom, nevertheless. He would not have that, with Sa’al, and so his breath catches in his throat. His entire right arm aches as his feet come to a stop. The act of biting his lip to muffle the sounds of pain that might otherwise escape him at such an interruption of momentum is rote and barely registers to him.

He sucks in a silent breath through his nose, eyes wide – and only then realizes that Sa’al is not alone.

“There you are,” Sa’al says, with his usual casual, devil-may-care attitude. “I hope you appreciate the effort it took to do this for you.”

It is not the creature that owns Edwin’s soul at Sa’al’s side. No, by all appearances it is nothing more or less than another human soul. Another boy, perhaps the age Edwin had been when he’d died (still is, in this unageing Hell). The boy is a strange sight, with his bronzed skin and strange haircut – trimmed at the sides, longer on the top. He is in black trousers and an undershirt that is without sleeves and nothing else. His feet are as bare as Edwin’s. He cowers behind Sa’al a little at the moment, one of Sa’al’s hands on his wrist, held behind the demon. His eyes are wide, confused and tormented.

He is not the first human soul Edwin has met in Hell. He has done his fair share of exploring in his efforts to escape, after all. Edwin is not a demon though. He does not have an innate ability to read souls, to calculate their mettle, their age, their fears. Nevertheless, even without the manner of dress and haircut, Edwin would be able to peg this soul as fresh to Hell. There is something naïve and unbroken in the way he stares, in the fright in his eyes.

Edwin can think of nothing to say. His throat is dry. He sways where he stands; almost unconsciously his left hand reaches out to squeeze his right forearm. The surge in pain that follows is enough to clear his mind. (It hurts so much, and Edwin wants to weep, wants to curl up and give himself a day off.) He clears his throat – quietly, softly, just enough to wet his lips; it has been so long since he’s spoken words beyond pleas – still uncertain of what to say.

Sa’al, as usual, does not care what Edwin does. He is already speaking again. He drags the boy in front of him by the grip that he has on the boy’s wrist. The boy’s bare feet stumble on the grimy floor but Sa’al’s grip is unbreakable and keeps him upright. There is a wince of pain on the boy’s face, but he has the good sense to keep quiet about it – not that it matters at this point, at the volume Sa’al is speaking.

“Here,” he says. “Found a playmate for you. That school of yours seems determined to breed idiots. Apparently, rumors about what happened to you have spread.” Sa’al seems deeply exasperated with this. “I took the others, you know how it goes, but I’ve got no need of this one. Consider it a better apology.”

Sa’al says it as if this is a gift he is handing to Edwin, a human soul to keep him company.

Edwin knows better than to believe the demon is truly sorry for what happened to him. There is some part of Sa’al, he does honestly believe, that finds human sacrifices tedious and empathizes – however much a demon can – with the victims. However, Sa’al also seems to remain to be of the opinion that Hell ‘isn’t that bad’. He is calling this boy a playmate for Edwin, as if they are still schoolchildren out in the yard, as if he is not condemning this boy to an eternity of horrible deaths at the hands of a creature that not even the nightmares on Earth could dream up.

Edwin has met other souls in Hell. He has resigned himself to the fact that they cannot help him – and he cannot help them. The souls in the rooms that seem dedicated to the seven sins – gluttony and lust and avarice and the like – are lost to those sins, insensate, aware of little but the torment they have been assigned. They have tried to drag him down with them when he moves too slowly, and even succeeded from time to time, which is part of the reason Edwin refrains from escaping if he is already seriously injured, but they do not converse with him. The souls in Limbo are not so much insensate as they are frozen; they cannot converse with him either.

Other souls are rarer, but Edwin has gone the wrong direction plenty of times. He has stumbled upon other damned souls that are able to speak from time to time. Some of them have managed to speak to him. Some of them seemed grateful for the chance to converse. Some of them had begged and pleaded for Edwin, seemingly free-roaming Edwin, to take him with them.

But Edwin cannot help them. He cannot. He has learned that the hard way. (Selfish desire sometimes makes it so that he does not even want to. He has enough on his hands, saving himself.)

And now… now Sa’al wants to gift this boy to him, this freshly damned soul, likely condemned by the same ritual that had condemned Edwin, if he is understanding the demon correctly. This boy will be here with Edwin, will likely have the same free reign.

The explanation does not help Edwin’s mixed feelings any. Does he turn down the gift, and send the boy to the relative safety – and permanency – of Sa’al’s cage? Does he accept the gift, and condemn the boy to the creature and its tortures in the Dollhouse – but also the possibility of escape, were he able to keep up with Edwin?

He sways again on his feet, even with the fingers of his left hand still clutching tightly to his right forearm, and he is not entirely sure it is the blood loss that has weakened him.

But it does not matter what he wants, and he knows it. It never matters what he wants, here in Hell. Not with Sa’al, and not otherwise.

So he does not beg Sa’al to take the boy back, and he does not thank Sa’al for the gift, and he does not look the boy in the face and attempt to inform him of his new reality.

“Has the trade already been made?” he asks instead. His voice croaks as it comes out. It is tight with pain. His blood drips to the floor by his side. The only consolation this moment holds is that the skittering, giggling, cackling sounds the creature makes are not within earshot at the moment.

Sa’al shoves again at the boy, finally releasing his hold as the boy skitters to a stop between the two of them. He seems afraid to straighten up fully and doesn’t seem to know where to put his gaze. (Edwin would tell him to keep them on Sa’al, were he willing to give instruction with Sa’al still there; the anticipation of watching a demon prepare its tortures is not nearly so bad as not knowing what tortures a demon would decide to use.)

“Don’t say I never did anything for you,” Sa’al says, by way of an answer.

It is only long practice that holds Edwin’s tongue. There is much he could say to Sa’al and none of it would be worth it. Not here.

Sa’al, surprisingly, does not immediately leave with the transaction completed. He simply stares at Edwin for a moment longer, head tilted as if studying him.

“You’ve changed,” he says simply, after a moment.

Edwin does not know what to say to that either. He knows it is not his appearance Sa’al is referring to: it is the lack of begging, the absence of pleading, the drought of tears. He is well aware he has been fundamentally altered by his time in Hell. He is not the timid, soft boy he once was. Hell has hardened him, sharpened his edges, eroded his trust. He scarcely remembers who he was on Earth; he has been this thing he’s become in Hell for far longer.

Unbidden, Edwin’s eyes flicker to the boy. Hell has not yet worn away at him. Staring at him, Edwin despairs. He despairs that this boy is about to suffer, and he despairs of his own reaction to that future. There have been so many souls in Hell that Edwin has been unable to help, himself among them, but staring at this boy, this offering, this perverse attempt at a gift…

Edwin resolves that this boy will not be among them. It damns him twice over, he knows, his desire to help this boy, the cost that will entail, but Edwin cannot… He will not let Hell have all of him.

When he looks back up, meets Sa’al’s gaze again, the demon gives him a nod. As if Edwin has earned his respect by hardening under Hell’s tortures. The thought turns Edwin’s stomach; Sa’al or not, the respect of a demon must damn him thrice over. Not for the first time he considers that no mistake was made, that Hell is where he belongs. Then Sa’al disappears (finally), and he sees the boy again and he knows that it does not matter.

It is not true – a technicality, he is here on a technicality, and he cannot let himself forget that like he has forgotten so much else – but it would not matter if it was. This boy certainly does not belong here, and Edwin is going to get him out. He is going to get the both of them out – and he is certainly going to die trying.

Charles is having the absolute worst day of his existence. It is, he thinks somewhat hysterically, the biggest understatement that could ever be conceived of, because he is in Hell! Because he has to clarify existence instead of life because he is dead! Because he saw a bunch of his mates playing a stupid prank on another kid and decided to step in and got sacrificed to a demon – who had looked at him, rolled its eyes, and said “Not again,” in a voice that really didn’t fit.

Luckily, he’d had plenty of time to hyperventilate and ask questions after Sa’al – the demon’s name, apparently – had disintegrated his body and dragged him off to Hell! (Like, the actual Christian Hell! Because that is real! Because Charles was sacrificed to a demon! He’s in Hell!!!) So he knows he’s only here on a technicality. He knows that doesn’t matter and he’s going to get tortured anyway. He knows he’s dead. He knows that this is the second time this has happened at St. Hilarion’s and that Sa’al was also the demon last time and that all those rumors about the basement were actually true.

He also knows that Sa’al wants nothing to do with him and had apparently traded his soul (his soul! Because those are real too!) to another demon, and that demon currently owns the soul of the last boy who was sacrificed at St. Hilarion’s. (What the actual fuck?! Charles had known St. Hilarion’s was a posh nightmare, and had only been worse historically, but what the actual fuck?!! Demon sacrifices! Who did that!)

Staring at said boy, Charles realizes that’s about the extent of his knowledge and boy does that mean he is fucked, because this is Hell, and it looks it. He doesn’t remember much of what Sa’al’s lair or home or room or whatever had looked like. It’s been a wild few hours. Sue him if his memory’s a little fuzzy. But this… this is Hell, for sure.

The hallway is all concrete, floor and walls and ceiling. It’s dimly lit, and most of the light has a green sort of tint to it. Everything is dirty, and scattered detritus lies throughout the hall. Charles caught sight of a discarded doll and an actual human skull before deciding to pointedly avert his gaze. The only problem with that, he realizes as Sa’al talks over his head, is that there are only two other things to look at: the demon, and the other sacrificed boy.

He really should be paying attention to what Sa’al is saying, probably, but the other boy looks horrendous, and Charles really is not saying that to be mean. He’s pretty sure the other boy is a white kid, pale and skinny and as tall as he is, but between the dim off-color lighting and the grime and blood covering the other boy it is hard to tell. His hair is dark and disheveled, and Charles is only focusing on that because he really doesn’t want to focus on everything else about the boy.

Everything else being the old-timey underclothes he’s wearing which are streaked with dirt and sweat and blood. Everything else being the way his shirt is torn ‘round the bottom. Everything else is the way that torn strip of shirt seems to be tied down ‘round his right bicep. Everything else is the fact that his fucking hand is gone, and worse than that the wound is jagged and awful and still dripping blood.

So, Charles isn’t looking at that, because if he looks at that he’s going to puke, and he really doesn’t want to puke right now. It’s been a stressful enough time without the taste of bile on his tongue. 

Sa’al… leaves. He thinks. At some point. He really wasn’t tracking the conversation at all – it’s only the sight of the other boy striding toward him that brings him back to reality. Before he can say anything, question anything, the boy has let go of his hold on his own severed arm and grabbed onto Charles’ instead. (Wait, is severed the right word? Would it be amputated? Maybe severed would only be if he was holding the detached limb and why the fuck is Charles worried about his word choice right now!?)

His feet stumble on the concrete for a moment as the other boy starts to drag him along, but he catches himself readily enough. Most of the debris on the ground is swept away to the edges (he catches sight of a doll’s arm laying in the center of the floor and casts his gaze away from it, not that there’s anywhere more pleasant to look).

“Look,” he starts to say, desperate and sounding like it.

The other boy cuts him off. “There will be time for explanations later,” he says, low and careful and quiet. “For now, staying still will only get us caught.”

His voice is surprisingly pleasant, considering. Or maybe that’s why it’s surprisingly pleasant. Hearing another British accent – all posh and proper and human – instead of shrieks of pain or cries of fear or that creepy laughter he’d heard echoing through the halls earlier is refreshing. (Maybe Sa’al had sounded normal, but he hadn’t looked it. This boy looks like… well, like a boy. A tortured, wounded boy. That he sounds like one too is a relief.)

Charles swallows and lets himself be tugged along. “Caught by what?” he asks. His voice croaks, tight and high with fear.

The tugging on his arm tightens for a moment and he finds himself pulled forward with more force than before. It takes him a second to regain the rhythm of following the other boy he’d fallen into again.

“Quiet,” the boy scolds, still low, hushed himself, hissing the words out through gritted teeth. There is fear in his eyes, but Charles doesn’t think it probably compares to the fear in his own eyes.

He shuts his mouth at the scolding. Hell or not, he’s never liked being yelled at. This seems like an appropriate time to finally learn to shut his trap. He lets himself be led onward.

The other boy eventually finds a room amongst the seemingly endless hallways he leads them through. He has to let go of Charles’ wrist to open it, on account of the fact that where his other hand should be is a still bleeding stump. (Charles can’t stop glancing at it and can’t bring himself to stare at it either. He’s only seen it for seconds at a time. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the sight of it.)

When the door is finally opened, the other boy ushers Charles in first and follows after him on silent footsteps, lightly closing the door behind him. The room they find themselves in has the same aesthetics as the hall: grimy concrete floor, greenish-lighting, dirty all around. There isn’t much else to see, so Charles turns back to the other boy just in time to see him sway slightly, blinking hard as he slumps back against the wall next to the door.

Charles reaches for him without thought but doesn’t make contact. He’s too far away for one. For another – and this is really stupid and selfish – the boy is filthy, and covered in blood, and the thought of touching even his shoulder sends a shudder through Charles’ mind. It doesn’t stop him from caring though. “Woah,” he says, “you alright?”

It’s a stupid question. Of course the boy isn’t alright. His hand’s gone.

(Charles is in Hell. He’s in actual, literal, Hell, with another sacrificed soul and everything here is filthy and awful and heartbreaking and he would really like to be able to have a breakdown now, please!)

The other boy straightens off the wall in an instant. “Hush!” he snaps out, still quiet himself, and, oh, okay, alright, Charles is starting to put the pieces together. Something about this place means they need to stay quiet, mustn’t it?

He pulls his hands back to his sides. “Sorry,” he mutters, quiet and contrite, even as he eyes the other boy worriedly. “But, I mean…” he gestures helplessly toward the boy’s missing hand.

The other boy does not react at all the way he should. He frowns and looks down at the empty space where his limb should be. With visible effort he uses his remaining hand to lift his forearm and angle the wound so that he can get a good look at it. He winces at what he sees but not, it seems, because of the wound itself, and more so the dripping blood, Charles figures, based on the way his gaze immediately moves from the wound to the floor. It’s fucked up. Everything about the situation is fucked up. Hell isn’t the fire and brimstone he was preached to about, but the torture thing still seems very much on the table. Is Charles going to be like that one day, uncaring about the mutilation of his own limbs?

Pushing down the dread that rises in him at the thought, he hopes not. He very much hopes not. He likes his hands. Likes having two of them. He very much does not want to lose either of them. Or both. This is Hell. Losing both is probably an option.

“It will hold,” the boy mutters to him.

If that’s meant to be reassuring, it very much is not. Or, rather, the words aren’t. Because Charles is this close to panicking, but this boy very much is not, and it is somewhat calming, to be faced with the other boy’s unflappable nature in a situation where he knows his own panic will only bring trouble and Charles really has to stop referring to this kid as ‘the other boy’ in his own thoughts. Pity the rumors at St. Hilarion’s had never included anyone’s names.

“I’m Charles,” he blurts out, thankfully remembering to keep his words as quiet as he can. Hard to blurt out a whisper, but he manages. “Did you really go to St. Hilarion’s?”

The other boy slowly lowers his arm back to his side as he meets Charles’ gaze. His eyes are scrutinizing. “There isn’t time, unfortunately,” he says, hushed, “for a full explanation. So, in short order: my name is Edwin Payne, yes, I too was sacrificed to Sa’al by my classmates at St. Hilarion’s, and both of our souls have been traded to the creature that resides here. Unlike Sa’al, the creature has no qualms about torturing souls and prefers to chase its prey. It will be following the trail I have left behind. Hide here. I will lead it off.”

“Wait!” Charles cries out, still hushed, as the other boy – Edwin, his name is Edwin – turns to go. He reaches out and latches onto Edwin’s undamaged arm like a lifeline, all thoughts about avoiding contact forgotten. He wants, desperately, to beg Edwin not to leave him here. He wants to ask the twenty-million questions bubbling up inside him. He wants to very much not be in Hell. “What if it catches you?” he asks instead.

Edwin does not answer for a very long second or two, simply stares back at Charles. When he does speak, Charles gets the impression that he is both lying to him and telling the truth. “Do not fret,” he says. “I will return for you. I promise.”

Despite the dread in his gut, Charles is reassured. Reluctantly he lets go. Edwin doesn’t look back as he disappears out the door. With the other boy gone – the other human soul – Charles tucks himself into a corner and curls up around his knees. Finally giving in to the inevitable breakdown, Charles remembers only enough of his wits to do so silently.

There is no time to consider the boy – Charles – waiting for him in an unremarkable side room of the Dollhouse as Edwin strides forth. Sa’al’s interruption has cost him precious time; the blood loss is close to taking hold of him. It would be very easy to fold his legs beneath him now and wait for the end. But he must put some distance between him and Charles, and he cannot give the creature an easy death. Not now, not if he wants to serve as a proper distraction. He can only hope that a proper chase – screaming, crying, begging at the end, perhaps – will satiate the creature enough that it will not immediately turn to Charles during the time it takes for him to be reborn and find the room again.

 With such thoughts in mind, Edwin musters what feels like the last of his strength and turns his long stride into a loping jog. (It feels like it, but it is not the last of his strength. The last of his physical strength, perhaps, the last this body has to give, but there will be other bodies. There must be. He is not giving in, no matter that the effort of escaping Hell has been doubled by his new companion’s presence.) He does not deliberately make noise because this must seem like a proper chase and not like he is baiting the thing, but he does make less effort to muffle his footfalls as he runs.

He also does not give much thought to the direction he is running, which is not so much deliberate as it is a result of the mental fog that comes in the later stages of blood loss. He manages enough thought to ensure he is not doubling back towards Charles and otherwise remains mindless. It is better to be mindless, when he knows he will be caught. (This seems among the most deliberate of all his deaths here, beyond learning that suicide only angered the creature, but it is not the first time he has been drastically injured and longed for the clarity a new body would grant him.)

When the creature finds him this time it does not grace him with those haunting giggles or dreadful cackled laughter. It does not shriek gratingly to announce its presence or mimic his cries of fear. He already knows he is being hunted; this time the fear of which corner it is hiding around seems to be more significant than the echoes of it trailing tauntingly close behind him. Edwin turns a corner and, despite his conviction to shed this body for a new one, cannot stop his feet from skidding to a stop at the sight of the beast. Half it’s legs are resting on the wall, it’s body askew as numerous haunting eyes stare him down.

He swallows down the fear. He swallows down the shout of alarm. He swallows down the slowly numbing pain shooting up his right arm. He remembers Charles.

He cannot make this too easy.

Edwin turns and starts running back the direction he’d come from. It is not difficult. Pure terror carries his footsteps. Now the dolls shriek and cackle at him as the thing gives chase. Despite his conviction, despite the pain, despite the fuzziness of his mental faculties at the moment, Edwin does not want to die. He never truly does, when the moment comes, no matter how much he may wish for it at other times.

He runs and the thing chases and it is something that has happened too many times already.

He is tired and he hurts as he runs, cannot even swing his right arm alongside him as he usually does without sending stabbing pain shooting through him. He doesn’t bother to stop the tears from bubbling up. A sob escapes his throat. Sometimes, sometimes, if he is not already injured, Edwin can stand or sit or curl up into a very still ball and not make a sound, not a whimper, not a cry, not a whisper, and the beast will pass him by. It will clatter on past him without so much as a look in his direction. Edwin does not even know if it can really see, if hearing is the sense that it relies on most or if this is just one of the rules of its games and it is willing to let Edwin play along.

It doesn’t matter this time. He is injured. The chase has begun. There is only one way this ends, now.

The blood loss catches him before the creature does. He stumbles and falls to his knees. Fortune is with him again, as much fortune as one can have in Hell. He lands on his left knee first, joint cracking hard against the concrete, and his left shoulder follows it to the ground. He is spared the agony of his right shoulder or what is left of his right wrist hitting anything once more, manages to turn and curl onto his left side for a moment.

He does try to get up, does try and remember Charles and the reason he’d chosen to run rather than hide. But he does little more than get to his knees, right wrist cradled protectively to his chest, before the creature catches hold of him.

It grabs his right ankle and tugs. Edwin is not fortunate a third time. His knees are pulled out from under him and he falls forward onto the pavement below. His severed wrist makes contact with the ground. A scream erupts from Edwin’s mouth without his consent even as his left hand plants on the ground firm enough to prevent him from breaking his nose. The pain causes him to white out for a moment, vision going. Blinking returns the sight of the ground in front of him only a second before the creature strikes again.

There is another tugging at his right ankle, different this time. A clamped sensation just above the joint. A hard press – Edwin screams again as his ankle is bitten off. He collapses fully onto the floor, only just managing to roll onto his left side as he sobs.

Charles, he thinks to himself. He holds onto the name, the memory of the other boy’s face, lets it consume him. He thinks of nothing else but Charles. Charles is the only thing that matters now. This isn’t for nothing. For the first time, Edwin’s death will mean something. He holds onto that, with everything he has.

With another ragged scream, Edwin reaches out with his left hand and drags himself forward. The beast is busy chewing on his severed foot and knows he will not get far anyway. Edwin can feel the blood leaking from his torn shin. He cannot see very well, and it is not just the tears that blur his sight.

Charles, he thinks again, desperately, and wonders for a moment why. Who is Charles again? It doesn’t matter. He drags himself further, and up, up, up, until he is braced shakily on his left hand and left knee. He barely has the presence of mind to keep his right wrist from dragging on the ground. His right knee does not want to take any weight. He forces it to, forces himself to shuffle forward, right knee, left knee, left hand, and again, right knee, left knee, left hand.

He manages three repetitions before his strength gives out. The creature, still gnawing on his foot, giggles behind him. It is a distant, faint sound, nevermind their proximity. Edwin is no longer cognizant enough to realize that the blood loss is doing him in. Even terror and pain are fading from his reach. Death, he knows, is imminent. He hopes… there’d been something he’d been doing, hadn’t there been? Something he’d meant to achieve. He hopes he’d managed it.

The beast looms over him. His blood is splattered over the mandibles in front of his face. They latch onto Edwin’s tourniquet-bound right bicep. There is a pinch – there is agony, bright, blinding, brilliant agony – and Edwin dies.

Chapter Text

The clarity of a new body after a slower death – after the slow deterioration of blood loss – is always a wonderful shock. Edwin comes back to himself with a gasp and an aborted scream, still caught up in the throes of his last death. Charles, he remembers with renewed clarity. He’d left Charles.

But of course, there’d been little choice in the matter. He hadn’t been looking for somewhere to hide when he’d met Charles, after all, he’d been looking for somewhere small to tuck himself into. The chances of finding a place narrow enough to hide away both him and Charles from the creature’s reach after being delayed by Sa’al had been slim even in a place where fortune was already predisposed against him. No, addled though he might have been at the time, he’d made the right choice, hiding the other boy and separating the two of them. Now he simply needs to find him again. (Death here is only ever a matter of when and how, and it feels… nice, to have some control over that. To get a chance to choose. To die for a reason.)

He'd given the beast a good death, he thinks. Kept it busy, kept it occupied. It is likely still munching on his last corpse given the way it had been going at him. That will hold it over for a time. Probably not long enough to plan another escape, not given that he has much to explain to Charles, but enough that he can probably move the other boy to another hiding place if necessary before returning to the halls himself. (He does not know yet, if staying together means Charles is more or less likely to be caught, but he is leaning towards more likely and would like to do his best to prevent that.)

Edwin strides forward quickly, grateful for the easy way his feet meet the pavement, the clarity in his vision as he casts his gaze ahead for obstacles that might impede him. There is little to be grateful for in Hell and he has certainly spent his fair share of time despairing over his many deaths, over the fact that he is capable of dying ad nauseam. It would have been so much simpler if he’d been limited to a single death, would have saved him this endless realm of pain and despair. But regaining clarity of mind after losing it is something Edwin almost always feels grateful for. His mind is the one thing he has left to him.

Even so, he is not saved. Not yet, and if he wishes to be he must put in the work himself.

First, Charles.

It is a simple enough matter to track the other boy down. Edwin’s memory of stashing him is fuzzy but not enough to impede him significantly. He slips into the room silently, barely cracking the door open, and almost panics for a moment when he does not catch sight of the other boy. Were his efforts for naught? Had the creature tired of devouring his last corpse already and come for Charles?

But, no, he realizes with relief, turning at movement in the corner of his eye. Charles has merely taken his command to hide well, tucking himself small and into a corner. He’s straightening now, pulling his head off of where it was resting on his arms, and Edwin hurries that way just in case he has somehow forgotten Edwin’s other command to be quiet.

“The creature should be distracted for some time,” he tells the other boy, falling to a kneeling position in front of him, sitting on his feet. He knows Charles does not know what the creature is, has not seen it yet – it is beyond ridiculously optimistic to hope that he never will; Edwin will only be able to protect him for a short time, no matter that he intends to draw it out as much as possible – but the explanation will come in time. First, the need for silence. “Even so,” he continues, “silence is paramount. We may speak, but quietly.”

Charles gives a small nod. His eyes flicker up and down Edwin’s form. He looks confused. Tired. Sad. Like despair is trying to get its hooks into him too.

“You’re, you said you were Edwin, right, Edwin Payne?”

Introductions seem like a waste of time; there is so much to tell Charles about where he has found himself. Edwin ignores the question.

“This location in Hell is known as the Dollhouse,” he says. “Your soul has been traded to the creature that holds dominion here.”

“Hold up.” Charles straightens, eyes widening, pulling his back away from the wall. “What the hell happened to your hand? And your fucking clothes?”

The profanity passes right over Edwin’s head as he looks to stare down at his hands. They look perfectly fine to him – Ah. Yes. He’d been missing one of them, the last time he and Charles had spoken. And his clothes, they are as fresh as this body, not yet covered in filth and blood. He’d long since stopped noticing anything about the state of his dress.

Edwin hesitates. Something in him, some sense of propriety, of morality, left over from his time on Earth, whispers that he should be coddling this boy. Despite his presence here, despite the horrors that he has already seen, Charles is not yet tainted by Hell. Edwin has already expended great effort to protect him from the worst of it; he is well aware that Charles could use a kind word, a kind hand, a gentle touch.

Edwin is not kind though, and he is certainly not gentle. If he ever was, Hell had torn such traits from him. He knows he can only protect Charles for so long. But lying to him about what happens here does not feel as though it would be kind anyway. Edwin thinks it would be cruel to reassure Charles only for the boy to later find out the truth the hard way.

Even so, he cannot bring himself to voice the whole of the truth and he knows it is not kindness or morality that stays his tongue – it is only Edwin’s own deficiencies, and these not even Hell-forged.

“The body resets, here,” he says, which is not a lie and does not even begin to hint at the full truth. “It allows for the tortures to begin anew.”

Charles blanches. Edwin prepares himself for the vomit but does not move back – what is bile, in a place like this? Charles manages to catch himself anyway, though the sick look does not leave his face.

“The body… resets?” he asks, disgusted.

Edwin purses his lips. There is not the time for this. His voice finds the words before his brain realizes. “I was killed,” he says, sharp and bland and still quiet, because being quiet matters above all else, here. “I have a new body. I will get another in time, and so will you. That is simply the way of things. May we move on to more pertinent details?”

It is not kind. It is, in fact, cruel, and Edwin regrets his words almost immediately. Worse than the feeling of regret, however, is the motivation behind the regret. He does not regret the cruelty so much as he does the delay that he knows his words will cause, Charles already beginning to panic again. At least he does so quietly, breathing picking up only slightly. Edwin casts an anxious glance toward the door.

“You died?!” Charles squeaks out. It is clear he is still trying to be quiet, but the exclamation comes out high-pitched and therefore too loud.

Edwin moves without thought. He shuffles forward, wraps one hand around the back of Charles’ head, and presses the other to his mouth. Charles’ skin and lips and hair are warm and soft under his hell-damned hands. The only human contact Edwin has had here in Hell has been the clawing, grasping hands of the other damned souls in Gluttony and Lust and Avarice and… 

And touching Charles is not like that. It does not hurt. There is no blood, no filth, no menace in the action, no threat in it. Edwin is the one choosing to make contact here, and it is not like when he dragged Charles along to this room, distracted by the situation at hand. Charles is present and real and Edwin is touching him of his own volition and it does not hurt and there is no time for that either!

“Yes, I died!” Edwin hisses out. “Please, panic if you must but do so quietly!”

Charles’ lips are wet beneath Edwin’s palm. Edwin can feel it when the other boy swallows, the motion of his head, the slight flexing of his mouth and jaw. He is cradling Charles’ head in his hands, and he cannot panic about it because if they are both panicking then Charles is sure to die sooner rather than later. And he cannot let go either, because Charles’ eyes are still wide and his chest still heaving and Edwin cannot let him make a sound because that would have the same effect as them both panicking.

He is holding Charles’ head in his hands. His knees are pressed up against Charles’ thigh, in his efforts to get closer to the other boy. His left arm, the hand that holds Charles’ lips closed, is hovering above Charles’ knees, and he is oh so careful not to let his elbow drop onto the other boy and it is all by Edwin’s own choice, all Edwin’s decision to reach out and make contact.

Oh goodness! There is a human soul trapped in this madhouse with Edwin, and Edwin is touching him, and it does not hurt, but it will hurt shortly, when he has to watch Charles be torn apart for the first time.

Edwin has to blink hard to keep the tears from his own eyes and there is a moment, held between them in silence, his hand to Charles’ lips, Charles’ eyes fastened to his head, where they are both panicking together, chests heaving in unison.

Edwin gets a hold of himself first, draws in a deep breath, and then another. His eyes clear. He meets Charles’ gaze.

“Can I trust you to remain quiet?”

Charles swallows again – Charles swallows again, lips twitching, a slight expanding of his cheeks and Edwin feels everything, every movement, every soft bit of Charles’ mouth and chin and cheekbones, gentle and painless – and nods.

Slowly, carefully, watching and assessing the other boy, Edwin pulls his hand off Charles’ mouth. When Charles does not make a sound, he removes his other hand from the back of Charles’ head and sits back on his heels again. He does not mourn the loss of contact. He does not linger over the wetness still on his palm.

“I do not know if the creature here hunts entirely by sound,” he says, continuing his earlier explanations, “but it is attracted to sound nevertheless. You must be as quiet as possible while here. Do you understand?” He does not mention there is opportunity to be as loud as one wishes at times; said opportunity only arises when Edwin is already in the beast’s grasp. Then, he can scream as loud as he wants, and it does not matter. He is already dead, after all, if the beast is that close.

“Yeah,” Charles manages to say. It is clear he is still near to panic. He has had less time to adjust than Edwin had. Edwin had already been used to Hell, when he had been traded to the Dollhouse. Charles…

Edwin studies him. “Sa’al,” he says. “Is he the only demon you have seen thus far?”

Charles gives a silent nod.

Edwin does not know if it is a good thing or not. It means Charles has been spared, thus far. It means Charles is nowhere near ready for what will come next.

“And you died recently?”

“Yeah,” Charles says. “Last night. Or, er, I think?” He casts his gaze about the room, as if looking for a window.

“Time matters not in Hell,” Edwin says, dismissively. It occurs to him, briefly, that he could question Charles further, learn when he died, learn how long it has really been, but… time really is irrelevant, here. He can worry about that once they have escaped. “But you have only been here a short time then?”

Charles nods again. “How long… how long have you been here?”

“I do not know,” Edwin says, and then: “It does not matter,” he adds sharply at Charles’ concerned look.

“There were rumors, at school,” Charles says. “About a boy being sacrificed. But they were never quite clear about who, or when.”

Rumors. That is what Edwin’s life has been reduced to. For a moment, he considers what that must mean – the time that must have passed that all that remains of him at St. Hilarion’s is rumors. Edwin is not under the illusion that he would have left a strong impression, but for even his name and the date of his death to be forgotten… He almost asks Charles about the War, about Britain and the Continent and the state of the world.

But those are Earthly concerns, all of them, and they are in Hell.

“The creature that has us now is not like Sa’al,” he says instead, picking back up his earlier line of conversation. There is so much to tell Charles, and so little time. “It will not grow bored of us. It delights in torture, and pain. It will play games. A head start can be extraordinarily beneficial, but I have not managed to outrun it yet.” He’s close though, he could swear it. (He cannot bear to believe otherwise.) “And it is…” he hesitates, and this time it is not because of any conceit at kindness, or morality, it is simply because the thing is nearly indescribable.

Charles looks sick again. He watches Edwin warily.

“It holds the shape of a spider,” Edwin settles on. “Only a thousand-fold the size of one. Large enough to fill these halls, and tower above you and I were it to straighten to its full height. Its body is made of dolls –”

“Dolls?!” Charles cuts in. He is astonished, but he has the presence of mind to keep quiet. Good.

“Yes,” Edwin says shortly. “This is the Dollhouse. You will find other fragmented doll parts throughout the halls. I do not know if they are pieces of it or merely part of the décor.”

Charles goggles at him. “The décor? Mate, this is, this is…”

“It is a lot of information,” Edwin allows. He casts an anxious glance toward the door. There have been no sounds from the halls, but surely the beast is done with his corpse by now. Will it give chase, or is it satisfied enough from the previous one that there will be a brief lull? Or is it time for another game, a different tactic? Perhaps the thing is lying in wait somewhere.

“I know it is a lot to take in,” he repeats, getting to his feet. He offers a hand to Charles without thinking, already ready to move on, and has to hold back a gasp as Charles takes it, as another hand is clasped in his, as Charles’ fingers make contact with his own. It doesn’t hurt. (Something, someone, is grabbing at him, clutching to him, and it is because Edwin offered, and it does not hurt, and Charles does not drag Edwin to his death.)

Edwin shakes such thoughts from his mind and keeps Charles’ hand in his, tugging the other boy along. “Hell is not kind,” he continues. “It is not interested in giving you the time you need to process your thoughts. Come, we should move to another hiding spot.” He casts a glance back at Charles. “We should not speak in the halls,” he decides, “and keep your footfalls as silent as possible.”

Charles gives a shaky nod, but to his credit he lets Edwin tug him along and does not make a sound. His feet are sure and quiet on the floor. Partially due to his bare feet, probably, but he certainly seems more fluid than Edwin remembers being when he’d first arrived in the Dollhouse, old and distant though said memories are.

They are not set upon as Edwin takes them down one, two, three turns of the halls. There is a convenient alcove nearby where Edwin has huddled for a time or two after a death, a ledge that would be a window ledge in any Earthly structure, big enough to hold the both of them, but it is not secluded enough for the conversations that still await them. He leads them further, past another two turns, before he spies another door. This one leads to little more than a broom closet – they will have to be close, inside – but that is doable. Perhaps the proximity will help keep Charles quiet.

Edwin leads them to another room in these endless halls, his strides sure and confident and just fast enough that Charles has to put in the effort to keep up. He certainly seems to know where he’s going, which is good because everything here looks the same to Charles. This time, he doesn’t have to let go of Charles to open the door because this time he has both hands. Because he died. And came back, apparently, with both hands, and a new body to be tortured.

Charles really doesn’t want to lose either of his hands still, but at least if he does, he’ll get them back, right? That has to be a plus, doesn’t it? No permanent mutilation?

He’s not sure how well the optimism is working. Edwin doesn’t seem bothered by it, the whole death thing, though, so maybe Charles shouldn’t be either. He’s really trying hard not to be, but it turns out it’s bloody difficult to suppress any negative feelings and put on a smile for the lads when you’re in Hell and instead of the lads it’s just one guy who’s probably been here for decades and is kind of stern and commanding and the only solid rock in the rough current that’s swept Charles up so he’s clinging to it as strong as he can and wow that metaphor got away from him.

He's still holding Edwin’s hand. (Edwin’s holding his hand this time, instead of just pulling him about by the wrist the way that demon had done. Charles doesn’t blame him for that first time, now that he knows Edwin’s died between now and then, and the boy was missing a fucking hand then besides, which could rattle anyone, even if it hadn’t outwardly seemed to have rattled Edwin.) Charles is really grateful for the handholding. He doesn’t want to let go, so he’s glad Edwin doesn’t have to to open this door in front of them.

He's glad Edwin has two hands again too, even though he really doesn’t want to think about the process involved behind that.

The door this time leads to a closet instead of a room, a tiny thing that Edwin presses them into before shutting the door behind them. There’s no light inside, and it takes Charles a moment in the dark to realize Edwin is taking a seat on the ground. He’s still holding Charles’ hand, so Charles follows. They take seats against opposite walls from each other, legs bent, knees knocking in the middle; Edwin’s taken the front, closer to the door. Somewhere in the process they let go of each other’s hands. Squeezed sideways between Edwin and the back wall though, his back to the sidewall, in the dark, with only a sliver of greenish light slipping through under the door, it’s not so bad.

Still Hell and all, but not so bad. Edwin’s warm and steadfast. Charles is really really grateful he’s not alone in all this. He probably should be sorry about that, but he’s not. If he had to wind up in Hell – and why on Earth did he have to wind up in Hell, what kind of prank was that, mimicking the sacrifice that had gotten Edwin killed all those years ago? – he’s kind of glad there’s someone there with him. He shouldn’t be, but he is.

His mind cycles through everything Edwin’s already told him. Be quiet seems to be the main thing. He’s probably going to be hunted for sport, tortured, and killed; that’s probably the next most important. The thing that’s going to do the hunting is a giant spider made of baby dolls – that one still seems surreal to him. (As if every aspect of Hell, even Edwin, hasn’t been surreal thus far.)

“Not all is hopeless,” Edwin says, and Charles starts. He hadn’t forgotten Edwin was there, exactly, but he’d been lost in thought. “The Dollhouse seems to be in the middle realms of Hell, near as I can tell. I believe I’m close to figuring a way out.”

Charles blinks, nevermind that there’s nothing to see here in the dark. “Out of, out of the Dollhouse?” he asks, scarcely daring to believe that Edwin could mean otherwise.

“Out of Hell,” Edwin says, matter of fact, as if it’s just that simple.

Ah, yes, Hell, known for eternal damnation, that famously inescapable pit? Yes, that one – the exit’s that way. Charles has only just reconciled the existence of Hell in his mind and now Edwin’s telling him there’s a way out. Charles can’t help but wonder if this is common knowledge, if any soul can just wander around until they find the door back to Earth. That doesn’t seem likely. Especially not with how long he suspects Edwin’s been here. He still doesn’t know the exact year of Edwin’s sacrifice, but between Edwin’s underclothes and the way the lads had talked about the rumors he can gather an estimate. Fifty years, at a minimum. (God, it hasn’t even been a day. Charles doesn’t think he could handle decades of this.)

The memory of Edwin’s hand against his mouth – firm but not harsh – thankfully keeps him from letting out a startled exclamation. “Out of Hell?” he asks quietly instead, in a furious whisper.

There is a pregnant pause. Charles wishes into the silence that he could see Edwin’s expression right now.

“I believe so,” Edwin finally says, even more hushed than before. “But I… I do not want to get your hopes up. The route is treacherous, and I have not reached its end. It is possible that I am incorrect, but… I do not plan to remain here, even if Earth is not the end destination.”

Charles is fully aware that he is gaping. What a day. What a fucking day. Sacrificed to a demon by accident in place of the boy he’d been trying to protect, shoved into a cage in Hell for a few hours by said demon who’d been quick to moan about all the effort it took to keep a human soul, and now this. Edwin. Edwin, his predecessor, the boy whose sacrifice had inspired his own, who tells him he might have found a way out of the Hell Charles only just found out was real.

“I would take you with me, of course,” Edwin says, and Charles realizes he was silent for too long.

“You found a way out of Hell?” he asks again. “That’s, mate, that’s brilliant.”

“Yes, well.” Edwin seems uncomfortable with the compliment. “As I said, the route is not complete.”

That there’s the possibility of a route is enough for Charles. More than enough! “Well, what do we have to do to finish it?”

There is another pause. Charles had forgotten, for a moment, that this is Hell. He remembers that with sinking dread now, and the way Edwin had said the route was treacherous. He has a feeling he’s not going to like the answer.

“I do not think now is a good time to try for it,” Edwin says, carefully, slowly. “I am uncertain as to how well the beast knows it now has two souls to hunt, and how it might react to that. And in any case, I normally make an attempt immediately after a death, while it is still distracted. The distractions do not usually last this long.”

Charles is right. He doesn’t like the answer. He’s not an idiot: he can understand what Edwin isn’t saying. Edwin normally ‘made an attempt’ after dying, except this time he’d come straight to Charles, explained things to him, re-hid him, and then explained things some more. But, if they don’t have the time to try for this miraculous escape now, then…?

“What happens next then?” Charles asks hesitantly. He doesn’t think he’ll like this answer either.

The faint sound of Edwin shifting reaches his ears. The pressure of Edwin’s right knee against his own evaporates. Edwin has stood, Charles realizes after a moment. He tenses where he still sits.

“Remain here,” Edwin says. “When I return… when I return, be ready to run.”

“Wait!” Charles gropes around blindly, but he can’t find Edwin’s ankles to grab onto. Edwin waits anyway. “I want to help.”

“This is not something you can help with,” Edwin says, stern. “Please, remain here and remain quiet.” Charles isn’t sure if he’s imagining the tremor in Edwin’s voice or not.

Edwin doesn’t wait again. He opens the door – Charles blinks at the influx of light – then slips out into the hall and closes the door behind him.

Charles thinks he’s shaking. He wants to get up, wants to follow Edwin out into the corridors of Hell, and he also very much does not want to do that. He feels like a coward. He feels like he’s being very reasonable, staying put, and that Edwin is the irrational one. God – because God’s probably real too, if Hell is – he’s in Hell. It doesn’t feel real.

He wants Edwin back, wants the solidness and surety of Edwin’s voice. He really shouldn’t have let Edwin go off to do whatever he’s doing alone.

A giggle echoes faintly through the hallway outside. Charles jumps and presses his own hand to his mouth, remembering when Edwin had done so for him. If he wasn’t shaking before, he’s definitely shaking now. He draws his knees up closer to him and hugs his shins and weeps.

At least he’s got practice keeping his tears quiet, he thinks darkly to himself, and waits again for Edwin to come back for him.

Edwin does not have a plan, leaving Charles behind, only a thought: better me than him. The creature will catch one of them in time. Better that it not be Charles. Edwin is used to it by now. (It’s a lie, it’s a lie, it’s a lie. Edwin will never be used to it. His new body isn’t in pain yet and he doesn’t want to be. It’s just that it doesn’t matter what he wants. It never has.)

He walks at first, slow and careful and quiet, and begins to pick up the pace the further he gets from the closet. He cannot simply run toward the beast. That is too suspicious, too close to suicide. But it has been a long time since he has wandered these halls aimlessly; he’s too familiar with them by now.

He could fake a fit of despair, curl up in an open corner somewhere and silently weep. He has broken enough times in the past for such an action to not seem so unexpected, taken a death or three to do nothing but sob and feel sorry for himself before getting back to his feet and trying again. Only, Edwin has never been much of an actor and he does not feel he could fool the creature, even if the tears are always ready to come forth. So that is not an option either.

Hiding himself elsewhere is also fruitless. It will accomplish nothing and the creature would have an equal chance of locating him or Charles, so, in fact, it might end up accomplishing the opposite of what he wants, if he is unlucky. He is nearly always unlucky, in Hell.

In the end, he decides simply to attempt an escape. It feels… slimy, to attempt to do so while Charles sits in that closet, waiting for him to return, but it is the most practical option. It is what Edwin has been doing for some time, so if the beast that hunts him has any form of cognizant thought it will not seem too strange. And he already knows he has delayed too long, so it’s not as if he will actually get far. Still, it is difficult, more difficult than he thought it would be, to make his way toward the Dollhouse’s exit.

He doesn’t get that far. In fact, he doesn’t get far at all. A giggle echoes close behind him – too close – and terror shoots through Edwin’s heart, the same way it always does. He knows what that giggle means. He has been spotted. He takes off at a run, back to the mindless creature he himself always becomes when chased. Thoughts of the exit are still strong, but running away is always more important when being chased than running toward anything. (Edwin never wants to die.) Escape is not an option at the moment regardless. There is no need to add the mess of Gluttony or Lust to this death; the chance of making it further than that is next to none.

His feet pound against the concrete. The creature skitters behind him. It grabs him by the middle this time before he gets more than a few meters and carries him off. Back to one of its nests, most likely, one of those cavernous rooms that holds piles of him already. Edwin squirms in its hold; his arms are free this time and he pushes at the mandibles around his midsection. The grip isn’t too tight this time – there’s no pain yet – even as the creature hurries through the corridors.

They take a turn. The creature moves up the wall instead of staying on the floor. Edwin feels the dizzying rush of blood to his head as he is flipped upside down as the beast decides to scuttle along the ceiling for a moment. He pushes again at the mandibles and…

With a sickening thud he drops from its hold. He’s mostly sideways when it happens, so he doesn’t fall headfirst to the unforgiving ground, but his skull still impacts the concrete anyway, after his hip and shoulder take the brunt of the fall. The spike of pain shoots through his temple but Edwin ignores it. It’s not bad enough for a concussion; he’s already scrambling to his feet.

Even after all this time, Edwin is still uncertain if the creature sometimes drops him as part of its fun or if he sometimes genuinely manages to get away. It doesn’t really matter. The end result is always the same.

And still, he runs, a limping, staggering thing, for the first few steps, pushing through the pain in his hip from the fall and then picking up speed only once he has done so. He does not imagine he’ll get far this time. The beast had toyed with him injured last time and he is not even bleeding this time so –

Edwin lets out a shrill, piercing scream. The mandibles have grabbed him again, higher on his chest than last time, tighter than before. He feels his ribs crack at the same time he hears them fracture and knows they are not just broken but pulverized. The pain is breathtaking, agonizing, excruciating. The scream tapers off only because the pain truly is breathtaking, the shattered fragments of his ribs piercing into his lungs and other organs, the mandibles squeezing tighter and compressing his chest.

Edwin’s vision whites out. He wheezes. He can feel the tears running down his cheeks. And then he can’t feel anything anymore.

Chapter Text

There’s silence for too long, after Charles hears the giggle. And then – and then there’s a scream, long and shrill and piercing before it cuts out. It hadn’t been a scream of fear or terror or alarm. No, that had been a scream of pain – of agony.

Edwin’s scream, Charles realizes with a sick feeling in his gut. He almost scrambles out of the closet at the sound of it, nevermind his own fear. Only Edwin’s calm certainty upon his departure keeps him in place. “Remain here,” the other boy had said firmly, “and remain quiet.”

Charles owes it to him to listen. Edwin knows how this place works. Edwin knows what he’s doing. (He has to.)

Edwin is in a hallway not far from Charles, probably dying and definitely in horrible pain. The bile rises in Charles’ gut, up his esophagus, but it does not get all the way to his mouth. He swallows it down, gasping, and keeps his breath as quiet as possible as he nearly hyperventilates.

Remain here. Remain quiet.

He repeats it to himself like a mantra. Edwin knows what he’s doing – he has to, Charles has to believe it, because if it isn’t true, if Edwin is just as lost as him, then, then…

It doesn’t bear thinking about. Edwin will come back, Charles reassures himself. He will. He’d promised.

Edwin does come back. He opens the closet door with the same care he’s opened every door thus far, slow and quiet and cautious, like there could be anything behind it. In this instance, it’s just Charles, relieved, terrified Charles, who can’t help but smile up at his savior even as he shakes.

The other boy looks the same as he had when he’d left: mostly clean, no blood covering him, no injuries. There’s no hint of pain in his expression, just a little exhaustion as his chest heaves with the effort of having run recently. There’s no hint of whatever had caused him to scream like that, the most awful, gut-wrenching sound Charles has ever heard, and he’s counting the slap of his father’s belt.

“Come,” Edwin says, in what Charles is taking to be his usual hushed and commanding tone.

He reaches out a hand and Charles takes it, grateful, lets the other boy’s strength be what pulls him to his feet on trembling legs. Edwin hesitates a moment, eyes flickering up and down Charles’ form. There must be tear tracks still on his face, his eyes must be red, but Edwin says nothing.

Edwin has not once asked if he is alright. He has not stopped to check to see if Charles is injured (though he’s not), nor has he really given Charles time to introduce himself or ask his questions. He’s left Charles behind twice now, huddled and terrified in these dark corners of Hell. Every time he tells Charles to do something it is a command, not a suggestion: he has ordered Charles quiet a dozen times, dragged him through the halls twice without explanation.

And yet. And yet he’d left Charles to walk to his own death, to die so that Charles wouldn’t. He’d promised to come back, and he had, both times. He’s offering Charles a way out.

Edwin is blunt and strict and harsh, and still, now, he does not ask if Charles is alright, but his concern for Charles is etched into every line of his body; it isn’t the words he’s spoken that Charles has latched onto, it’s his actions. Like the way he does not let go of Charles’ hand as he tugs him out of the closet. Like the way he keeps Charles close to him as they venture forth and gives him time to build up to a run slowly instead of breaking out into a sprint immediately.

Charles clings to him like a life preserver. He doesn’t want to think of what would happen were he to let go. He’s in Hell, and already the small part of it he’s seen seems vast and incomprehensible. If he were to lose Edwin, he knows he’d be lost in more ways than one. So, he doesn’t try to chat properly, because Edwin told him to be quiet, and he doesn’t fight back against being pulled along, because Edwin came back for him, and he lets Edwin lead him into the unknown, into corridors that could lead anywhere, hold any horror, because Edwin has died for him. Twice now, he’s pretty sure. (That scream! It lingers in Charles’ memory no matter how much he longs to forget it.)

Charles doesn’t even know this boy, but he knows there had never been anyone in his life who cared about him this much.

Too long, Edwin’s thoughts scold him as they run. You took too long. He ignores it, and the dread that builds in his gut because of it. The closet he’d hid Charles in had been a more than adequate hiding spot, but it hadn’t been close to the Dollhouse’s exit. It’d taken time, to return to Charles after his death and then backtrack to the way out. Precious, valuable time, which the creature might use to tire of his corpse. He has given the thing two bodies to toy with in short succession, but even that does not feel like enough.

As he tugs Charles through the Dollhouse’s exit, as he moves with his shoulder to shove aside the claw machine in the first room past his captor’s domain, his stomach roils. He has the terrible, guilty feeling that this escape will not be enough either, but he still must try. He has Charles with him now.

He tugs the other boy into the room dedicated to the sin of gluttony. Charles stumbles to a halt, looking sick at the sight. Edwin knows it is a rational reaction. He knows the first time he reached this room he was caught here, struck nauseous at the sights in front of him, covered in food and sick by the time the creature got to him, trying to shake the souls from their stupor. Charles deserves to feel things fully, as much as he needs. Charles deserves a lot of things he will not get in Hell, a lot of things Edwin has longed for but never gotten – he can have a dozen panic attacks on Earth, if needs must, they both can, only first Edwin must get them there.

He tugs. He pulls, hard, fingers tight against Charles’ own, an iron grip he refuses to release, and he tugs Charles through the writhing mess of bodies. Gluttony is an easier room than Lust will be, but even so they are taking too long.

Charles stumbles, nearly taking Edwin down with him. Reaching out a hand to steady himself he places it in a pile of puke and gives a sharp shriek of alarm that is in no way quiet. Despair spikes through Edwin, far stronger than any disgust he feels despite the fact that Charles’ stumble has thrown Edwin into one of the gluttonous souls. Cake is smeared down Edwin’s unfettered arm. The soul he stumbles into looks up at him, interested for a moment, a spark of life in her eyes.

Edwin ducks away, holding back tears. They will not make it now. They surely will not make it. He will die, and worse than that failure alone is the knowledge that he has failed Charles. He still has to try.

He pulls Charles to his feet again and forces his way through the mass of bodies. It is more difficult now. He and Charles are both covered with gluttony’s excesses, catching the attention of the other souls. One tries to lick at Edwin’s shoulder, lunging with desperation. Charles is little help, barely on his feet. He is wide-eyed and clearly nauseous, barely holding it together. They will not make it now.

Edwin pulls Charles into the next room, the one filled with the sin of lust, just as cruel laughter echoes behind them. He never understands how the creature makes it into these rooms, with their small doorways, but this is Hell and the creature a demon. The logistics of size do not seem to matter much.

He wrenches Charles’ arm, pulling the other boy in front of him, and lets go of his hand. Charles gropes blindly toward him at the loss of contact but Edwin ignores it. There is no need for them both to be caught. He spins Charles around, puts both hands on his back, and shoves.

“Go!” he instructs. There is no need to be quiet now.

Charles stumbles forward, into the mass of bodies.

One of them will be caught. But the fact of the matter is, Edwin has no idea how the beast will react to two souls in front of it. Perhaps it will focus its attention only on one of them and allow the other to escape. It is a lot, to ask for hope in Hell, but Edwin pleads for it anyway, in the recesses of his own mind.

“On the other side of the doorway,” Edwin gasps out, quick as he can, wrenching his leg free from groping, bloody hands, shoving Charles in the direction of the doorway in question, “there will be a lobby. Cut through it diagonally, then up the staircase, fast as you can.”

Charles does not answer. He is trembling beneath Edwin’s shoving hands, crying silent tears. His gaze flickers about the room, horrified by everything his eyes land on. He is taking too long, he is moving too slowly, and he deserves this breakdown, but he might also very well die because of it. Edwin resolves not to let that happen, but Edwin has resolved not to let a lot of things happen, in Hell, and he has never once gotten what he wanted.

It is too late, anyway. Edwin slips on the floor, slick with blood and other fluids. His hands leave Charles and he is pulled under the mass of writhing bodies. He struggles against the holds, which seem determined to pull him in every direction but don’t have the strength the creature has to actually rend him limb from limb. He winces away from the touches, which grope and prod and poke, touching him above his clothes and reaching around them best the souls can. Fingers find his bare ankle. A hand, slick and warm and revolting, latches onto his collarbone, stretches further, reaches down under his nightclothes.

Edwin gives a shriek of alarm. Charles does too, somewhere above him. Edwin fights back. He bites the hand that tries to caress his cheek, surging upward above the crowd, pulling his head free enough only to determine that Charles is still standing.

“Charles, run!” he roars, hating every inch of the hands on him, the filth now covering his body, the awful inspection of his flesh being carried out by too many people.

It is too late.

The creature is there, looming over Charles. No, Edwin thinks, desperate. No. Not that. He’d worked so hard to spare Charles from that. He lets out a cry of alarm (ignores the pain of his ankle being twisted the wrong way in someone’s grasp, ignores the violation of the fingers which have latched onto his waistband, ignores the hook someone has stabbed into his side, as if to string him up with the slabs of meat).

It is not enough. Edwin is not enough. He never has been. The hands pull him under again. He does not see Charles get carried away, only hears it, only hears the shrill scream of terror fade out with the scuttling sound of the creature’s legs, as Charles is dragged back to the Dollhouse and Edwin is dragged under.

The terror of being caught by this thing, this creature, this beast – this literal demon from Hell – is enough that Charles doesn’t really remember being carried back to the Dollhouse. Edwin had described the thing clinically: big, like a spider, made of dolls. He was technically accurate, but the thing carrying Charles defies description. The way it sounds, the way it moves, the feel of its grip tight around his waist…

Charles is sobbing, he knows he is. He can’t think straight. He can’t think about anything.

His head bangs against a wall as they scurry past it, and the sharp pain of it is actually a relief – for but a fraction of a second. It grounds Charles for a moment, brings him back to reality, only for him to realize that he very much does not want to return to reality. He’ll take the mindless, blathering idiot he’d been a moment ago over this frightened boy who knows he’s about to die.

It's going to hurt. If Edwin’s earlier scream is any indication, it’s going to hurt a lot. He sobs. The creature keeps moving, unbothered by it. Charles pounds uselessly at the limbs holding him, trying to fight back. God, he doesn’t want to die – but he’s already dead, isn’t he? The sacrifice has been made. His mates killed him. He’s stuck in Hell, except for a moment there he’d had hope of escaping.

There’s a way out. He latches onto that thought, heading pounding, heart rabbiting in his chest. Edwin knows the way out.

God, Edwin! Charles is going to die, and it doesn’t even matter because he isn’t saving Edwin with his death, the way Edwin had saved Charles. (The blood in that room, the sight of Edwin being pulled under the writhing masses…) He’s going to die, and it’s going to hurt, and then he’s just going to have to sit there and do nothing, useless, because he doesn’t know his way around these halls like Edwin does.

He lets out a scream of rage and tries harder to free himself. The thing holding him does not even seem to notice.

Part of Charles wishes Edwin had told him more about dying. About what happens afterward. About how the body resets. The rest of him is glad he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to think about it.

Man up! His dad’s words, harsh and scolding, ring through his mind. Don’t be such a pussy!

Charles blinks and pounds again at the grip on his waist. He’s trying, he is, he is, he promises, even as the tears stream down his face. It’s just, this is Hell. It’s literal, actual Hell! Inescapable torment, inescapable torture. What can Charles do, in the face of that?

He remembers Edwin again. Remembers Edwin’s steadfastness in the face of his own death. Remembers Edwin’s resolve. Edwin’s died twice already, in the short time Charles has known him, and he’s come back each time.

Charles will get through this. He’ll die, and it’ll hurt and be awful, but it’ll only be pain. He’s handled pain before. (Not like this, never like this!) He’ll die, and he’ll come back, and Edwin’ll find him again, because Edwin’s going to come back too, and they’ll get on with the escape plan. It’ll be alright, he thinks – right before he’s tossed into a wall.

He lands on the edge of a pile of bodies, cooling corpses that still aren’t as bloody as the bodies in that blasted room had been. His hand reaches out to steady himself and he levers himself upright only to stare into Edwin’s eyes. This is, this is…

Charles has held it in for so long. He can’t hold it in anymore. The vomit surges out of him, nothing but bile, acid scorching his throat. He retches, still sobbing. Edwin doesn’t look right, dead. There’s no life in his eyes, no spark of determination. It’s wrong. It’s wrong and it’s awful and it’s dreadful, and every other synonym Charles can think of, but it doesn’t matter. Edwin finds a way to push past it. Charles can too.

Chittering reminds him he’s not alone. A grip tugs at his ankle, dragging Charles away from the wall, then lets him go again. Charles isn’t sure what for. He staggers to his feet, every inch of him, inside and out, aching. His lungs heave for breath and his head pounds with pain and his eyes blur with tears. His throat feels scraped raw, his feet hardened and filthy by their attempted escape. There’re still remnants of bile not his own on one hand from the room with all the food. Blood on his pants, from the room with the writhing bodies on the floor and the meat hanging from the ceiling.

He swallows, trying to get the taste of his own bile out of his mouth, sharp and acidic. His eyes flicker between the thing waiting for him and the pile of Edwin’s corpses. It hasn’t killed him yet. Why hasn’t it killed him yet?

It dances out of reach, skittering, giggling. Its wild, seemingly random movements take it away from the door. Charles catches a glimpse of the hallways beyond. He has a split second to think, to wonder, but terror still has its grip on him. At the sight of that opening, at the merest glimpse of a possible escape, he bolts.

It is only seconds later, sprinting down the halls, barely able to see straight between the tears and the headache and the fear, that he realizes the truth of things. A hunter, Edwin had called this demon. It’s toying with Charles. It wants to give chase.

Fear floods him even deeper than before, but it’s not enough to convince Charles to stop running even as the sounds of its limbs against the concrete echo behind him. Charles has always been fairly athletic. Sporty. It’s not enough – how could it be, in Hell?

The thing catches him again, throws him against another wall. It chitters and giggles and retreats as Charles gets to his feet, left shoulder aching. He staggers away from it. It lets him.

For a moment, he considers not running again, considers just staying where he is, but the thing shrieks, loud and piercing, and the sound goes straight to Charles’ fight or flight reflex. He bolts, again, and the thing gives chase once more.

It throws him into another wall, retreats. Another. Another. Charles is a mess of aches and pains, no part of him without injury, as he staggers to his feet a fifth time. Adrenaline has abandoned him. Exhaustion has set in. He gets to his feet then slips, falls, lands hard on his hands and knees. He doesn’t have the energy to cry out; the hurt only joins his other pains, indistinguishable.

The thing shrieks again. Charles flinches, claws desperately at the ground, pulls himself to a kneeling position. The thing lunges. Charles’ eyes flash that direction quick enough to see those pincers heading straight for his head.

They move to close. Charles has only the briefest of moments to panic, to widen his eyes, and then Charles isn’t doing anything at all.

When Charles comes back to awareness it takes him a moment to realize he’s in a different place, a different room. He’s upright near one wall, and he blinks at the strange sensation of finding himself already standing. His limbs don’t ache anymore. The headache is gone. The blood and bile from their escape attempt is gone too. He doesn’t feel clean though. He’s not sure he’ll ever feel clean again.

There’s a sound, in the corner. He’s not sure it’s a sound he can describe. He’s very sure it’s not a sound he wants to look at.

A different sound, softer, distracts him thankfully. He turns the other direction, toward the wall on his left, and finds Edwin taking careful steps toward him. He’s trembling, he finds, and it’s a relief to see the other boy, such an achingly wonderful relief. Charles just died (again), but he’s not alone. Edwin’s here (because Edwin died too). Edwin’s here, and he’s taking Charles gently by the wrist, and he’s leading him over to the wall, and he’s helping the both of them take seats on the grimy floor, and Charles nearly cries when the other boy lets go of him.

Charles opens his mouth, hesitates, and turns to look at the room – he means to check if that thing is still here, if it is what is making those horrible, wrenching sounds, if it’s safe to talk at the moment, but he doesn’t get the chance.

Edwin’s hands come up again, harsh and quick. He grabs the sides of Charles’ face and turns it back toward him.

“Do not look,” he whispers, harsh and demanding. “You do not need to see that.”

There’s something unspoken in that. Something about how Edwin knows that, something about how Edwin’s eyes flicker over that way even as he stops Charles from doing so, something about how this boy he hasn’t even physically spent an hour with is protecting him. Something about the decades of torment Edwin must have seen.

Charles chooses not to focus on that. He swallows and nods, and Edwin removes his hands. “So, we can talk, then?” he asks, keeping his voice low and quiet. He misses that pressure that had physically kept him from looking, that touch that was only meant to guard and protect.

Edwin nods in turn. “Do not move too quickly, do not speak too loudly, but yes, we can speak. It is distracted, for a time.”

(Those sounds. Charles knows what has distracted it even as he tries desperately not to think about it.)

He misses the feeling of Edwin’s hands on him. They are huddled on the floor facing each other, each with one shoulder pressed against the wall. Edwin’s knees are folded beneath him as he sits on his heels. His hands are on his knees. Charles is sitting with his feet flat on the floor, knees tucked up to his chin. Without thinking about it – without wondering what Edwin will think about it – he reaches forward and wraps his fingers around Edwin’s wrist.

Charles has always been a tactile sort of guy and right now he needs that. Needs the proof that Edwin is here, is real, the lifeline he’s been since the moment Charles first laid eyes on him.

Edwin flinches a little, at the unexpected grab, eyes widening, but Charles doesn’t let go. He can’t.

“Sorry,” he whispers, desperate and urgent. “Sorry. I just, I can’t…”

The tears are welling again.

Edwin’s free hand moves to cover Charles’ but thankfully doesn’t move to peel him off. Edwin’s forearm beneath his fingers, and Edwin’s fingers wrapped atop his own, ground Charles in a way he desperately needs right now.

“Hush,” Edwin says, half scolding half comfort. “It is, it is fine. It is…” He casts a glance toward those sounds again, and swallows. “I am sorry you had to go through that. Was it… did it at least make it quick?”

Charles remembers the way it had toyed with him, letting him go, watching him run, throwing him into wall after wall. His grip tightens on Edwin’s arm. “Yeah,” he lies, “it was quick.” It’s not really a lie, is it? He hadn’t had his hand torn off like Edwin. There hadn’t been any blood, any open wounds. And the actual death part, he’d barely felt that, right? (He can still remember that brief tightness on his throat, that blinding agony before the world went black. But it’d been quick. That part of it had been quick.) “You?” he finds himself asking.

Edwin swallows. “What you saw are the first two rooms we must pass through to escape,” he says, ignoring the question entirely. “Slowing down draws the attention of the souls trapped there and gives the creature time to catch up. We must be quicker, next time.”

Charles nods, nauseous. It’s nice of Edwin not to say the truth, but it doesn’t stop it from being true. He means that Charles needs to be quicker, next time, of course. Charles was the one who slowed them down. Charles got Edwin – and himself – killed. The tears start to spill over.

Edwin’s hand tightens its grip on Charles’ own. “Enough of that,” he scolds. “Pity will not help us. It was not your fault we were caught – I hid you too far from the exit. I should not have led you forward yet, knowing we were doomed to fail.”

He says the words so matter of fact, the same way he has everything else. As if there’s no question, no doubt, that it was Edwin that got them killed and not Charles. Charles wants to protest on instinct. A soft noise leaves his throat. How can Edwin say that? More importantly, how can Edwin believe that so strongly?

“Hush,” Edwin snaps again, hushed himself, and Charles presses his lips shut.

“Sorry,” he whispers out, barely a breath leaving his lips.

Edwin’s expression softens minutely, though his body language remains tense. “Oh, I am doing this all wrong, aren’t I? It is only, you must understand, it has been so long since I have truly spoken with anyone. How wretched this must be for you.”

There’s more unspoken there. Charles can almost hear the words in Edwin’s voice: how wretched this must be for you, to be stuck here, with me.

The noise of protest almost leaves his throat again, but he swallows it down and fervently shakes his head. He doesn’t think he has the words to explain what Edwin – this stranger, this boy he’s only known for such a short time – means to him, but he tries anyway. “I don’t want to be alone,” he says, desperate and pleading. His grip is tight on Edwin’s arm. “Please. I can’t do this alone.” He doesn’t know how Edwin’s survived it, all these years.

Edwin looks away for a moment, looks toward the sounds in the corner for another, and then, slowly and quietly, shifts his position so he’s sitting like Charles, feet flat on the ground, knees up to his chest.

“Explanations can wait,” he says. “You have, you have just died. The creature is preoccupied. For now, if we do not run, it will not chase.”

Charles offers Edwin a small smile, inordinately grateful to this boy. Silence settles between them, and they sit there in the dark and the damp of Hell, and Charles holds tight to Edwin’s arm and doesn’t let go.

Chapter Text

The silence, unbelievably, astonishingly, lasts. Unlike the last two times Charles got to sit around in silence, he has Edwin, this time. This silence wasn’t won with Edwin’s death (no, just both of theirs). It’s a relief, and it’s a relief to have Edwin’s arm under his hand, the physical contact everything Charles could have wished for. He doesn’t relax – can’t relax – but some of the tension leaves him.

It’s still a struggle, to not look at whatever it is Edwin does not want him to see, so he stares at where his fingers hold Edwin’s wrist, like a child tugging on their mother’s coat, and forces himself to remain still.

However still he is, Edwin is even more so. He barely seems to breathe as they sit there. Charles wonders what he is thinking about. He tries to think up a question, but he’s forgotten everything he’d once wanted to ask. What do the details matter? Everything seems fairly simple to Charles. It’s a one step program, after all: escape Hell. Everything else can wait.

Eventually, the awful sounds from the other side of the room slow and then stop. The skittering sounds of the thing’s movements resume. Charles can’t help himself: he looks up. He blanches, flinching back. The thing is far too close, far too close!

Edwin’s grip on his hand tightens and it is the only thing holding him in place as the creature giggles cruelly, advancing on them. Suddenly all of Charles’ questions are back, at a time when he cannot ask them. He doesn’t need Edwin to tell him to be quiet now.

The thing chitters again, skitters closer. It pokes Edwin with a limb and laughs, high-pitched and awful. Edwin does not react, does not flinch, does not make a sound. His breath does not even hitch in his lungs. When Charles’ eyes flicker to his face, it is as if Edwin is carved in stone.

Charles thinks he knows what’s coming next, thinks the beast will turn its attention to him, but it doesn’t. It pokes Edwin again, harder. There’s an audible exhale as the thing’s large limb shoves into Edwin’s gut, and a grimace crosses Edwin’s face, but he still does not make a sound, does not move.

Charles swallows. He’s crying again but he can’t mess this up for Edwin. He can’t be the one to mess this up again.

More chittering, skittering of the feet. A different limb, this one with tiny baby hands at the end of it, caresses Edwin’s face in a mockery of kindness. Edwin still does not react, not even when the tiny wrist rotates, and the fingers of the hand dig in, and claw marks are raked down Edwin’s jawbone, down the side of his neck, past his collarbone. The blood wells up instantly in the wake of the injury, bright red and viscous. Edwin’s breath hitches. The creature giggles then shrieks, then turns and flees down the hall.

The breath leaves Charles in a rush; he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath so strongly. (If he hadn’t run, earlier, when the beast had first dropped him, if he’d stayed as still and silent as Edwin – would he have died? Would it have still come for him?) He doubles over, nearly hyperventilating for a moment, before he straightens to turn to Edwin. He opens his mouth, eyes drawn to the claw marks oozing blood, but Edwin squeezes his hand. Charles shuts up. Slowly, still without sound, Edwin gets to his feet and leads Charles with him. He tugs them through the halls with ease, slowing to look around each corner, before Charles finally finds himself somewhere he recognizes: the double doors with the exit sign above them.

Edwin pauses here. “Do you remember the way?” he asks in a hushed whisper.

Charles frowns at him. He’d thought… “Your neck,” he says, because Edwin is still bleeding. Shouldn’t they do something about that?

“Charles,” Edwin scolds. “Focus. Through Gluttony, then Lust, then diagonal across the lobby and up the stairs. Do you remember?

“Gluttony, Lust, diagonal and up the stairs,” Charles recites, because this seems to matter to Edwin. “But –”

“Delays will get you caught,” Edwin cuts in. He opens the door and all but shoves Charles through it. “Go!”

Now Charles is properly frozen. He’d… he’d thought they’d been leaving to clean Edwin up or something. Maybe make another escape attempt together but not, not this. Edwin is shoving him out in front as if he isn’t coming with him.

“We’re both getting out of here,” he says, desperate. He’s not exactly being left behind here – the opposite, really – but… He can’t do this without Edwin. He can’t. It’s not as selfless as wanting to save his new friend, though that’s part of it. It’s that Charles is still halfway to drowning and Edwin is the only life preserver in sight. If Edwin lets go, even to shove him toward the shoreline…

Charles won’t make it. He can’t, without Edwin.

“I know the route, I will follow, later,” Edwin hisses through gritted teeth. Blood drips onto the ground at his feet. The red stain on his shirt is slowly spreading.

The thing is, Edwin probably means it. He’d been well on his way to escaping before Charles. There’s no reason he can’t manage on his own perfectly well after Charles is gone. It still feels wrong.

“I’m not leaving you here,” Charles says. God, Edwin’s been doing this for decades. Charles hasn’t even been here a day. If anyone deserves to get out it’s not him.

“Oh, for goodness sakes!” Edwin grabs his arm again and drags him back through the doorway, back to the Dollhouse. “There is no time to argue about this. The next time I tell you to do something,” he says, even as he drags Charles along behind him, “you do it, understand?”

Edwin is yelling at him (albeit quietly). It hasn’t been that long since the first time Edwin had yelled at him, and Charles had thought about his dad. He’s not thinking about his dad now. Edwin’s not yelling at him like that. Edwin’s protecting him, with every drop of blood in his body, and plenty that aren’t in his body anymore besides that. There’s care and concern infused into every ounce of Edwin’s scolding. The usual shame Charles feels when he’s screwed something up, when he isn’t good enough, is nowhere to be found. This, right here? He thinks he’s actually done something right. Edwin doesn’t deserve this, and Charles isn’t leaving him here alone.

Of all the classmates the thuggish schoolboys at St. Hilarion’s – in whatever year it is now – had chosen to sacrifice, it had to have been the most stubborn, foolish, stupid boy Edwin’s ever had the misfortune to encounter. True, he doesn’t remember most of his classmates, but he feels certain that even if he did the point would remain true. Who turns down a chance to escape Hell? What kind of idiot in his right mind would do something like that – and for Edwin, no less?

His anger softens a little, at the thought. Of course Charles isn’t in his right mind. He’s in Hell, terrified out of his mind, and suffering from the after-effects of a horrible death that Edwin had not been able to save him from. Of course Charles isn’t thinking straight! Likely he’d just been doubting in his own abilities to remember the route under pressure, or was scared of facing the lust room again, which was where he’d gotten caught last time.

Except: “I’m not leaving you here,” Charles had said, full of conviction, as if it’s Edwin he’s staying for, not fear that holds him back.

Edwin doesn’t know how to process that. Doesn’t know how to process anyone even thinking about him, let alone thinking about him like that. So he isn’t. Processing, that is. In fact, he’s rather content to pretend the whole affair didn’t happen. Charles is just delirious. He hadn’t meant it. And even if he had… even if he had, which he hadn’t, Hell isn’t the place for such things, such emotions, so it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t.

It can’t.

He zeroes in on an alcove nearest to the exit. It’s not a room, but rooms are few and far between here – if Charles wants to be stupid, Edwin can be stupid too. In fact, he’s rather properly angry at the moment. He’d forgotten what this felt like, this righteous indignation, this stalwart shock, this fury directed at the world. Despair is easier here; anger burns bright but quick. It’s been a long time since Edwin’s been angry.

He's angry now. He shoves Charles into the alcove, then presses down on the boy’s shoulder to get him to sit. “Stay,” he snaps, harsh but still quiet, always quiet, even with this stupid plan running through his mind, even with this stupid anger running through his veins.

Charles sits with a thud even as he blinks up at Edwin. “What? What’re you –?”

“Enough,” Edwin snaps. “Sit there, shut up, and wait for me to return. When I do, you best be ready to run.”

Alarm crosses Charles’ face. He reaches out and grabs Edwin’s wrist. “No, you can’t!”

Edwin wrenches his arm free. It isn’t hard. He’s torn his hand out of the grip of the creature before – literally torn himself free by losing a hand in the process. Breaking Charles’ grip is nothing, compared to that. It doesn’t hurt, after all. Not a fraction of Charles’ touch hurts him, which doesn’t explain the anger coursing through Edwin right now. He doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t have to understand it.

“You do not dictate what I can and cannot do,” he snarls. “We are in Hell. You do not seem to understand that. One cannot simply avoid the tortures because they are unpleasant.”

“But, why can’t we both just…”

Right. Charles still does not understand because Edwin has not explained it to him. Charles is not at fault here. Charles is fresh and new and clueless and stupid, because he’d had the chance to get out and he hadn’t taken it!

“My blood will attract the creature,” he says, short and to the point. “I must be rid of it before we make an attempt. I had tried to get you out, but you seemed insistent on –”

“Shouldn’t we try anyway?” Charles cuts in. “I mean, if you, if you’re so sure that, that…”

Edwin raises an eyebrow. “That I will be caught?” he clarifies dryly.

Charles swallows, nods, and seemingly steels his resolve. “Wouldn’t it be better, to die trying, then, then not?”

“Not if we both would suffer for it,” Edwin snaps back.

“But –”

“Enough. The matter is settled. Wait here. Be ready to run. Or would you rather take the fall on my behalf?” It’s a cruel question. Edwin is the one bleeding. Edwin is the one who would get them caught if they were to make the attempt. Neither of them would stand to gain anything if he sent Charles out to die in his place.

Charles opens his mouth, as if it is a real question he feels compelled to answer.

Edwin spins away before he can fully do so, breaking off into a run with long ease of practice. He tries to convince himself that Charles’ lips had not been forming the word yes.

All of Edwin’s thoughts earlier were incorrect. Or rather, he just hadn’t had all the information from the future yet. This is the most foolhardy, suicidal he’s ever been. This is the most he’s ever taunted the creature with the possibility of his death. This, well and truly, is the first time he’s set out intending to die. It’s simply been inevitable every other time. A component of his reality, nothing he could do anything about. He would read the patterns and assess his injuries and the time since his last death and know that it was coming soon.

This is not that. This is Edwin, running pell-mell into danger, angry at Charles and angry at himself and angry at Hell.

Charles, for not leaving when he had the chance.

Himself, for being so cruel to Charles as a result, for actually giving voice to the potentiality of Charles sacrificing himself for Edwin.

Hell, for existing. Hell, for turning him into this cruel thing, this unthinking monster, this creature with a one-track mind wherein nothing else matters except getting out.

Nothing. Not one thing. The pain the grief the pain the despair the pain the regret the pain pain pain, all the time, nothing but pain and despair and pain again. The manner of Edwin’s death. The deals where his soul was traded like currency. The length of time he’s been here. Charles’ feelings. His own feelings. The disgust of Gluttony and Lust. The horror of Limbo. The tearing of his flesh, the snap of his bones, the sight of his own organs – none of it matters!

None of it, not one thing.

Only escape. Only getting out of here. Only getting Charles out of here.

And Charles turned down the opportunity to escape to stay with Edwin.

It must be Edwin’s fault. It must be, but he can’t understand how. He’s been nothing but short with the other boy since their first meeting. Rough. Commanding. Strict. He’s scolded Charles over and over, dragged him into unfathomable situations without explanation, gotten him killed. And still Charles clings to him. And still Charles refuses to leave without him.

Edwin cannot understand it. A cry of frustration leaps from his throat. He lets it. He breaks his cardinal rule, the one thing he’s repeated to Charles over and over, and he lets the cry of frustration break from him.

This is too much. It’s all too much. Charles, here. Anyone here, at all. Another soul stuck with him, someone in this damned place that he can actually help. Should be able to actually help, except he hasn’t done a damn thing for him. Charles has still suffered, still died. He keeps crying, and it’s perfectly reasonable, perfectly understandable, but it breaks something in Edwin when he hadn’t thought there was anything left to break.

The emotions are too much. The confusion is too much. It’s been too long since Edwin has actually spent time with another human soul. He doesn’t understand. Hell has warped him into a creature that can’t understand.

Edwin runs, and he screams, and he invites death to come for him because it is all too much, too much, too much. He’s so close to getting out and this is what breaks him – not his own suffering but someone else’s, not the pain but these feelings, long forgotten and dredged up by the other boy, too unfamiliar, too confusing in a place where Edwin’s only hope is the clarity of his own mind.

Had Sa’al known, he can’t help but wonder? Had he known that Charles was the one thing that could break Edwin? That Edwin could handle the endless infinity of his own death, but he couldn’t watch it happen to someone else who didn’t deserve it? That someone Edwin could actually help would be his undoing?

Another shout leaves him, frustration and anger and confusion all at once. His throat feels ragged. He can hear the creature chasing in the halls behind him, but Edwin is running as fast as he ever has. The walls blur around him as he sprints. His legs ache, his feet pound against the floor, the open wounds on his jaw and neck and collar sting with a piercing sharpness and Edwin feels none of it! Nothing but anger! Nothing but these emotions he can’t process!

Rage! Pain! Fear!

Edwin is confronted with all of his inadequacies at once and he cannot handle it!

He runs, and he invites death to chase him.

The actual dying of it all, as always, fills Edwin with dread, turns his mind back to that frightened, shriveled, primal thing. His right leg is broken, not crushed this time, merely stepped on. He drags himself upright against the nearest wall, panting, crying.

He thinks it is a bad thing, that this fear has cleared the anger away so readily, but he’s also glad for it. The clarity is returning, even before his death.

It has been some time since Edwin had had a breakdown as bad as that one – and when Charles is relying on him too. How embarrassing. Apparently, he does not handle Charles dying well, despite the fact that he’s known from the beginning that it would be unavoidable. Who knew? It is strange the things one can learn about oneself long after Edwin had thought he’d figured out everything there was to know.

A strangled scream escapes him as the beast steps on his broken leg again. It is toying with him now. It is so hard for Edwin to understand this thing, the reasoning behind its actions, if it has any. Why it sometimes makes the deaths quick and sometimes slow. Why it sometimes makes the deaths frequent and sometimes not. He could have drawn this latest iteration out, moped around the Dollhouse wounded but not dying.

He should have. Should have given Charles more explanations. Should have given Charles the time to have a breakdown, rather than having one of his own. It is too late for that now.

The limb pressing down on him grinds into his bone. Edwin bites his lip out of spite and doesn’t let the next scream escape him. This was a bad idea. A stupid idea. A broken leg will not kill him, and the thing is in a toying mood.

In fact, it is leaving, and Edwin is left heaving on the ground. The blood on his neck has mostly dried by now, though he risks reopening the scratches every time he moves his head. His right thigh feels as though it has been nearly pulverized. He is not dead. The beast is not ready to kill him yet – all his anger for naught, leaving Charles behind, planning an escape, all pointless. He certainly is in no shape to escape now. The only question is if he returns to Charles before his death.

He must, he realizes. He owes the other boy an apology, however ill equipped he is to give one.

With effort, thankful for the wall he’s currently leaning against, Edwin drags himself to his feet. He keeps the weight off his right foot as much as possible as he hops along the wall but not entirely. Walking on it of course adds to the damage, but it is not as if anything here is permanent. It is better to be fast and return to Charles quickly than to save himself a bit of pain and move slowly.

His face must be pale from the sheer agony, and his breath heaves unevenly in his lungs, but this is nothing. There’s no blood loss to cloud his mind. He’s not missing any parts of himself. He can’t see his intestines strewn about the hall before him. And he has an apology to make.

Charles hears Edwin before he sees him, which is honestly extremely alarming, given how often Edwin presses the idea of quiet onto him. He shoots to his feet in an instant, somehow simultaneously obeying Edwin and breaking his rules. Stay here – yeah, no, not doing that – and be ready to run – which, yeah, sure. Charles could sprint if Edwin asked him to. Edwin’s not asking anything though, as Charles rounds a corner and spies the other boy. Edwin’s pale, trembling not with fear but pain, hopping along on one leg.

“Shit.” Charles hurries over to Edwin’s side, throwing the other boy’s arm over his shoulder. “What the Hell happened?”

Edwin had left to go die – and they will be having words about that – but more importantly, he’d left to go get rid of his injuries. Only he still has those injuries, and more besides.

“Charles, I must apologize to you,” Edwin says, his voice tight with pain, leaning his weight half on Charles, half on his good leg. “I should not have spoken to you so harshly –”

“Oi, not what I was talking about,” Charles cuts in. “What happened to you?”

Edwin blinks at him, confused, before he looks down. “Just a broken leg, it is of no significance. Charles, I really must –”

“Should we be having this conversation here?”

Edwin blinks again. The pale, drawn expression on his face is made worse by the blood that still coats his neck and jaw, bright red even as it’s mostly dried up.

“It’s only, you’re usually a bit more careful to be quiet.”

They’re both still speaking in hushed tones, but Edwin hasn’t made one move to find a room to tuck them into, or scold Charles to quiet down. It’s not like him.

“Here is as good a place as any,” Edwin says, a little resigned. He pulls his weight back from Charles, palm against the wall, and moves to sit. Charles hurriedly moves back into place and helps him down – it strikes a chord, somewhere in his gut, at the fact that Edwin does not expect or ask for his help, merely attempts to sit on his own nevermind the pain.

“I owe you an explanation. Many, I suppose,” Edwin says, still tight as a guitar cord, strung with pain.

Charles’ chest clenches. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“I have treated you poorly since the moment you arrived,” Edwin counters. “I had my reasons, but that does not justify my treatment of you.”

“You saved my life.”

“I did nothing of the sort, merely delayed your suffering.”

Charles goggles at him. Merely. Merely! As if that was nothing! As if Edwin dying for him twice over now is nothing, dying a third time to try and escape, keeping him from seeing the result of his own death, guiding him through these halls, holding his hand through all of it – as if that is nothing! The dried blood that coats him, the broken leg he’d somehow walked on – all of it, for Charles.

Edwin had taken one look at him – one look – and decided to devote his every breath toward helping Charles as well.

That is not nothing.

And okay, maybe Edwin hasn’t properly saved Charles’ life, because Charles is dead, and has died again once already. And maybe Edwin’s been short and snappish, a bit rude at times. But he’s let Charles hold his hand. He’s let Charles draw comfort from him. He’s found safe spaces to tuck Charles into while he suffers.

It’s not nothing. It’s more than Charles thinks he ever had while alive.

Charles is in Hell, because Hell is real, because his mates are wankers, because teenage boys are idiots, because his father taught him that he could never be good enough but hadn’t managed to stop him from trying to be, and he thinks Edwin’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

It’s only been a few hours. He shouldn’t be feeling this strongly. But Charles has never much cared for what society thinks he should and shouldn’t be.

“Listen, mate,” he says, low and careful. “From the second you first saw me – from the very second, you’ve been trying to protect me. I get that. I promise you, I do. You don’t owe me anything.”

“And yet I failed in my efforts,” Edwin starts.

He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand.

Charles reaches forward and takes Edwin’s closest hand, clasps it in both of his own. “Yeah, but you tried, don’t you see. No one’s ever tried to protect me like that.”

For a moment Edwin only stares at him. He shifts where he sits – grimaces – and looks away. When he looks back, his face is blank again. “You must have questions,” he says.

Charles grimaces in turn – not from pain, not for him, because Edwin – but lets the subject drop. He does have questions. And he needs to know how everything works down here if he’s ever gonna be of any help to Edwin on their next escape attempt.

He settles in and they start to talk.

Chapter Text

The thing about having Charles here with him is that, injured, Edwin cannot simply wait for the demon to come kill him. He rarely did so before, but some injuries, primarily those to his legs and feet, limit his movements severely, and it is easier and quicker to wait for death and gain a new body. But now Charles is here and waiting for death means waiting for death for both of them, which is simply unacceptable.

(“We’re in Hell, Edwin,” Charles had told him simply when Edwin had brought this up. “You said it yourself. I can’t just avoid the tortures forever.”)

Charles may yet die again – no. Edwin corrects himself quickly. Charles is right and he must reconcile himself with the facts. Charles will die again. But there is no need for them both to suffer when only one of them is injured. The issue is that even a fruitful conversation of Hell’s mechanics is nowhere near close enough to impress a map of the Dollhouse into Charles’ brain.

So, Edwin cannot simply run away from his new friend because his leg is damaged. And Charles cannot simply run away from his new friend because he would get lost rather quickly and it would take considerable effort to find him again. At the same time, they must separate, because Edwin cannot escape in the condition he is in and therefore must die before they can make the attempt again.

The compromise they come to is thus: Charles will help Edwin lead him to a room where Charles can hide, and then Edwin will hurry away from there on one leg as fast as he is able. That way Charles is in a secure location Edwin will be able to find again, and Charles doesn’t have to die for Edwin unnecessarily.

It is not a compromise Charles is fond of, Edwin can tell, but that, too, has been discussed.

(“Just as you cannot avoid the tortures, neither can I. I have vastly more knowledge than you in this situation. Trust that I know what I am doing.”

“I don’t doubt you know what you’re doing mate – I just don’t think you care much about getting hurt while you do it.”

He doesn’t – and, contrarily, he very much does. He hates the pain, despairs over it, breaks down weeping on occasions, even while acknowledging that he will do whatever it takes to escape this dreadful place. But he doesn’t tell Charles any of this, simply moves the conversation elsewhere.)

At the door to the room, Charles hesitates, looking to where Edwin is already hobbling away. He swallows, looking sick, and forces out words that seem to make him sicker. “I hope it’s quick, yeah, mate?”

Despair, Edwin’s constant companion, rises in his gut. This, then, is the true mark of Charles adjusting to Hell, the true cost of Edwin’s tutelage. No longer is Charles wishing him safety, wishing that he could avoid the demon. He’s hoping for a quick death for Edwin.

Edwin’s wished the same for himself many times. Too many to count. It is both heartwarming and heartbreaking to hear Charles wish him the same. He nods nevertheless, and strides away with agony racing up his leg with every other step.

No need to worry about permanent damage, here. Who cares about his own suffering? He is going to get Charles out of this.

It’s quick this time, at least, though he thinks that’s unintentional. When he next sees the creature it batters him into a wall, a fierce throw, and Edwin hits it in just the wrong way. There is a sharp snap, a blinding pain, and then a fresh body.

A broken neck, he thinks, or a hit to the wrong part of his skull. Head injuries are notoriously fickle, he has learned. He scrambles to his feet and wonders if that will upset the thing or if the earlier toying with the broken leg was enough for it. It’s irrelevant. He’d made a promise to Charles.

(“Next death, no matter what else happens, we’re going through that door together after, yeah?”

“Charles…”

“Promise me, mate. We’re getting out of here. Together.”

Edwin swallows. “Very well. I promise.”)

Charles is ready and waiting when Edwin bursts through the door of the room. Edwin doesn’t have to say another word, and neither does he. They’re already both running. Charles dogs at Edwin’s footsteps, keeps his eyes on the backs of Edwin’s heels so as to not lose sight of him and the floor in front of him so as to not lose his own feet from under him. They reach the exit sign and pass through it.

(“The first room we passed through seems to be infused with the sin of gluttony. The souls there will feast, forever, and never be satisfied. Do not try to talk to them, do not try to eat the food.”

“They’re just… stuck there? Forever?”

Edwin’s lips press together. “There is nothing to be done for it, I am sorry.”)

Getting into Gluttony isn’t as easy as leaving the Dollhouse had been. There’s not a proper door between the two, and as much as Edwin had described the opening torn through the wall behind the claw machine there hadn’t been enough time for Charles to ask if Edwin had been the one to make said opening in the first place. There isn’t time to study it now either, just a few momentary glimpses as they both put their shoulders into pressing against it. They tumble into Gluttony just as a giggle rings through the empty hall behind them.

Fear spikes up Charles’ spine, that fight or flight response. He bolts. Edwin’s already moving though, never froze up at the sound. The excesses of Gluttony are hard to look at and harder to push through.

(“It is disgusting, I know it is disgusting, but that cannot be helped either. You must understand, the sick doesn’t matter, the filth doesn’t matter – you cannot let anything slow you down. If you catch their attention they will drag you down with them – they might just try anyway, and then we shall have to start over again.”)

Charles has played rugby before though, even if cricket’s his sport. Casual games with the lads, where the rules are a bit less serious and there’s no referee. It’s a bit like that, shouldering past all the bodies standing in his way, and these blokes don’t even have the presence of mind to shoulder him back.

They burst into the next room, that room of red, writhing bodies, meat strung up on hooks.

(“Lust is more dangerous than Gluttony,” Edwin tells him, “because the souls there are more interested in having you join them. Giving them mind does not help, same with the gluttonous, but they will attempt to drag you down with them or string you up regardless. Speed is of the essence there, whereas brute force is better in gluttony.”)

The floor is slick with blood under Charles’ feet, as it was last time. This time he lets Edwin stay in front of him.

(And, oh, it’s only just clicking for him now, what Edwin had attempted to do last time. He’d been trying to get Charles to go on without him then too, when he’d been caught by these souls.)

Hands grab at his legs, his ankles, his knees. He keeps his own hands higher than normal when running and out of reach, acts more like a dancer, slipping souls and winding his way around the forms. Edwin was right. There’s no shouldering past these people on the ground, only slipping through their grasp.

Edwin sprints in front of him. When he stumbles he recovers easily, yanking a leg free on one foot without ever being in danger of hitting the ground. Charles, despite his athleticism, feels clumsy in comparison. If this is like a dance, it is a dance he doesn’t know the steps to and one that Edwin has clearly practiced.

He slips around another reaching hand, leaps over a torso nearly indistinguishable from the mess around it and shoves his way through the door after Edwin with another giggle echoing behind him. It’s a relief to be clear of the mess and disaster of the two previous rooms, even as the giggle gets his heart pounding again. Charles doesn’t take the breath he longs for, doesn’t take a moment to recover from what they’ve just rushed through.

(“The next room you have not seen, but you cannot take the time to peruse it. It is unfair, I know, but I have already located the likely exit and any further exploration will only cost us valuable time. Do not stop for any reason, simply follow my lead. The next door will be down a few stairs from our entry, on the opposite side of the room.”

“Diagonal, you said earlier.”

“Yes.”)

The room looks eerily like a hotel lobby, exactly as Edwin had described. Were it not for the people frozen in place and scattered about Charles might wonder if they were still in Hell.

(“I believe the room is a sort of Limbo, of sorts,” Edwin explains. “The people there can still feel pain – there is a bell I wrung, once, which seemed to cause them unbearable agony – no, do not bother to console me. I know my guilt is fruitless – but they are not being actively tortured. If they ever are able to move, or speak, I have not been present for such instances. They may seem to you more pitiful than the wretched souls of Gluttony or Lust, but you cannot help them. Do not stop.”)

Edwin is already weaving his way through the bodies and Charles follows his movements exactly. The carpeting on the floor is wonderfully soft on his filthy feet, even if it’s actually kind of stiff and scratchy, and the very air here feels somehow cleaner, easier to breathe, but he doesn’t give himself the time to take it in.

Edwin, he tells himself, over and over. Follow Edwin.

There’s a shriek from behind him. Charles’ breath hitches. He stumbles and falls to the ground. Edwin stops, turns. His eyes widen. He hurries forward and instead of helping Charles to his feet he plants himself in front of him. A limb made of dolls batters Edwin to the side, bowling over numerous souls as the other boy is flung about.

“Edwin!” Charles scrambles toward where the other boy is groaning, trying to get to his own feet. Something clamps around his ankle. He’s dragged into the air, hanging from a sharp pressure on one foot. Its tight and awful, and then Charles is being flung even higher in the air, above the scattering of souls in Limbo. He slams against a wall of the room, his head cracks against it – his vision goes black.

Well, that’s attempt number two down the drain, and death number two to boot, Charles realizes, coming back to himself in the Dollhouse again. That was a rather easy death, he figures, having seen Edwin without a hand, Edwin with a broken leg. Just a hit to the head and then bam, back to the start.

(“Death elsewhere in Hell does not matter. We are owned by the thing that lives here, and it is to here that we will return after death. Each escape attempt that is foiled must be restarted from the beginning; progress here is not linear. Where in the Dollhouse seems less relevant. There are hints to a pattern, but I have not spent much time on them.” Edwin looks frustrated at the revelation.

“That’s fine, mate,” Charles tries to start to reassure him.

Edwin hisses through his teeth, grimacing as he shifts on his broken leg. “It is not,” he counters. “Not now that there are two of us. I cannot guarantee that we will return to the same location if we are to both perish during an attempt.”)

With a sinking feeling in his gut, Charles realizes Edwin’s not here with him. The thing isn’t either, which is nice, but the lack of Edwin…

He can’t find his way out without Edwin. The Dollhouse is labyrinthine on its own, without considering all the rooms between it and the hopeful exit.  

(“If you are to die without me, or if we are separated in the Dollhouse, remain where you are. It will be quicker for me to locate you if you do not move.”

Charles opens his mouth.

“Hide, if you must,” Edwin quickly adds. “I would not ask you to place yourself in danger simply to make things easier for me. But continuous movement would make us liable to miss each other in these halls.”

That hadn’t been Charles’ objection, but he soaks the advice in anyway, trying hard to memorize everything Edwin is telling him.)

Right then. Pointedly not looking at the pile of Edwin’s corpses in one corner – and a leg clad in black that’s probably his own – Charles takes a seat on the floor and tries to think happy thoughts as he waits for Edwin to come find him.

Edwin doesn’t lead Charles immediately to the exit when they reunite after their second failed escape attempt. They are starting too far away, and he assumes Charles will need a moment to recover from this death as well. They find a room and huddle in it, quiet for a moment. Edwin thinks he should apologize, but even he cannot blame himself for this latest failure. It is simply the nature of things, in Hell.

Charles speaks first anyway. “Did it… did it kill those souls in Limbo, too?”

“I find it unlikely,” Edwin admits. “It does not own them; they are not its to play with.”

Silence settles for a moment.

“You are handling yourself quite well,” Edwin manages. His first compliment.

It does not come across well. Charles lets out a bark of near-hysterical laughter, clamping his hands over his mouth in horror immediately after. They exchange wide-eyed, fearful looks.

Edwin stands hastily. “Time to go, I think,” he says.

They burst from the room and Edwin leads them on a sprint for the exit. They do not get there in time. They round a corner and there is the creature, doing its own version of a sprint as it comes at them from the other end of the hall. Edwin backpedals immediately – and faster than Charles. He slows himself until the other boy has caught up and leads them to the nearest split he can remember.

There he slows again, and shoves Charles in one direction at random.

“Go!”

Charles blanches. Edwin shoves at him again, hoping Charles remembers their earlier discussion.

(“If I ever tell you to run, you must run. Promise me Charles. There is no need for the beast to get both of us.”

Charles seems stubbornly determined to refuse. “Yeah, maybe, but why’s it always gotta be you that it catches?”

“Because I can find you again, if I know where I left you,” Edwin answers readily, practical. “Can you say the same?”

Charles cannot, and they both know it.)

Thankfully, though not without a look of horror, Charles listens. He runs. Edwin does the only thing he can think of to get the beast’s attention on him instead of Charles without making it seem like he’s rushing toward his death. He gives himself a pause to catch his breath, hands on his knees, as the thing draws closer and closer. There’s no guarantee it will work, no accounting for the creature’s taste, its desire to play with its prey, but it’s the best Edwin can think of. His sprint, when he resumes it, is as fast as always, and his fear at hearing the thing give chase is mixed with an unfamiliar relief. (It’s Edwin’s choice, this time. It matters, this time, Edwin’s coming death.)

A limb reaches out and rakes down his back as he runs. Edwin can feel the sting of it biting into his flesh, feel the back of his shirt get torn to shreds. He hisses violently at the pain, but his run doesn’t falter. The blood dripping down his back ensures that he will not lose the beast this time, not that he’d hoped otherwise.

He takes a corner too quickly, because the alternative is to slow down and get caught, and stumbles harshly into the wall. He’s still on his feet but it slows him down too much. The creature’s mandibles lunge straight for Edwin’s gut. Instead of gripping him and carrying him off, one of them impales his midsection. It is a searing pain, too quick and tight to allow for a scream. Edwin gasps at the horror of it, head thrown back, eyes already stinging. His hands scrabble uselessly against the wall as the mandible pulls back.

Free from the thing that had pierced him, Edwin’s legs give out. He slumps to the ground, a puddle of pain on the floor. The giggle echoes through his ears and then the creature steps back, lingering, watching him suffer.

Edwin’s breaths are heavy with pain. Death is near, but it will be slow this time. No quick severing of his spinal column, no piece by piece devouring of his flesh. Edwin is not well educated in the realm of medicine, but he recognizes the sight of his own guts spilling from his wound well enough by now. He always wonders, when he dies like this, whether it is the blood loss or the torn organs that kills him in the end.

Not that it matters. He dies anyway, eventually. He can only hope that Charles is well-hidden in the meantime.

It’s taking a long time this time, for Edwin to come back. The thing has even scurried by outside the room Charles had found for himself, one hall over from where he’d left Edwin, and still there’s been no sound of the other boy. Charles knows that doesn’t mean anything – Edwin had assured him of that, too.

It could mean that Edwin is slowly dying somewhere, left alone to languish, or it could mean that Edwin is still running, the creature still giving chase. It could mean that Edwin was recently huddled in one of those indistinguishable rooms with the piles of corpses – nests, Edwin had called them. It could even just mean that Edwin is staying distant to avoid a second death, with the creature as near Charles as it is. There’s no way to be certain.

(“I have found no pattern to the manner of deaths the beast likes to dole out,” Edwin says, matter of fact. “I did attempt to discern one for some time, but I never got anywhere significant and I found that my mental efforts were better suited toward the creation of a mental map instead, if I had to choose.”)

Eventually, though, Edwin does come back. He comes back breathless and whole and clean, without a trace of blood or a limp. Charles doesn’t want to know, but he also can’t help but ask.

“That took a while,” he says, aiming for casual and missing it by a mile. “Did you… was it just, just the, uh, the one time?”

“Run first, talk later,” Edwin breathes out, already pulling Charles from the room. He leads them to the exit door for them to begin their third escape attempt. (Charles isn’t counting the last one, when they hadn’t even left the Dollhouse.) It isn’t until they’re halfway to the Gluttony room before Edwin confirms that, yes, he’d only died the once. He doesn’t give any more details than that.

They make it to the staircase this time, on attempt number three, Charles’ first time getting that far. It isn’t Edwin’s. The staircase looks nearly endless, stretching into blackness in both directions. It makes Charles ever more aware of the vastness of Hell. They don’t make it very far up the stairs before the creature bursts out of the blackness beneath them. Charles barely even has the time to realize they’ve been caught before he’s falling.

Huh, he thinks. There hadn’t even been the time for his adrenaline to spike and his heart to start pounding yet. Edwin said something about falling, once. It’s an oddly casual thought, and then Charles’ head impacts part of the stairs below as he falls and blackness sinks over him.

(“How big is Hell?” Charles asks.

“It is impossible to say.” Edwin tilts his neck strangely, in so casual a manner that it takes until he reaches up and swipes his right index and middle finger through the blood on his neck before Charles realizes what the other boy is doing.

He’s opening his wounds. He’s deliberately pulling the scabbed flesh taut to generate fresh blood, and now he’s using the blood on his first two fingers to draw something on the ground. Charles stares in shock and awe. Edwin doesn’t even seem to realize what he’s doing, the absurdity of it, the horror. He’s using his own blood as paint, and he’d purposefully opened his own wounds to do so.

He’s drawing something vaguely cone-shaped on the ground. He reaches up again casually to replenish the blood on his fingertips.

Charles nearly retches, clamping both hands over his mouth to push back the nausea.

Edwin turns to him in alarm. “Charles, are you alright?”

Hands overlapping on his mouth, swallowing back bile, Charles can only stare at Edwin.

It takes Edwin a moment, but he’s smart. He looks down at his hand, at the half-finished drawing on the ground. “Ah.” He looks back up at Charles. “There is paper, on occasion,” he offers helplessly, as if this explanation will make what he’s doing any better, “but I have never been able to keep it. I have, I have made do, from time to time.”

He looks ashamed. He looks ashamed, and Charles put that look there.

Slowly, he takes his hands from his mouth. “It’s, it’s alright, mate,” he tries, even though he knows his voice is shaky. “What were you saying, about the size of Hell?”

Edwin looks down at his drawing. He doesn’t add any fresh blood to it. He musters himself. “I… I have not seen the lot of it, of course,” he says, “but, we are somewhere around here…”

He gestures, and he talks, and Charles tries desperately to focus on the words spilling from Edwin’s mouth and not the blood spilling from his wounds.)

They are huddled together in one of the rooms with the corpses again when Edwin finally asks the question. The beast is still here, so they cannot run or it will give chase. It had caught them on the stairs this time, killing first Charles and then himself. “What year was it, when you died?” he asks in a hushed whisper. Despite the care he takes with his tone, the words almost seem to spring from him of their own volition.

They have not talked of Earth once since Edwin met Charles. Edwin has been afraid to ask, and Charles has had so many questions and Hell is much more important. Hell is still more important and yet here Edwin is, asking the question anyway.

Charles sends him a sad look that says he knows exactly why Edwin is asking, and exactly why he hasn’t asked until this point. There’s a poignant silence before he answers. “Nineteen-eighty-nine,” he says simply.

Another poignant pause follows.

“When did you die?”

And another. Edwin wets his lips. Swallows. Does the math. Seventy-three years. He’s been in Hell for seventy-three years! That’s almost five times as long as he’d been alive. If one ignores the early years of childhood that Edwin has no memories of, say the first five years or so, that’s almost seven times the length of memories he’d made on Earth. No wonder he remembers so little of it. He’d likely be dead by now even if he hadn’t been sacrificed, even if he hadn’t been drafted in the War.  

“Nineteen-sixteen,” he tells Charles.

They sit in silence for a little while. It’s clear neither of them is in a particularly pleasant mood.

“What is it like?” Edwin asks, after a long time. (The beast is still there, in the corner, sorting through a pile of Edwin’s bones.)

Charles gives him a confused look.

“The, the nineteen-eighties,” Edwin clarifies. “What is it like?”

“Oh.” Charles blinks and draws himself upright, sits up straighter as his brow furrows in thought. “I suppose it wasn’t so bad. Never really thought about it, did I? The music’s mint. We’ve got these things now, cassettes and CDs –”

And he’s off, rambling quietly under his breath, pressed shoulder to shoulder with Edwin in Hell.

Edwin doesn’t understand much of what Charles tells him; even when Charles remembers to give an explanation, he often over- or underestimates what Edwin is familiar with, and Edwin does not have the heart to interrupt for a better explanation. And it is bittersweet, to think of all the progress the world has experienced while he’s been down here, suffering. But it’s nice otherwise, to listen to Charles ramble on – to hear another voice at all, to have even the slightest of distractions from the sights in front of him, which he is still attempting to prevent Charles from seeing.

Edwin doesn’t relax, can’t relax here, but he lets Charles’ words sweep over him. This is, he thinks, the closest thing he’s felt to peaceful in seventy-three years. How strange. How sad. How wonderful.

They run when the beast moves on, make it out of the Dollhouse for the fourth time, out of Gluttony, and are nearly taken down by the souls in Lust. It’s Charles who slips this time and there is a prolonged struggle as he and Edwin both try to free him from the grasping hands. There’s a door nearby where they end up, but it isn’t the door they normally go through. Charles is almost tempted anyway, to get away from all this blood. A hook gets stabbed into his leg.

In the end they have to pile back into the door to Gluttony to get away, because it’s closer and easier than moving on, and then back to the Dollhouse again to catch their breath. Edwin actually lets him do so without chiding, the both of them covered in blood that isn’t theirs, Charles holding his weight off his left leg and the dripping wound in his calf.

An eerie dread settles over him as he processes it. “Guess it’s my turn, huh?” he asks, trying to make his voice light. He’s not sure it works. He very much doesn’t want to die again. He feels like crying, but he’s cried so much already that it’s easier than usual to blink the tears away.

“No,” Edwin says, firm, after a moment.

Charles straightens in surprise. “No?” he asks. “Mate, you were the one who said, the one who –”

Edwin’s made it clear: escaping while injured is a good way to get caught, and if one of them must get caught, might as well do so in the Dollhouse instead of having both of them get caught. (He probably did it a bit differently, when it was just him, probably would have tried for it anyway, injured or not.)

“And you were the one who said that we might as well try anyway, were you not?”

“Well, yeah, but…” But Edwin hadn’t listened. Not when he’d been the one injured.

It’s not that Charles hasn’t been aware of the many, many double standards and hypocrisy Edwin’s exhibited so far. He’s very aware of it, very upset about it, and very unable to do anything about it. Because the thing is, Edwin’s always got an argument ready, always got something practical to say in that proper posh tone of his, all soft and steady and soothing all at once.

Charles always flounders in the face of it, always comforted and distracted by the reassuring tone that’s become his lifeline in Hell, the steady rock he clings to. He’s never been able to come up with a proper argument back. He struggles to think of one now, but the truth is, yeah, Edwin’s right again. He would rather die trying to make an escape instead of here in the Dollhouse, and he thinks Edwin would too. He just doesn’t want to bring Edwin down with him when he does so, if he’s the one more likely to get caught, and he knows he doesn’t have the option of getting Edwin to go on without him. Just like he won’t leave without Edwin, Edwin won’t leave without him.

“What about the other doors?” he finds himself asking.

“Pardon?”

“I’m not, I’m not doubting you,” Charles makes sure to point out, “but… What about the other doors, in the rooms?”

“I have explored them,” Edwin assures him. “I have even – I found myself descending the staircase once,” he says, “although that was, admittedly, not entirely… on purpose, one might say.” He grimaces and looks away. “Rest assured; there is nothing behind those doors you might wish to see.”

For every fact, every memory of Hell Edwin shares with him, Charles knows there are dozens more he keeps to himself. There was another demon who had owned Edwin, between Sa’al and this thing; Edwin hasn’t mentioned him or her or it, or how long he was there, or what they did to him. And there was a stray comment, once, about other things than demons that they need to avoid – Edwin making sure Charles knew that nothing down here would help him, only hurt. But he can’t blame Edwin for not telling him everything. There isn’t the time, for one thing. For another, Charles isn’t sure he could tell Edwin about what he’s been through down here, and Edwin’s been there for most of it.

“Yeah, but could you hide behind them? If I got caught, could you wait it out there?”

“It would be rather pointless,” Edwin says. “I would still have to come get you afterward.”

That’s not pointless. Charles doesn’t know how to get Edwin to see that him being safe isn’t pointless!

“You dying for me is what’s pointless,” he cuts out, harsher than he means to.

Edwin frowns at him. Charles is starting to hate that frown – that confusion that crosses Edwin’s face every single time Charles brings up any sort of concern for Edwin’s health or safety or comfort. Not like he disagrees with Charles, not like he thinks his own safety is worthless, but like it’s not even a factor. Like Charles is mad for even thinking about it, when there are more important things to be thinking about. There aren’t, but Edwin can’t seem to get that.

“I share your feelings,” Edwin says, which is so patently false that Charles struggles to hold in a scoff, “but it would be quicker if we were both in the Dollhouse to begin with.”

Yeah, nope. Nope, nope, nope. Charles doesn’t have an argument for that either, but he’s done with the hypocrisy. He’s done with the double standards. He’s done with the fact that Edwin’ll argue in that proper tone of his, all matter of fact, when it comes to letting him die for Charles, and then he’ll go ahead and argue the opposite when they come across the possibility of Charles dying for Edwin. Like they’re not the same thing at all.

According to Edwin, they’re not. Edwin’s got the lay of the land down, Edwin knows what he’s doing, Edwin’ll have to come find Charles anyway, so it might as well be Edwin who suffers, might as well be Edwin who dies, might as well be Charles who cowers in a corner like a coward and never does anything to help because Edwin’s spent seven decades in Hell and Charles has spent maybe two days so Edwin’s used to it! Well, Charles is sick of it. He’s sick of the excuses, and he doesn’t have an argument, and he doesn’t care how much he hates dying, how awful the fear is, how horrid the creature, how terrible the pain.

Without even saying anything, he turns and limps away from the exit. It does feel wrong, to pass down a chance to escape, but if things were reversed Edwin would be off getting himself killed by now and Charles would be safe and cozy and scared out of his mind in some forgotten room without any pain or the rabbiting of his heart that strikes him every time he sees the demon or that surge of adrenaline when his fight or flight response kicks in.

Edwin, of course, is faster than him, whether Charles has a wounded leg or not. He hurries forward and gets himself in front of Charles, stopping him in his tracks.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he whisper-shouts, harsh and angry.

It’s the first time Charles thinks he’s heard Edwin swear. He’s glad to hear it. Glad to see some kind of emotion on Edwin’s face. (It’s not that he thinks Edwin an unfeeling monster. He knows very well he’s not, has heard the concern in his voice, seen it in his eyes, felt it with the other boy’s actions. It’s just that Charles is already irritated, and when he gets irritated he’s liable to snap at anything, and right now the matter of fact attitude that Edwin takes when it comes to the horrors of Hell is pissing him right off. It’s not fair, and it’s not even Edwin that he’s mad at, but it is what it is. Charles is helpless to stop it.)

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Charles snaps right back. He wants to be loud – wants to be the sacrifice this time, wants to draw the creature’s attention so he can get a new body and they can get right back to escaping, wants to do what Edwin’s done for him so many times already (four, it’s been four times) – but Edwin’s right there. His plan doesn’t work if Edwin’s right there alongside him.

“It looks like you’re being an idiot,” Edwin scolds.

Charles forces a sneer onto his face. “You’d know all about being an idiot, wouldn’t you?”

Edwin recoils. Good. “Enough Charles! I understand that you are frustrated but this plan is foolhardy!” Not so good. Edwin’s supposed to be storming away in anger right about now.

“Foolhardy? Like all your plans so far?” It’s not even a good comeback, but it’s what comes out of Charles’ mouth anyway.

Edwin waves it away dismissively, hand batting at the air between them. “I have been planning a way out of this place since long before you existed – whatever ideas you may think up, I promise you that I have already considered them!”

Charles almost – almost – snaps something about how Edwin hasn’t been trying hard enough, given that it’s been seven decades, but that’s hitting below the belt. That’s ten steps too far in the wrong direction, and Charles isn’t going to go there. Not even for this. He opens his mouth and almost blurts out that he never asked for Edwin’s help anyway, but he can’t bring himself to say that either because he’s already admitted to himself a dozen times over that he can’t do this without Edwin.

It doesn’t even matter that Charles is trying to get Edwin to leave him for a bit. He can’t think of anything to say that he’s willing to try and take back later. Calling Edwin an idiot, sure, that’s easy enough. Saying that he doesn’t need Edwin – nope. Can’t do that.

“Have you ever bothered to consider that maybe dying for me is one of those stupid ideas you should have given up on already?” he ends up saying, close enough to the truth that it comes out easily.

Edwin huffs. “I have made my argument perfectly clear –” he starts.

“Perfectly clear to you, maybe,” Charles snaps back. “Not everyone’s as high-class and pompous as you are – you ever even get your hands dirty, back when you were alive?” It’s a stupid argument too; Edwin’s been in Hell for far longer than he’d lived.

Edwin looks taken aback again, but he still doesn’t make to leave. His eyes flicker around the hall worriedly, but he still doesn’t storm off. “I don’t know what’s come over you, Charles,” he says, “but I would much appreciate if you could snap out of it unless you are deliberately trying to get us both killed.”

This would have worked on Earth, Charles realizes, but they’re not on Earth. The rules are different here. There’s no storming off and reconciling later. Edwin’s not going to leave him. He knows it in his bones. It’d be impractical, after all. A waste of time and an additional risk of getting killed later, because Edwin’ll have to track him down eventually regardless.

Charles could press, could keep going, but he honestly seriously doubts that there is anything he could say that would get Edwin mad enough to temporarily abandon him in Hell, nevermind fully leave him behind. This stupid, hypocritical boy had decided he was going to save Charles from the moment he saw him, before he even knew him. Charles doesn’t think even Edwin hating him would change that.

He deflates, feeling useless and weak and mean, and Charles hates feeling mean. He slumps down against the wall, letting the weight off his injured leg as he sits down. Great. Now he’s mad at himself too and he wants to cry again. Can’t even storm off properly. Can’t even get his mate to storm off properly and buy Charles a little alone time to do what he wants (which, in this instance, is getting himself killed).

‘Cause he’s in fucking Hell.

Charles folds his arms over his knees and presses his forehead into his arms and bites his lip hard and fights to hold in his sobs. His leg throbs. It’s still dripping blood. It’s a wonder they haven’t both been caught yet, whisper-arguing though they might have been. He hadn’t been trying to get Edwin killed – he’d been trying to keep him safe. Of course he nearly ended up doing the opposite.

He can hear the soft sounds of Edwin sitting down beside him. Unlike last time, Edwin keeps his distance, keeps a foot of space between them, doesn’t press his shoulder to Charles’ and offer that steady, grounding touch that Charles craves.

Charles aches at the loss of that closeness, but it’s his own bloody fault. No one to blame but himself. The shame that creeps over him is familiar in its heartache but unlike every time his dad made him feel bad back when he was alive, Charles properly feels like he earned it this time. When his dad made him feel ashamed it was always with a hint of confusion, Charles questioning why, if he’d really deserved it. It felt like he had, a lot of times, in the moment, but he’d go over the memory over and over afterward, trying to pinpoint where he’d gone wrong, and he wouldn’t always have a lot of success.

This time Charles knows exactly where he went wrong. Worse, he’s not even fully sure he regrets it, the cruelty; he only regrets that he failed. He doesn’t want to die, but he’s tired of knowing that Edwin’s the one dying for him instead.

He gets a hold of his emotions, blinks back his tears, and looks up.

Edwin is watching him, a little wary but steadfast. He’s not going anywhere. Charles knows that he’s never going anywhere, at least not while they’re in Hell. He’s not quite sure how to fully process that.

“When I was alive,” Charles starts, hesitant and uncertain, “my dad used to hit me.” He can barely stand to look Edwin in the face, but he manages.

Edwin grimaces in distaste, looking a little confused at the non-sequitur. Charles looks away in shame, but Edwin manages to respond anyway. “My own father was more absent than present, but he did not believe in sparing the rod either.”

Quickly, Charles looks back at him, surprised. Oh. Oh. Edwin died in 1916. Charles isn’t much of a historian, but he knows some things. Edwin’s not saying Charles deserved it, he just doesn’t get it. Spare the rod, spoil the child used to be quite literal for most people, didn’t it?

“Not, not like that,” Charles manages to say. He’s never talked about this with anyone, but if there’s anyone he can tell this to, anywhere he can force the words out, it’s here, with Edwin, in Hell. “It wasn’t, it wasn’t discipline, it was just, just…” he finally finds the word he’d never been able to say before, up on Earth, never even been able to think, even in the recesses of his own mind. “Just cruel.”

Just because he was angry, and spiteful. Just like Charles had tried to be just now. Just like Hell is. Cruelty to be cruel. (What would his dad think, he can’t help but wonder, about the fact that Charles wound up in Hell? Would he think he deserved it?)

“I was never good enough for him,” he continues, because now that he’s started he can’t stop. “Nothing I did was ever good enough – not my grades, not sport, not the music I listened to, or the way I dressed.”

When he looks up, Edwin is watching him, silent, discerning. He gives Charles the time to wipe at his eyes before he speaks. “This must be awful for you, then,” he says, low and gentle.

Charles blinks. “For me?”

Edwin mistakes his astonishment for confusion. “Nothing here is ever good enough either,” Edwin explains. “There is nothing we can do to stop the creature from killing us. It must feel similar.”

Charles blinks again. His tears are drying up from pure astonishment. He remembers what Edwin had explained of his own sacrifice. Unlike Charles, they’d specifically targeted Edwin for who he was. Edwin hadn’t been good enough either, for the people in his life. He’d just admitted to his father being the absent sort. And Charles had just yelled at him too, Charles had just tried to get him to leave. (Edwin’s been alone for so long.)

“No,” Charles says. “I just, I just… That’s not why I told you. My dad was cruel, and I never wanted to be, but I just…” He gestures helplessly toward Edwin, toward the space between them. He can’t give voice to what he just tried to do, the thoughts that had run through his head, trying to get Edwin to leave him. He hadn’t been trying for sympathy, he’d been… He doesn’t know. He’s too wrung out. Too tortured. He doesn’t feel like he needs to sleep too much but it’s been awful to go without it too, without a real break, or a moment of rest. He hurts, and he’s tired of hurting, but none of the hurts on Earth can compare to the pain of Hell except for maybe the shame, the awful feeling in his gut that Charles was never enough, still isn’t.

He just wants Edwin safe, even from him. (Edwin keeps dying for him!)

Edwin’s frowning again. “You are not cruel, Charles,” he says – and that, too, is as matter of fact as most things he says.

“You just said it yourself. I nearly got you killed.” All while trying to save him. Maybe his dad was right, maybe Charles can’t get anything right. And yet he can’t regret it, trying to spare Edwin pain.

Edwin rolls his eyes – honestly, genuinely responds to Charles’ heartfelt worries that he’d just acted like his father by rolling his eyes. “And I have gotten you killed thrice over already,” he says, and that is matter of fact too. “Would you call me cruel?”

Charles blanches.

Edwin takes that the wrong way entirely. “Your words were… unkind, yes. But I think that was Hell speaking, not you. It is… stressful. It is meant to be stressful, to put it mildly. I have spoken my own share of cruelties to you, in our time here together.”

It’s another one of Edwin’s double standards again: Charles was being unkind because of Hell, and it was only Edwin who had been cruel with his words.

Irritation surges again in Charles, but he doesn’t let it grow into anger this time. He considers his words carefully – has to, arguing against Edwin. “That wasn’t you then, either,” he says. “Just Hell.”

Edwin looks away. “I think you’ll find there is little left of me that has not been overtaken by Hell.”

Charles doesn’t have an argument for that either. He didn’t know Edwin before Hell. “I like who you are now just fine,” he says honestly, stubborn, the only thing he can think to say.

Edwin looks back at him. “You would be the first.”

Charles feels the ghost of a smile tug at his lips. “Nah,” he says, letting the irritation take a backseat, bolstering up his charm, his optimism. “Just the first person who came along, aren’t I? Not like you had a lot of other options to charm.” He spreads his arms, indicating the Dollhouse, the whole of Hell.

A ghost of a smile tugs at Edwin’s lips too. Charles rejoices to see it. When they get out of here, he’s going to make Edwin laugh. Properly. Here and now, he makes that promise to himself. He will.

“Or, what, you think the demon-spider’s opinion counts?” Charles prods with a grin.

Edwin huffs again, looking irritated, but Charles can see the fondness in his eyes. He knows he’s won him over. He lets the happy moment settle between them briefly, then deflates again.

“I am sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean any of it. Just, didn’t want you dying for me, yeah?” He never wants to be like his dad.

“It is a miracle we have not both died during this conversation,” Edwin says back. He’s exasperated but still fond. Charles takes that as apology accepted and watches Edwin stand. Edwin holds out a hand to help Charles up.

“Please,” Edwin says. “Let us try for the exit again.”

He’s never going to be able to persuade Edwin otherwise, Charles knows now. It’s a pointless argument. And if Edwin’s going to die for him, it might as well be while they’re both trying to get out of this place.

Charles doesn’t like it, but it doesn’t much matter if he likes it. Edwin’s made up his mind. When they get out of here – because they will get out of here – Charles is going to make sure Edwin never suffers for him again.

In the meantime, Charles takes the offered hand, staggers to his feet, and limps after Edwin. In the meantime, they’ve got an escape to pull off.

Chapter Text

The next escape attempt, of course, doesn’t end with them actually escaping. Charles’ injury isn’t that bad (it’s no torn off hand or broken leg, that’s for certain) but it’s large enough that blood is still trickling slowly from it when he stands, not yet scabbed over. Large enough that there’s a small puddle where he was sitting and his head swoops unpleasantly after moving. It takes him a moment to get his bearings – and realize again he’s going to die. This is going to kill him, one way or another.

He almost tries again to get Edwin to leave him. To convince Edwin to let him make the same sacrifice Edwin’s made so many times already. It’d be futile though, and Charles wants to spend every second he’s stuck in Hell working to get out, not despairing.

This isn’t going to kill me, he lies to himself as they hurry back toward the exit, Edwin leading the way again. We’re going to get out this time. He’ll repeat it to himself over and over until it actually becomes true, if that’s what it takes.

We’re going to get out this time.

Charles, to his credit, does not let his leg wound slow him down significantly. They hurry through Gluttony and Lust both, faster than Edwin had been hoping for. They don’t make it through Limbo however, and the creature isn’t interested in letting their deaths be quick this time. For the first time thus far, its attention doesn’t seem to be split. It lunges, mandibles clicking shut around Charles’ bicep even as another limb stretches out and grabs Edwin by the ankle.

They’re dragged back to the Dollhouse, both of them, Charles by the arm, only his knees and shins and feet dragging across the ground, Edwin by the leg. Every bit of Edwin aches, battered and bruised, by the time it drops him in one of the Dollhouse’s larger rooms. His clothes must be filthy, now, he thinks absently, staring up at the ceiling where he lays on his back. He’s a little… out of it. A little dazed, he thinks, from the fast movements and all the hits to his head. It’s always a somewhat nice sensation, this floaty feeling, this disconnect from reality; even if it makes the dread all the stronger it dims the pain and fear.

The creature shrieks and giggles. Edwin’s shoulders shudder a little, but it’s a minor flinch. He holds himself still. If he doesn’t react, if he stays quiet, doesn’t try to bolt, doesn’t give the thing the opportunity to chase him, doesn’t make a sound – if he just lays here, he might be left alone. That would be nice. Terrifying, with the creature looming over him, probably poking and prodding to get him to react, but nice. He needs a moment to catch his breath anyway.

There’s another cry. It takes Edwin too long to remember he’s not alone this time, to realize that that wasn’t the creature trying to trigger his fight or flight response. That was Charles. He tenses but doesn’t immediately sit up. That would catch the creature’s attention, and the need to stay still when he’s being taunted is too ingrained in him.

But that’s what he wants, isn’t it? Its attention on him, instead of Charles. It takes a moment for that realization too, and then Edwin’s pushing himself to a seated position in alarm, cursing what must be a concussion (or two, or three) for slowing his thought processes so dreadfully. He’s still quiet as he does so, pushing past the aches and pains, the way his arm trembles as he tries to support himself and the way he wobbles where he sits, unable to see straight. Always quiet.

The creature’s attention turns in his direction, another giggle echoing eerily throughout the room – which means it has turned its attention away from Charles, and whatever it was doing to him that had caused him to cry out. Good.

Edwin blinks, coming back to reality, pushing through the disconnect. The creature scuttles backward in that tempting way, showing just enough of the doorway, just enough of a glimpse at freedom. Edwin swallows and looks to his right.

Charles meets his gaze from where he stands close by. He’s holding his left arm close to his chest. Edwin knows he’s told Charles about this, told Charles that if he’s given the opportunity, if the creature tries to taunt him into running, that he shouldn’t take it. That he needs to exert all his effort to push down his fight or flight response. Fighting back is futile. Flight is fatal. Only freezing will bore the creature, get it to wander away and try again later.

He knows he has told Charles this, knows Charles is aware of what he must do.

Charles meets his gaze. The other boy looks terrified, as he should be. Charles’ gaze flickers to the creature then back to Edwin, who is closer to it in just this moment. Determination sinks into his eyes, overtaking the fear. A bolt of dread, clear and clean, cuts through Edwin’s gut. He feels his own eyes widen.

No!

Charles is already running. Edwin scrambles to his feet – doesn’t care about the aches, the twinge in his right ankle, the heaviness of his limbs, the way his vision blurs at the quick movement. He takes off after Charles.

No. Not for me.

He wants to scold the other boy but he can’t speak. He can barely see, only just enough to know Charles is right in front of him, then right beside him. He can’t even tell if he’s running fast enough or if Charles had just slowed down for the same reason he’d tried to run in the first place.

“What the hell are you doing?” Charles asks him, scandalized.

Edwin is fairly certain his brain to mouth connection was damaged by whatever head injury he has at the moment. He shakes his head futility and keeps running. Can he find the exit like this? Can they make another escape attempt? He’s not sure where they are in the Dollhouse at the moment. Everything’s a blur.

They reach an intersection in the halls and Edwin’s too slow, too out of it, too focused only on one thing, to be aware of what Charles plans. At first he simply thinks Charles is stumbling toward him, about to knock shoulders as they run, but that isn’t it at all.

Charles shoves him with both hands, hard, and Edwin goes flying off to the side, into the intersecting hallway, even as Charles keeps running. The creature had been right behind them – either that, or Edwin’s losing time, but he’s nearly certain it’s the former – because he blinks and it scuttles past, ignoring him breathing hard on the ground and going after the form still running.

Edwin doesn’t have the time to pull himself to his feet. He’s barely aware of the way his limbs are sprawled out on the ground as it is. He manages to prop himself up onto one elbow just in time for a shriek of pure pain to echo down the hall and reverberate oddly in his scattered mind. He’s crying again, he realizes, and he’s not sure if he’s angry or relieved or, or…

The emotions are too much. Edwin swallows them down as he gets shakily to his feet, trembling all over. The creature giggles in the distance, then scurries back toward him. It pauses in the intersection, staring him down. Edwin doesn’t move. For a second, it doesn’t either. Then it hurries away, a breath leaves Edwin, and he hurries in the direction Charles had run, wondering what he is going to see.

Charles is still there, and still breathing. He’s slumped against one wall, legs out in front of him, askew and covered in the filth of being dragged back to the Dollhouse. His right arm lays limply across his right leg, fingers loosely curled upward.

As Edwin nears, Charles looks up at him. His eyes are nearly glazed over, dazed, and he blinks but doesn’t seem to be registering anything.

His left arm is gone. Bitten off above the elbow. The amputation is still gushing blood, splashed over Charles’ left side, pooling on the ground beneath him, and Charles is going pale and wan with the loss of it. (The arm is nowhere to be seen, eaten already, or carried off by the creature.)

Edwin stares in horror for a moment, his muddied, slow mind unable to process the sight in front of him.

For me, he realizes, remembering Charles’ decision to run, Charles’ shove. Revulsion shudders through him.

“Edwin,” Charles says, less than a whisper, a breath that leaves his lips in the shape of Edwin’s name.

Edwin falls to his knees quick as he can, ignoring the jolt of his joints on the hard ground. There’s a choice here: let Charles bleed out, potentially drawing the thing back to them, or tend to his wounds, which only gives the thing more time to catch them later. Edwin always chooses the slow death of blood loss over the beast, bandaging himself best he can and looking for somewhere to hide. It might be quicker, to let the creature have Charles, but it isn’t guaranteed the creature is coming back, and the location of where the arm is torn –

It doesn’t matter. He’s already ripping at his shirt – filthy, covered in blood and sweat and dirt, incredibly unsanitary, but that doesn’t matter either – and moving to bind Charles’ arm.

There’s too much blood on the ground already. This won’t be enough. Would it be kinder, to let Charles bleed out faster?

He tightens the tourniquet, not bothering to be gentle. Charles flinches at it, but his eyes clear up a little. He stares at Edwin.

Edwin’s still crying. He’s panicking, he thinks. His hands are fumbling and inefficient. He wants to be mad at Charles, wants to yell at him, but he doesn’t have the emotional capacity at the moment. There’s nothing left in him.

Foolish. This stupid, foolish boy. Edwin has head injuries. Plural, most likely. There’s never enough time to recover from those in Hell, never a good night’s sleep to put them to rest. Edwin’s powered through them plenty of times but he’s almost always grateful for death and rebirth afterwards. He always worries he’s going to lose his mental map when his mind goes like this, worries his memories will be damaged long term. Perhaps they have been – how would he know?

He's the one who should have taken the creature’s attention. He’ll have to anyway, before they escape again.

“Edwin,” Charles says, a little stronger this time. His voice is pleading, even tight with pain. There are tears in the corners of his eyes too, but he doesn’t seem to have the energy to shed them. His undamaged arm struggles to lift itself and reach for Edwin.

Edwin wipes at his own face with the back of his sleeve, undoubtedly streaking blood and dirt over his cheeks. He shifts himself so that he’s on Charles’ other side, away from the still growing pool of blood. Carefully, still largely unaware of what he’s feeling, what emotions are trying to take hold of him, he adjusts Charles’ arm to go over his shoulder, around his neck. He tucks Charles in close to him, presses their sides together, their thighs. He winds his own hand around Charles’ back and pulls him close.

Charles tucks his head into the junction of Edwin’s collar bone, slumping mostly limp. He whimpers, quietly, when the movement jars his arm, and falls still as soon as Edwin cradles him close. The other boy is nearly in his lap – his wounded arm juts out over Edwin’s legs, dripping blood onto them. Irrelevant. Edwin holds him close until Charles grows still and cold and dead.

He’s not sure if it’s a kindness or not, that the creature has afforded them this moment.

He’s not sure what he’s feeling at all.

He’s not sure he’s feeling much of anything.

Everything seems… muted. Charles is dead in his arms. Only the knowledge that this isn’t Charles, that there’s another Charles out there somewhere, gets Edwin moving.

He stands, blinking, a corpse covered in blood at his feet. He’s covered in blood himself, the front of his legs nearly as bad as the souls in Lust. His head is still pounding. Everything is still blurry.

He needs to find Charles. Needs to get him out of here.

Edwin puts one foot in front of the other and starts walking.

What a pointless death. What a pointless, senseless death. Edwin can barely walk straight. He doesn’t even bother to try running. Charles had gotten himself killed for this? Edwin’s practically a corpse himself. He’s going to die again. The possibility of him escaping Hell like this is zero. Nil. Non-existent.

How boneheaded. How foolish.

Edwin should be furious. He should be angry with Charles.

He’s not sure why he’s crying.

The Dollhouse is… difficult to navigate, like this. It’s difficult to navigate in the best of times, when he has all his faculties about him. Every corridor looks the same. Every hallway seems to stretch on forever. There’s more than one place Charles could be, and that’s supposing he stayed put after being reborn.

Edwin had told him about this. Edwin had warned him about this. Edwin’s the one who knows where to go, which means Edwin is supposed to be the one dying and Charles is supposed to be the one staying put. They’ve had that discussion.

Clearly Charles didn’t listen.

Now even Edwin isn’t sure where he’s going. He’s punch-drunk and addled. They’re both lost in these halls.

Stupid. Pointless.

He keeps walking.

There’s an easy way to solve this, of course. Edwin could make some noise. He could make some noise, scream and cry and rage, and the creature would come. Edwin would die.

Edwin would be reborn with clarity of mind and Charles at his side. There’s no reason to think it wouldn’t work. Every time they’ve both died thus far they’ve wound up in the same place.

It’s only that Charles died for him. It’s only that Edwin doesn’t think he could scream even if he wanted to, numb as he is.

(It’s only that suicide angers the beast, so, so much, and it might not be Edwin it turns its rage onto in the future.)

Edwin walks.

He finds Charles, eventually. He’s not sure if it takes minutes or hours. The other boy is huddled on the floor in one of the large nest rooms, a pile of Edwins in the other corner. He thinks Charles looks up, as Edwin comes into the room. He can’t really tell. His vision is certainly blurry enough that he definitely cannot discern Charles’ expression.

He doesn’t much want to. His own emotions are clamoring for his attention as Edwin ignores them. He doesn’t want to deal with Charles’ emotions on top of that.

The other boy stands. The other boy hurries toward him.

“Edwin,” he says, a third time.

Edwin thinks there’s relief in that tone. He flinches at it anyway. His name is all he’s heard Charles say for some time now. He’d rather not hear it again.

“Edwin, mate, you alright?” Charles says, stepping closer.

Edwin tilts his head, staring at Charles. His head hurts. His limbs feel heavy. “No,” he says, simply.

Charles steps closer. Grabs Edwin’s hand. Tugs on it, as if trying to get them moving. “C’mon mate. We gotta, we gotta get out of here, right?”

Yes. Yes – he needs to get Charles out of here. Edwin follows the tug, but they don’t go far, only out of the room, only a few meters into the hall.

“Edwin,” Charles says again. “You’ve gotta, you’ve gotta take the lead. I don’t know where we’re going.”

Edwin flinches again. “Please stop saying my name.”

Charles huddles closer, still holding his hand, stepping into Edwin’s personal space. Edwin watches him do so blankly.

“Shh,” Charles scolds him, looking around. He sounds worried.

Something heavy sinks into Edwin’s gut. He’s making Charles worried. He doesn’t want to worry Charles. He nods, ignoring the flash of pain that follows. He tugs on Charles’ hand and starts walking.

They walk in silence, for a little while.

“Are you… should we be running?” Charles asks, after a bit.

Edwin stops, because thinking and moving at the same time seems too difficult. He blinks at Charles. The other boy is still mostly a blur. They probably should be running. They should be trying to escape. He needs to get Charles out of here.

A giggle echoes through the halls around them. Charles tenses. Charles moves to step away, to pull his hand from Edwin’s.

Edwin holds tight. “No.”

Charles turns back to him. “What –”

“No,” Edwin repeats.

He can barely think straight. He can’t see straight. He’s losing his mind, doesn’t know where they are at the moment relative to the exit. But Charles isn’t doing that again. He’s not letting Charles do that again. Not ever.

“Edwin, I can’t just –”

Edwin flinches at the sound of his name again. Charles cuts himself off. There’s movement at the distant end of the hall. The creature. Edwin finally lets go of Charles’ hand. He steps in front of the other boy.

Charles tugs at his arm from behind. “Edwin, please.”

No, this is inevitable. Edwin wants his clarity back. He wants these roiling emotions to go away.

He wants to get Charles out of here, and he needs his brain intact to do that. His body, his bodies, have failed him, so many times. His mind is all he has. He needs it back.

“Hide,” he instructs. He takes a step toward the creature. Terror flashes brightly in his mind, fear and instinct and remembered pain. Edwin’s already ignoring so much else though – what difference does it make to ignore those things, too?

“I’m not leaving you.”

The words give Edwin pause. He looks back, nevermind the beast slowly advancing on them. No, Charles isn’t, is he? He’s proven that well enough. It shakes something loose in Edwin’s mind. It’s not just Edwin’s body at stake here.

It is, almost certainly, too late by now. But he’s doing this to save Charles. He can’t get Charles killed in the meantime. He grabs Charles’ hand again. They run.

Somehow, somehow, they actually get away. It’s probably only temporary, Charles throwing them behind the first door he finds, but they don’t get killed running.

It’s only a relief because it means Charles is still alive.

Charles pulls him to the ground in the room they find themselves in. Edwin goes easily. Running had been hard. Too hard. Everything is just blurs of green and grey right now. He slumps, boneless, against Charles’ chest.

He never sleeps in Hell – that doesn’t mean he doesn’t pass out, on occasion. Mostly only when an injury is about to kill him though.

Ah. The head injury must have been worse than he’d thought.

That’s a relief.

The last of Edwin’s vision fades out.

Clarity. Brilliant, bright, mental clarity – and with it all the emotions Edwin had been ignoring. The anger. The revulsion. The desperation and fear and pain.

The despair. Oh, how Edwin wants to give in to that despair.

Does that previous life count as a breakdown, or can he just blame everything on the head injury? Does it matter? It was fine to collapse in a useless puddle on the floor, overwhelmed or in agony or just overcome with despair, when it was just him. It’s not just him anymore, and Charles had died for it.

The revulsion wins, over the fear, over the anger, over the despair.

Charles had died for him.

He shouldn’t have.

Edwin stands. He’s not sure where Charles is at the moment, but he’s going to find out.

Charles finds Edwin in the halls – or Edwin finds Charles. It’s not really clear, and it doesn’t really matter: Edwin’s back.

Charles hurries over to his side beyond grateful to see Edwin’s eyes bright and determined again, instead of that distant, glazed over madness they’d held before. That… that had scared him. More than getting dragged back to the Dollhouse, more than the broken arm, more than getting his arm ripped off. Edwin had just been gone for a while there, and it had almost tipped Charles into panic himself. He can’t do this without Edwin.

He doesn’t regret saving him, doesn’t regret it at all. (And oh, he doesn’t understand how Edwin had been up and walking and talking without his hand because that had hurt, like nothing Charles has ever felt before, but he doesn’t regret it.) Edwin had died, yes, but he’d died safe, in Charles’ arms, not at the hands of that creature.

It must have been a head injury, something Charles didn’t notice him getting. It’s the only thing that explains the glazed over look in Edwin’s eyes as they’d run together, as he’d found Charles again, the only thing that explains the fact that he’d just… stopped moving, while Charles held him.

“Sorry for not staying put,” Charles says now, hushed, stepping closer to Edwin. He wants Edwin in his arms again. Vaguely remembers nuzzling into Edwin’s collar as he died. (And it had hurt, and he’d been terrified, but in this one instant being hurt meant that Edwin wasn’t.) “Felt like the thing was getting closer.”

Edwin looks at him. His eyes are bright and determined, yes, but…

Charles can’t tell if he’s angry or not. He looks… closed off. Distant. His face is carved from marble.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he says, simply. He’s quiet again, thank goodness he’s quiet again, because it means he’s still Edwin, but Charles blanches at the cold way he speaks.

He feels the anger rise in his gut at another example of Edwin’s double standards, at the way Edwin treats himself as compared to the way he treats Charles. He squashes it down.

“Yeah, sorry,” Charles says. “Not committing to that.” He turns to get moving.

Edwin grabs his arm and turns Charles back toward him. “Charles,” he says, slow and careful, like Charles wasn’t listening before and if Edwin can speak a little clearer the words will get through now. “I had a head injury. I wasn’t going to survive. There is no place for nobility and sacrifice in Hell. You didn’t accomplish anything. Do not repeat yourself.”

All at once grief replaces Charles’ anger, and a sweeping realization comes with it, stronger than the realization he’d had before, stronger than the acknowledgement that Edwin was never going to willingly let him die alone.

This is who Edwin is, here. As long as they’re here, as long as they’re in Hell, where Edwin has been for seventy-three years, Edwin is not going to change. He can’t: he’s been shaped into this, into someone who can escape this place, by decades of torture. His own injuries are never, ever, going to mean anything to Edwin. His own pain doesn’t matter, his own suffering, his own deaths.

Charles has died four times now and every time is worse than the last because every death gives him another example of the ways he can be hurt. He has four examples all total and he knows now the way his head cracks against the wall, the way his arm can be torn off, but… But there’s always been hope for him. Always been a way out. Always been someone to turn to when it’s all too much – always been someone for him to help in turn. He could see himself going mad here, in time, watching Edwin die, dying himself, but…

He's known from the beginning there was a way out. Edwin hadn’t. And Charles can’t get between Edwin and the thought processes that keep him going; nothing can, otherwise Edwin would have lost it a long time ago.

Edwin rationalizes away everything he does because he has to. It’s the only way he’s stayed sane.

There’s no place for nobility and sacrifice in Hell, is there? Because Edwin doesn’t see what he does for Charles as noble. He doesn’t see dying for Charles as a sacrifice. It’s just practical. Just a part of living, of existing down here.

Because here’s the thing: in Edwin’s mind, Edwin is a part of Hell. Charles isn’t. Edwin has to go along with the rules and guidelines he’s made for himself to survive. Charles doesn’t. Edwin’s deaths are necessary, to escape; Charles’ deaths aren’t.

Edwin is here for the same reason Charles is. Edwin had admitted they were both here on technicalities. But the thing is, the thing is, just now, Charles is realizing that maybe Edwin doesn’t really believe that. Not fully. Not completely.

And the only way, the only way that Charles can ever see himself convincing Edwin otherwise is if they get out of here. Is back on Earth. Because Edwin is never going to change his mind. Not in Hell. Not after seventy-three years.

Charles takes a step closer to Edwin. He clasps both of Edwin’s hands between both of his and stares into the other boy’s eyes.

“You died,” he says, matching Edwin’s slow and careful tone, “safe, in my arms. You died quietly, with me, instead of being ripped apart by that monster. It was worth it, Edwin. It will always be worth it.”

Edwin opens his mouth.

Charles squeezes his hands and cuts him off. “It was worth it,” he repeats. “But I won’t do it again,” he promises, though it breaks his heart.

He can’t do it again. Not if this is what it does to Edwin, not if it turns him into this cold, distant thing. Charles will not be the thing that breaks him.

(Distantly, in the back of his own mind, he acknowledges to himself that he only half-means the promise he’s making. Oh he’ll keep it for a while, he means that, even if not stepping in front of Edwin is the hardest thing he’ll probably ever do. But if getting out of here takes longer than a handful more tries, if he ends up – God forbid – stuck down here as long as Edwin’s been, if the way out isn’t at the top of those stairs… At some point, Charles will be the one that breaks, and he won’t be able to stop himself.)

“Good,” Edwin tells him, and then again: “Good.” He’s already less stiff, already less cold.

“What do you say we get out of here?” Charles asks.

Edwin gives him a grim smile and a tight nod. “Yes,” he says. “I think it’s about time.”

Chapter Text

They make it to the Dollhouse’s exit before the creature finds them, scurrying rapidly through the halls straight in their direction. There’s no time for debates, or even a sentence between them. Charles wants them both to bolt, straight through the doors, even if that means the thing catches them both in Gluttony, but he knows – sinking feeling in his gut and all, without either of them having to say anything – that that isn’t an option.

He'd made a promise, after all.

When Edwin shoves him through the doors, when Edwin shuts the doors behind Charles, leaving them stuck on opposite sides, Charles doesn’t protest. He doesn’t rage and he doesn’t shout and he doesn’t weep. (Hush, Edwin hisses at him in his memories.) He doesn’t try to escape either, while the creature is distracted. He just stands there for a moment, then tucks himself into the corner where the door meets the floor and holds his knees close to his chest.

There’s a ragged cry and that awful giggle. Charles flinches. Edwin didn’t get far, then. He sits there, and he listens to Edwin die, slowly, piece by piece, and he thinks he might hate himself for it. It’s only the knowledge that Edwin won’t – that Edwin prefers this – that keeps Charles still.

Because the awful, wonderful truth of it all is this: Charles thinks he’d give Edwin anything, if only Edwin were to ask for it, and the only thing, the only thing Edwin has asked of him, here in Hell, is to stay safe. He’s told Charles to stay quiet and he’s ordered him to follow his lead and he’s instructed him to ignore the horror around them and keep running and all of it, every single command, every single thing Edwin has asked for of him, has only ever been about Charles’ safety.

It's hard to process the enormity of something like that.

Charles is waiting when Edwin gets back. He’s pacing back and forth behind the doors, has been ever since he heard the sickening sounds of the creature dragging Edwin down the hall. This time, when the doors open, it’s Charles who grabs Edwin’s hand, Charles who starts running, Charles who takes the lead.

(He doesn’t give Edwin the time to notice the puddle of bile in the corner.)

Gluttony comes first. Charles keeps one hand in Edwin’s and presses his shoulder against the claw machine that always blocks the way, no matter how many times they’ve moved it. It’s heavy and unwieldy, but he barely notices. There’s a soul standing close by this time, hunched over the bar to the left, grabbing fistfuls of food and shoveling them down. Charles weaves himself between them and the claw machine, Edwin’s hand still in his.

A soul hunches over into their path, bending over on hands and knees to vomit. Charles barrels right into him without a care, hip impacting the soul’s shoulder. His bare foot steps into the vomit; it squishes unpleasantly, sends a shudder of revulsion through him and brings up nausea in his own throat. Charles doesn’t let it slow him down. He keeps moving. Brute force is better in Gluttony, Edwin’s told him, so he lets himself be the battering ram and pulls Edwin along in his wake.

He slips between the next two souls easily, wishing he had something in his hand. His cricket bat maybe, or just a pipe, something long and slender he could use to wallop anyone who got in the way. Instead all he has is one free arm and his determination. He can’t even step on any toes or stomp on any feet, barefooted as he is.

Someone tries to grab at Edwin. Charles tugs – refuses to let go of the hand in his, Edwin’s warm, slender fingers clutching tightly – and elbows the next soul out of his way.

He’s not even doing this for himself, he thinks at this point. He just needs to get Edwin out of here. He needs Edwin to see the sky again, to exist somewhere other than these halls, these rooms, these monuments to suffering. He needs to hear Edwin speak, properly, without resorting to hushed whispers. He needs to see Edwin clean and smiling. He needs to hear Edwin laugh.

He needs to make sure that no one ever, ever hurts Edwin again and he needs Edwin to learn that he can live without pain – that he deserves to live without pain.

Charles doesn’t know how many days he’s been down here. Only a few of them, probably, only a handful. And he can’t do the math properly for Edwin, not really. He’s never been that good at sums and such in his head. But there’s over three-hundred days a year, right, and it’s been over seventy years since Edwin’s been down here. Charles can do that math. Three times seven is twenty-one, add the three extra zeroes needed and you get twenty-one thousand days. And that’s rounding down. That’s ignoring those extra sixty five days a year for seventy years, and those extra three years on top of that and leap years and whatever else there is to account for. It’s gotta be closer to twenty-five thousand days, probably.

Not that it matters. A year here alone would be too long for anyone. A month. A week.

It’s not even the numbers that really sink into Charles’ head. It’s that Edwin has been here, suffering, dying, (alone), trying to escape, since before Charles was born. That’s what does him in.

Edwin doesn’t know what a CD is, or a cassette, or a television. He missed the end of the first world war and skipped the second entirely. He doesn’t know man walked on the moon. He doesn’t know about mobile phones or video games. He doesn’t know about AIDS, or the fact they’re building a tunnel to France. And the music! The music Edwin’s missed! Worcestershire had won the County Championship last year and been on track to win it again when Charles had died, and the FA Cup had almost been canceled after what had happened in Hillsborough this year – and Charles doesn’t even know if Edwin cares one whit about cricket or football or any of the things Charles likes, but Charles still knows about these things and Edwin doesn’t.

He doesn’t know anything about what Edwin likes. Doesn’t know what Edwin’s like, outside of Hell.

He’s going to find out though. He’s going to show Edwin all his favorite things and learn all of Edwin’s favorite things in turn and he’s going to hear Edwin laugh and he’s going to make Edwin smile. He is.

(Charles knows he’s dead. He does. He’s not ignoring that. But he can worry about what that means for the both of them once they’re not in Hell.)

He shoves their way out of Gluttony, opens the door to Lust, and pushes through. His right foot nearly slips in the blood. He untenses his shoulder, lowers it slightly and moves lighter on his feet. Speed is better than force here, Edwin had told him.

He shifts sideways out of the reach of a grasping hand, dancing too far in the wrong direction. Course correcting, he weaves them around a slab of meat hung from the ceiling. There’s a low groan that vibrates through him, echoing up from the soul his left shin is pressed against. Charles swallows and ignores it.

Stepping forward he almost immediately has to backpedal as a hand reaches out, higher than most, grabbing at the front of him. It almost latches onto his waistband, the fingers almost curl around his trousers, pulling, but Charles manages to pull back before that. Streaks of blood are left on the bottom of his undershirt as a result; they’re probably on the trousers too, but Charles can’t see them over the black.

He's going in the wrong direction again though, going sideways when they should be moving forward. There’s barely anywhere to put his feet. Charles steps forward, dances, twists and winds and weaves, and he doesn’t ever once let go of Edwin’s hand in his. They’re almost to the door now. Edwin shudders in his grasp, a flinch echoing through their clasped hands. Charles doesn’t turn around – Edwin wouldn’t want him to – just tugs all the harder, fumbles for the door with his other hand, pulls Edwin through.

God, Edwin’s been alone for so long. It’s not even just things Edwin’s been missing. Music and cars and football and sunsets. It’s people. Charles would go mad, seventy-three years with no one to talk to. Charles thinks about his mum and his dad. About the mates who’d killed him and the ones who hadn’t. About that girlfriend he’d had in year nine, Susan Miller. Even his roommate at St. Hilarion’s this year, in the few weeks before Charles had died, Patrick something-or-other.

Charles is a people-person. He doesn’t think Edwin is, based on everything Edwin’s said, but is that Hell or is that Edwin?

What was it Edwin had said? “I think you’ll find there is little left of me that has not been overtaken by Hell.”

He’s had seventy-three years of dying, alone. (And one death, just one, cradled in Charles’ arms.)

This time, the baby-doll-demon-spider thing catches them in Limbo, and they die together.

They get a pause, between escape attempts number six and number seven. Hell isn’t kind, and it’s not really a break amongst the torture as he and Edwin huddle in the corner of a room and listen to the demon eat their last two corpses, tear at their flesh, devour their former selves, but it’s a chance to huddle together, a chance to whisper together. Too much noise will get them killed again. Running will get them killed again. But they have a few moments to whisper.

Charles talks a little bit more about 1989. He talks about his mum’s cooking and his dad’s drinking. He talks about the thrill of cricket and the bore of his classes. Then he has to hold himself back from laughing in astonishment as he relays to Edwin his latest thought: at least he never has to go to class again. (He doesn’t talk about his father’s belt or the jeer of his friends’ laughter.)

Edwin counters by saying that he’d actually enjoyed some of his classes, and Charles gets to hear the other boy talk about his life, and what it was like in 1916, and the looming specter of the War, as Edwin calls it. Charles gets to tell Edwin they’d won that war, though he doesn’t remember the exact year it ended. He doesn’t mention the second world war just yet. He also doesn’t mention the way Edwin has to stop and concentrate sometimes, the way he struggles to remember details, the way he cuts himself off here and there, frowning, as if there’s something he’s forgotten. (There is.)

He gets to ask what Edwin’s favorite sport is (none, Edwin declares, with an amusing grimace, though he had fenced in school, apparently). Edwin gets to ask what his favorite books are, and they are pleasantly surprised to find they both enjoy detective stories. Charles isn’t much of a reader, but he gets to tell Edwin about the Hardy Boys and Agatha Christie and that weird book about pigs turning into people or something he’d had to read for class last year, the most recent assigned reading he can properly recall.

It's not really peaceful. The sounds and smells are awful. They’re both huddled tight and small, knees pressed together. Charles keeps flinching, and Edwin keeps tilting Charles’ head away so he doesn’t look. But Charles gets to hear Edwin talk about literally anything other than Hell. That’s enough for him.

They try again. Charles lets Edwin take the lead, lets Edwin pull him through the halls of the Dollhouse, and then they reach the exit and he flips their positions, puts himself first, and shoulders his way through Gluttony. He becomes a battering ram, then a dancer, lets these souls smear food and bile and blood all over them, just for the chance to make it to Limbo.

Limbo requires speed and agility both in a different way from Lust. There’s nothing really impeding them from hurrying forward except for the stationary bodies in their way and the terror that permeates the room. Charles shrugs it off, keeps Edwin’s hand in his, keeps moving. The people here are all sorts, all ages, and every single one of them has a look of horror on their faces.

He remembers what Edwin had told him about this place, how Edwin had been so quick to impress on him that these people could not be helped. He’d been so quick to say it, Charles thinks now, aching. So quick to assume that Charles would care, without even knowing who Charles was at that point. He wasn’t wrong, it does strain at something in Charles’ chest to see all these people suffering, all these people he can’t help, but Edwin couldn’t have known that.

He can’t help but wonder how many times Edwin had lingered in this room, had lingered in Gluttony and Lust, trying to wake the souls up, trying to get them free of their suffering. How many times has Edwin gotten himself killed for someone beyond just what he’s done for Charles? How much has Edwin suffered, for the hope of helping someone? How hard won was that lesson, that there was absolutely nothing he could do?

It breaks Charles’ heart.

The demon breaks his leg on the steps just past Limbo and drags them both back to the Dollhouse with it. Its sets to devour them, piece by piece, and Edwin drags himself upward, a tear in his side gushing blood, and throws himself over Charles. Charles shudders. He feels the press and warmth of Edwin’s chest on his own. He feels Edwin’s blood leak down his side.

He feels Edwin flinch and cry out as the demon bites into the meat of his calf.

Charles reaches up and hugs Edwin to his chest, holds him steady, just… just holds him. It’s a mocking parody of a hug, but he’s not alone. Edwin’s not alone. Edwin needs this, to feel like he’s helping Charles, so Charles holds him close, and lets Edwin cover him with his own body and weeps.

Edwin dies first but Charles isn’t far behind him. He never will be, he vows. It’ll take greater than anything the forces of Hell have at their disposal to pry him from Edwin’s side.

They don’t make it out of the Dollhouse after that and Charles huddles and shakes with rage and anger as Edwin dies somewhere else in his stead while he sits and waits and seethes.

Fate, destiny, the inherent goodness of the universe – a loving God, divine fortune, karma, kismet, the stars… Charles curses them all. Anything that could put this on Edwin, could think that there was any part of Edwin that deserved any of this, was not something that Charles wanted to believe in.

He’ll make his own destiny from here on out, one for him and Edwin both, thanks very much, and he pities anyone who might try to stand in his way.

The Dollhouse, first. The endless hallways, the green light. The concrete grimy and hard and rough beneath their feet. Their breath heaving in their lungs as their legs move as fast as they can. Edwin’s hand in his, always in his, grounding, solid, a life preserver in a place where life isn’t sacred, a raft on a river that rages and roils. Edwin’s mind, Edwin’s knowledge, Edwin’s seventy-three fucking years of experience gets them to the exit of the place.

Then, Gluttony. Greed and voraciousness and insatiability dressed up as a feast of wolfish craving, a ravenous hunger beyond the point of reason – and the sickness and nausea it results in, the expulsion of everything these souls are compelled to take in for themselves. They keep none of it. They achieve nothing. Charles thinks of the demon, and its hunger for their flesh, and wishes it knew the suffering of these souls. They don’t get to keep one morsel of what’s given to them in Hell – but Charles is keeping Edwin. He found something beautiful – he got found by something beautiful – and he’s keeping it. It’s not gluttony but it’s certainly not abstinence either.

Lust follows, those heaving, groaning, suffering souls, writhing around on the ground covered in blood, the pleasure of the flesh indistinguishable from the pain of it. There’s more craving here, more hunger, dressed up in a different outfit and groping at Charles and Edwin in a different way. The hands reach and reach and reach and slide off again as Charles and Edwin slip free of them, wind their way through. It’s not the brute force of Gluttony, it’s a dance, and Charles is starting to learn the steps with Edwin’s hand in his.

Limbo, next. A moment frozen in time. Souls scattered about, frozen with their fear. They’d manage well against the demon, Charles thinks wryly, a mismatch of opposites, nothing for the thing to chase, no sounds to draw its attention. Edwin freezes so easily, at a sound from another hallway, an echo down the corridors. He freezes, mouth snapping shut on instinct, eyes going wide. Fight or flight, Charles has always been told, as if those are the only two options. Charles usually prefers to fight back but Edwin had made it clear from the beginning – the sight of that demon looming over him had made it clear – that it wasn’t an option. Flight will get them out of Hell and Edwin’s good at it, but he’s good at freezing too, not one of the two standard options but something else entirely. He's good at showing Charles there’s more to the world than just what he thinks of it, more than just what he’s been told. (He’s never known what it is like to be cared about, the way Edwin cares about him.)

Out of Limbo comes the stairway, that hopefully final push that Charles has only seen twice now. He wants to pause at the bottom of it and drink it in. Wants to catch his breath. Wants to stare into that unfathomable darkness and have a piece of it for himself, a piece for Edwin, just… nothingness. Just quiet. It’d be better than this.

Better than that, though, will be Earth. Will be, because they’re going to make it. They're going to.

They’re at the bottom of the staircase. There hasn’t been a hint of the demon thus far. Charles doesn’t take the moment he longs for. He doesn’t pause to catch his breath. He doesn’t let go of Edwin’s hand. Up, up, up they run, calves burning. The steps are smooth beneath his feet; filthy as he and Edwin are, they must be leaving a trail behind them. Footsteps of blood and bile that mark the way out of Hell.

God. Edwin, brilliant, brave, beautiful Edwin, has found the way out of Hell. For all the time Charles has spent here, all the suffering he’s endured, all the deaths, he’d only spent a few hours drowning without hope before Edwin had appeared with a lifeline. Before Edwin became his lifeline.

What would Charles have done, if Edwin hadn’t been there? Would he have dared to hope? Would he have believed there was a way out at all, that it was even an option? Did Edwin, in the beginning, or did he just keep running from the demon, over and over and over again, hopeless and distraught and despairing, until he managed to escape the Dollhouse by pure chance?

Charles doesn’t know the answer to any of his questions. Answering them isn’t the point of thinking of them. His heart aches. His lungs heave. His legs burn.

They run.

The staircase seems endless. Noise, from below, signals the appearance of the demon, that thing that owns them.

It isn’t right, owning a soul. Charles could never. He’d let Edwin go if that was what was best for him, if that was what Edwin wanted. If Edwin asked it of him, he’d drop his hand. Not yet, not until Edwin’s free, but later, he would. If they get out of Hell and Edwin never wants to see him again, Charles’ll give him that too. It’ll break him, but he’ll do it. Edwin’s soul has been owned by someone else for too long. Charles refuses to try and claim any part of it that Edwin’s not willing to give.

They run.

The staircase seems endless. The demon shrieks from below. Charles isn’t sure if he’s just imagining it or not, if he’s letting hope infuse in him too deeply, but it sounds angrier than usual. Like they’re almost there. Like it knows it’s losing them.

Is it too much to hope? He’d like to think not. Edwin’s given him nothing but hope, since the moment Charles met him. Charles hasn’t given him anything in turn. He’s not even giving him this: Edwin would have gotten out just fine without Charles. Maybe a few days earlier, even, given the number of times he’s distracted the demon with his own death.

But, no, it’s certainly not the time for despair. Charles casts such thoughts from his mind. He keeps his grip on Edwin’s hand. He keeps his feet moving.

There’s another shriek, a giggle infused with anger, an oxymoron that suits the demon nevertheless. It’s close – too close. The clatter of the thing’s limbs on the stairs echoes around the round walls of the staircase.

It’s right behind them. It’s right behind them and in front of them… There’s a light. There’s a door.

Charles doesn’t know what’s on the other side of that door. Edwin doesn’t know what’s on the other side of that door. He’s never made it this far, apparently. But Edwin had been right, what he’d said earlier. It doesn’t matter what’s on the other side of that door – it’s not here.

Out of the corner of his eye, Charles sees the demon lunge. It’s reaching for them, a hundred dark eyes staring them down. Edwin’s already lunging in turn, pulling ahead of Charles even as the demon makes its move.

Edwin’s hand reaches for the door, and then Edwin is stumbling and Charles is stumbling and they fall to a pile on the other side of the door and everything is, everything is… Charles blinks.

Edwin is scrambling to his feet, cursing himself for falling – they’re going to get caught now, why haven’t they gotten caught already, they need to keep running – before he realizes that the world feels… different. It isn’t the slightly fresher air and cleaner nature of Limbo. It’s more than that. It’s…

Edwin’s not even sure he’s breathing, because he can’t detect the freshness (or staleness) of the air. The musty-blood soaked smell of the Dollhouse is absent; the iron-tinged nightmare of Lust is gone as well. Barely on his feet, unsteady and terrified because of it, he risks a look behind him. There’s nothing there.

Literally. It’s just a wall. There’s no door, no sight of the staircase, and, most importantly, no demon. He doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief. Just because he can’t see the thing doesn’t mean it isn’t lurking somewhere in the darkness.

But this doesn’t feel like Hell. It doesn’t feel like much of anything. The muscles in his legs are no longer burning, nor are his lungs. Any exhaustion he’d felt is gone. Even his clothes feel like they hang differently on his skin. When he takes a step backward in alarm the floor doesn’t feel like anything beneath his feet – not rough or smooth, not filthy or clean, just… pressure. Just a floor, a barrier to falling through to the center of the Earth and nothing more.

Earth. Could this be? Was that door actually…?

“Shit.”

Edwin turns in alarm again at Charles’ voice. The other boy is standing, looking at one particular spot in this drab, unremarkable concrete room. Edwin, with one last glance at where he thinks the door had been, where he thinks he and Charles had stumbled through from Hell, hurries toward his side. Whatever Charles is staring at… there’s nothing there. Nothing Edwin can see, at least, which doesn’t account for the horror in Charles’ eyes.

Charles points.

“I died right there,” he says.

Oh. Oh. Edwin looks at the scene with fresh eyes, and a dawning horror of his own. He hadn’t recognized it, at first but… This is the basement. The basement, where he was dragged to in the middle of the night, strapped to a table, sacrificed to Sa’al. It doesn’t look the same. Or maybe it does and he’s just forgotten. The table is gone, at any rate.

“They found the book there,” Charles continues, pointing to a filing cabinet that isn’t quite pressed up against the wall. There’s just enough of a space behind it for the book that Edwin remembers Simon reading from, though of course it isn’t there now.

Edwin’s still staring. His heart is beating frantically in his chest, nevermind the lack of the creature or the lack of any effects from the physical exertion he and Charles had just been through.

He should probably say something. To Charles. This is the spot where the other boy died, after all. Shouldn’t Edwin be comforting him? Shouldn’t he console him?

The last time he gave Charles a compliment, the only time, Charles had let out of bark of laughter loud and terrible in the confines of the Dollhouse. It had been after Charles’ second death and it had led to them splitting up in the hallway, Edwin deliberately getting the creature’s attention, he thinks. He doesn’t remember how he’d died that time; it all blurs together after a while. (He can recall the details and horror and pain of many, many different methods of death, but not the order of them. He can recall the terror and fear of running countless times, of noises and mistakes that caught the creature’s attention, but he can’t link those to the deaths. Time doesn’t matter in Hell, in more ways than one.)

But he’s not supposed to be searching for a compliment, necessarily, just comfort. (He’d been trying to comfort Charles then too and shot into the brown rather spectacularly instead.) Except what does Edwin know of comfort? What good is he to Charles now that they’ve – possibly, probably, hopefully – gotten out of Hell?

What can he say now, standing here, unwilling to believe they’ve actually escaped from Hell, certain that the creature could be lurking around any corner, hiding in any shadow, just waiting for him to make too much noise? He thinks he’s trembling. His instincts are screaming at him to bolt (the creature’s nowhere in sight, it’s time to run) while simultaneously screaming at him to stay still (the creature was just behind them, just there, he needs to freeze, needs to not catch it’s attention). The combination is nauseating, but Edwin doesn’t actually feel like he’s about to throw up.

He’s really not feeling much of anything. (It’s… nice. The lack of sensation. Confusing, but he’ll take it over the pain and suffering of Hell anytime.)

Charles looks up at him. Charles blinks. Charles takes a step forward. “Edwin?”

So much for Edwin helping him. So much for Edwin providing comfort. This must be Earth, it must be. They’re staring at the place where Charles and Edwin died, after all, and the demon that was a mere few seconds behind them is nowhere to be seen.

Earth. He’d made it. He’d gotten out of Hell. Edwin’s having trouble processing that, no matter that it’s been his end goal for so long.

“Edwin, mate, you alright?” Charles is asking now. His hand is up, like he wants to reach for Edwin, but he’s hesitating.

Probably because he’s still rattled too, having found himself where he’d died. Probably because Edwin’s trembling like a rabbit. Probably because here Charles was, having a moment, processing his own escape, and here Edwin is, interrupting because he’s the one who can’t handle it. Edwin’s eyes flicker up and down Charles’ form. Charles isn’t speaking in hushed whispers anymore. He’s whole. There’s no demon lurking in the shadows.

This isn’t Hell. Edwin isn’t in Hell anymore!

He collapses. Charles lunges and catches him before his knees hit the ground, but Edwin’s legs aren’t much interested in supporting any weight so Charles lowers them both to the ground instead of hefting Edwin upright again. Edwin’s still trembling. (Who’s to say that the demon can’t find its way to Earth, can’t follow them? Just because it hasn’t in the scant moments they’ve been here…)

“Edwin!” Charles says in alarm.

His name again, always his name. There’s no fear of forgetting that anymore, not with Charles by his side.

Edwin fumbles, arranging his arms and hands to grasp at Charles in turn, even as his legs refuse to cooperate. “We should, we should…” He casts his gaze around, not remembering the direction of the exit, and finds a staircase leading upward.

“You did it, Edwin,” Charles says, shaky himself, astonished. He’s not smiling, but there’s a lightness to his eyes, a lack of tension to his features. “You, you got us out of there.”

Right. They’re out of Hell. (They must be.) That doesn’t mean they should linger here, in this location that has been a bridge between Earth and Hell three times already. The danger isn’t necessarily gone, yet. Edwin tightens his grip on Charles’ arms and pulls himself to his feet. Charles comes with him and both of their trembling ceases as they stand.

“We should keep moving,” Edwin says. “At least, at least get out of the basement.”

“Good idea,” Charles says, grim, with a look back at the spot where he died.

Edwin hesitates, then takes Charles’ hand. They’re not in Hell anymore, but… Well, he cannot justify the contact so he resolves not to think about it. Charles does not seem to mind, clasping back in turn.

Steadier than before he walks – walks, not runs – them to the stairs, then up – up again, up and out and free – to the school where he and Charles died, so many years apart.

“Wait,” Charles says, halting halfway up the stairs and thereby forcing Edwin to halt as well. “I… I don’t think we’re exactly alive here, mate.” He nods at their clasped hands. “Feels different, doesn’t it?”

Edwin gives his grip on Charles’ hand due attention. Charles is right. Like every other sensation since leaving Hell (he’s free, well and truly out of the grasp of demons, even as he flees this basement with a shade of terror in his lungs) it feels different. Lesser. There’s no warmth to Charles’ fingers. There’s pressure, of a sort – Edwin is well aware he’s holding Charles’ hand, and would be able to tell that even with his eyes closed, so it’s not a complete lack of sensation, but… There’s no warmth, no texture, just… just the sensation of something solid to hold onto.

A thought occurs to Edwin – and as soon as it does his feet begin to sink through the step. Charles lets out a startled shout even as Edwin’s own panic arrests his movement. Edwin gets his thoughts in order and pulls his feet back out of the stairwell, standing properly on the stairs as he was before.

The insubstantiality, the lack of sensation, the vague discussions he can remember Sa’al and other demons and other souls having, before he’d been traded to the Dollhouse – the manner in which he and Charles had both died…

“I believe we are specters, of a sort,” he says, staring at the hand that isn’t clasped in Charles’. When he looks up, Charles looks confused.

“What?”

“Ghosts,” Edwin clarifies. “We have returned to Earth” – hopefully – “but I believe our bodies to be lost to us.”

It changes little. They still need to leave this dreadful place behind.

“Come,” Edwin says. He tugs at Charles’ hand, looking ponderously at the door at the top of the stairwell as he does so. Charles, thankfully, follows, and Edwin has another thought.

He concentrates. He steps through the door. Charles’ hand does not come with him. There’s a dull thud, on the other side of the door. Concentrating again, Edwin reaches forward to put a hand on the knob – there’s no sensation of cool metal, no worn smoothness from the thousands of hands that must have touched it before him – and opens the door.

Charles has a hand over his face, rubbing his nose, and he looks a little bemused as he looks up at Edwin, then moves to join him in the hall. Edwin lets the door shut behind him, glad to be out of the basement.

“How’d you do that, then?” Charles asks, voice slightly muffled by the hand in front of his face.

“It seems that existing as a ghost is a matter of expectation,” Edwin relays his thought processes thus far. “I expect the floor to be solid, thus, I do not fall through it.” He taps the floor with his foot, though it doesn’t make a sound. “Similarly, you expected not to be able to go through the door and thus, you were not.”

“That’s brills, mate.” Charles is staring at Edwin, wide-awed with wonder. He finally removes his hand from his face. “Doesn’t even hurt none, either.” He scrunches up his nose, as if testing the validity of his claim.

Edwin finds himself looking away, altogether uncertain as to what he is feeling that prompts him to do so. “Yes, well,” he manages, looking back, and pulls himself together again. (Metaphorically, this time. Because he’s out of Hell. He’s escaped. He isn’t lying torn to pieces on the floor of the Dollhouse, deliriously imagining a future of freedom.)  “It is good that there is no pain.” Very good, actually. He’s looking forward to it. He’s not sure he’s ever wanted anything more.

Charles’ gaze goes to the end of the hall, apparently distracted by whatever he sees there. (It looks like a normal hallway to Edwin, though lit by yellow electricity without a tinge of green, doors and proper normal windows lining the walls.) The awe fades into a quiet (pleasant) determination. He reaches out and grabs Edwin’s hand again. “C’mon,” he says. “I want to show you something.”

Edwin follows. Charles had taken charge once they’d left the Dollhouse too, every time those last few tries. And he’s more familiar with the modern layout of St. Hilarion’s, though there are sights that look familiar to Edwin in these halls as well. It doesn’t feel strange or dangerous to let Charles tug him along.

Charles leads him to an inner stairwell, the both of them managing to phase through the closed door this time, though Charles requires a moment of concentration before he attempts it, and then up and up and up, until they reach a door that proclaims to be the roof access, with plenty of warning signs in brightly printed lettering not to use it.

“C’mon,” Charles says again, tugging Edwin through it.

Bemused, Edwin continues to follow. He can’t imagine what Charles has to show him on the roof and, indeed, there isn’t much to see on the other side of the door, even if Edwin is distracted by the wide open expanse of the dim sky above them. Charles leads him to the side of the building though, tugging Edwin away from his attempt to gape upward, and keeps his hand in Edwin’s even as he takes a seat, forcing Edwin to do the same.

“What was it you wanted to show me?” Edwin asks, a little cross now. He’d enjoyed looking up at the sky, gray and hazy though it was at the moment.

Charles just tugs on his hand and points.

Edwin looks in the direction Charles is indicating. There are fewer clouds that way and…

Oh.

It’s sunrise.

Chapter Text

Things aren’t perfect, back on Earth. They’re ghosts now, and Earth is as messy and complicated and chaotic as ever. But they’re not in Hell. That’s perfection enough for the both of them.

“What do you want to do now, mate?”

Edwin flounders, looking as uncertain as Charles has ever seen him. “I… I do not know,” he settles on after a moment. “I’m afraid I’ve never given the matter much thought.”

Charles bites back his instinctual reaction at that – the pang of grief that hits him simultaneously with the shock. He’d spent plenty of time wanting after things on Earth while he was in Hell, but that was only for a few days, he reminds himself now, no matter how long it had felt. He’d seen how single-track Edwin’s mind had been, down there, he’d acknowledged that. It only makes sense, a horrible sorrowful sense, that Edwin doesn’t have a clue what to do with his freedom, now that he’s won it.

“Surely you…” Edwin hesitates. “Surely there are things that you would, would rather be doing?”

Charles bites back his reaction to that too. ‘Course Edwin would be thinking that. He’d probably thought the whole time that Charles would just wander off the second Edwin got him out of Hell, shout out a quick thank you, wave a bit, and then that would be it for the two of them.

He’s a bit of an idiot, Edwin is, but Charles can’t blame him for that. (He blames Hell. He blames the boys who killed Edwin.)

“Nah,” he says easily, grinning. It’s easier to grin here, now that he knows Edwin never has to die for him again. Feels nice. Safe. He elbows Edwin lightly. “C’mon, there must be something. You’ve been trying at this for ages.” He doesn’t let himself think about how long those ages were. “If I wasn’t here, if you’d gotten out a few days ago without me slowing you down, what would you have done?”

Edwin’s expression has gone stern. “Charles,” he says, scolding, and it’s at a normal volume, fond, and Charles loves the sound of it.

“What?” he asks. He’s still grinning even as Edwin frowns at him.

“You cannot think of yourself like that,” Edwin says.

Okay, now Charles is frowning a bit. “Like what?”

“Like… like you were just another obstacle Hell deigned to put in my path.”

Oh. Charles rewinds his own words. He hadn’t really meant it like that, it was just the truth, wasn’t it? Edwin hadn’t needed Charles to escape Hell. He’d had that in the bag. Charles isn’t putting himself down, really. He’d helped Edwin as much as he could, pushed through Gluttony and Lust and Limbo for him, but he knows Edwin could have managed on his own. And he’d certainly spent his fair share of time pausing to explain things to Charles.

“Just saying you didn’t need me down there, did you?” Charles clarifies. “I’m not being mean about it, and all. Just… Edwin, you found the way out of Hell, all on your own. I just followed your map.”

Edwin shifts a little where they sit, not much, but enough to put some distance between them. Charles could shift back, could press their legs together again, but he lets Edwin have the distance for a moment. He’ll let Edwin have anything he wants.

“Charles,” Edwin says again, this time slow and considering, like he needs a moment to put his thoughts together. “I… I know the circumstances of your death were… not of your choosing, to say the least. Having experienced it myself, I can understand… That is to say…”

Charles doesn’t remember being all that patient, back when he was a living sixteen-year-old boy. Now that he’s a dead one, he thinks he can manage. For Edwin, at least. He holds in a glib comment about the ritual sacrifice that killed the both of them, seventy-three years apart.

Edwin looks him square in the face. “You do not have to remain with me, just because you think I got you out of Hell. You do not owe me anything, Charles.”

Oh. That’s, that’s wrong. Charles owes Edwin everything, and it’s not even really for escaping Hell. He thinks, even if he was stuck down there with Edwin for another seventy-three years, he’d still owe this boy everything. No one’s ever cared about Charles, about what Charles wanted, as much as this boy has. This is just more evidence of that, more evidence that Edwin wants to make sure Charles is okay, that Charles is taken care of.

Charles owes Edwin the world – but he can’t tell Edwin that. The other boy would take it entirely the wrong way. Charles isn’t thinking it like there’s a debt to be paid, that one day he’ll have done enough favors for Edwin and he’ll feel like it’s enough and they’ll go their separate ways. It’s not a duty or a commitment or an obligation it’s… it’s… It’s community. That sort of responsibility that comes right along with just being a decent fucking human being. 

It's love, that’s what it is, plain and simple. Devotion without expectation.

Charles Rowland loves Edwin Payne.

(‘You think’, Edwin had said. ‘Just because you think I got you out of Hell.’ As if it isn’t pure and simple fact.)

Charles turns where he sits, turns to face Edwin better, turns to look him in the eyes, turns so he can put his hands on both of Edwin’s shoulders and make sure Edwin gets it, what he tells him next.

“’Course I don’t,” he says, bright and easy, because he means it, because that’s what Edwin wants to hear, because Edwin doesn’t need him to dwell on the negatives. Because Edwin deserves joy. “Doesn’t change anything though. You’re stuck with me until you get sick of me, Edwin Payne.”

Edwin looks away but not… It’s not like his mum would look away sometimes, like she couldn’t bear to watch him hurt. Or like his dad, looking away, scoffing in disgust. Or like his mates, whose gazes would slip right off him if Charles wasn’t who they wanted him to be in that moment, wasn’t fun enough, wasn’t British enough. It’s not like any of those looks at all, so Charles ducks down, changes their positions, meets Edwin’s gaze again.

He squeezes Edwin’s shoulders, light and gentle and nothing that would ever, ever hurt him. (Charles will never be like his dad. He loves Edwin Payne and he will never love him like his dad had loved him.)

“Hey,” he says. “I mean it. Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

He’s not sure Edwin believes it just yet. That’s okay. Charles is happy to repeat himself until Edwin does.

They go to the library first. Honestly, Charles would rather get the hell off this campus, away from the place where he died, because it’s tempting to linger. Too tempting. He wants to see if they’ve cleared out his dorm yet, how his former friends are doing (the ones that didn’t kill him, given that the ones who did, are, well, probably still in Hell). He wants to check in on his parents. He doesn’t even know if it’s been long enough for them to have held the funeral yet.

But Edwin manages to get out that that is what he’d prefer, when Charles finally squeaks an answer out of him, and Charles hadn’t gotten much of a chance to hear about Edwin’s love of books while they were in Hell, but he’d heard enough. Besides, Edwin’s asking for it. That’s enough for him.

So, they go to the library. It’s been rearranged since Edwin’s time but Charles still remembers it. He shows Edwin to the non-fiction section and just sits down in the aisles next to Edwin as he devours book after book after book.

Hours must pass. Part of Charles wonders as his own patience. But he likes the looks on Edwin’s face as he reads, the furrow of concentration, the delight, the sorrow, as he consumes as much of the history he’d missed out on as he can. He likes it when Edwin asks him questions about what he’s reading, that no matter how many times Charles admits he doesn’t know something Edwin never stops checking in with him, never stops asking.

They see a few students, on occasion, but one of the other facets that comes along with being a ghost is that they can’t be seen in turn, apparently. Edwin freezes anytime a voice rings out louder than most, or a student walks by. When Edwin tenses, Charles does too, straightening, wary, ready to pounce on anyone who even looks at Edwin funny. But no one sees them and Edwin inevitably returns to his book.

Eventually, though, Charles does tire of watching Edwin read. He thinks about wandering away to get a book of his own, maybe stepping outside, maybe giving in to the burning desire to find out what happened after he died, but he doesn’t think he can bear to leave Edwin’s side. If he doesn’t know where Edwin is at all times, if he can’t physically see him –

They’re not in Hell anymore, but nearly every time Edwin had left Charles’ sight he’d died.

“C’mon,” he says eventually, when darkness cloaks the windows in sight and the sounds of students have long since faded. He stands.

Edwin looks up, a little surprised by the interruption.

“Got to take a break every now and again, yeah?” Charles asks, even though no part of his new ghostly form feels like it needs a break.

Edwin casts a hesitant look toward the library’s main entrance. Oh. He’s scared to leave. Probably scared of the world outside waiting for him – Charles has seen the way he’s reacted to all that history after all, all those questions about how the world works now. Charles rapidly casts around in his mind for something to show Edwin, something simple – sports and music are out, with the crowds they gather. The cinema? Not yet, not until he knows a bit more about what’s showing.

“I can show you the Tube,” he decides on a whim. Simple. Modern. A way for them to get the hell out of here and around London.

Now Edwin only looks bemused. “I have been on the Tube, Charles,” he says.

Charles blinks. “Really?”

Edwin rolls his eyes. He lightly places the book he’s holding on an empty spot on the shelf and stands to join Charles. “I am not that old.”

“No, I just…” Charles shrugs. “Thought the Tube was a bit more modern than that. Still, gotta have more stops now, don’t it?”

Edwin looks hesitant again.

“We can come back,” Charles promises. “We can go to any library you want.” He holds out his hand.

After a moment, Edwin takes it.

Edwin is hesitant to venture out into the world at first, even as the presence of the basement lingers in his mind, a reminder of where he’d been imprisoned, but Charles has no such doubts. His endless enthusiasm buoys Edwin up in turn, reminding him that there had been things about life he’d enjoyed beyond books.

They ride around London countless times, over and over. At first, Edwin simply watches everything, takes it all in, but Charles hadn’t minded his questions with the books so Edwin starts to ask them here, too. Charles starts to explain things even before Edwin asks.

They don’t seem to grow tired as ghosts, another benefit. They see London at night, walking into and out of closed storefronts and museums and libraries, experimenting with their ghostly abilities. Morning brings people and their modern devices and fashions, and more questions that Charles takes easily, even when he doesn’t know the answer. They wander to the British Museum. Edwin gets to see familiar sights like Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London.

Charles dares them to sneak into the palace as they pass by, joking about meeting the Queen. Edwin had read about this – George V had been followed by Edward VIII, who had abdicated after less than a year. Then George VI, then Elizabeth II. As interesting as it is, Edwin has no interest in spying on England’s monarch. (Charles’ irreverence for the Queen would have scandalized the people of his day, or at least his parents and their cohorts; Edwin doesn’t feel similarly, only fondness and amusement at Charles’ humor.)

Days and nights pass. They stroll through Kensington Gardens and St. James’ Park and a dozen other tiny parks besides during the daylight hours, all at once familiar and different from Edwin’s memories. They visit theaters and cinemas, where Edwin gets to watch a movie for the first time. Charles takes him to smaller corners of the city too, little ‘punk’ music shops (wherein ‘punk’ apparently refers to a type of music, these days, and the culture around it) and pubs and venues that play live music and things called arcades. He drags him to a sporting event at one point and is rather good-natured about it when Edwin admits afterward that he still doesn’t see the appeal.

They traverse marketplaces and little shops and vast department stores that sell everything under the sun – including countless things Edwin has never heard of. Charles lets Edwin map out every stop on the Tube and explore all the new bridges that have been built over the Thames.

They don’t go back to St. Hilarion’s, but Edwin gets to explore a hundred new libraries around London, and Charles indulges him there too, lets him stay for hours or days, reading books, fiction and non-fiction both.

They meet other ghosts along the way. Ghosts like them, just wandering – and ghosts who aren’t like them at all. Ghosts who are lost to their emotions, stuck or grieving or angry. Ghosts who need help.

That’s where it all starts, really, because there’s no one else out there who can help them, is there?

The Dead Boy Detective Agency, founded 1990, ninety years after Edwin’s birth and less than one year after he escaped Hell, is everything Edwin could ever have dreamed of.

Their cases bring danger to them again – cat scratches and iron and magic, outside the need to run from Death – but it’s different than the danger had been in Hell. Less all-consuming, more… mundane. At least when it comes to themselves. When it comes to each other, on the other hand…

Huffing in frustration, Edwin pivots on one heel and strides off. Charles is too frustrated to even snap at him as he leaves, bursting with energy he wants to get out himself. Following Edwin’s lead, he turns and starts walking the other direction. One of these days, one of them, he’s going to get it through Edwin’s thick head that his pain matters. He is. He doesn’t care how stubborn Edwin is, Charles can outlast him.

God! Edwin can be so pig-headed sometimes, so stuck in his ways. Nausea settles in Charles’ gut at the reminder of why. He’s still angry – he’s not capitulating on this argument, not at all – but he pauses and throws a glance over his shoulder. Edwin’s nowhere in sight, having stormed off around a corner maybe, rounded a bend out of sight.

Charles’ stomach drops unpleasantly. What if Edwin’s getting himself into trouble again? What if he’s hurt? (He is hurt; the iron burn hadn’t been smoking anymore, but it had still been there, black and horrid looking.) He fidgets. He’s still angry at Edwin – very, very angry – but…

Without letting himself dwell on it, Charles turns around and hurries back the direction he’d come from, then further in the direction Edwin had gone. Shame starts to settle into the dread. He doesn’t really feel bad about his part in the argument – he’s right, he knows he’s right – but how on Earth could he have let Edwin storm off like that? The most they’ve really been apart so far is when they’re in between different stacks in a library or wandering different parts of a store or crime scene or client’s former home.

He hadn’t realized how desperate he’d been to keep Edwin in his sight until just this moment.

Luckily, Edwin hasn’t gone far. Charles hurries along the path Edwin had been on, rounds the corner, and finds Edwin standing there, looking a little lost and distraught himself. Charles hurries to his side. He takes Edwin’s hand because he knows Edwin won’t take his, not in these circumstances.

Neither of them says anything for a moment. They both think they were right.

Edwin’s still adjusting to being out of Hell, Charles reminds himself. It’s going to take time, changing his mind.

The other boy is nearly trembling now, staring at Charles worriedly. The look on his face is too similar to how it got whenever he froze in fear.

Before he can second guess himself, Charles surges forward and buries himself into Edwin’s side. He clasps his arms around Edwin and shoves his face into Edwin’s shoulder. Edwin doesn’t hug him back – can’t, really, the way Charles has latched onto him – but he stops trembling and seems to relax a bit.

“I’m proper pissed at you,” he says, so Edwin doesn’t get confused, but he doesn’t let go, so Edwin knows he’s not going anywhere.

Taking cases helps them learn more about being ghosts too, and just more about the world in general – and, Charles learns quickly enough, if there’s one thing Edwin enjoys more than anything else, it’s learning new things.

“Charles!” Edwin says, voice high and excited, nearly shrill with his glee. He claps a hand over his mouth in shock at the sound of it, but even the spike of fear doesn’t dampen his excitement. He’s mostly gotten over the fear, anyway, by the time Charles hurries to his side from where he’d been rummaging around a couple aisles over.

“Ooh,” Charles coos appreciatively. “One of your fancy books?”

“Fancy books,” Edwin replies, scathing and still gleeful. He casts Charles’ words aside, he’s so pleased at his find. “Yes,” he says smugly, “I suppose it is.”

Charles clasps him on his shoulder, heavy and comforting all at once. It’s not a gentle touch, necessarily, but it’s a friendly one, not meant to cause any pain. “Cheers!”

Edwin huffs in amusement, a slim smile on his face. Charles hasn’t even bothered to glance at the title yet, just pleased because Edwin is.

“What’s this one about, then?”

“Charles!” Edwin says again, scolding this time, a gentle chiding even as amusement colors his tone. “We discussed what I was looking for on the way over here! It was the entire point of this outing!”

“Did we?” Charles returns cheekily. He shrugs. “Must have forgotten sometime between the third and fourth shops. Or was it the fifth?”

“Yes, yes,” Edwin says. Perhaps it has been a bit much for Charles; he must be bored out of his mind – and yet he hadn’t hesitated to indulge Edwin when Edwin had suggested the outing in the first place, or at any moment since. He hugs the book to his chest protectively, though Charles has never, not once, grabbed his things from him. Charles wouldn’t do that. There are other patrons of this shop, however, and now that Edwin has found his treasure, he doesn’t intend to let it be taken from him. (He never got to keep anything he found in Hell, and he’d found so little, over the years.) He gives Charles a once-over. “Have you found anything you wish to purchase?”

“Nah. Let’s just get you sorted. Unless there was something else you were looking for?”

Honestly, there might be other treasures in this shop as well but… It has been hours. “This will do me quite well,” he says. “What was it you were saying this morning, about that new film in the cinema?”

Most importantly, though: they get to be boys together. They get to have fun.

Edwin’s running. He’s running hand in hand with Charles and the sun is shining brightly above them as they skirt around other pedestrians who can’t see them. Edwin is trying to be stern, but Charles is laughing so hard he makes it difficult. Edwin’s practically dragging the other boy along, Charles stumbling over his own feet. There’s a shopkeeper somewhere behind them shaking his fist at the two ghost boys who’d ‘infested’ his shop; in any other situation Edwin would think the man one of those half-hearted actors in the comedy films Charles keeps showing him, but no, he’s real, and he’s really irritated.

“Charles,” Edwin scolds, dragging them around the corner and pulling them to a stop. It’s unlikely the shopkeeper will chase them. He has a shop to manage after all. “That was uncalled for!”

Charles has his hands on his knees as he laughs, beaming a grin up at Edwin. “Yeah, but it was funny, wasn’t it?”

Edwin can’t stop his lips from quirking upward into a grin. Trying to hide it he turns and strides off. The peals of Charles’ laughter behind him ring even louder at that; in private, assured that even Charles can’t see him, Edwin stops trying to keep his own smile off his face.

That’s one shop they won’t be coming back to – but Charles’ antics had been quite funny.

And they get to laugh: Edwin’s laughter, when Charles finally gets to hear it – not an amused huff of air, not a fond scoff, not a light chuckle but real, genuine laughter, the two of them safe and comfortable in the space they’ve carved out for themselves, layers shed, relaxed, sun streaming through the window on an unseasonably clear day – is the most beautiful sound Charles thinks he’s ever heard. And the best thing about it is he’ll get to hear it again. They’ve still got plenty of challenges in front of them, running from Death, Hell nipping at their heels, cases to solve, but Charles will hear Edwin laugh again.

He knows he will.

And they get to live, in their own way: Edwin had never given much thought to what he’d do with himself, once he got out of Hell. The actual escape of it all was much more important. But he never, not once, not even in the early years, when he'd been much less tormented, could have imagined what he’d gotten, in the end, could have imagined this: an existence not filled with constant terror, a purpose that brings people hope, and a best friend – the best friend possible – to share it all with.

He is, he thinks, the happiest he’s ever been in his entire ninety years of existence. He has a best friend now – and forever, Charles has promised him. He’s solving mysteries. He’s helping souls now, people who are stuck and distraught just like the souls in Hell had been, but in these cases are not (usually) beyond his – their – help.

What Edwin does matters now, in a way it never has before. And more than just on the grand scheme of thing – what Edwin does matters to Charles too, because Charles cares about him, cares if he’s happy, cares if he’s safe.

He hadn’t been able to see that in Hell either. He can see it now.

He never wants to stop seeing it again.

It isn’t perfect – Charles bristles at anyone who even looks at Edwin funny, throwing himself in front of even the slightest danger for the other boy; Edwin struggles to remember how to hold conversations, how to process any emotion other than fear or despair or desperation; Charles can’t bear it when Edwin leaves his sight; Edwin despairs that he can’t offer Charles the comfort he needs at times – but it’s theirs, trauma and all, and they won it with their own efforts and they’re not letting it go. That’s close enough, isn’t it?