hedgehog-with-magic-spines

[hedgehog-with-magic-spines]

Edwin: I'm gonna need a human skull but you can't ask why.

Charles: Only if you also don't ask why.

Charles: *pulls four pristine human skulls out of their bag*

Edwin: ...

Edwin, grabbing a skull: This one will do.

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Guys, I found a fic hiding in my google docs. I thought it was mid at the time so I didn’t post it.

~

“Remind me who owned this place again,” Charles said, leaning against a bannister in boredom.

“No one important,” Edwin replied distractedly. He phased his hand through a floorboard near Charles’s foot and felt around. Nothing. He was certain he would have hidden it there.

“Then why are we here?”

Edwin couldn’t help but tsk in irritation. He understood that it was terribly unfair to Charles to force him to look through a house he had no connections to but Edwin also didn’t feel like explaining. So instead, he continued his search.

His childhood bedroom looked nothing like it had when he’d left for school in the summer of 1916. So many people had owned it and redecorated that it might as well have been a display at one of those newfangled furniture stores. Even the very structure of the room had been changed with new flooring and different window patterns. The ship of Theseus came to mind but Edwin quickly dismissed it. He wanted to get out of this house as soon as possible, before it began dredging up old memories.

Even though it was likely futile, Edwin searched through the drawers of an old dresser left behind by a previous owner. Nothing. Where could the damn thing have disappeared to?

“You know, this could go a lot faster if you’d let me help,” Charles said. He leaned against the walls and raised his eyebrows at an angle that made Edwin lose his train of thought.

“I do not need help.” Edwin inhaled sharply and stuck his head through one of the walls. “We won’t be here long.”

“Can’t hear you, mate.”

Edwin sighed in frustration and pulled his head back out. “I said-” He faltered at the sight of a glint in the corner of the room. He crouched and found the baseboard was loose. How loose though? He pulled it back and felt his entire body tense in anticipation.

Nothing.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. This was so stupid. They had actual cases to be working on. He was wasting everyone’s time, most of all Charles’s. There were consequences to being dead; Edwin simply had to get used to them. He was being an idiot. There were far more upsetting things about his afterlife. It was honestly childish to be so fixated on something as insignificant as-

“Edwin?”

Edwin jumped and found Charles looking at him, his eyes brimming with concern. “You ok?”

“Perfectly well,” Edwin lied. “I’m being silly. Let’s just get back to the office.” He tried to stand but Charles caught his arm.

“What’s wrong?” Charles frowned. “You’re not acting like yourself.”

“It’s nothing,” Edwin insisted.

“You wouldn’t drag me to a random house for nothing.”

Edwin sighed again. Charles had impeccable interrogation skills. It was what made him a great detective, especially with how persistent he could be. It was also incredibly inconvenient at times. Edwin knew he was never going to drop it. The truth was quite simple. There was no reason Edwin couldn’t tell him. But as he opened his mouth, his throat felt as if it had closed up entirely.

“Hey,” Charles said, sensing his agitation. “It’s alright. I’m not going to force you to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“I know.” Edwin looked away. “It’s silly,” he repeated.

“I bet it’s not.”

Edwin found himself fidgeting with his hands, a habit he’d tried for decades to break. “Do you recall how I left this morning to purchase a new book?”

“Yeah.”

“I lied.” Edwin finally looked up. He was met with the most beautiful shade of brown eyes. “I found out the last of my kin died recently. I wanted to look through her things before they got sold.”

“Oh my God, Edwin,” Charles breathed. “I’m so sorry.”

“I knew it would happen eventually.” Edwin shook his head. “My grand niece didn’t take very good care of her health.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I was hoping I’d find an heirloom, an old pocket watch.”

“But you didn’t,” Charles finished. “So you came here.”

“My old home.”

Charles nodded to himself, processing the information. Then he placed his hands on Edwin’s shoulders. “That sucks,” he said quietly. “Even if you won’t admit it.”

Edwin laughed but it sounded hollow. “It’s not as if I knew her.”

“Still.” Charles let his hands slide off of Edwin and smiled sympathetically. “It’s not fair that the world moves on without us.”

“It isn’t.” Edwin ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t even care about the watch. I just wanted a relic of sorts.” He swallowed. “Something to prove that I existed.”

Charles hummed. His arms swung slightly, the way they did when he was thinking. “That can be me,” he offered.

“What do you mean?”

“I wouldn’t be here without you,” Charles explained. “Neither would the agency. That’s proof, isn’t it?”

That brought a weak smile from Edwin. “I suppose you’re right.” He drew himself up and gestured towards the mirror they’d come from. “I believe we’re done here then.”

“If you still want a watch, I could always nick one from a jewelry store.”

“That won’t be necessary, Charles.”

“Seriously, how are they supposed to arrest a ghost? It would be the perfect heist.”

They reached the mirror and Edwin grabbed Charles’s hand as they went through. He squeezed it once before they came out the other side. Thank you.

[hedgehog-with-magic-spines]

I don't think Charles would have looked that good when he was dying.

Obviously, the actor couldn't because you can't make someone go through internal bleeding and hypothermia for a TV show, but Charles would have looked a lot worse than shivering in a blanket.

Here are some symptoms of internal bleeding

Vomiting blood

Blood coming out of eyes, ears or nose

Bruises

Ashy skin

Confusion/lethargy

And some symptoms for hypothermia

Confusion/lethargy

Slurred speech

Blue skin

Loss of coordination

Fluid in lungs (because Charles was in the lake) coughing/short breath

I imagine Charles looked like he did in the show at first, but slowly, as time went on, Charles started to ask the same questions that Edwin just answered. Charles stops shivering but starts coughing and gets harder for edwi to understandwhat he is saying.

Once Edwin sees blood trickling out of Charles nose and eventually coughs up a glob of blood, he knows Charles doesn't have long. So he helps Charles make a nest out of old blankets and whatever soft thing they can find in the attic. Edwin has to finish the nest himself because Charles gets too weak to lift the blankets or even stand.

After the nest is made and Charles lays down, confusion has fully set in, and Charles is getting worried about making it to his room before a teacher finds him out of bed or hears something and thinks one of his mates have found him and are going to drag him back to the lake. Edwin soothes him by reading to him, and the exhaustion finally makes Charles close his eyes for the last time.

I think Edwin still staying by Charles side even when he is bloody and weak when no one in Charles life would have stayed means something.

[hedgehog-with-magic-spines]

by aletterinthenameofsanity

It’s been nearly ten years since Edwin last saw Crystal Palace.

They were partners, back then. The most ferocious team in the ballroom dancing scene. The ice queen and king in a world so often ruled by fire. People who looked at them thought that they either hated each other or wanted to fuck each other, because where else could all that tension come from?

The truth is, at the end of the day, a bit more complicated than all that, and yet somehow simpler, too.

Edwin and Crystal were both the best in the fucking game. Their bodies carefully honed since they were both kids with parents who had nothing better than to push their kids into dance for the sake of propriety, apathy, or some other rich-people-wanting-to-keep-up-appearances-and-not-have-to-deal-with-the-hassle-of-nannies bullshit. Their tangos and foxtrots and pasodobles on point.

And now, it’s been years.

For all that Edwin dances with Charles in the kitchen, spins Charles around to hear Charles’ laughter spill across the kitchen tiles, Edwin has never danced professionally with anyone other than Crystal.

It is a tribute to her, that a good decade after that final fight, he has never found someone who he trusted as much as her.

Words: 1314, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Crystal Palace (DCU), Charles Rowland (DCU)

Relationships: Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne & Crystal Palace, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne/Charles Rowland

Additional Tags: Ballroom Dancing, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Reunions, Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne & Crystal Palace Friendship, Breaking Up & Making Up, but like for friends

[hedgehog-with-magic-spines]

palasaki restaurant au for @fenristheulv 💚

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Niko: looks like a cinnamon roll, is a cinnamon roll

Charles: looks like a cinnamon roll, could kill you

Edwin: looks like could kill you, is a cinnamon roll

Crystal: looks like could kill you, will kill you

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Crystal Palace and Niko Sasaki (Mafia AU)

Crystal’s currently between two doses of some fucking cocktail of drugs that is taking the edge off of her ache when she finds out that her parents’ idiot henchmen- Kingham and Litty, the Idiot Annoyances Supreme- have apparently grabbed up a girl off of the streets. A girl with moon pale hair and a dead dad that was offed by her parents’ rivals last year and who is currently quizzing Crystal about her favorite manga as Kingham and Litty make fun of her, all because Crystal let her curiosity get the better of her.

There is something sweet about the girl, and her fully monochromatic, bright red outfit and beanie, and the way that she seems unfazed by the fact that she’s currently tied up by some of the deadliest idiots in the business.

“Have you ever heard that pork supposedly tastes like human flesh?” Niko Sasaki asks.

And the first genuine, delighted laugh that Crystal has felt in what feels like years rips itself from behind her teeth.

This girl might be something sweet, but there is something iron to her, too. Something that could carry gunpowder, something that you could sharpen a blade on, something that could survive.

-aletterinthenameofsanity, you've got to run far from all you've ever known

[hedgehog-with-magic-spines]

There's something about the idea of Charles loving the way Edwin moves and speaks that heals me.

Like, Edwin was probably murdered in large part because he moved in a more "effeminate" way. He sashays. He moves his arms loosely at his sides. He has Little Hand Motions™. And, yeah, he definitely tried to hide this when he was alive if his stiff movements in the episode 1 flashback were anything to go by!

But in the end, we know that's why he was targeted. He wasn't running after men or coming out because a) it was 1916 and b) he is Edwin and Edwin's... not the most emotionally open person in the world.

But then Charles comes along. And, as we see in the show, he just stares adoringly at Edwin whenever he says something cunty or snaps his fingers like ta-daa! or spins around or pivots and walks like he's about to slay the boots house down.

He's not girlish or cringey or [insert slur here!] He's graceful! He moves with dignity! He's elegant and delicate and beautiful!

In the flashback where they met, Edwin's movements are still compact. It's 35 years of love and adoration that made him more comfortable moving in ways that his peers killed him for. And idk, this is just one of my favourite things about Payneland that I feel people don't talk about enough

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just one today

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Sirius flirts like it’s second nature. But Remus stares. And Sirius would rather be set on fire than admit how fast that look gets him on his knees.

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you know what i LIKE that james and sirius were arseholes who cursed the shit out of blood supremacists at their school. punch a nazi

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Lily: [to James] You know, if you're going to stalk someone, you should be less obvious. For starters, try not to standing in the middle of the corridor, gawking at your prey.

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The best Merthur fan fictions (in my humble opinion)

I thought I would share my favorite Merthur fics here. I track all the fics I read (this year I've read 322 so far wohoo) and these are the best of the best the ones I will reread over and over and over and over.

That being said they are in no particular order and I plan on updating this, when I find new favs.

Gravity by BeautifulFiction

Hands down the best Hurt/Comfort fic I have ever read. It's not only stunningly written but the way Arthur and Merlin's relationship develops is so beautiful. Might be my favorite fic ever

Sorcerer's Bane by BeautifulFiction

This one is loooong and still I wish it was longer because I want to live in it. It has everything one could wish for and the author has created a true masterpiece with it amazing 15/10.

Lost and Found by Lex18

This is so precious. It's about Merlin and Arthur getting hit by the spell of some evil sorceress and when they wake up in the forest they are small children, with no memories of their adult lives. So we get to watch Arthur trying to protect Merlin. The scenes with the knights are so funny and ah I can't I love it. It's so soft and beautiful and I melt in a puddle of happy gay goo every time I read it

the sorts of things people burn by schweet_heart

Arthur saving his fav warlock and taking care of him. Loved the drama and the softness. It's so well written and yes amazing, pleaaaase read if you have not

In My Mind by Lona11

Merlin gets hurt when they are in the woods and get attacked by bandits. So we get to see Arthur panicking and the knights all trying to get Merlin back to the castle. By now you should know that I'm a sucker for pining Arthur who fears for Merlin's life, I mean look at this list. I do love the knights here, working together because Merlin is their smol

A king's hands by feyver (itsnautica)

It's technically not a Merthur fic but Merlin is stressed and Arthur wants to help him. He's also pining and in love but in that moment it's more important to take care of Merlin and make sure he gets a break and that mends my broken heart

No Night So Dark by Cithara

Angst. So SO MUCH ANGST. I don't want to spoil anything for this please check the tags but if you can read it. Believe me it's worth it. It's so well paced so beautifully structured and the development of the characters is chef's kiss.

Would You Take Me Home by Noel803

Merlin is turned into a kid and Arthur is trying to bring him home. But without his adult memories, Merlin is not sure if he can trust knights of Camelot to have his best interest in mind. I don't want to say any more but ah stunning. You really feel for Arthur in this one.

All Things Loved and Lovesick by horsecrazy

I reread it yesterday and had to add it. Merlin is a vet in this one and Arthur is a rich prat with a soft spot for horses. They are pining in this one. Both of them are so stupid and the love language is tea. However in between their idiocy there are little moments of them showing their feelings and WOW

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Wolfstar fluff thought of the day — Dealing with stress edition Remus gets quiet when he’s stressed. Withdraws a little.

Starts cleaning already-clean mugs, stacking parchment, making lists in the margins of other lists, scratching at the skin under his nails like he can’t quite crawl out of his own thoughts.

And Sirius sees it. Knows it. Feels it like a shift in the air.

So he comes up behind him, no words, just wraps his arms around Remus’ middle, rests his chin on his shoulder, and sways them gently in place. “Come sit with me, love,” he murmurs, soft. “You’re buzzing.”

Remus lets himself be guided to the couch, where Sirius pulls him into his lap, fully clothed, shoes kicked off, arms wrapped around his waist. He takes Remus’ hands, brings each finger to his lips, pressing soft kisses to the pads, the knuckles, the places where he scratched. Like he can soothe the ache away, kiss calm back into his skin.

Remus mumbles something about work, about responsibility, but Sirius kisses his temple and says, “Shhh. You carry so much, Moony. Let me hold it for a while. Let me hold you.”

And Remus melts. Lets go. They sit like that for ages. Sirius runs his hands up and down Remus’ back, whispers, “I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.”

And Remus, finally, lets his forehead rest on Sirius’ shoulder and breathes. Because here, in Sirius’ arms, he doesn’t have to fix everything. He can just be held.

And that’s all he needs tonight

Insp: Of Godson and Vows

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confession scene post 2 of 2, textless version

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Much is often made of the question of whether or not Charles and Edwin have weight/mass, and how they feel weight-wise to each other, but it generally gets left in the matter of “how easily can they carry each other bridal-style when one of them is injured” and I think we can be more creative than that

Charles hoisting Edwin up to look over walls and in windows, for starters, and Edwin climbing higher and higher on Charles until he’s using that dancerly balletic grace of his to stand en pointe, just the toe-tip of one foot on Charles’s head, and Charles repeating to himself over and over that Edwin cannot possibly get injured by falling and he doesn’t need to be nearly as anxious as he is about possibly moving and dislodging his partner, but nevertheless realizing after a minute that he’s stopped reflexively breathing

But! Past the for starters! The FASTBALL SPECIAL

Sometime in the late ‘90s they need to get Charles into the middle of a bunch of bad guys with maximum surprise factor and he looks at Edwin’s surprisingly muscled arms consideringly, and remembers how they discovered that they’re effectively weightless even to each other, and goes “Hey, so there’s something I saw in a comic once.”

And it becomes a standard move, generally Edwin throwing Charles but sometimes the other way around - their most impressive throw so far was when Charles launched Edwin a solid 25 feet in the air over an enemy so that Edwin could blast its weak spot from above, and Edwin beautifully stuck the landing on the other side like the half-cat gymnast he is. They got spontaneous applause from the client for that one.

The first time they do it around Crystal her jaw drops for a second before she goes “Did you just - did you just fucking yeet Edwin?!?”

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I think it’s frankly rather odd that fics don’t address more frequently Charles learning that Edwin’s death was a hate crime, too.

Because Edwin tells him up front that he was murdered by bullies, but for obvious reasons does not tell him why. He seems to have been pretty firmly closeted right up until Port Townsend. It’s conceivably possible he could have told Charles something like “I was killed because they perceived me as an [outdated term]”, but I think incredibly unlikely because he would not want to open that door in Charles’s perception of him (or his own perception of himself, either, frankly), among other reasons.

It’s significantly more likely that Charles figured that out on his own. I grew up in the ‘90s and 2000s, and boys were still being killed for acting like Edwin does, violently physically bullying people for that was still fully standard behavior. (And against perceived-girls who acted in the equivalent opposite fashion, but that’s a separate matter.) Charles certainly knew enough bullies and knew enough about social dynamics to identify that if Edwin was showing the mannerisms when alive that he does when dead, the bullies Charles knew might’ve killed him for it.

But, like, there’s a difference between part of you knowing that with plausible deniability (maybe they were just Like That in Edwardian times, maybe that was part of it but also Edwin has those Vibes that also drive bullies to people [those Vibes being autism vibes but Charles wouldn’t know that], and simply harshly repressing his awareness of what all that suggests about Edwin for a wide variety of reasons both historical and relational) - there’s a difference between that and being told, explicitly, that your best friend was murdered by people chanting a homophobic slur.

And, I dunno, I think it’s interesting that doesn’t come up more.