#also I'm crying over the scenes I'm giving Charles and Edwin for this one

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Me, adding in what was originally supposed to be a small Christmas chapter to my dead boy detectives fic series not because I'm religious but because "In the Bleak Midwinter" wrecks me every time I listen to it AND it's a British hymn old enough for Edwin to know AND I can combine it with emotional moments for every one of the main characters ESPECIALLY for Charles? More likely than you think!

[wordsinhaled]

I rewatched the confession scene again recently, and Charles' eyes just after Edwin confesses to him say everything, honestly.

Not when he still thinks Edwin might be joking, or calling them back to mythology. Once Charles is done playing it off, once Edwin's assured him he's serious, once he's said, "Charles, I'm in love with you. As more than a friend, I'm afraid," with that resolute anguish in his voice, and it's clear he's telling a truth so honest, so deep that it's tearing him apart to say it, but to leave it unsaid is equally unbearable.

Charles' eyes then.

Charles has this thing he does with his eyes, probably unconscious, when he's being real with his emotions or feeling them in a big way - he darts his eyes up to the ceiling. He does it a few other times, like when he's talking to Edwin about how he and Crystal have decided not to try a relationship, and again when he's giving his response to Edwin's confession ("I can't say I'm, like, in love with you back—" his eyes go up).

Doing this is also a way to hold back welling tears, to try to keep them from falling - and it looks like that's exactly what's happening to Charles just after Edwin confesses. He's overcome with emotion when he first looks at Edwin. He's trying to hold back his tears, and so he tries to glance up at the ceiling instead; he blinks quickly to keep them back; he looks to the side, everywhere except at Edwin, because if he keeps looking at Edwin just then he's going to cry.

Because it's Edwin. Edwin's in love with him. And in that moment you can see in Charles' eyes how the hugeness of that—it closes in on him. And it's two things:

ONE: He's just seen Edwin torn apart, and torn apart again, over and over. He's seen firsthand the abject terror and pain Edwin's endured here, he's seen the pile of Edwin's corpses; and the real Hell for Charles, what he had to see before he could really see the rest, was Edwin's suffering. He understands why Edwin's been playing the suffering Olympics with startling clarity. It's fucking horrifying, the idea of this happening to Edwin, and the evidence of it there, mere feet from him - he's confronted with it viscerally. He could hardly stand it, was already brought to tears by it when he first realized exactly what Edwin's torture was, crouching with Edwin there in that hallway. There were tears in his eyes then. For Edwin's pain, suffering, fear, for how diminished and Edwin was here in this awful place, for the unfairness of it - and he couldn't cry then, because he had to focus on getting them out of there.

He's here to rescue Edwin. His Edwin. Prim and proper and fussy Edwin, sharp-tongued, brilliant, frustrating and so fucking perfectly wonderful, all starched collars and arched eyebrows and set habits, and his little infinite notebook with the painstakingly drawn map of Hell in it that led Charles right to him. Edwin, who means safety to Charles, Edwin whom he knows like the breathing he doesn't need anymore, Edwin, all of whose tells Charles has memorized. Edwin who for 70 years dealt with this quietly, before ever meeting Charles, running scared and covered in his own blood for decades, clawing his own way out with no one, no Charles to come for him, no expectation of a rescuer.

And the first thing he'd done after escaping this horror show the first time was to bring Charles a lantern when he was cold and scared, and read him gently to his quiet, easy, peaceful death. A death so soft Charles didn't notice it until after it happened. How could that be the death Charles got, when Edwin had got this one, over and over and over again, and not once but twice? How is the universe fair?

Edwin loves him. Charles already knew that. He loves Edwin too. It's clear in everything they do for one another and has been for three decades. But Edwin is in love with him. Somehow, he's in love with Charles. Of course Charles is going to cry. How can he hold all of that? How can he hold being loved by such a person? How can he not be overwhelmed? he has to look away. Edwin is too bright.

And that takes us to TWO: He's gone and made Edwin love him, somehow. How did he do it? How did he slip up, make a mistake like that? What in him had been loveable? What had drawn Edwin in? And can't Edwin see how dangerous he is to love?

Now that Edwin's found something in him worthy of even more love than all the love he already gave him - something to be in love with - now Charles has doomed him. How doesn't Edwin see that? He's looking at Charles like he sees him in some sort of transcendental way, like Charles has the answer to every question Edwin could ever ask, and Charles doesn't even know how to answer the most basic one: He has no idea how to be in love back. Where to start. How can Edwin trust him with his heart when Charles hardly trusts himself?

How can the universe gift Charles with Edwin's love?