#error detecting

[keferon]

Snow bots au anyone? :D

They're back together a year later because it's snowing again❄️

All right! For context: I imagine them hanging out every winter in some kind of resort (a resort that Blurr owns. Because his bar business has expanded that much over time.)

[alterego77]

[leahaart]

Soon after his escape, Edwin starts to learn about the things he’s missed.

[2deadboys]

Edwin accidentally brushes his hand against Charles'. And Charles thinks hes trying to hold hands and hes like 'aww mate, all you had to do was ask' and grabs Edwins hand and starts swinging their joined hands between them.

It wasnt Edwins intention. But tbh hes not upset with this result.

[lurkinginnernarrator]

au where SQQ does undergo the 'qi-deviation' and is 'changed' but in reality the twin of Shen Jiu, Shen Yuan made a comment one day about how all Shen Jiu did was bitch about his martial siblings. Never one to turn down a golden opportunity,

Shen Jiu: bet

And so the twins decided to switch lives!

The qi-deviation is just so they can explain away any differences of temperament and so sj can hightail away easier.

Shen Yuan: this is going to be so easy

(spoiler. it wasn't)

Between useless sect meetings that could've been not even an email but a text message, reading fifteen different preteens attempts to sneak in dick jokes into their poetry assignments, the head cook alerting him to the fact that they've somehow run out of rice??? They're the greatest cultivation sect??? How does that happen???

Anyway, two of his Hall masters eloping together and taking an extended honeymoon (he's happy for them, but. Who's going to teach those classes now??? Him. Apparently.), sect politics and his 'martial siblings' barely even attempting a farce of civility or courtesy AND his guqin strings needing to be replaced and restrung ?

Shen Yuan is sorry 🙏🙏please come back🙏🙏🙏

Cue the allotted period of switching ending and Shen Yuan dramatically throwing the fan on the ground as Shen Jiu rolls up and goes "thanks for the vacation didi"

[agayhomestuck]

[landwriter]

Hi! I hope you feel better soon!

This is a great prompt by @academicblorbo about Hob Gadling being the landlord of the Dead Boys. It has a wonderful fill already by @omgcinnamoncakes but I’d love to see what you come up with for it!

Alternative prompt from me if that doesn’t work for your brain: remember the date between Jenny and Maxine? How about one between Jenny and Esther? Poor Jenny is going to really question her taste in beautiful blonde women 😭

Thank you! I saw ‘landlord’ and ‘decades’ and blacked out. I love Hob having them as tenants. Maybe even before the modern day meeting in Sandman.

The Sandman/Dead Boy Detectives, 2.4k, G Dream/Hob, pre-slash, alternating/outsider POV, found family, a reunion and revelations etc.

---

Hob did not, strictly speaking, have tenants. It was more of a minor haunting. Pun intended.

The small room above the pub and below his flat wasn’t worth charging anyone rent for; when he first bought the building he had put a handsome oak desk in there and some bookshelves before wondering who he was possibly keeping up appearances for. Who was he going to take back upstairs that would stop and say, Wait, can I see your office? So he’d left it as more or less an abandoned room.

When he realized a pair of boys were using it as their clubhouse, he didn’t do anything at first. He saw them quietly coming and going a couple times, disappearing around the corner of the first landing. Brazen things. He meant to call after them, but the shout had died in his throat. He’d been young once. He still remembered the need to get away from it all. It was only when he went to check if they’d been making a mess of the room that he discovered it was still locked.

He’d crouched down and inspected the latch and found no marks at all. Huh, he’d said, and jiggled it again, and been a little more interested in whatever clever way they were getting into it after they disappeared up his stairs. Then he didn’t see them for weeks, and assumed they had gotten bored and stopped.

Until they came back. In the middle of an argument, striding through the pub like they owned it. Hob straightened up as they passed him.

“I cannot believe you broke the mirror.”

“I was in a rush! It’s not my fault you forgot you needed Arcana Incantatum after we arrived at the church. And found the demon.”

“I hardly forgot, I only made the mistake of assuming you would know to pack it by now.”

Hob raised his eyebrows. The boys disappeared into the back hallway. He followed them as they went upstairs, too preoccupied with their drama to notice Hob. They turned onto the landing, still carrying on. Even as they walked through the door. The locked, closed door.

Hob blinked. Then he drew his keys from his pocket and opened the door. The boys were still inside. One of them was pulling a mirror out of a backpack that was several times too small for it. They didn’t even look up, and Hob wondered how he couldn’t possibly have put it together earlier. He cleared his throat.

“Hello, boys.” That caught their attention. Hob grinned. “Seems we’re neighbours.”

---

Edwin abhorred getting involved with the living. He and Charles got along perfectly well on their own. They were a duo. An intrepid pair. Best mates, like Charles often stressed whenever he was about to ask something particularly ridiculous of Edwin. They were solid together. As solid as two ghost boys could be. The living, though, were messy and unpredictable.

Perhaps the most salient fact at present: Charles invariably became attached to them.

“He’s sad, mate. I can see it in his eyes.”

“You said those exact words in ‘94 about a dog. At least ask Hob himself.”

Before you decide to adopt him too.

Hob Gadling, irritatingly, was unobjectionable on every ground Edwin could think of. He had made no imposition upon them. When he found them, he only asked them their business, and then told them he was usually downstairs, or upstairs, if they needed anything they couldn’t procure themselves. He had an interest in rare and old books, as it happened. In explaining this, he had also hinted at being far older than his looks would suggest, which vexed Edwin twice over. He knew his curiosity would not be slaked until he talked to Hob, but then he would be the one getting involved with the living, and Charles would hardly let him forget it.

“Do you think he’s really immortal? Mate’s far too calm. Last week I saw him stop a fight downstairs by stepping right between these huge blokes. He just said something and smiled and they backed right off.” Charles lit up. “Do you reckon he’d teach me how to do that? Conflict de-escalation, innit? I could show him some moves with the cricket bat, I bet. Oh, do you think he’s a cricket fan?”

It was obviously a hopeless case, and since the Dead Boy Detectives never took on hopeless cases, there was only one course of action that remained. Edwin had long since disabused himself of the notion he needed to breathe. He had no beating heart, yet when he was startled, he would find himself clutching his chest. Now, he exhaled slowly through his nose in an entirely superfluous sigh of resignation. “Well, Charles, shall we go talk to him?”

---

When the millennium came around, Hob found himself celebrating it with his accidental tenants. There was something gloriously satisfying about being able to make a toast to the next one and have it taken seriously. He’d asked them if they had something better to do - spectral trouble to get into et cetera - and they both looked at him with almost identical put-upon and incredulous expressions.

Hob had a terrible suspicion they thought they were taking care of him as much as he thought he was taking care of them.

Edwin, with his insatiable curiosity and, deep underneath it, something Hob thought he recognized from himself: a sharp animal ferocity and a refusal to go until he’s good and done, natural laws be damned. Charles, still brightly, painfully alive for a ghost - who should be alive still, by all rights, but nothing of this life was fair - who joked to cover up hurt in a way Hob knew too, and glowed any time Hob turned so much as a kind word to him.

He wondered what they saw when they looked at him.

The year ticked over, and technology kept working. Charles grinned innocently and said he could probably possess the telly and break it that way if Hob wanted?

Hob’s heart twinged. He knew they weren’t his, not to keep, but it seemed that teenagers didn’t change at all over the centuries, even if the boys were only sort of teenagers in the way Hob was only sort of in his thirties. It didn’t change that they’d been punted from the mortal coil before having a chance to grow up, and figure out the kind of men they were, and make their own choices and fuck up and try to be better than their fathers, and everything everyone deserved. Hob had made more than his share of mistakes. They hadn’t been given the chance to make nearly any at all.

So they made toasts to the new millennium, to the detective agency, to themselves, all stuck out of time in different ways and refusing to move on for different reasons, and Hob allowed himself to think of Robyn and privately pretend that they were his all the same.

---

A week later, Hob was reminded of the other universal traits of teenagers when he mentioned his stranger and both boys began to grill him with terrifying alacrity. Before turning to his dating life, like ravening bloody wolves. When Edwin had asked, in a specifically nineteenth century manner that Hob remembered all too well, if Hob had always been unmarried, he’d nearly put his head in his hands.

“It can be hard for me to associate with the living too, you know. For obvious reasons.”

Charles had turned to Edwin and hissed “See? I told you.”

Right in front of him. Nobody had taught them manners.

“Manners, Charles,” replied Edwin loftily. “We will, of course, respect your privacy. A man is entitled to his secrets.”

“You’ll go upstairs and rifle through my personal things, is what you’ll do,” said Hob.

Charles coughed to hide his laugh. Edwin flushed and looked away. Hob snorted, and told them about Eleanor and Robyn. Properly. It was a strange relief. He’d told the story wrong for plausibility’s sake so many times he had been worried he’d forget the truth of it one day.

They had listened, and been remarkably quiet until Charles piped up and offered to set him up with a ‘really fit’ ghost. Hob had roundly shut that down. Woefully, not all explanations were satisfying enough. Charles cornered him again the next morning while he was cleaning the bar.

“No, mate, I still don’t get it.” Hob was about to say he no more wanted to be with someone who couldn’t feel pleasure from his touch than someone who would grow old and be taken from him while he stayed the same, when Charles went on, bafflingly, to ask, “Why don’t you meet your mysterious friend more often than once a century?”

Hob sighed. “Adults are often busy, Charles.” Nevermind that he had begun to wonder the same since the eighteenth century. He’d always just assumed time passed differently for his stranger.

Charles just laughed and perched himself on the bar top. “Ooh, low blow. We’re busy too, you know. Plenty of cases to solve.”

“Really,” said Hob. “You’re busy. Right now.”

Charles waggled his eyebrows.

“Charles, I am not a case,” said Hob, sternly as possible. “I’m not even a ghost. He’s not a ghost. No ghosts.”

“We could investigate. Maybe ghosts are involved. What even is he? Why every hundred years? Is it some sort of Persephone situation?”

Hob bit his lip against shouting I don’t know! I don’t know anything about him! Instead, he tried to smile, and felt it come out as a wince instead. “He’s very private.”

Charles scowled. “Yeah, obviously. You don’t even know his name. He can’t be that good of a friend if he’s too busy to see you more than once a century.”

Hob couldn’t see the expression on his own face, but he saw Charles’ shocked reaction well enough. It was so long ago for him, and still Hob knew at once what Charles saw now: that first time you manage to visibly hurt a grown-up’s feelings, people who seemed too old and too stern to actually feel pain, when you’d been going around kicking at them like a new foal, just to stretch your legs.

“Sorry,” said Charles, instant regret chasing his surprise. He was a good kid.

“It’s alright,” said Hob. He meant it. He looked down at the shining bartop. His hands were restless with the urge to light a cigarette. He gave in. It wasn’t like Charles would be dying of lung cancer any time soon if he decided to follow Hob’s example. “I don’t think he would say he’s very good at being a friend either. Truth is, I’d love to see him more often. But we had an awful fight the last time we met. If he forgives me, I’ll have to ask.”

“Mates always make up,” said Charles earnestly. He was such a good kid.

“I suppose they do.” Charles still looked sorry, and Hob clapped him on the shoulder. “Hey. Thanks for looking out for me, Charles.”

Charles beamed at him. “Always. We’ve got your back, me and Edwin.”

---

Charles couldn’t bloody believe it. Hob’s friend was here. There was nobody else it could be. He and Edwin were watching from a nearby table, pretending to be absorbed in their own conversation. Neither man noticed them. They were too busy looking at each other.

He couldn’t imagine spending more than a century apart from Edwin. The way Hob had talked about him and his stranger over the years, it sometimes seemed like they were best mates too, no matter how little they saw each other. He was dead sure that’s what had Hob looking so gutted when he thought nobody was looking. He had known they would make up, though. Maybe now Hob would be happier.

“Charles, we really ought not eavesdrop,” hissed Edwin. Right as he scooted his chair closer, the cheeky hypocrite. Hob and his friend were talking too quietly to properly hear, their heads bent together. Lots to catch up on, Charles reckoned. A hundred years. He couldn’t stop thinking about the number. It seemed impossible. Funny, he couldn’t imagine that long away from Edwin, but he could imagine spending that long being best mates. There was nobody he’d rather hide from Death with.

Hob’s face was doing something strange as his long-lost friend talked. Then Hob moved and grasped him by the shoulders, so tight that his knuckles stood out in relief. The man said something in low tones and Hob shook his head, and then pulled him in for a hug. The man stiffened and then relaxed, and his arms came up around Hob’s.

Their cheeks both looked wet.

Charles swallowed and it felt suddenly a little like he was choking. He should look away, only he couldn’t.

“They must be great friends,” said Edwin softly.

“Yeah,” he managed to croak. We won’t ever need to have a reunion like this because I’m never going to lose you, mate. I won’t let them take you. It was stuck behind the phantom lump in his phantom throat. His hand, without him telling it to, reached out and grabbed hold of Edwin’s. Edwin squeezed it hard, and Charles knew he didn’t have to make his voice work after all.

Then the man pushed Hob away, but only far enough to grab his face and pull him back again, thumbing over Hob’s cheeks, and beside him, Edwin honest-to-god gasped, and then Charles momentarily forgot how thoughts worked too.

---

It happens thus: in the New Inn, just next door to the White Horse, some 639 years after they first met, Hob Gadling and Dream of the Endless share their first kiss. Neither, if they had bothered to think about it, would have intended to have an audience, but it’s a well-known fact that some kisses cannot wait, and theirs was chief among them, being that it had so much to say, and was so very long overdue.

I missed you, it said, and I came back, it said, and Please don’t go away from me again, and I could not.

And atop them, like blankets, were laid invisible the daydreams of those who saw them, including two long-dead boys, whose dreams were woven from the fresh and unaccounted-for possibilities of Hob kissing his mysterious stranger. Another man, thought Edwin. His best friend, thought Charles. Dream was the only one who could have heeded this, but he did not, because Hob Gadling was holding him tight and daydreaming loudly of this kiss and more, of this today and tonight and tomorrow, ever greedy and ever easily pleased, and Dream could hear nothing at all over their clamouring and comingled joy; the bright gold daydream between the scant space of their bodies that sounded so much like at last.

[ghost-trick-art-requests]

can you draw officer bailey? :)

PANIC DANCE

[mountainsoftreatos]

I think seeing Edwin dressed down in a fitted white t-shirt and gray sweatpants would cause Charles' brain to hard reset

[hypercubecats]

Page 12 - 14: To be continued in Chapter 2! Get ready to learn electromagnetism.

As always, Krita brushpack by @abluskittle.

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[every-moment-a-different-sound]

Farm to tabl

[owlfacenightkit]

I am stuck in forever thinking about Chapter 15 hell

Plain background under cut because I’m proud of it

[falling-star-cygnus]

thinking about Charles’ earring

there’s NO WAY he got away with just the one right? like, considering his time period and his dad and his just- overall circumstance?

SUMMARY: Official boyfriends Edwin and Charles relax on their couch, a thing scarcely big enough for one of them but just right for a snug cuddle, after a long case. It’s nice, it’s them, but as the pale boy’s hand wanders down to the shell of his boyfriend’s ear and further still to the lobe, he finds something peculiar. Something he hadn’t noticed before..

ao3 fic: here please leave a comment or reblog if you enjoy!!!

•-•-•

This was nice.

Charles thought it was, at least, the feel of Edwin’s hand in his curls and the steady thrum under his cheek- born from his boyfriend’s [boyfriend’s!] smooth voice. So, unbelievably nice. And just for him.

Who would’ve thought it, Charles Rowland on the receiving end of gentle affection instead of the giving. Not Charles, that’s for sure.

Their position was comfy, as far as comfort for ghosts go, and he found himself hoping he’d never have to move. His head was pillowed against Edwin’s chest, his arms lazily strewn on either side of his waist- the Edwardian’s legs bracketing both sides of his hips.

One of them was bent upwards, the one not against the back of couch, to prevent a tumble down onto their floorboards.

Which was slightly mortifying and slightly sweet, when one considered that that very thing had happened last week. All embarrassment he feels at remembering such a mishap fades away under the gentle scratch of Edwin’s nails upon his scalp, though.

Like a breeze over light dust.

Charles sighs contentedly, relishing in the feel of his boyfriend’s [and that title will always make him giddy] ungloved hands and burrowing closer to it.

Edwin pauses, and then repeats the motion, “I take it you like that, then?”

“Mhm. Don’t stop, yeah? Please? Unless you’re getting tired of cuddling.”

He can practically hear the Edwardian’s fond eye roll.

“Do be serious, Charles.”

He can’t help the smile that overtakes his face, boyish and so so pleased, “My bad, then.”

Like all good things, however, it must come to an end. Edwin’s hand meanders down his head, thoughtless and nice, to the curve of his ear- still reading from the book held above them.

It traces over the shell next, and maps out the old cartilage hole that had never quite closed up, right down to the clunky clasp of his gold star earring.

He tugs at it, playfully- teasingly- and.. and…

Charles flinches.

He doesn’t mean to. Logically- as logically as he can be really- he knows that Edwin would never hurt him, knows it deep in his now nonexistent bones. He’d never.. never do what- well.

He just wouldn’t. So there was no reason for his chest to be clenching up so suddenly. For him to be so scared.

Edwin’s hand backs off, just as his voice does when he registers the muffled mip of discomfort his boyfriend makes.

“Charles?” he ventures, worry coloring his tone.

“I’m alright,” Charles is quick to throw out, quick to assure, “You just caught me a bit off guard, yeah? No worries.”

That slender, pale hand cautiously comes back down- slowly, as if attempting not to spook a wild animal- and gently traces its knuckle down the apple of his cheek. Feather light.

"I'm terribly sorry," he murmurs, brushing so so tenderly over that same ear, "I hadn't thought- ...oh."

And there it is.

It was a small thing to notice, near impossible really unless you were that close or that touchy [although Edwin typically was neither] but Charles' earring sat just slightly too right- just slightly too close to the edge of the lobe for what was typically recommended.

"May I?"

Charles really rather he didn't. This was usually the part where he would pull away, after all, when he would skitter off to wherever would worry people the least and wait them out.

But this was Edwin. And he'd made a promise to start talking about these things. Sharing. So-

He nods.

These things were easier with his nose buried in soft- er, probably soft- fabric anyway.

Edwin's fingers apply just the barest hint of pressure to his lobe, to the split that ran down its center. Almost reverent. Far too gentle for what Charles deserves.

His dad- obviously his dad, it was always his dad- hadn't been pleased when he'd shown up with only the one pale silver stud, which he'd got through.. admittedly less than safe means, looking back on it. How he wished that was the reason he'd been angry about. Worry.

Sometimes the salt of the sweat on his palms still lingered on Charles' lip- from where hands much crueler than Edwin's had held him down and ripped it clean out.

Clean in- well a subjective sense, anyhow. Those meaty digits had held the clasp closed when tearing it out, either on purpose or uncaringly, so.. it was safe to say the stud hadn't remained silver looking for very long when it was left in a puddle of his own blood.

He hadn't let that stop him from getting one, though, clearly. Went out the next day, sore and determined, and got himself the one he wore now. A star on a hoop and a chain to match.

Gold went much better with red anyway, he'd learned.

"Fascinating," Edwin says, almost playing with the disconnected pieces in morbid curiosity.

Still, though, Charles nestles closer. Like he could make himself a new home in Edwin's ribcage and soak up all this affection like a greedy sponge. He lets his boyfriend examine him, lets himself think he could deserve this reverence one day- in it's terrifying entirety.

"You think so?"

"Oh, Charles.."

With the book long abandoned, the Edwardian has a hand free to tip his lover's head up. And his eyes.. they boast of nothing but adoration.

"That was never in question."

[niamhthefae]

guys. edwin canonically speaks multiple languages. george rextrew speaks multiple languages.

what if in season 2 they meet someone who only speaks like, french (for the sake of this scenario) or something. and none of them know what to do, and edwin just bursts out in PERFECT FRENCH and when the client has left he just goes "my french is a little rusty so it might be a bit wrong here and there but i think i got it :)" and everyone just dies because how on earth did that just happen

[fellow-fandom-fruitifier]

This is a part two to this post, because @/senseless12 asked for one, so here you go!!!!!

After the cemetery scene Niko catches up with Edwin. He's still riled up and emotional and having someone so kind and understanding next to him has him finally opening up about everything. She finds out that Edwin is so convinced it's his fault he's in Hell, that if he could just like girls everything would be okay. But instead he went and fell head over heels for his BOY best friend.

Niko, as wonderful as she is, is only sixteen. She can't help him. Not in the way he needs. So instead she hugs him in the dirty grass under withering trees and tells him it'll be okay. Let Edwin cry 2k24.

Back with Charles and Crystal is dead, dreadful silence. Neither feel good, not at all. Crystal can't believe she assumed Edwin did something horrible enough to deserve Hell when, in reality, it was a tragic incident. She feels like everything David ever said she was.

And Charles can't believe Edwin never told him -- which makes him feel like the world's biggest hypocrite -- and he can't believe he ever doubted his best mate. He never should've doubted Edwin. Not for a second. Not the boy who he's spent over 30 years with, the boy who read to him as he was dying despite his fear of Death.

The contemplative, guilty silence is broken by Maren calling Crystal. Everything gets shoved aside to find Niko and Edwin and continue the case. (Crystal doesn't comment on their state -- not the protective, scolding furrow to Niko's red, watery eyes; and certainly not Edwin's defeated, disheveled slouch. The way his bowtie is more crooked than normal, nor the way his eyes aren't any better than Niko's. She sucks in the guilt and holds it somewhere close to her heart. Hard and heavy and deserved.)

(Charles tries, he opens his mouth, closes it, and tries again. But what can he say to make this better? He can't make anything better.)

So they continue the case, everything goes pretty much the same if more stilted, and job well jobbed.

As I'm sure we all know, the Monty kiss is this episode. It would happen the exact same way, but now Edwin's thinking he's just undone all his progress in begging for leniency. Maybe they could forgive him if he never gave into these sinful urges, but if he did? He wouldn't stand a chance.

AND! Because Niko went with the gang last time, there was no Jenny x Maxine date!! (Sorry guys but the poor girl can only be in one place at a time. If you can find a way to fit it in, go ham!!) So there's no reason for her to rip down her love decor.

Crystal still loses her powers and shit. Then Monty appears with his Glady's case and Edwin is caught between wanting to fix it and worried about further damnation. Niko tries to insist that her and Edwin stay back, and neither Crystal or Charles feel like they can argue, Monty tries but the look on Niko's face shuts him right up. In the end it's Edwin who tells her it's okay. She should stay back and rest, he understands work doesn't help her the same way it helps him.

And so, reluctantly, Niko let's them go off. (She winds up pestering Jenny so much out of worry, so Jenny still snaps at her. Niko has her whole thing but instead she feels like no matter how hard she tries, she can't be a good enough friend -- and what if she makes everything worse? -- and should just hide away. Jenny helps.)

The Glady's case goes very similar but Crystal is actively trying not to be as mean to Edwin, and Edwin is trying to pretend like everything is normal and that yesterday didn't happen. Unfortunately, there's not much to change with the Monty-Cat King-Edwin and Charles-Crystal-David scenes. Nor Teeth Face.

After all is said and done, they get home. And Crystal finally pulls Edwin to the side for an apology and he laughs because she's not any better at apologizing. But he reluctantly admits that it's not like he gave her many reasons to like him, and they both agree to try and be less hostile.

The next day Edwin finally decides he's had enough keeping secrets from Charles so, with the help from an over-the-moon Niko, he gets all dressed up and heads over to Crystal's. Niko drags Crystal off excitedly whispering that she'll explain later, but they need to give the boys some space. Insert the Night Nurse. WOMP WOMP

Edwin, down in Hell, has a second to think. He's been hiding this from Charles for thirty odd years and the secong he finally confesses is when he gets dragged off. Maybe he deserves it. To be down here. I mean, it could just be a cruel coincidence, but with Hell there's no such thing as coincidences or mistakes. The Night Nurse said so herself.

The scene with Simon and Despair goes very similar, the biggest difference is that Edwin doesn't truly believe what he's saying but. Niko does. And maybe that's enough.

Charles comes down and, as I mentioned in this additional post, Edwin confesses on the stairway to try and convince Charles to leave him. That someone of his predisposition doesn't deserve to be saved by someone as good as Charles. Charles says fuck that.

He doesn't give a shit who Edwin likes, he's actually honoured it's him, and anyone else Edwin ever likes should feel the damn same. And Edwin should never ever feel ashamed for things outside of his control, and if Hell truly wants to take him for liking boys then they'll have to go through Charles first. (Knowing Edwin's gay -- and loves him -- snowballs Charles bi awakening bcz, like, if Edwin's queer then it can't be wrong. Bcz it's Edwin. And nothing about Edwin is wrong or bad, obviously.)

So they escape, Niko badasses all over the place, and hugs go all around. Crystal takes her memory balls and oh God, time to run away!!!! Niko absolutely told Crystal about Edwin's attempted confession in this AU so I don't think she would kiss Charles goodbye. At least, not in front of Edwin. She wants to be a better person and is viscerally aware how dickish it would be to kiss her friends crush in front of them, even if he's hers too.

Fuck Esther, Niko dies (As Edwin would say, "NOOOOO!! NIKOOO!!!!!!") Edwin would maybe kiss the Cat King's cheek? In this AU Edwin is still not very accepting of himself even after everything, so if he does kiss Cat King it's very tentative and unsure, but hopeful. He's nowhere near as confident and cunty about it as canon. They go back to London and Night Nurse Night Nurses all over the place.

Post canon Cryland could go a couple ways, but the way I imagine it is this: Charles needs time to think, which Crystal expected. She's not happy about it but she did expect it. She feels like a third wheel a good chunk of the time until something happens that brings her and Edwin closer. Where Niko helped Edwin start his journey accepting his queerness, Crystal will help accept his femininity. They are such big gossips, they love RuPaul's Drag Race, and she slowly works him up into allowing makeovers.

Now, Charles is supportive, but feeling kinda left out. He has no idea what goes on in their sleepover, just that Crystal says no straight boys allowed. (With a meaningful, challenging glint to her eye. Emphasis on straight.) Finally, Edwin and Crystal fold to his puppy eyes and allow him in on a sleepover. Now, if you know a single thing about girls/gays inviting straight boys to sleepovers, you know exactly what happened. They use him as a dress up doll but he can't even be mad because they're getting along and LITERALLY GIGGLING. Also he's never seen Edwin with lipstick before and it's Doing Something™️ to him.

More angst because nothing can stay happy for long. Charles is confused and trying to figure himself out, and while Edwin can wait forever, Crystal can't. She might start to push him for answers, get impatient, etc. In the end they have a fight or something and Crystal decides she can't do this on and off situationship anymore, so she takes a break from the agency.

Now it's Edwin's turn to be caught in the middle, comforting both Charles and Crystal to the best of his abilities. But this isn't something he's used to. Maybe he messes up, says the wrong thing, and now one of them is angry with Edwin. (I personally think it would hurt more for it to be Charles. Edwin could try and explain Crystal's side of things, and Charles could take it as Edwin blaming him. So now the entire agency is in shambles. Night Nurse is also probably breathing down Edwin's neck.)

Crystal, as hurt as she is, isn't going to let Charles misinterpret Edwin and take their argument out on him. So, despite how hurt she is, and Edwin's protests, she storms over to the agency and confronts Charles. Which is ironically how they finally figure their shit out because, as upset they may be at each other, they both agree it isn't fair to give each other the cold shoulder and force Edwin to take the brunt of their frustrations. They realize that Edwin has also been taking the brunt of the Night Nurse and both decide to give him a break. Crystal deals with the paperwork for a month and Charles deals with the meetings and Night Nurse directly. (They don't understand how Edwin did this single-handedly for weeks and swear to never fight again.����💀)

( @mirabel-on-a-bicycle also asked for more so here u go!!!!)

[amvro]

hello! so i was listening to this song, and it just reminded me of amuro, bc this man is always so busy..

"my eyes didn't sleep, and if they did they would dream of him. oh my nights go to him, and about my longing and fire tell him, i can't live in his distance, and tell him enough, and to put an end to his distance, i don't want any other than him by my side, and the rest doesn't matter to me ❤️"

just thought i would share!! (also I'm sorry if it sounds weird it's my translation 😭)

HELLO!!! This was so sweet of you to send in omg I absolutely see him in it too you're so right... thank you so much for sharing and even translating it for me to read!!! I'm so sorry i didn't reply for literal ages I wanted to write you a small something and I kept putting it off... HERE IT IS I HOPE YOU ENJOY!!! and btw your translation was so sweet it does not sound weird in any way

"You're finally home," you said groggily, as he crawled into your shared bed.

"You're still up, again," he said, softly grazing your cheek with his hand. You groaned at the cold sensation.

“No, I was asleep tonight,” you said a soft smile forming on your face. In fact, the line between waking and slumber was horribly blurred for you at the moment. “I had a nice dream. You were there.”

You didn't elaborate any further and your quiet yawn filled the room to replace your murmurs, but it was plenty obvious that you meant he made it a nice dream. His presence in your dream made it what you would deem a good dream to have. His eyes narrowed in the most loving way possible as he brushed your hair out of your face with his fingers. Slowly, he placed a careful kiss on your forehead.

Yet, as much as it filled his heart to know that he’d be on your mind even in your resting, he couldn’t help but consider that you deserved someone who’d actually be by your side— not just in your head.

“I’m sorry, darling,” he said, under his breath. He didn’t mean to say it out loud, let alone for you to hear. “You’re too good for a guy like me.”

Your eyes immediately shot open, as if your earlier daze was a joke. ��Take it back,” you said, quietly, but sternly. “You could come see me once a month and I wouldn’t wish anyone else by my side at night. If you say your love is for me, there is no greater wish of mine that could be granted.”

He swallowed hard. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ll work to make sure I deserve you. I’d rather die than have you beside anyone else.”

Your eyes closed once more and your lips curled up into a gentle smile. “Love you.”

“I love you so much more.”