AU where Charles has come to terms with being dead a long time ago. (It's pretty mint, actually. And it brought him to Edwin, the best person in this world or the next.)
That also means that when they meet Crystal, his thought isn't "cute girl", it's "lost amnesiac child".
He argues with Edwin that as the only adults in the vicinity, it's their responsibility to help her.
(Crystal is baffled. Edwin hates that he's right.)
They call her "young lady" and call out things like "Oi Missy! Watch the language!" and tease her about how flustered she looked when Niko showed up.
She hates that she enjoys their encouragement and weird old people humor.
And when she gets her memories back... she's so grateful for their love and support.
Aunt Cindy and Uncle Earl start going to PTA meetings and helping her get her grades back up.
They go to her graduations and offer love and congratulations.
When Aunt Cindy Edwin pats her shoulder and tells her they're proud of her, she does cry, but they don't talk about it.
They don't even tease her when she slips up and calls either of them Dad.
They DO tease her when she catches them kissing and has the same reaction any teenager would have catching their parents kissing.
"EW! GROSS!"
JUST Crystal gains two teenage ghost dads.
And of her real parents find out? So what! If she's forgettable, then they're replaceable.
Also what are they even going to do? Call the cops? Pssh
roald dahl was antisemitic and misogynistic. george orwell was openly homophobic. edgar allan poe married his 13 year old cousin. dr seuss cheated on his wife (and was racist as well as antisemitic!). hp lovecraft was racist as fuck.
anyways they’re fucking dead it’s not like you’re enabling their behaviors in the afterlife or something. then again I think they bleed into the books so uh keep an eye out for that
the difference between these old white guys and jk rowling is that the former group is all dead. jk rowling is alive and using your money to oppress trans people
happy pride month to will byers and mike wheeler who are living in mamdani's new york and have gotten approached by meetcutes NYC and have gone to all the protests and broadway shows and drag cafes and are just living their best life after years of figuring stuff out.
"why can't they just be friends?" not in the homophobic sense, but in the "in your need to center romance in everything you are missing the whole point of the media in question" sense