The first two chapters of my big bang for @deadbangdetectives are up! Thank you to @alterego77 for the gorgeous artwork and to @handwrittenhello for both betaing this fic and doing an amazing job at running the event! You can find the first scene below or read the first two chapters here on AO3.
Rating: M
Warnings: none
Relationship: Edwin/Charles
Summary: Edwin, a private investigator, and Charles, the shop assistant at Tragic Mick’s Magic Tricks, have to work together to solve the case when a killer begins targeting magic shops across London. It would be a straightforward enough investigation, if only they didn’t find each other highly distracting.
***
January, 1999
In Edwin’s opinion, the client could have been a great deal more forthcoming.
As he races down the sidewalk, boots slipping and sliding on the icy pavement, he comforts himself by thinking about the stern conversation he’ll have with Flora, the soft-spoken ghost of a nurse who haunts the British Museum. Because Flora told him the troubled ghost of a Great War soldier was “distressed” and “easily agitated.” She failed to mention the damned machete.
Edwin does his best not to take cases where there’s a high chance of him being chased with weapons. He’s had quite enough of that, thank you. But here he is, running for his life after having multiple priceless historic artifacts thrown at his head and dodging several swipes from the soldier’s wicked-looking blade. And Edwin is quite hard to kill—being not entirely alive has its advantages—but he thinks a knife wielded by a cursed ghost may just do the trick.
He’s nearly to his building when a car passes, sending a spray of slush over Edwin’s pants and shoes. He doesn’t have time to despair for his ruined pants, though, because the soldier comes barreling out of the side mirror of the car, landing in a crouch in the middle of the road. He stares at Edwin with malevolent eyes from behind the gas mask, his breathing coming in deep, guttural pants. The knife in his hand glints in the streetlight.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Edwin just has time to breathe out before the soldier lunges, swinging the machete wildly.
Edwin leaps back, feeling the rush of the machete passing by his cheek, and turns to sprint the few short meters to his building’s gates. Behind him, the soldier’s guttural yell seems to echo through the empty street as the ghost gives chase, his heavy footsteps pounding against the ground. It seems the ghost doesn’t have the presence of mind to realize that he’s noncorporeal and shouldn’t make audible footsteps, Edwin thinks with the part of his brain not consumed with trying not to get stabbed.
Just as he reaches for the latch of the iron gate in front of his building, a hand fists roughly in the back of Edwin’s coat and yanks. With a squawk, he’s pulled off balance, arms flailing desperately. His bare wrist brushes the iron gate and he hisses through his teeth in pain, but there’s no time to worry about that. Lifting his arms, he falls to his knees, slipping right out of his coat sleeves as the ghost’s machete comes down, leaving a deep gash in the wool. Edwin feels a moment of grief; that was his second-favorite coat.
Grabbing the gate with his gloved hand, he swings it open, slamming it into the ghost’s legs. The soldier stumbles backwards with a howl of pain as smoke rises from the places where the iron touched him. Edwin doesn’t waste time feeling guilty—the man destroyed his coat, after all—before he races towards the front of his building.
The six flights of stairs to the office have never felt longer, as he doesn’t dare take the elevator with its mirrored walls and tendency to break down at least once a fortnight. Lungs and legs burning, Edwin reviews his plan mentally. Firstly, he needs to find the fire spell in Minor Arcana Volume IV —he thinks it’s on page 349, or maybe 620. Secondly, he needs to get the gas mask off the ghost’s face without getting a machete to his throat. Thirdly, he needs to destroy it.
That should be simple, really.
No sooner has he stumbled through the door into his office than the mirror he keeps for ghost visitors ripples and the ghost soldier lunges through. Edwin and the soldier stare at each other and for a moment, he thinks he might see something besides rage and bloodlust in those burning eyes. Fear.
Perhaps the poor soul hasn’t entirely succumbed to the gas mask. Perhaps Edwin can get through to him. “I assure you, I have no intention of harming you,” Edwin says. “Now, if you would kindly remove the mask—”
The hand around his throat silences him. With a roar of rage, the soldier picks Edwin up with preternatural strength and hurls him against the wall. Wheezing, Edwin slides to the ground, ducking as the soldier seizes a globe off his desk and hurls it at him. He grimaces as it smashes against the wall above his head, splinters raining down on him. That was a gift.
Scrambling to his feet, Edwin reaches into the little jar he keeps on his desk for emergencies. The iron shavings sting his hand, but he ignores the pain as he blows the handful of iron right at the soldier. Most of the ghost’s face is covered by the mask, but there must be just enough room for the iron to get through the cracks, because he screams and stumbles backwards.
Edwin takes advantage of his momentary distraction and lurches towards the bookshelf, seizing Minor Arcana Volume IV from its place on the shelf. He flips to page 349. Nothing. 620. Also nothing. Ah, perhaps it’s on page 263. As he flips frantically through the pages, a glint of motion out of the corner of his eye tells him he’s out of time.
The machete grazes Edwin’s shoulder as he dives out of the way and he hisses through his teeth at the sudden, sharp pain. Twisting around, he reaches up to seize the gas mask, jerking it off the ghost’s face with one brutal yank. It reveals a soot-stained visage twisted in a grimace of rage. The soldier screams in Edwin’s face, black bile spilling from his mouth. Edwin backpedals as he feels flecks of bile hitting his cheek, pressing himself back against the wall.
In his panic, the ghost flails desperately. As Edwin watches in horror, he seizes the bookshelf and capsizes it, sending books crashing to the ground. If this continues, he’ll get bile all over Edwin’s collection of spell books. Edwin flips Minor Arcana Volume IV to page 263, letting out a relieved breath when he finally finds the fire spell. Clutching the mask in front of him, he begins to chant. Sobbing with rage, the ghost comes at him, bile-stained hands reaching for Edwin—
The mask in Edwin’s hand bursts into flame and he tosses it into the wastebin. Once he’s sure it’s burned enough, he dumps a half-drunk mug of cold tea onto it, which is enough to douse the flames. Only then does he look up at the ghost.
The soldier kneels in the middle of Edwin’s office. The black bile is gone, as is the wild look in his eyes. Now, he simply looks confused as he glances around the office, his gaze landing on Edwin.
“Where am I?” he sobs through heaving breaths, reaching up as if to feel for the gas mask that isn’t there anymore.
“You’re in London,” Edwin tells him briskly. He finds that the best thing to do in these situations is to get right to the point. “The year is 1999.”
“1999?” The soldier shakes his head, dismayed. “No, that can’t be. It’s 1917. I know, because my Margaret—”
“I’m afraid it hasn’t been 1917 in quite some time.” Edwin doesn’t add that the soldier’s Margaret is almost certainly dead, or perhaps just very old. “You lost some time due to the curse on your gas mask. But it’s been broken, so you’re alright now.”
“Curse?”
Edwin looks at the man, still in the uniform he died in and has worn for decades now, and feels a twinge of pity. That could have been him, had Simon Mould and his dreadful friends not gotten it in their heads to play at sacrificing Edwin to a demon. His brothers and father died in uniforms just like this one, as did countless others.
“The war was won,” Edwin says, gentling his voice with effort. He does not bring up the Second World War, nor the many times the world has seemed on the brink of a third. “Britain was saved. You have served your country well and you can rest now.”
The soldier nods and then his eyes focus on something over Edwin’s shoulder, going wide with something closer to wonder than fear. Edwin cannot see Death, but he feels Her presence, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling with awareness of someone standing behind him. Out of habit, he looks over his shoulder, but there’s no one standing there. When he turns, the ghost soldier is gone and Edwin is alone.
He looks around at his capsized bookshelf, with books scattered all over the floor, and the remains of his poor globe. The wound in his shoulder is stinging uncomfortably and he can feel his shirt clinging to his skin with blood. With a groan, he resigns himself to cleaning up in the morning.
My first contribution to @deadbangdetectives, my Crystal-centric timeloop fic, has been posted, featuring beautiful artwork by @the-ipre! You can either read the first few scenes below or the whole thing here on AO3!
Summary: When Crystal begs Lilith to give her more time with Niko, the goddess grants her wish—by sending Crystal back to the moment before the Tongue & Tail explodes. Desperate to save her friends, Crystal lives through Esther’s attack again and again, trying to get all of them out unscathed.
Warnings: Temporary character deaths (like a lot of them); Canon-typical violence
Word count: 22K
***
Crystal has never been able to see the future clearly.
She can touch someone’s hand and see that they had a fight with their partner that morning or that they’re thinking about quitting their job and traveling the world, but she can hardly ever see what’s going to happen next. Sometimes, she can see a quick flash of the future like when she saw Esther’s snake striking at Becky Aspen, but she usually doesn’t see enough to be helpful.
It turns out, being a psychic medium can be pretty fucking useless.
So when Esther’s spell hits Niko and she falls back into Crystal’s arms with a choking gasp, it isn’t the future Crystal sees when she touches her. It’s the lack of a future: millions of possibilities extinguished with the casual wave of a cruel woman’s hand. Calls that will never be made, movies that will never be watched, laughter that will never be shared, cases that will never be solved.
She reads nothing when she presses her hands to Niko's chest to stop the bleeding, because there’s nothing left to read.
The void left by Niko—her love, her enthusiasm, her loneliness, her joy at being included, her fear for Edwin and Charles—is like a gaping wound. Crystal can feel it as she plunges into Esther’s memory to summon Lilith, as Esther ages centuries before her eyes, as Charles bursts out of the kitchen, so fucking happy and triumphant as he tells her the snake is dead. She can feel it as Lilith appears and starts to drag a screaming Esther away.
“Wait!” The cry rips itself from Crystal’s throat.
In the doorway, Lilith pauses, gripping a struggling Esther by the ankle. She turns to face Crystal, her expression as hard and unreadable as ever.
“Where’s her justice?” Crystal points to Niko's too-still body. She hears Charles make a punched-out noise as he notices her for the first time. “She didn’t deserve this. She was innocent.”
Lilith says nothing, just looks at Crystal with that blank face. Like she doesn’t even care. It makes Crystal want to shake her.
“Please.” Angry tears burn Crystal's eyes. “You protect wronged women and Niko was wronged. She deserves more time. We deserve more time. So, please help us. We need more time.”
“Crystal!” Charles calls, warning in his voice. “Don’t.”
Lilith flicks her hand almost dismissively, her expression not changing.
Crystal blinks.
***
1st loop
Crystal blinks.
She’s not standing in Esther’s house anymore but outside. The sky is blue above her—maybe for the first time since she got to Port Townsend—and there’s a couple walking past, him in a denim jacket and a matching baseball cap, her in a pretty burgundy coat. Crystal stares at them, wide-eyed and disoriented, and the woman gives her a worried look, like she thinks Crystal might lunge at them.
Spinning around, Crystal sees that she’s standing outside the Tongue & Tail, but that doesn’t make any sense. Did she go into some kind of trance, like she used to do when David was possessing her? Holy shit, is David not buried like she thought he was? Did he take control again? But where are Charles and Edwin? They wouldn’t just let David walk her body out of Esther’s house. Unless David did something to them?
“No,” Crystal whispers. She can’t lose Edwin and Charles, not after Niko. She can’t. “No, no, no.”
A horn honks and Crystal realizes she’s standing in the street. She jerks back and a dark green Subaru with a dented front bumper drives past. The woman in the passenger seat flips her off. Crystal raises her arm to return the gesture automatically, only then realizing she has her bag draped over her shoulder.
Her gaze snaps back to the Tongue & Tail. The windows are unshattered, with no sign of the destruction that happened only hours ago. There’s no way Jenny got everything cleaned up so fast, is there? And she remembers seeing the red Mini Cooper that’s parked out front after the explosion. Its windows were broken by the blast, but it’s sitting whole and undamaged now, like nothing ever happened.
“What the fuck?” Crystal mutters.
The windows of the Tongue & Tail explode outwards and Crystal flinches back, raising her arms over her head to block her face out of instinct. Vaguely, she’s aware of the couple running past her as the Mini Cooper’s alarm begins to wail. Crystal lowers her arms, staring at the smoke billowing from the butcher shop. This doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone blow up Jenny’s shop twice?
Esther Finch walks out of the billowing cloud of smoke, as easy as you please. Unlike the shriveled, skeletal husk Crystal watched Lilith drag away only moments ago, this Esther is in her prime, as blond and vibrant as ever. She’s smiling as she carries a glass box with two little glowing balls inside. Charles and Edwin, Crystal realizes. Esther starts to saunter across the street, without a care in the world, like she’s not carrying two ghosts off to be tortured.
Like this all hasn’t happened before.
There’s no time for Crystal to think about why this is all happening again. There’s no time to plan. Dropping her bag in the middle of the street, she runs towards Esther. Like hell is she going to let Charles end up back in that kitchen, wide-eyed and wincing as his iron collar burned him. Or Edwin, screaming and begging as Esther’s machine sucked the energy out of him. Or Niko—
Esther turns at Crystal’s approach. When she sees her, she scoffs and rolls her eyes. “You. Aren’t you supposed to be halfway back to wherever you’re from by now?” She flicks a dismissive glance up and down, drawing her pipe from her pocket and popping it in her mouth casually. “Wherever it is, I hope they’ll have better clothes.”
“Let them go, Esther.” Crystal comes to a stop in front of her, blocking her path. She doesn’t have any weapons, but she kicked Esther’s ass in the Tall Forest; she can do it again. She will, if it means saving her friends.
“And why would I do that? Because you’re going to feed me to another giant mushroom? Been there, hon. You’re going to have to do better this time.” Esther’s voice drops to a whisper. “Between you and me, I think you did me a favor. If you’d let your little ghost boys get eaten by Teethface, I never would have known that the uptight one survived Hell. It would have been nice if one of you had told me that earlier. We could have saved so much time.”
In the constant blare of the car alarm, Crystal thinks she hears an echo of Edwin’s screams. No, that’s not happening again. With a yell of rage, she launches herself at Esther. If she can just break the glass box and free the boys—
A faceful of smoke hits Crystal and she stumbles back with a cough. Esther removes her pipe from her mouth and smirks at Crystal.
“Sorry about that,” Esther says, flicking her pipe and pocketing it again. “This has been really fun. Actually, no it hasn’t. I’m fucking bored of you by now. I don’t have any need of you, child. Just your little ghost friends.”
Crystal tries to lunge at her again, but her entire body has gone numb. She slumps forward, her legs going boneless under her, and falls face-first on the pavement, her cheek scraping painfully. She stares at Esther’s shoes, which are only inches from her face. Esther nudges her forehead with the toe of one of her shoes and chuckles.
“Now, that’s better,” Esther says. “Don’t fight it this time. It’s much easier if you just go to sleep.”
Crystal has no choice but to obey.
***
“Crystal!”
Crystal’s eyes snap open. She’s lying on the floor of Esther’s kitchen, staring up at the ceiling. Her cheek stings and when she reaches up to touch it, her arm feeling like jelly, her fingers come away covered with blood and grit.
“Fuck. Crystal, you need to get up!”
Crystal looks around and finds Charles tied up right where he was last time, the same iron collar around his throat. He tries to reach for her, grimacing as the iron makes his skin hiss and smoke. She tries to open her mouth to tell him not to hurt himself, but her tongue feels heavy and useless in her mouth, like someone replaced it with a lead weight while she was asleep.
“You need to get out of here.” Charles’s eyes are wild with desperation. “Go, run. Find Niko and get the fuck out of Port Townsend.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Esther appears in Crystal’s line of sight, smiling smugly. She’s wearing a little lab coat, like she’s on her way to teach chemistry class. “She’s a little old for my Slitherbug, but meat is meat.”
“Don’t you dare.” Charles’s voice cracks. “Don’t you fucking dare, or when I get out of here, I’ll…”
“Oh, hon, you’re never getting out of here.” Esther’s voice takes on a sing-song quality. “Shoot, didn’t you realize? No, you’re going to sit right here and listen to your friend scream for the rest of eternity. The one in the other room, I mean. This one’s snake food.”
Crystal needs to sit up. She needs to get Charles and Edwin free. She needs to—
Esther grabs her by the hair and hauls her towards the nearest kitchen cabinet, which is open, revealing nothing but a black void. Tears spring to Crystal’s eyes as her hair tears from her scalp in Esther’s grip, but she can’t even lift an arm to try and protect herself. Charles is screaming and begging Esther to stop and Crystal can’t even try to reassure him.
Esther shoves her through the cabinet and then Crystal is falling.
She lands on her back in a bed of children’s toys and tiny bones, all the breath knocked out of her at the impact. There’s a tiny, pink bike decorated with Barbie doll stickers only inches from her face. A little yellow sneaker lies on the ground by its front wheel. Crystal wonders if they belonged to the same little girl.
There’s the slide of a massive body across the ground and the crunch of child-sized bones being crushed underneath it. Crystal can’t see it, but she knows the snake is coming. She can almost feel its hunger hanging heavy in the air.
She feels something flicker against her ear. Its tongue. She wants to shrink away, but she can’t move, can only stare at the faded stickers dotting the bike. “You can do anything!” one of them reads under a picture of Barbie dressed like an astronaut. Maybe the little girl who owned the bike wanted to be an astronaut. Maybe she would have been.
The snake hisses and Crystal closes her eyes, braced for the strike. A tear rolls down her cheek.
Somewhere far above, she can still hear Charles screaming for her as teeth pierce her right through the heart.
***
2nd loop
A horn blares and Crystal’s eyes snap open. The green Subaru drives by, the woman in the passenger seat flipping her off as it passes. Gasping for breath, her heart pounding, Crystal turns in a slow circle. She’s outside the Tongue & Tail, not currently being devoured by a snake. The sky is blue. The man in the denim jacket and the woman in the burgundy coat are staring at her again. The front windows of the butcher shop haven’t been shattered yet.
Crystal drops her bag and sprints for the Tongue & Tail.
She finds Niko and Jenny sitting at the table while the boys stand by the wall, talking in low voices. All four of them turn as Crystal bursts inside, the door ricocheting off the wall in her rush.
“Crystal!” Niko bounces to her feet and throws her arms around Crystal’s neck. She smells like strawberries, just like she did the last time Crystal hugged her goodbye. Not blood. Not yet. “Did you change your mind? Good, because you were really unconvincing when you said you would text me back.”
“Are you back?” Charles looks so hopeful. Crystal remembers him screaming her name as the snake struck.
“We need to get out of here.” Crystal grabs Niko’s hand and hauls her towards the kitchen. If she can get them out the back door, they should be able to get to Jenny’s car, which is parked out back.
“Crystal, what’s wrong?” Edwin’s forehead furrows in a frown. He must see the look on her face, because he doesn't even make a scathing comment.
“Esther's coming.” Crystal shoves Niko through the doorway into the kitchen, ignoring her squeak of alarm.
“Esther?” Charles reaches into his coat to grab the handle of the cricket bat. “She got eaten by that giant mushroom, yeah? She should be trapped in another realm.”
“Not eaten enough! Edwin, come on! She’s after you.”
That gets Charles moving. He draws his cricket bat with one hand and pulls Edwin closer to him with the other.
“Esther Finch?” Finally, Jenny stands up. “What about her?”
“She's a witch,” Charles tells her, herding Edwin after Crystal and Niko.
“Are you kidding me?” Jenny looks between them, dismayed. “I thought she was just an asshole.”
“Oh, that’s not nice.”
Crystal whirls around, her grip on Niko's wrist tightening enough that she’s sure it hurts.
Esther stands in the middle of Jenny's kitchen, the glass box in her hand. The back door into the kitchen is open behind her. Of course she came through the back door, Crystal realizes. She would have noticed Esther strolling through the front door. Jenny always keeps the back door locked, but that wouldn't matter to a witch.
“And here I always thought we were friends.” Esther sticks her lower lip out in a pout. “Oh, shoot, it looks like another surprise was ruined. Was it Monty again? I’m going to turn that little crow into a pillow.”
Charles steps forward, placing himself between Esther and the others with his cricket bat raised in front of him. “I don’t know what you want, but we already kicked your arse once. We'll do it again if you make us.”
“No, she kicked my ass.” Esther points at Crystal. “All you did was cry and hold your little boyfriend's hand, sweetie. It was cute. Pathetic, but cute.”
Crystal shoves her way past Charles, because she wants to be between him and that glass box in Esther's hands. “I know what you're trying to do and it won’t work.”
Esther raises an eyebrow. “You do, do you?”
“You want to use Edwin's pain as your magical battery,” Crystal says and behind her, Charles hisses. “You want to torture him so you can turn him into a fucked up energy drink. It won’t fucking work. All it will do is get you dragged off by Lilith. Is that what you want?”
Esther’s smile reminds Crystal of a shark. “If I ever listened when people tell me it’s ‘not going to work’ my bones would be dust by now. But nice try.”
Her hand fills with glowing light, which she tosses to the ground with a casual flick of her wrist, sending a shockwave tearing through the room. Everything—knives, the metal counters, the sausages hanging on the wall—goes flying. Crystal is knocked backwards by what feels like a car slamming into her. Hands grab her to stop her from falling, pulling her into a tight embrace.
“I’ve got you,” Charles says, one arm holding her close, and then he’s gone. Crystal feels him pass right through her, his body made horribly insubstantial. She screams as she falls, her head ricocheting off the edge of the counter. Ears ringing, she slides to the ground.
Through a haze of smoke, she sees Esther Finch snap her glass and iron box closed, wearing a smug little smile. The witch meets Crystal’s eyes and winks before turning and sauntering through the back door, the tiny, glowing forms of Edwin and Charles flickering frantically in the trap.
Crystal doesn’t know how long she lies there, stunned, her head throbbing and stars dancing in front of her vision. It’s not until she hears a horrible, wrenching sob that she forces herself to sit up, head spinning. Esther and the boys are nowhere to be seen. Jenny is kneeling a few feet away and she’s making a noise that Crystal never thought she would hear from her. She’s sobbing, her shoulders shuddering and her hands slick with blood.
Because she’s kneeling in front of Niko’s prone form.
No.
“Niko,” Crystal thinks she says, though her voice sounds distant and echoing. “Niko.”
There’s a butcher knife buried right in the center of Niko’s chest. Her hands are pressed to the wound and she’s wheezing, eyes wide and shocky. And there’s so much blood. Crystal thought there was a lot of blood last time she watched Niko die, but that was nothing. Blood drenches Niko’s white outfit and her white hair and her small, pale hands and the floor around her.
“Niko,” Crystal says again and tries to cover Niko’s hands with hers, pressing down on the wound, even though she already knows what’s going to happen. She recognizes the glassy look in Niko’s eyes, like she’s already gone. Niko is going to bleed out in front of her again. She’s going to lose her again.
“We need to call an ambulance.” Jenny's voice shakes. “Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.”
It takes Niko longer to bleed out in Crystal’s arms this time as sirens wail in the distance and Crystal can only think, More time, more time, more time.
My second contribution to the dead boy detectives bang! This time for the fantastic fic "don't wanna live and die never knowing what it's like to be told the truth"
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