You never know when the good you do may come back around

Technically Charles could say he’d met Edwin before, though he was not surprised Edwin didn’t seem to remember him when Edwin’s father brought him to meet Charles at the boxing ring a month or so ago. Boy had been pretty out of it the first time, and Charles himself was pretty new to everything when someone was stupid enough to try kidnapping Mr. Payne’s youngest son from boarding school ten years ago. Charles now knows how botched that whole rescue operation had been, and that it should never have taken as long as it had. The real problem had been that the kidnappers hadn’t targeted Edwin specifically to get at his father like everyone had thought. It had just been a case of wrong time and place, and a cruel school prank gone wrong. So the Paynes had been looking into all the rival gangs, police and politicians, and it had taken them 73 days to find Edwin (and that was almost entirely that Edwin had returned broken and bleeding on his own power).

The fact he’d come out alive at all is a minor miracle in Charles’ opinion. If even half the rumours about the kind of torture Edwin had been through are to be believed, it’s an even bigger miracle he came out with his marbles mostly intact.

For your specific prompt, I like the idea of Edwin approaching Charles the best, rather than them being brought together by Edwin’s dad, or being forced to bodyguard Edwin.

It’s not that Charles botched the job per se, so much as it just went tits up. That fire was NOT his fault. So now he’s been told to lay low for a while until things blow over. Downside to that is that Charles has cabin fever like 2 days in. It’s a bad idea to open the door when he’s supposed to be keeping the lowest profile, but when there’s a knock at his door, he practically rips it open in his desperation for human interaction.

He doesn’t know who he was expecting on his dingy doorstep, but it certainly wasn’t the boss’s youngest son, Edwin Payne. Charles isn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth though, so he invites Edwin into his safehouse. Looking at him now, it occurs to Charles now that he and Edwin are about the same age.

I’m going to give them a very British moment of both of them sitting awkwardly in silence with their tea.

Charles doesn’t know what Edwin is doing here. If he was also told to go into hiding, he sure picked a bad safehouse.

1) This one is already taken (there was only one bed)

2) It’s just not great in general. It’s not infested or anything, but it’s barely a step above being condemned.

Charles is just going through his mental rolodex of small talk topics that are safe for THE BOSS’S SON, when Edwin breaks the silence first. “The fire wasn’t your fault.”

Charles kind of wants to cheer at that. He’s been SAYING it wasn’t his fault, but he’s gotten the impression a lot of the higher ups he told were just thinking, “Sure, buddy.” Having someone confirm it is such a relief that the smile on Charles’ face feels more real than it usually does at work. “Cheers, mate. I appreciate it. Good to know someone believes me.”

If only that could be that. Edwin has never struck Charles as the smiley sort either of the two times they’ve met, but he looks stone-faced and serious as he continues. “You’ve been set up.”

That catches Charles off-guard. It’s one thing for it to have just been a botched job. What Edwin’s saying though goes way above Charles though. “Shit. Have you told your father? Do you know who’s behind it?”

“No, and not yet. I’m determined to figure it out though.” (Listen, you can’t take the detective out of Edwin in any meaningful way) “Right now though we have to move you to another location. I can’t be sure who’s behind this yet, but I’m certain that you’re a sitting duck here where everyone in the family knows they can find you. Grab your things. We’re leaving.”

It’s only as they’ve made their fourth train switch going back the way they came (“To throw anyone off our tail”) and Edwin’s shuffling Charles and his backpack into a cab that Charles begins to think that Edwin could be the one setting Charles up. If there even IS a setup. Charles has always trusted his intuition about people though. It’s part of what’s gotten him this far at all, so for now he trusts his intuition that says Edwin isn’t lying. Two buses and another cab later and if nothing else, Edwin has certainly taken him to a nicer looking house in the countryside than the vacant apartment he’d been in before.

Edwin had been quiet and unresponsive for the whole trip, other than when telling Charles where they were getting off and on. As he sweeps into the cottage, taking his coat off with an honestly impressive flourish, that all seems to go away. It’s like watching an old-timey Holmes film with the way he talks through what he first found suspicious about the whole affair, the pieces that don’t add up to this being a typical run-of-the-mill botched job, the people that would stand to gain something from this, and loads more.

He doesn’t stop until Charles interrupts with probably too much enthusiasm, “I thought it was weird Brad was involved! Usually him and Hunter are just expected to run drugs. I just figured maybe it had something to do with Shelby’s overdose last month.”

Edwin pauses for a moment, and it’s like Charles can see him slotting pieces of the puzzle together in his brain. Normally this is when someone would tell him to shut up and let the bigger fish do the thinking. Instead Edwin replies, “An astute observation on both counts. Tell me, did anything else strike you as odd?”

They go back and forth like that for a while. Sometimes Charles even gets to add something or correct Edwin about details. As brilliant as Edwin seems, he does have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to people and personalities. It’s a good thing that Charles has always considered himself aces at people. He also has a memory for random things that didn’t seem to mean much at the time, but with Edwin’s brain seem to come together into a much bigger picture.

The picture it paints doesn’t look good for Charles.

The hardest part for Charles is that even Edwin can’t tell if this is just other members of the gang trying to remove Charles, or if this is coming straight from the top. So they can’t exactly go to Edwin’s dad to let him know about the possible rat problem.

To be honest, Charles doesn’t even know why anyone would be trying to get rid of him. Sure he’s been around a while, but it’s not like he was ever vying for the high up positions. He was more or less content to just muddle around the bottom for a steady paycheque. He does his boxing, and when called for he roughs up the people the bosses feel need a reminder of who’s in charge.

“My best guess is that either you know something that someone doesn’t want you to know, or they think you do. Do you have any idea what that might be, or who among you suspects is the most likely head of this operation?”

Tragically this is where I have been stuck for over a month. We are going to say shenanigans happen, people get caught, some bombs go off, and Charles gets to try and teach Edwin boxing. I've also decided these two are going to run off together in the end. It's not EXACTLY with Edwin's dad's blessing, but after solving the rat problem and fixing a great deal of problems for him, his dad is content to leave them alone for now.