Please consider: Edwin and Charles simultaneously getting amnesia, resetting them to a couple months before their deathsā¦ and not getting along at all.
Charlie reads to Edwin like a jock bully, so heās half snippy and half withdrawn-scared. Jumps every time Charlie appears, like he did with Brad and Hunter. Edwin reads to Charlie like, well, someone who spends half his time insulting him and half his time trying to act like a non-person, and Charlie fairly reasonably doesnāt react well.
Crystal and Niko have no idea how to handle it; the idea of any version of Charles and Edwin not instantly clicking is utterly bewildering, and they donāt know how to make the Agency function without the unshakeable core of CharlesnEdwin.
The only person Edwin reacts to worse than Charlie is Crystal, because she sets off even more of his bully alarms, and sheās now starting to understand why the older version of him reacted so badly to her, as well. He doesnāt even try to get snippy with her, just gets unbearably stiff and proper and perfect and so, so withdrawn.
He does love Niko, though, latching on to her like heās never had a friend before. Sheās the only person heāll actually talk around, instead of either snappy little get-away-from-me defenses, or icy, terrified politeness.
Charlie is rather weirded out by Niko - thinks sheās cute, but canāt figure out how to talk to her without decades of practice talking to weird people.
But Crystal he attaches to hard. Asks her out in five minutes flat, but even after she firmly turns him down, fixates on her with doggish loyalty and single-minded attention. Crystal suspects this is what itās like to be Edwin, and she doesnāt like it as much as she once thought she would.
