#bound together

First Griddlehark of the year <3

“Well, this is certainly a dilemma,” Edwin observed with characteristic dryness.

Charles muttered several expletives in agreement and took stock of their cramped surroundings.

The closet they were locked in wasn’t large, with barely enough space for the pair of them to stand pressed against the shelves of towels and toiletries. Charles supposed there were worse places to be trapped than a wizard’s bathroom closet (several dungeons came to mind), but he couldn’t pick the lock on the door with a toothbrush. And his lock picks were still stored in his backpack, which he’d set down like an idiot in the wizard’s study. Out of reach. Useless.

Just like him.

Charles took a deep breath. It could be worse. Edwin wasn’t screaming in pain while strapped down to a witch’s torture device. In fact, Edwin was handling the whole situation with remarkable calm, examining the bottles of soap and shampoo while the glowing ball of light he’d summoned bobbed overhead. It was a good thing Edwin had made a point of memorizing the light spell so they weren’t fumbling around in the dark. Charles ought to follow Edwin’s example and make himself useful for a change. But the burning pain in his right wrist was making it difficult to concentrate.

Because of course the wizard owned a set of iron handcuffs.

Charles shoved his weight against the door, but of course it didn’t give. The wizard had probably reinforced it with some spell, and with the iron making both ghosts corporeal, they couldn’t just phase through. There was no telling how soon the wizard would return—he’d promised to deal with them after he’d taken care of something else first. They needed a way out of this quickly.

If only Charles could think.

“Any bright ideas?” he asked Edwin hopefully.

Edwin set down the bottle he’d been examining. “Nothing on the ingredients list indicates I can use these to manufacture explosives. Pity.” He shifted so that the light shone down on the cuff around his left wrist and studied the metal critically. The motion tugged on Charles’ hand and he bit back a whimper. “If only I’d thought to memorize that severing spell.”

The memory of Edwin’s corpse with half its limbs missing rose up in Charles’ mind and he fought down a surge of nausea. “No,” he snapped, then softened his tone. “We don’t want a repeat of the Severed Hand Debacle of ’98, do we?”

Edwin gave him a look. “I meant to use on the cuffs, Charles.”

“Right.” Charles looked away. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much else to look at. He couldn’t very well pretend to find a box of Kleenex interesting.

“How’s your wrist?” Edwin asked, his voice gentle.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” Charles moved to hide his hand behind his back, but only succeeded in dragging Edwin’s hand with it. It was pointless to try to hide anything from his best friend when they were literally handcuffed together. Charles allowed Edwin to raise their joined hands up to eye level.

Edwin inhaled sharply at the sight of Charles’ wrist smoking where the iron met his ghostly skin. “I should have noticed this sooner.”

“It’s not that bad,” Charles protested.

Edwin raised a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s clearly enough to cause you extreme distress.”

His friend’s look of intense concern made Charles’ insides writhe with guilt. “You’ve had worse,” he mumbled. “No point complaining about it, is there?”

“If it is a problem we can address, then of course there is reason to inform me.” Edwin gave him a look of mingled sympathy and exasperation. “We are quite literally standing in a linen closet, Charles. There is no reason for you to suffer.”

The cuffs were designed for adults, not teenage boys, so there was a small amount of wiggle room between the metal and skin where Edwin reasoned they might be able to wedge in a thin piece of fabric to relieve the burning. Unfortunately, the washcloths and hand towels were too thick, while the Kleenex and toilet paper only tore.

“Dish towels would be thin enough, but he doesn’t seem to keep any,” Edwin complained. His fingers sizzled and smoked from their contact with the iron, but he gave no indication that the pain bothered him. “I certainly hope that wizard knows better than to spell his dishes clean,” he huffed, looking ready to deliver a lecture on proper cleaning methods.

Charles chuckled. He always enjoyed watching Edwin sniff at amateurs and give them a proper dressing-down. Thinking about that kept his mind off the pain. He tried not to make a sound while Edwin worked at the cuff, reminding himself that Edwin had survived infinitely worse. Decades spent in Hell had forged in him a high tolerance for pain, which made Charles feel even guiltier about letting Edwin experience further pain now. He would have protested that they didn’t have time to waste, but he knew better than to argue with Edwin when he got stubborn like this.

Edwin tossed a piece of paper towel aside with an exasperated huff. “I suppose there’s nothing else for it,” he declared, and began unbuttoning his jacket.

Charles’ train of thought screeched to a halt. “Edwin—mate—what are you doing?”

“I refuse to leave you in pain,” Edwin responded primly. There was something about his voice that always made Charles attend to his words—maybe it was the authoritative tone, or the posh accent. Edwin pushed the halves of his jacket aside and began undoing the buttons on his vest. “None of the fabrics here are sufficient, so we’ll use something of mine.”

“You—you don’t need to go to any trouble, mate,” Charles protested, unaccountably transfixed by the deft movements of Edwin’s hands at work.

“Nonsense,” Edwin insisted, flashing a quick smile in Charles’ direction. “It’s no trouble at all.”

It was probably a good thing Edwin had so many layers to work through. It would give Charles time to get a grip on himself before he caught sight of any bare skin. This was ridiculous. He’d seen Edwin dressed down to his shirt before—even seen him with his sleeves rolled up, bare arms on full display as he prepared a complicated spell in their office. He’d even seen him wearing only his nightclothes—but that was in Hell, and Edwin had been covered in blood and grime and clearly distressed and Charles had just been focused on getting them both out again.

The thing was, Edwin had never undressed himself in front of Charles before, not like this. They were ghosts, and as Edwin explained frequently, their physical appearance was both mutable and reflective of their mental state, so a new outfit was simply a matter of concentration. There was no need to remove their clothes.

Charles became uncomfortably aware of how cramped the space was, and how close he stood to Edwin. His right hand was only inches from Edwin’s chest, yet he couldn’t move away without pulling one of Edwin’s hands away from his work. His best friend was now untucking his white shirt and tearing a strip away at the bottom, revealing a patch of pale skin on his stomach. It made Charles think of—well, other activities that two people in a closet might get up to, which might involve removing clothes, but these were things he was not thinking about, especially not in relation to his best mate.

Edwin began working the fabric underneath Charles’ handcuff, and the searing pain cleared his head of other thoughts for the moment. But then the pain stopped completely, and Charles went limp with relief.

“There we go,” Edwin declared. There was that tender, satisfied expression he wore whenever he finished treating injuries Charles had acquired during a fight. The white strip of fabric did resemble a bandage, come to think of it—but it was something of Edwin, which made it a million times better. Charles was wearing a little piece of Edwin around his wrist, almost like a bracelet, and that felt niftier than any jewelry he’d ever worn.

Charles took a deep breath. He needed to focus. “Thanks, mate. That’s loads better already.” He beamed at Edwin, who offered his shy, pleased smile in return. Edwin contained a multitude of different smiles that Charles had been categorizing for decades, and it always left him feeling rather chuffed when he managed to coax one out. Charles shifted his attention to Edwin’s left hand, which was still smoking in its handcuff. “What about you?”

Edwin waved his free hand dismissively. “Think nothing of it. We need to focus on our escape.”

Right. They were still locked in a closet, trapped in a wizard’s house, and handcuffed together—although at least both their dominant hands were free. Small favors.

Charles tried very hard to keep his gaze from roaming to the bare patch of skin across Edwin’s abdomen. Or all the layers that were still unbuttoned. This was his best mate. He wasn’t going to ogle him the way he’d admire a fit girl he met at a show. Especially not while they were on a case.

“Let me take a look at that lock again,” Charles suggested. Edwin shifted, and Charles winced as he accidentally tugged against the handcuffs, but the pain wasn’t nearly so bad now. So long as Charles focused on keeping his wrist corporeal so it didn’t phase through the fabric, he was good.

The thought gave him another idea. “Hold up a tick.” Edwin paused and looked to him expectantly. “Remember that time you told me your theories on partial corporeality?” Before Edwin could answer, Charles stuck his free hand through the door. “Aces,” he declared, as he fumbled for the doorknob. After a moment, the lock clicked and the door opened.

Edwin’s face split into a grin as they crossed the threshold. “Charles, you’re a genius!”

Charles ducked his head. “You’re the one with all the theories on ghost rules, mate.”

“Nevertheless.” Edwin’s smile was a softer thing now, as delicate and magical as a snowflake. “I’d be lost without you.”

Namor Week 2026 Day 6: Chains

🤷🏽‍♂️⛓😏

Rage against the neverending storm (Rated E)

Written for day 2 of @zelgan-week!