#chadwin

Personal space? Never heard of it (¬‿¬)

charles not believing, not daring to hope that edwin could possibly want him for nearly as long as he wants to be wanted. him trying to feel everything as much as possible each time they kiss, each time edwin calls him darling and gives him that quiet little dimpled smile, each time edwin holds his hand and looks at him like he's hung the stars, because he's so scared that this might be the last time he gets to have it. he's so scared that one day edwin will open his eyes and see the scared little boy that can't do anything right even when he's trying his very very best. he'll see that charles was never worth it at all, never worth the love and devotion and kindness that edwin seems to give away so freely and easily. and it's selfish, isn't it? it's so selfish of charles to be scared and it's selfish of him to dread it, because edwin deserves more and it's unfair of charles to keep that from him just because he is so irrevocably in love with someone leagues better than him.

but then edwin finds out and he tells charles with tears in those pretty, pretty eyes about all the ways charles has saved him, all the times charles might not have hung the stars but done something better. he holds charles and tells him the story of a lost and lonely young boy who reads too much and dies too young and spends seventy years facing a punishment he does not deserve. he tells charles about how the boy crawls out of the recurring nightmare, wild and feral, animal-like, and how he thinks he will never smile again. then he tells charles about how the boy sees someone in an attic— another boy, just as lost and lonely. this boy, shivering and dying and miraculous, makes him smile within minutes, makes him feel a comfort that he's never felt before. the other boy dies, but wonderously, he stays. he gives up heaven and he smiles— looks like you're stuck with me— and he makes sure that neither of them will be lost and lonely ever again. charles cries as the story finishes, as edwin tells him, "they will never be apart. for the solace they find in each other, for the way their breaths mingle and their souls sing when they touch, they will stay together. they will stay together and want for nothing, because what could you possibly want when you already have everything?"

edwin tells him how he believes they were both born in the wrong time, edwin too early and charles too late, so the universe helped them out in the beginning, pulled at the threads of fate just so they could meet. the rest, he says, is a choice— staying together, starting the detective agency, solving cases, playing games, laughing, talking, falling in love— it's all a choice. one that he's made readily over and over again for thirty years, edwin tells him. one that he will continue to make for the rest of eternity, edwin tells him.

this is canon, right?