I was thinking about some meta posts on Edwin's particular brand of charisma and etiquette and whatnot, and I had a passing laugh about how he and Hannibal Lecter could perhaps appreciate some of the same things.
This led to thinking about a dark AU, though not quite Hannibal-esque in that cannibalism doesn't really make sense to me for Edwin. But perhaps there's a world in which canon began the same: Edwin is from a wealthy family, goes to boarding school, gets bullied and eventually sacrificed, and he ends up in Hell for 73 years.
But! He returns to earth at the school he'd died in. He's still remembering what it means to be A Person and not prey, and in the meantime, there are still bullies, still apathetic or even actively colluding adults, still younger boys being preyed upon. Edwin understands, nowadays, that humans are fundamentally violent beasts, but to lack even a superficial veneer of etiquette? And Edwin...
Well. He never actually kills anyone with his own hands. He'll set up a situation that gives someone acting impolitely an opportunity to make a kinder choice, and when the person doesn't, then whatever happens -- however much blood gets spattered or bones broken -- is a natural consequence of the person's own free will. Tragedy, in the proper Greek sense of the word, in which one's own nature is one's own downfall.
Then he meets a beautiful dying boy, and Charles chooses Edwin, and Charles continues to choose Edwin, over and over, even after he catches on to Edwin's, uh, housecleaning hobby. To Edwin's credit, a number of people do make a kinder choice and are allowed to walk on unscathed and unaware. Even so, Charles' sense of justice is rather narrower, and over time, they find a middle ground between them.
So the Dead Boy Detectives are founded. They will find evidence of wrongdoing, and allow the perpetrator -- dead or alive -- an opportunity to make a better choice, and if the perpetrator does not, then the justice will be swift (and probably quite messy).
