Work Text:
It took Charles only a couple minutes of searching the office to figure out Edwin must have gone to the roof. It took him several more minutes to clamber his way onto the roof himself; even six years in, he was still way worse at working with the weird physics of Ghost Rules than Edwin. He finally popped his head out the middle of the roof, then pulled the rest of himself through, and looked around for Edwin. Sitting on the edge, as expected.
He scuffed his feet to make sure Edwin knew he was coming, and sat down next to him. Edwin didn’t look over, just kept looking out, absently, at the night lights of London.
“Hey, Edwin,” he said.
“Hello, Charles,” Edwin responded, still looking off into the distance.
“So,” Charles said, shifting to lean back on his hands, “that case was a lot.”
“Quite,” Edwin said, then paused. He looked like he was thinking, not just shutting down, so Charles gave him a minute. “When we confronted Ignacio,” he said finally, “you told him - ”
“Wait, that Inquisitor guy’s name was Ignacio? I was just calling him Medieval Asshole in my head.”
“The majority of the Spanish Inquisition significantly post-dated the Medieval period, Charles.” Edwin turned to level Charles with one of his more teacherly looks. “Ignacio, in fact, wasn’t even in the Early Modern period. He was active barely a century before my birth. How old do you think I am? And if you had read the document I provided you, you would have known his name was Ignacio.”
Charles shrugged, pleased to have gotten the reaction he’d been angling for. “Post-Early-Modern Asshole, then.”
“Hmm. As I was saying,” Edwin turned back away, and Charles almost cursed, “you told Ignacio that I didn’t deserve to be in Hell.”
Charles took a minute to process that. That had definitely not been where he thought the conversation was going. “Yeah,” he said. “Of course I did. I mean, even Sa’al told you it was a technicality.”
“And I have told you, Charles, that his statement was vague. He could easily have been apologizing for destroying my body and taking me to my intended destination early despite the unintentional and botched nature of the sacrifice, or for any number of other things. No statement was made on the nature of my soul.”
“Oh,” Charles said, “we’re talking about the nature of souls, at this hour? I wasn’t prepared for that, I don’t even have glasses on to make me look all smart and philosophical.”
“Charles.”
Charles winced. “Sorry. Instinct.”
“There has always been something wrong with me,” Edwin said, as though it were simple fact, and Charles shoved down the flush of anger so harshly and quickly he barely felt it first, because Edwin didn’t need that, right now. “Perhaps that flaw was sin, and it was only a matter of time.”
Charles thought for a while, and Edwin didn’t interrupt him, just kept watching the darkness.
“When we first met, you told me you’d escaped from Hell without any context, to try to scare me off,” Charles said eventually. “Don’t try to deny that last part. But it didn’t work, because I figured any sorting system that puts someone like you in Hell, it must be wrong.”
Edwin looked like he was about to start arguing, and Charles held a hand up. “Gimme a sec. I’ve thought about it, some, since then. I know you always hate it when cases end with someone getting taken to Hell. Almost always, anyway. Even when they’re really awful people. Even Ignacio.”
“He was trying to serve his God,” Edwin said.
“Yeah, I may not have remembered his name, but I saw some of the pictures in that thing you handed me, Edwin. That’s no way to serve any good god, even aside from what he did to you. But my point was, you remember what you explained to me, about why you hated it?”
“I recall giving multiple reasons.”
“Fair. But the one that really stuck with me was the part about it being disproportionate. How maybe they were awful, but the pain they were gonna go through was still so much more than what they’d caused. How infinite torture can never be a proportionate punishment for finite sin.”
“You remembered those exact words, for the last four years?”
Charles shrugged. “I pay attention. Sometimes. To you. Anyway, I’ve been thinking, about that. If we know that whoever’s in charge of this stuff is assigning punishments that are way too big for the crimes, why would we think they’re making good decisions about what’s a crime at all?”
Edwin finally turned towards Charles again, his eyes wide and incredulous. “Are you questioning the entire framework of the afterlife?”
Charles shrugged again. “Aren’t you?”
Edwin just looked at him, confused and curious, like he was some new artifact Edwin couldn’t figure out.
“I mean, we already know the infallible judgment of the divine isn’t that infallible after all, right?” Charles asked. “So why would you trust it about the nature of your soul?”
Edwin was still looking at him with curiosity, but it seemed a bit more like wonder, really, like Charles was something new and astounding, and it made him feel a bit odd. Charles looked away, at the rising moon, and almost missed Edwin starting to smile.
“You didn’t need glasses to look intelligent and philosophical after all, it appears,” Edwin said, and leaned sideways to bump against his shoulder.
“Good thing, too,” Charles said. “I’d look right awful in glasses.”
“I doubt that,” Edwin said, and they watched the moonrise.