technicallyhellbound | for @convincingsmile - Nobody's dying today (probably)

for @convincingsmile - Nobody's dying today (probably)

Edwin knew as soon as he fell through the mirror that something was wrong, and not just a little bit wrong, but the kind of wrong that made the whole world tilt on its axis a little.

It wasn't a misdirected portal, not like the case that had ultimately led them to Crystal, not like many other failures of concentration when traversing mirror portals before, it was something else, and he couldn't place what it was. All he knew was that he'd simply passed through the mirror in question and had landed, hard on the floor on the other side of the room, hard enough that he actually skidded a couple of feet and that couldn't be right because that actually hurt, and hurt in the way he hadn't felt in... well, decades.

It was enough to tumble him against the far wall just from his own momentum, impacting hard enough to knock the breath out of his lungs, and that was definitely wrong, because he shouldn't have had breath or lungs. He could see, even through pain-hazed vision that the poltergeist he'd been baiting had, indeed, gotten caught in the trap he himself had leapt over when aiming for the mirror.

That was, however, the last thing he saw before the half-rotted-through loft floor gave way beneath his sudden and unexpected weight, sending him falling, flailing, scraped to ribbons on the broken slats, to the ground below, and he was reasonably sure he'd actually heard something snap on impact, ribs, if the sudden radiating pain was anything to go by, though his shoulder wasn't in good shape either, and that was an entirely different kind of pain, just layering on top of the feeling of the ragged scratches from the wood, and it occurred to him, dimly, that he'd forgotten how much he hated the feeling of blood on his skin.

It had been different in Hell, the pain, the sensations in general, all of it, it had been horrible, yes, but it was so much more visceral now, and even as his vision began to go hazy again, head swimming, his last thoughts were trying to remember how he'd somehow gotten separated from Charles, who had been barely a step behind him when he'd rounded the corner into the loft pursued by the poltergeist now trapped securely above him.

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He nodded, "They both seemed..." His mouth twisted again as it did when he was searching for a word, though he did, at the very least, take another bite of his pastry, chewing slowly as he considered, finally settling on, "Deliberate. They weren't messy, perhaps done in a hurry, but still most definitely on purpose."

A little shake of his head then, "I'll be able to show you what I mean when I have things laid out." And a small smile, "But breakfast first." He settled his shoulder gently against Charles' for a moment, making sure to take his time with the rest of the treat, not letting himself rush through it just to get to work.

Once he'd finished, however, he did push himself to his feet, moving carefully but not quite as gingerly as he had been, having settled into that underlying ache again, laying his notes out on the desk, "So this is the photos, obviously." He'd cello-taped the edges together to construct the circle, "And my sketch of the same, and then the translation, though that's incomplete, and I may have to start over. I thought translating the inner circle would assist in translating the outer circle, but it may be the other way around."

Charles's smile bloomed into a wide grin as Edwin himself chose to finish breakfast, even if musing about work. It was just good to see that Edwin is taking care of himself. It made Charles's heart beat just a little faster too. He helped to tidy up after breakfast and anything Edwin needed to start working again, though already thinking about lunch...

As Edwin showed him the photos and the sketch of the circle, Charles could see what was the problem. They almost seemed like they should fit together, but they didn't. It was impossible to tell if they were accidentally kind of aligning or if there was a pattern to it. No pattern was to be seen. Charles sighed a little disappointed, he may not be of any help at all. Then he checked Edwin's notes about the translation.

"Wait... what?" Charles frowned. "It doesn't make..." he muttered, looking at the sketch again. The translation was spot on but it didn't make much sense. "Are you sure they are to be looked at separately? They, kinda look like they could, like, put together... see, here this rune in the outer circle yeah? Usually followed by this one, in the inner circle... And there, those runes."

"See, that's what I thought." He replied, tracing a line between two others, "But if those two pairs connect, it means these two don't." He shook his head, brow furrowing, "Honestly I just need to sort out what it was they were trying to do, because that's the only way I'll be able to replicate or reverse it."

He stopped then, brow furrowing more deeply, "No, wait, hang on a tick. These two connect outer circle to inner circle, and working anti-clockwise as you should but I was translating clockwise, the next pair is matched inner circle to outer circle." He rotated the sheet he'd sketched the thing on, fingers tracing from one to the next, "They were trying to just... stitch the two together. Except, at the end, here, it should be outer to inner again but they're swapped."

Charles frowned as he was trying to follow Edwin's explanation. Yes, right, it made more sense anti-clockwise, though he wasn't too fast on the translation.

"'S like they were trying to do something new," he said. "Create a new circle, yeah? It's dates, no? Or something with time," he muttered as he pulled the translation to him. It didn't make sense, now they knew, but the direction was usually more important when it came to something that had to do with dates. Or seasons. But these circles looked like they were trying to make up new seasons, or time that didn't exist.

He quickly corrected the placements of the two runes in his own sketch, brow creasing as he glanced back and forth between the translation and the sketch, "I wonder..."

Another head-shake, kneading at his temple, striking a line to one side of the circle, "The mirror was here, I'm starting to wonder if it was actually meant as part of the casting and not just there for decoration. But I can't fathom why, though it might explain the two runes being reversed, if the caster was in a hurry and forgot to work on the plane instead of the reflection, or the other way around depending on how they'd been drawing them."

Charles frowned at the line that indicated the mirror. So it may be part of the spell? But mirrors are only used by ghost and other supernatural creatures.

"Was the caster trying to summon something from behind the mirror?" Charles asked. "So the two circles would have to be correct both here and in the reflection for the thing to come out?"

It would make sense, summoning a ghost. But that could be done with one simple circle. Why this summoning needed two? And why a mirror? Now Charles could understand more of Edwin's frustration.

"Maybe it worked now because the mirror was used?" Charles mused out loud.

"And you were effected by it even without going through the mirror, which only complicates matters." He replied, both hands spread against the edge of the desk, bracing himself against them for the moment, "Unless it was my going through the mirror that activated it, for better or worse, and you were then caught because it was already lit, so to speak."

He shook his head, "But you're also not wrong about the dates, usually they're a season, or a span of time, which these are but not one that I've been able to figure out."

"A special time, then, innit?" Charles suggested. "Specific to the summoning?" He asked, looking at Edwin. "Maybe it was important for them in a way?" Though how would they know if it was for a specific date at all?

"We never got to talk to the poltergeist, huh? Would be great to ask them if they knew anything about it," he smiled a little sadly. It always made him sad when they had to send a poltergeist to the Lost and Found, because Charles was sure that he himself would have ended up like that too without Edwin.

"Precisely so." He agreed, "Though trying to figure out what those are is..." He sighed, kneading at his temple again, "Well, it's not impossible, but it's considerably more difficult than I really want to think about right now."

He shook his head, "But knowing that it was initially mis-cast, and suspecting that the mirror is part of it is still considerably more information than I had before. I can't say I'm any closer to being able to reverse it, but adding those revisions to my notes, adjusting the translations later, I should be able to work something out to counter it."

Another little head shake, "I just... don't know if that's entirely safe without knowing what the caster was trying to do in the first place."

Charles smiled, raising a hand to stroke Edwin's back reassuringly.

"Mate, that you discovered this much only from a broken circle is still brills. You're the smartest person I know," he added, leaning in to place a kiss on Edwin's temple. He realizes how many times he wanted to do that during their friendship when Edwin was leaning over the desk like this. So Charles grinned to himself and did it again for good measure. "And when did we ever know the exact intention of a circle, Edwin?"

He couldn't help the small smile at that initial kiss, angling his head in slightly at the second and huffing an actual laugh at the question that followed, "I'd say it's probably sixty-forty, against."

His brow creased a little then, giving a shake of his head, "But it was never this important before. If I muck this up it's..." Another head shake, "I don't even want to consider it. Best case would be simply that nothing happens." He was reasonably sure that Charles understood the dangers of going off half-cocked in something like this, and truthfully he was thankful that Charles had that kind of faith in him, but this was one thing he couldn't afford to get wrong.

Yes, Charles knew that something more was at stake here. Their actual lives. There was no way they could outrun Death again if it came to it... So he just put an arm around Edwin's waist, moving close.

"I know, yeah? You take all the time, and if you want, we could still go back and look for clues. Not gonna mess this up, right?" Charles smiled, a little sadly. But he knew this was important. In many ways, and especially for Edwin. "Rest a little and come back to it again?"

"I've just been resting, haven't I?" The question was resigned more than anything, not even making it all the way to being terse as he probably intended it to be, but the truth of it was that he was tired, and had been the whole time, he was still healing after all, and hadn't really given himself time or grace to do so, even with allowing the upcoming break to take in a movie he had still been working on this since it had happened, when he wasn't sleeping.

The worst part was that he knew he should focus on something else for a while, and usually that was a different case, but they didn't have one of those for him to switch to at the moment, and it wasn't like they could just pick one up on a lark in their current state, "I suppose I could do some research on summonings that include a mirror." That was low impact enough, and only halfway related to what he was working on, it might be enough to let him process things while still looking. He paused once he'd said it, however, brow creasing, "Are we sure it was a summoning and not a binding?"

Yes, Edwin was frustrated but Charles could not help his soft chuckle. He loved Edwin in every way and it was amusing when he was frustrated... Though he would never tell him that. He was ready to pull Edwin away from the desk when the question came.

Charles furrowed his brows, looking at the sketch again.

"Binding?" He muttered out loud. Somewhat, it would make sense. If the results were living bodies, then yes... maybe... "You think the caster wanted something or someone to have a body, maybe?" He asked, looking down at himself as if that exact body the caster wanted. "But then what about the dates?"

He was looking over the sketch again himself, "It... may have been both? That would explain the two circles, why they'd be stitched together, even if it wasn't done correctly."

His brow furrowed further, "But to summon something and want to make it solid, give it a physical body, that's..." He shook his head, "Generally speaking it's not something good." Which they both knew, "And the runes on that circle aren't strong enough to contain anything other than a very minor demon, a wraith perhaps. Which may explain the poltergeist, provided that it was our original caster." Generally it was anger that turned a ghost into a poltergeist, but fear could do it, too, "Either way the dates, or whatever the circle was based on will be key."

He sighed, kneading at the bridge of his nose, "Which means we're going to have to go back." And it would have to be both of them, he wasn't going to risk Charles getting hurt without him there to help, or worse, without him having any way of knowing about it, "But not today, we've already got plans for today."

Charles hummed, putting a hand to his chest to feel his heartbeat. Right, yes, they encountered witches and wizards wanting to contain demons and djinns and hell knew what into physical bodies of animals, or people, yes. It was always a disaster, it never ended well. Also...

"Or a ghost," he said quietly. "What if..." Charles continued. "What if they wanted to bring someone back from the dead?" They knew it wasn't possible, but the living, especially humans had so little knowledge of the supernatural and even less tools to completely grasp the depth of it. Even the agency was only scratching the surface, despite Edwin had rare and valuable knowledge.

It wasn't entirely good news that they had to go back but apparently it was necessary.

"Right," Charles sighed. "Not today," he repeated. He was already thinking how they should make that trip less painful though. "Don't you have any spells that, I don't know, could help a rotting house to stop rotting for a moment? Or like, some magic barriers we could have? Like, safety wear or something."

He opened his mouth to say that was ridiculous, only to close it again, because that was the kind of thing a living human with only a beginner's level knowledge of the arcane would try to do, "It's possible. The living are messy."

But he did pull his notes over so that he could jot that down as a possibility, both 'summoning/binding circle' and 'resurrection attempt?', along with noting the runes that had been reversed and his revision of the sketch. Charles' next line of questioning had him going still again, "Halting time, even for a short while is well beyond my capabilities." And there was the question of if it was even possible, but he wasn't going to go into that at the moment, "But safety wear, that's... hm." He drummed his fingers against the desk, "Affixing runes to prevent physical harm to whatever we wear that day should be possible, though that would still leave any exposed parts vulnerable."

While it was a possibility that someone tried to resurrect someone, Charles felt he wouldn't be too happy if that was the case. It meant someone was missing someone too badly... It was sad. He wondered if that poltergeist had to do with anything...

"Still better than nothing, yeah?" Charles shrugged in a smile. "Like an armor or something," he added amused. "And we have a great many number of clothes to experiment with!"

There was a soft huff at the excitement, "Indeed we do, though it oughtn't take more than a couple of tries to make sure it's stable." He was already turning the problem over in his mind, that it would have to be runes to protect the wearer and not just the fabric, but it would have to be made sturdier as well. It was, in short, exactly the kind of puzzle he needed to get his mind off of chasing itself in circles about the rest of it.

"Should probably take a walking stick or a staff of some sort to test the floors with before we trust our weight to them, like alpine explorers do to snowpack." He knew there was at least one animal-headed cane in the umbrella stand, and more than one with a hidden sword in it, though he doubted that would be necessary for their fact-finding excursion.

"I knew we're gonna use them for something one day!" Charles exclaimed when their cane collection was brought up. They were truly just their for exchange and for their own amusement, but now they had some use and Charles loved to prove Edwin that things had use. "So we have a plan, yeah?" Charles asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Plans were great. They gave him directions and they also relaxed Edwin, it was a win-win.

He couldn't help but smile at Charles' excitement over getting to use even part of their collection, "Probably couldn't hurt to add some kind of strengthening charms to them." Just in case they had to be used to pry debris up and away, though he was doing his best not to dwell on the thought of the place collapsing again. They were going to take precautions, they would be fine.

"Besides, I've used one of the sword ones before, Case of the Awful Opera, wasn't it?" Not the so-called Phantom Of, but a ghost of an actor who'd fancied himself the arbiter of who should take the role despite not having been very good at it himself, by all reports.

"Oh yeah. It was the first time I realized you could fence," Charles grinned, remembering it. What a night, what a performance. Edwin's of course. He'd told Charles before that he could fence, of course, but seeing it in action was different. And hot. And Charles definitely still had a body. "You looked fit," Charles added.

He chuckled to himself then, trying to rein it in.

"So, do we have everything you need for these spells?"

"Mm, yes, you were quite enamored of that fact for a few days as I recall." He replied, amusement sliding in under the statement without his really trying, because he'd definitely noticed, and it had amused him at the time as well.

He made a considering sound at the question, nodding a moment later, "We should, protection runes on clothes should just require thread, and strengthening runes can just be carved into the wood of whatever cane or staff we use." He glanced at the time, and while it was still early, he knew preparation and travel time for their date was something to take into consideration, "I can get the sewing kit and a pen knife if you can fetch the Intermediate Runic Applications, second volume." He gestured towards the bookshelf, "It's one of the greens, dark blue lettering."

Charles looked down, a little embarrassed, as Edwin confirmed he was caught being too happy about him fencing. He truly couldn't help himself.

"Book coming right up!" Charles grinned and turned to get it. "And I can do the carving too, yeah? Just point to which one you need," he assured as he was searching for the book. Blue, no, green book... He found it in the end, and helped Edwin to put runes on their clothes, and the chosen canes too. Charles made sure they picked the most mint looking ones for their little adventure. He even remarked they should have gotten tuxedos if he knew they were going to use the canes.

While he'd known it was a joke, Edwin snorted at the comment, stating that would draw far too much attention, so it was for the best that they hadn't.

All in all, it was a pleasant way to spend an hour or two before it was time to get ready for the movie, and despite it all, Edwin was feeling considerably better than the day before, which was probably due to the fact of not having kept working his already over-taxed brain, not continuing to gnaw at a puzzle that he couldn't solve without further information.

For their date, Edwin had chosen a pair of brown trousers with a darker houndstooth pattern, along with a plain white button-down, surprisingly un-tucked, along with an almost-teal pullover sweater-vest, and somehow it worked for him without looking like someone's grandad having a Freaky Friday swap, though he was still a little nervous about it, smoothing a hand down over the pullover once more as Charles helped him get it situated around the one arm with the limited mobility, he was hoping that the selection was still enough of a surprise for Charles, seeing what he put together, even though he needed help getting into it.

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