A/N: fic discusses weaponizing sex and guilt.
"I'd like to say you deserved it."
Being dead, Edward does not reply. Charlie dropped the slightly wilted flowers on the grave with all the grace of a dog wearing socks. He hadn't even splashed for nice ones, they were old and sad. (He's never lay many flowers at graves. Usually he's saved the money for more important things. The last time he did this he put a floral arrangement on Ned's grave as if it would make a difference.)
"Funny thing about death, when you're gone no one has a bad word to say about ya." God forbid he should mention the laws he broke, women he took advantage of and relationships he tried to ruin. (God forbid he should mention anyone else's compliance and his parents enabling.)
He stuck his hands into his pockets, his fingers brushed over a hip flask and lighter. He used his hand to wipe mud and blood off of his face. When people die, they take all their secrets with them. People in Ballarat have more secrets than the average person, Edward Tyneman is no different. (Charlie was the son of a fighter, he'd been carrying his fathers water bottle since he was old enough to walk and wanted to be a boxer for about as long. This was fighting if he's ever experienced it. The fight with their clothes for more skin. The fight for dominance between them. The fight of teeth on teeth. The fight for more friction.)
"I thought I'd have more time, but even if I did, what would I have said?" I hate you comes to mind. Maybe he's confess that to him, sex was the closest he'd ever come to seeing an atomic bomb. That he would never visit Japan so seeing them was the closest he'd ever come to witnessing grand scale destruction.
(M.A.D, and perhaps he was mad as well. Mad for getting involved with a criminal. Perhaps it was just in his genes. But that seemed to easy, he'd much prefer to hold himself accountable in a tangible fashion rather than someone he can't see or comprehend.)
That he used Edward as a way to feel anything other than heavy. That was all he felt since Matthew's accident. Heavy. Edward was using him too, for reasons that were probably just as selfish and if he had to guess, he'd say were probably related to Rose.
For just a second, he made eye contact with the sky. Edward probably isn't there. Can't see how he would be. The Big Man is supposed to be able to judge people's character. Charlie wondered how he would be judged, when he finally died. Would his attempts to do good even out the bad, or is he too much of a lost cause for it to matter? If they let him in, would he see his father again? Would he see the Doc?
The alternatives are bleak. If there's nothing, then all the time he spent going to church and half heartedly confessing to thinking impure thoughts about his boss are wasted. But if he doesn't get an A+ in morality, then the only other option is spending eternity in Hell with Edward.
That really would be eternal punishment, he thought, using the front of his shoe to shove dead flowers away from the grave. When people die, you can't say mean things about them; but you sure as Hell can think them.