Work Text:
Edgar Swansea had never given much thought to death.
It was natural. As much as he actually interacted with the thing itself, he never dealt with the concept. Death was… far away. His drive to become undead was so all-encompassing that he truly did not realise his wish could remain unfulfilled.
Imagine his surprise when he found himself bleeding out on the cold wooden floor of a theatre backroom.
Imagine his surprise when he felt his soul drift away from his body as he died.
Dying was a massive inconvenience to his research. It was an incomprehensibly large setback, how on God’s green Earth was he going to do anything meaningful now? His intelligence was perfectly intact (that was a good thing, he liked his mind), though his ability to interact with the world and people was not. This was too much for anyone, let alone Edgar.
For weeks he simply… moped.
Moped is the correct word, as much as he loathed to admit it.
For weeks, the ghost of Edgar Griffith Swansea sat in his office feeling awfully sorry for himself. Oh how he wanted to live. He did not relish life whilst actually living, but losing the one most important aspect of his existence sure did a lot to increase his appreciation for it. He wanted to live through the mundane aspects of it. He wanted to go through the motions. Oh, how he dearly missed going through those motions…
He spent weeks upon weeks (about 6 days) thinking of missed opportunities. He wanted to feel the all-encompassing sticky heat of the summer, he wanted to feel the bone-breaking cold of the winter - he wanted to feel the world. He wanted to create art, to breathe life into a painting that would have looked so awe-inspiringly terrible to everyone else who didn’t share his love for life. He wanted to write poetry so awful that humanity would weep at the mere existence of it. He wanted to eat more than he was able, and he wanted to drink as much as he possibly could.
Dear Lord, he wanted to live.
Once he had finally recovered from his… mourning, he decided to seek out Elisabeth.
Elisabeth Ashbury was the type of person who could charm even nature into breaking its own laws. A fairly large portion of Edgar hoped that Elisabeth, dear sweet incredible Elisabeth, would be able to see his incorporeal form and know exactly how to help him. How she would help him? He had no idea. That was going to be Elisabeth’s part to play. A smaller, more realistic part of Edgar knew that she would be able to do next to nothing, and might not even be able to see him.
Once his plan (if you could even call it that) was formulated, he decided to dejectedly float across the dark London streets towards Elisabeth’s home.
The lack of being able to… interact with much, gave him an advantage. He simply walked through her gates and through her door. Not knocking was awful manners, however there were more pressing matters. Oh and the fact he lacked a body to knock on the door with. Elisabeth would understand…
He nervously sauntered through each room, carefully looking around and trying his damned hardest to avoid prying.
He did eventually find Elisabeth. Disappointingly, she seemed completely fine. He expected her to seem a little upset, seeing as Edgar had died, what… a week or two ago? He could read her very well, and right now his reading Elisabeth skills were telling him that she was completely and utterly content. He was a little jealous in all honesty. Pushing past his offence he walked (floated) into the room, a little anxious.
He quickly saw exactly why she seemed completely and utterly content. Jonathan Reid. The man who had watched him die. To Edgar’s furthered dismay he also seemed completely fine. He had died a week ago. A week. A single week. Why was nobody upset about this? He half had a mind to demand to see his obituary!
Nonetheless, he had paused in the doorway like a fool. He floated across the floor quickly to stand in front of the pair, hoping and praying for a reaction to his ghostly presence.
Nothing. Not even a glance.
He cleared his throat, twiddling his thumbs, and still nothing. He began waving at them, and still, nothing.
The things he did to be noticed in that room were some of the most embarrassing things Edgar had ever done in his life (or death for that matter). He sang, he danced, he screamed, he recited Shakespearian monologues, he yelled barrages of insults which got increasingly more vulgar, he made crude gestures, the list goes on.
However, in the end, he simply collapsed.
Only God knows how long he spent lying splayed out on Elisabeth’s wooden floor. It wasn’t cold this time. He never noticed how pretty the panelling on her ceiling was. Oh how simple the colours were, how beautiful they were. The smooth planks of the floor offered small comfort, only a hint, but comfort nonetheless.
He lay, idle as he listened to the clinking of teacups, complacent smiles plaguing Elisabeth and Jonathan’s faces. There was an awful sense of jealousy seeping into his ribs.
He wanted to live. He wanted to live more than anything else in the world, and here he was. He had no right to be so bitter towards them for simply living in place of him. How dare he feel entitled to a life he never valued? How dare he feel worthy of living a life that he wasted away in the name of science? Of course, he “helped” others to live, but in the process he sacrificed his own life. He watched it waste away like incense on the breeze, and now… now he was wallowing in self-pity on the warm- not cold, wooden floor.
He felt so helpless for being angry, and so angry for being helpless.
He wanted to scream again. He wanted to be childish. He wanted to feel the world through emotion, and through his hands. Calloused as his hands were, they were all he had to offer.
Elisabeth’s gorgeous, well-loved home. What a joke. He wanted to destroy it, he wanted to rip apart what she had created, tear her books, smash her vases, burn her foundations. Oh, how he wished to live. To live is to rot, and to rot was exactly what he desired. He wanted to tear it all down with no hope of salvation.
He continued lying for a while, jealousy falling over in waves.
Why…?
He needed to end. He needed to decay.
God how he hated being dead.
“Now who might you be?” came a voice, throaty and smooth.
Edgar looked up, and to his utter dismay he saw the very confused, yet entertained face of Jonathan Reid peering down at him.