Hell demanded ruthlessness from Edwin.

He had to push himself past the limits of human endurance, to set aside his own pain and horror because they couldn’t help him. He had to dodge past the tormented souls in Gluttony and Lust and ignore the weeping frozen faces in Limbo, because there is nothing he can do for them and trying would cost him time he can’t spare.

(How many times did he try? how many times did he stop, try to reason with them, and die for it, before he concluded there was nothing to be done?)

We see flashes of that ruthlessness in the show. He’s immune to Emma’s attempts to play for sympathy. He insists Niko “do better” and provide them with useful information, because if she doesn’t she’ll die (like he did, over and over and over, until his efforts were finally good enough.) He zeroes in on the problem in the Devin house - the murder mystery or lack thereof - rather than consoling the client for her loss.

I think Charles softens that side of him a lot - not just in the way he catches him and reminds him of his bedside manner, but in the way he holds space in Edwin’s heart, the way that having Charles welded to his side makes it impossible for him to cut himself off from the world.

He stumbled out of hell after 73 years of having to shut down any consideration for his own or anyone else’s suffering… and stumbled into a boy his own age, the victim of bullying just like him, dying unjustly like he did, a boy whose relentless friendliness even as he’s dying manages to draw a smile from him. A boy he can comfort, whose pain and fear he can actually do something about, because this is not hell, and kindness here will not get him killed. A boy who deserved better, who died defending others in a way Edwin probably hardly believed possible anymore, who inspires him to see the good in the world, someone who would gently remind him about his bedside manner when his mind is telling him that caring about other people is dangerous.