Chapter 1

A/N

Hi Everyone! It has ben a long time but I am back! Hope you enjoy this story. 

This story was initially part of the 1D Paranormal fest that got cancelled, but I continued on with it anyway. It took me just over a year to complete.

I just want to take a moment to say a massive thank you to two people who helped shape this story into what it is.

Jill, you were incredible. Thank you for being so quick with grammar fixes, reworking paragraphs, and making everything flow so much better. You caught things I would’ve missed completely, and this fic is stronger because of you.

Emma, thank you for the ideas, the suggestions, and for talking me through the scenes that needed that extra push. You helped me dig deeper when things weren’t quite landing, and I genuinely wouldn’t have gotten there without you. Thank you for becoming a friend and someone who taught me so much more about story telling and structure.

I truly couldn’t have managed this story without the both of you.

To everyone reading, thank you for giving this fic your time. I loved writing it more than I can properly explain. These characters and their story have stuck with me in a way that’s made me proud.

If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a comment. It means more than you probably realise and really helps keep stories like this going.

Thank you for being here.

👻👻👻👻👻

The silence was the first thing Harry noticed. Not true silence, never that, but the absence of living noise.

Standing in the doorway with the real estate agent’s farewell still ringing in his ears, Harry listened to the house. The old Victorian terrace stood around him, old and watchful.

There were no televisions blaring from neighbouring apartments, no trains or sirens or couples fighting through paper thin walls. There was, however, that familiar prickle at the base of his neck, the one that never lied to him about when the boundary between here and somewhere else was wearing thin.

Harry stayed where he was, keys still in his hand, his bag at his feet, and listened.

The house answered in small ways. A creak overhead, pipes knocking and settling, timber shifting somewhere out of sight.

He drew in a slow breath.

Everything was taller than it had seemed in the listing photos. The ceiling rose high overhead, detailed plasterwork curling at the corners. The staircase curved up along the wall, banister worn smooth where countless hands had gripped it over the years.

Harry set his keys down on the narrow hallway table.

“Alright,” he muttered to himself.

He wasn’t talking to the empty space, just introducing himself, maybe.

He walked further inside, fingers brushing lightly along the wall as he passed. The paint was cool beneath his touch. The house didn’t feel abandoned. It didn’t feel heavy either. There was no immediate pressure in his chest. No tightness behind his eyes. No sudden chill creeping up his spine.

Still, he listened.

He had learned a long time ago that houses spoke in their own language. Not in words. In impressions. In subtle reactions. Some felt restless. Some felt hollow. Some felt like they were holding their memories, the good, the bad and the ugly.

This one felt… still.

Just waiting.

“Well, this is home now.”

The words seemed to sink into the hardwood absorbed by the tall ceilings and too much empty space.

Two storeys of Victorian architecture, nestled away at the end of Hawthorne Lane where the proper road gave way to gravel and then, nothing but dirt and tree roots.

It was the last house before the woods began, far enough from neighbors that Harry couldn’t hear their thoughts, no one drove past unless they meant to, no-one close enough to borrow sugar. That distance had been the whole reason he chose it. Out here, his head would be quieter. He wouldn’t wake in the middle of the night with fragments of other people’s thoughts brushing up against his own. The silence wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be his. And that was enough.

He has the space to breathe, the room to rebuild his walls, and that makes for a very happy Harry.

He carried his duffel bag up the curved staircase, each step releasing a soft creak. The selling price had been suspiciously reasonable for a house this size, this well preserved.

“ A few cosmetic issues“ , the agent had said. “ Nothing serious. Just needs some love.“

“ And probably an exorcism ,“ Harry had muttered under his breath as the ambient temperature dropped several degrees. He pretended not to notice the faint wisps of energy curling around every corner. Left over energy, most likely, memory fragments maybe. Nothing to concern himself with anyway, not unless they started forming those patterns. He didn’t want to think about that right now.

The upstairs hallway stretched before him, four closed doors leading to bedrooms he’d only briefly seen before making his offer. He chose the master bedroom at the end, the one with windows facing both east and south. Good light, he’d thought during the online viewing. Good for mornings and definitely good for keeping any shadows at bay.

Now, in the fading afternoon light, the room felt different than he hoped for. It was colder, somehow, despite the mild September warmth outside. Harry set his bag on the ornate four poster bed and wrestled open the east facing window. The frame resisted, stuck from disuse, before finally yielding with a loud screech. Warm air should have flooded in, but the room remained stubbornly cool. Harry felt goosebumps rise along his arms as he stood by the open window. He ran a hand through his dark curls, pushing them back from his face as he scanned the room with senses beyond sight.

There was indeed something present here. He could sense it now. It was not yet fully formed, but it was discernible. Perhaps it was observing.

“Just passing through.”

He spoke to the emptiness, his voice, deliberately casual. “No need to get excited.”

Don’t let it be what I think it is.

In the fifteen years since he’d first realised his “imaginary friends” were actually the lingering dead, he’d developed rules for self preservation.

Rule number one: Never engage unless absolutely necessary. The more attention you paid them, the stronger they became. The stronger they became, the harder it was to shut them out. Harry had spent too many childhood years unable to turn that off, drowning in the needs and regrets of the departed, while the living looked on in horror.

Never again.

This is what he wanted to escape from.

He spent the next two hours bringing in the boxes from his rental truck. Just books, clothes, basic kitchen supplies, his computer and a few other odds and ends. The sage bundles and protection charms were carefully wrapped in tissue paper, tucked inside a wooden box marked “kitchen herbs.” He’d hang them later, when he had a better sense of the house’s particular energies. He won’t mention how much he hopes this house is “normal.”

The house came partially furnished anyway, the beds, the dining table, some antique cabinets that were too heavy to move. Harry ran his fingers along the edge of a mahogany sideboard, feeling the impressions left by its previous owners. Nothing alarming, just the usual domestic emotions. Love, frustration, the occasional moments of joy.

Phew.

As dusk settled over the property, Harry ordered pizza and sat on the living room floor, surrounded by half unpacked boxes. The delivery took longer than expected; the driver had trouble finding the house.

“Man, you’re really out here in the middle of nowhere,” the teenager had said when Harry met him at the door, his aura flickering with nervousness. “This place has been empty forever. People say it’s…”

He cut himself off, his eyes darting to the darkened upstairs windows.

“Haunted?” Harry supplied dryly.

“I didn’t say that,” the kid muttered, accepting Harry’s generous tip with a nod before hurrying back to his idling car.

The pizza was lukewarm, but Harry barely noticed as he ate directly from the box, watching shadows lengthen across the living room. He hadn’t gotten around to unpacking any lamps yet, but the overhead fixtures were casting strange, elongated shadows from the Victorian moldings.

Yeah, he prefers his lamps.

When he finished eating, he realised the temperature had dropped further. His breath wasn’t quite visible, but close enough that he frowned and went to check the thermostat. The old analog dial was set to 22 °C, but the needle hovered closer to 16 °C.

He turned it up and heard the distant rumble of the furnace awakening in the basement.

A soft sound caught his attention as he turned back towards the living room. A whisper, so faint most people would have dismissed it as the wind. But Harry knew better. He paused, allowing his head to tilt slightly, letting the sound fly around him without focussing too hard.

“Getting comfortable already?” he murmured to the presence he felt hovering just beyond perception. “Look, I just got here. Give a guy some time to unpack, at least.”

Fucking perfect.

This was precisely what he sought to avoid, the antithesis of his desires. Was it genuinely unreasonable to request isolation, or peace, just for once?

He went back to organising his books, arranging them by subject rather than author, folklore and mythology on the top shelf, psychology and neuroscience below, fiction relegated to the bottom. His phone rang, startling him enough that he almost dropped his worn copy of “The Anatomy of Hauntings.” His sister’s name illuminated the screen.

“Hey, Gem,” he answered, grateful for the familiar voice.

“You’re alive!” she said, relief evident even through the poor connection. “I was starting to worry when I didn’t hear from you. How’s the house?”

“It’s…” He paused, glancing around the living room as something shifted just out the corner of his vision. “Big, a bit quiet. A little… cold.”

“Cold like temperature or cold like…”

Gemma’s voice faltered on the other end of the line. She didn’t finish what she was about to say. She didn’t have to. She was the only one who truly believed him as a child, who’d seen the toll his abilities had taken on him.

“Both,” Harry admitted. “But nothing I can’t handle. The heating system probably just needs checking.”

“Oh no, any regrets yet?” she asked, her voice gentler. She hadn’t approved of his impulsive purchase, his determination to move away from London, away from the small client base he’d built helping grieving families communicate with their departed loved ones for one last time.

“No,” Harry said, more firmly than he felt. “It’s exactly what I need. It will just take some getting used to, that’s all.”

After promising to call again tomorrow, Harry ended the call and continued unpacking until his eyes grew heavy. By eleven, exhaustion won out over his determination to at least finish unpacking his protection charms. He trudged upstairs, grateful he’d had the foresight to make the bed before bringing in the rest of his belongings.

The bedroom was freezing now. Harry checked the window he’d opened earlier, but it was firmly closed. He frowned, certain he’d left it open, but he was too tired to worry about it. The furnace probably just needed time to warm the upstairs. He changed into sweats and a long sleeved shirt before sliding under the heavy quilt, purposely not looking at the darker corners of the room where the shadows seemed to pulse with a type of awareness he wasn’t expecting.

Sleep came quickly. It wasn’t restful, far from it actually. Harry had dreamed of a young man wandering through the house, opening and closing doors, searching for something. In the dream, the man kept glancing over his shoulder as if being pursued. His features were indistinct, but Harry could feel his growing panic, his intense desperation. When the man finally turned towards Harry, his blue eyes wide with recognition, Harry tried to reach out, to speak, but his limbs were leaden.

“Help me,” the man seemed to say, though his lips barely moved. “Help me remember.”

According to the glowing numbers of his phone, Harry woke at 3:17 AM. The house was utterly still, yet vibrating with an unseen presence. He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, unable to shake the feeling that something had changed. The dream had changed something, opened a door he’d kept firmly shut for a while. He could feel it.

When pale light finally crept around the edges of the curtains, Harry gave up on more sleep and threw back the covers. His breath suddenly caught in his throat, because, there, on the inside of the window and visible in the early morning light, was a name scratched into the glass. Letters backwards from this side, but unmistakable.

Louis .

Harry approached slowly, his heart beating rapidly. The scratches looked fresh, the glass dust still visible along the sill below. He touched the letters with trembling fingers.

The glass was ice cold, much colder than the surrounding pane.

“Louis? Who are you?” he whispered, his breath fogging the glass around the etched name. Only silence answered, but as Harry stood there, he couldn’t escape the certainty that this spirit was different, stronger, maybe more present than any he’d encountered in years. The kind he’d specifically moved away from London to avoid.

As if in response to his thoughts, a soft scratching sound began somewhere in the walls. Like fingernails seeking a way out… Or a way in, it was hard to tell.

Harry closed his eyes, focussing on his breathing, rebuilding the mental barriers that had slipped during sleep.

“Not happening,” he said firmly, pulling away from the window. “I don’t do this anymore, please leave me alone.”

But even as he spoke, he felt the unmistakable sensation of being watched by eyes he couldn’t see, eyes that somehow recognised him, knew him. The quiet house wasn’t just haunted.

It had been waiting for him.

Chapter 2

Two weeks. Harry had been in the house for two weeks, and was already beginning to question his decision making abilities.

The first morning after discovering the name etched into his bedroom window, he’d spent three hours methodically unpacking his protective charms. Salt lines at every doorway and window sill. Iron nails discreetly hammered into each corner of the house. Sage burnt in every room until his eyes watered and his lungs protested. A silver mirror was placed strategically on the wall facing the staircase, designed to reflect unwanted energies back to their source.

It’s just standard procedures, professional habits, and nothing personal.

“Just routine precautions,” he’d muttered to himself while he hung dried lavender and rosemary over the doorframes. “Just like changing the locks when you move into a new place.”

The house had seemed to absorb his efforts with something like amusement.

By the end of the first week, Harry knew the house was playing with him.

It had started small. A coffee mug he’d left on the kitchen counter appeared on his bedside table the next morning. The book he’d been reading, marked at page 164, had somehow reset itself to page 28, a passage about liminal spaces and doorways between worlds conspicuously marked with what looked like a fingerprint smudge in the margin. His keys had disappeared, then reappeared. His favourite jumper vanished for three days, then reappeared draped over the porch swing, despite the fact Harry never used the back porch. The heater would kick on in the middle of the night, blasting hot air until he woke up sweating, only to cut out entirely when he tried to adjust the thermostat. The vintage Crosley record player, he’d bought himself after his first paid consultation, would start playing at odd hours. Always the same song. Some scratchy 1970s ballad he’d found tucked away in the hall closet, the vinyl unmarked except for a small, hand written “L” on the centre label.

Harry knew all the classic signs of a haunting. He’d written papers on the subject at university before dropping out to deal with his “mental health issues,” as his academic advisor had so delicately phrased it.

Poltergeist activity.

Temperature fluctuations.

Electrical interference.

Sensory manifestations.

And he was studiously ignoring all of it.

Rule number two of self preservation: Don’t feed it attention. Like dealing with a toddler throwing a tantrum or an overeager puppy, acknowledge the behavior and you reinforce it. Harry had spent the past decade perfecting the art of selective awareness. He could make himself functionally blind to even the most aggressive spiritual manifestations if he concentrated hard enough.

“Not my problem,” he told the empty air on day nine, when he found all his carefully arranged books reshelved in reverse alphabetical order. “Not why I’m here.”

And Harry knew his rules and followed them like gospel. So why was he not realising by even muttering that he was indeed “ engaging.“

What was so different?

He’d moved to this quiet village for peace. For the blessed relief of fewer minds pressing against his own, fewer wandering souls seeking his particular talents. He’d only taken three clients in the past year, and only because Gemma had personally vouched for them. They had been desperate parents seeking closure after a car accident had taken their daughter. Then there was an elderly man wanting to say goodbye to his husband of sixty years. And lastly, a young woman needing forgiveness from her estranged mother.

Harry had helped them, had opened himself just enough to facilitate those final conversations, then spent weeks afterwards with migraines and cold sweats as he rebuilt his mental barriers. He was done with all that. Done being the conduit for other people’s unfinished business, and waking up screaming with someone else’s memories tangled with his own.

On day thirteen, he ran out of milk for his tea. Harry stared into the fridge at the empty bottle of milk and half a lemon, wondering how he’d let it get this bad. He’d been surviving on delivery and takeaway, reluctant to venture into the village and risk meeting the town’s occupants. But his bank account was protesting the expense, and a man could only eat so many pizzas and curries before his body rebelled.

“Fine,” he sighed, grabbing his wallet and keys from the bowl by the door, which had somehow migrated from the kitchen counter where he’d left it the night before. “Point taken.”

The drive into the village took less than ten minutes, the narrow country road winding between hedgerows bursting with late seasoned wildflowers. Under different circumstances, Harry might have found it charming. Idyllic, even. The kind of picturesque English countryside that featured on postcards and BBC period dramas.

The village of Ridgemont consisted of a high street with the requisite pub (The King’s Head, naturally), a post office, a tea shop, a small pharmacy, and an ancient church with a graveyard that had run out of space centuries ago.

The market sat at the far end, a surprisingly modern building with sliding glass doors that seemed out of place amongst the weathered stone facades.

Harry parked his battered Range Rover in the small lot and pulled his jacket tighter despite the mild September day. Unfamiliar eyes fell on him the moment he stepped through the automatic doors, not physical eyes necessarily, but awareness. That same subtle shift in atmosphere that occurred whenever he entered a new space was strong.

He kept his own eyes down, grabbing a basket and heading straight for the dairy section. Milk, eggs, cheese, veggies, steak maybe. In and out in five minutes. No lingering, no browsing, no…

“You must be the new resident located up at that creepy old house.”

Harry was startled, nearly dropping the carton of milk he’d just selected. The voice belonged to an elderly woman examining yoghurt selections beside him. She was tiny, barely reaching his shoulder, with silver hair pulled into a neat bun and eyes that seemed too sharp, and knowing.

“Sorry?” Harry managed, taking an instinctive step back.

“House, you know, the one that looks like Annabelle resides there,” she stated, selecting a strawberry yoghurt.

“End of Hawthorne Lane. The Victorian terrace with the blue door. That’s you, isn’t it?”

Harry nodded cautiously.

“Just moved in two weeks ago.”

The woman hummed, a sound that managed to convey volumes of unspoken commentary.

“Brave lad,” she said finally, looking up at him with newfound interest.

“Or foolish. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”

“It’s a nice house,” Harry said stiffly, already calculating the fastest route to the checkout. “Good price too.”

“I imagine it was,” she replied, dropping her yoghurt into a basket already filled with cat food and digestive biscuits.

“Always is. Although it never stays occupied long enough.”

Before Harry could decide whether to pursue this line of conversation, the woman patted his arm with surprising familiarity.

“You look like you could use a proper meal, dear. The pub makes a decent shepherd’s pie on Wednesdays.”

She shuffled away, leaving Harry with more questions than he cared to acknowledge. He quickly gathered the rest of his essentials, and headed straight for the checkout.

His luck, predictably, failed him.

Every lane had at least three people waiting, except for one staffed by a young woman with vibrant blue hair partially hidden under a store cap. Harry hesitated, then resigned himself to human interaction and approached her lane.

“Find everything alright?” she asked automatically, then looked up and froze, recognition flashing across her face.

“Oh.”

Harry arranged his face into what he hoped was a neutral, unmemorable expression. This new guy in town thing was already getting on his nerves.

“Yes, thank you.”

The girl, Jade, according to her name tag, began scanning his items with practiced control, her earlier friendliness evaporating. Harry focussed on arranging his reusable bags, pretending not to notice her stealing glances at him between items.

“It’s £32.47,” she said finally, then bit her lip as if physically restraining herself from saying more.

Harry handed over his card. The transaction processed with excruciating slowness.

“You’re staying at the Hawthorne Lane house, aren’t you? That place scares everyone. Are you not terrified there?” Jade blurted, handing him his receipt. “The old Tomlinson place, everyone knows it.”

Harry paused in the middle of taking his bags.

“Tomlinson?”

Something in his tone must have betrayed his interest because Jade’s expression shifted from wariness to a strange mix of excitement and apprehension.

“Yeah, that’s what everyone still calls it. Been empty most of the last eight years, except for the odd tenant who never lasts more than a few months.”

She leaned forward slightly.

“You know about the accident, right? They say the house has never been right since.”

“Accident?”

The word slipped out before Harry could stop it. He didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to involve himself in whatever tragic history clung to the house and its previous occupants.

Jade glanced around, then lowered her voice.

“The son. Louis. Drowned in the pond at the back of the property. They found him on his birthday, if you can believe it. December 24th. Just turned twenty five that day…or so the rumours say.”

Something cold settled in Harry’s stomach.

Louis.

The name scratched into his bedroom window.

“His parents moved away after,” Jade continued, apparently mistaking Harry’s silence for encouragement. “Couldn’t bear to stay. No one knows exactly what happened. Some say that…..”

“Next customer, please!” called a supervisor from nearby, giving Jade a pointed look.

Harry mumbled a thank you, gathered up his bags, and fled.

The drive home passed in a blur, Jade’s words echoing in his mind against his will.

Louis Tomlinson. Twenty five. Drowned.

The facts clicked into place with sickening inevitability. A young man dead before his time, tied to the place of his death, unable to move on. Classic residual haunting scenario.

Not his problem .

It was not why he was here. But knowledge had power, especially with spirits. Names had power. And now Harry knew both.

He was so lost in thought that he nearly missed the turn onto his lane. As he pulled into the gravelled driveway, the house seemed to loom larger than before, it’s Victorian architecture harsher in the afternoon sun.

Harry groaned.

He carried his groceries inside, trying to ignore the way the air felt thicker, charged with more anticipation. He’d just finished putting away the perishables when he heard it, not the usual whispers or scratching sounds that had become background noise over the past two weeks, but humming . A distinct melody, which was achingly familiar; the same tune from the mysterious record.

He closed the refrigerator door slowly, counting breaths.

One, two, three .

Centre and ground.

Four, five, six.

Strengthen shields.

Seven, eight, nine.

Do not engage.

“Remember the rules, Harry.”

The humming grew louder and more insistent and for reasons Harry simply cannot explain, he just snapped.

“Stop it,”

Harry pressed his palms against the cool granite countertop.

“I’m not here for you.”

The temperature plummeted so rapidly that Harry’s next breath came out as fog. The overhead light flickered once, twice, then stabilised at a dim glow that barely illuminated the kitchen. The humming cut off abruptly, replaced by a weighted silence.

“Not very hospitable, are you?”

Harry’s entire body went rigid.

Because if reality was still playing by its own rules, then he darn well knew he hadn’t been the one who had just spoken.

The voice, male, northern accent, slightly high pitched, came from directly behind him.

Not in his head, not from another room.

Right here. Next to him.

Slowly, with the careful movements of someone approached by a wild animal, Harry slowly turned around.

A young man leaned against the kitchen island, arms crossed over his chest. He wore a faded band t-shirt, skinny jeans with holes at the knees, and well worn Vans. His hair was tousled, caramel brown with lighter streaks, swept across his forehead in a fringe that should have looked dated but somehow suited his delicate features. His eyes, startlingly blue even in the dim light, watched Harry with a mixture of wariness and defiance.

He looked solid. Present. Real . Except for the faint translucence around his edges, the subtle wrongness of shadow and light that Harry had learned to recognise before he could properly tie his own shoes.

“You can see me,” the spirit said, uncrossing his arms and straightening up. Not really a question. “Properly see me. Fucking finally!”

Harry kept his face carefully blank, despite the rapid pounding of his heart.

Rule number three: never let them know they’ve affected you.

“You’re Louis.”

Something flashed across the spirit’s face, surprised but quickly masked.

“And you’re trespassing, HARRY.”

“I bought this house,” Harry corrected, finding refuge in mundane legalities. “Weeks ago. I have paperwork.”

“Paperwork,” Louis mimicked with disdain.

He pushed off from the island and took a step closer. Harry held his ground through sheer force of will.

“This has been my home for twenty eight years. A signature on some documents doesn’t change that.”

Twenty eight years. That would make him… Harry did the quick math. If Louis had died at twenty five, and that was eight years ago according to Jade, he’d have been much older. The spirit before him certainly looked twenty five, frozen at the moment of death, as they often were. The clothes didn’t match though, and the math wasn’t “mathing”.

“Look,” Harry sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I understand this is your territory. I respect that. But I’m not leaving, and I’m not interested in whatever unfinished business is keeping you here.”

Louis’ eyebrows shot up.

“Unfinished business? What are you, the Ghost Whisperer?”

He circled around Harry, scrutinising him with undisguised curiosity.

“Let me guess. Medium? Psychic? One of those spiritual types who burns sage and talks to plants?”

“I don’t talk to plants,” Harry said automatically, then cursed himself for engaging again.

“But you do talk to the dead,” Louis pressed, a triumphant gleam in his eyes.

“Or you can, at least. That’s why you can see me when no one else has been able to. I’ve been trying for years to get someone’s attention. Do you know how frustrating it is to knock pictures off walls and have people blame it on the wind? To whisper right in someone’s ear and have them swat at the air like you’re a bloody fly?”

“I imagine it’s very difficult,” Harry said, keeping his voice neutral. “But I don’t do that anymore.”

“Do what?”

“Help spirits move on. Find closure. Cross over. Whatever euphemism you prefer for ceasing to exist in this plane.”

Harry turned away, busying himself with unpacking the rest of his groceries. Maybe if he made himself boring enough, Louis would lose interest.

Yeah, no such luck there.

The spirit materialised directly in front of him, blocking his path to the pantry.

“You can’t just ignore me,” Louis said, indignation radiating from him in actual cold waves that rippled through the kitchen. “I’ve been stuck in this house for like fifty years with no one to talk to except the occasional mouse in the attic. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”

Once again, the numbers didn’t line up, and Harry couldn’t ignore the growing sense that something was off, beyond just the figures. It made him think about time, about how it worked for the dead. Did ghosts experience the slow, dragging minutes of the human world? Or did time slip past them in strange, accelerated bursts? Maybe for them, years felt like seconds or maybe they were stuck, repeating the same moment over and over again.

He found himself fascinated by the idea. What remained constant for them? What changed? Were ghosts aware of time passing, or did they float through it without ever really noticing? These weren’t just idle thoughts, they were the kind of questions that tugged at the edges of his curiosity late at night. And as he looked across from him, he wondered if this particular ghost might someday be willing to answer that.

Harry stepped through him, a deliberate breach of etiquette in the spirit world, like walking through someone’s personal space in the living one. He suppressed a shiver at the cold electricity that prickled over his skin at the contact.

“Not my problem,” he said firmly, placing cans of soup on the pantry shelf.

“I moved here specifically to get away from people, living and dead, asking me for things I can’t give them.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?” Louis demanded, reappearing inside the pantry.

The small space felt suddenly claustrophobic, charged with the peculiar energy that powerful spirits emanated.

“Because those are very different things, Harold.”

“It’s just Harry,” he corrected automatically.

“And it doesn’t matter. The answer is no.”

Louis’ form flickered slightly, frustration manifesting, a disruption in his ability to maintain a cohesive appearance.

“You’re the first person who’s been able to see me,” he said, his voice tight. “The first person I’ve been able to talk to. And you’re telling me to piss off because what, you’re on some sort of spiritual sabbatical? Taking a break from your ghost buster duties?”

Harry closed the pantry door, unsurprised when Louis simply passed through it to continue confronting him.

“Something like that.”

“Well, too bad,” Louis snapped, crossing his arms again. “Because I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. I’ve made sure of that.”

That caught Harry’s attention.

“What do you mean?”

A smirk played at the corner of Louis’ mouth, making him look suddenly younger, mischievous even.

“Why do you think this place was so affordable? Why do you think no one stays longer than a few months? I’m very good at making people uncomfortable, Harry Styles.” He pronounced the name with exaggerated precision, as if savouring it.

“Very good at convincing them they’d be happier elsewhere.”

“You’ve been reading my mail,” Harry realised. “That’s how you know my last name.”

“Among other things,” Louis agreed, entirely unapologetic. “Your taste in music isn’t half bad by the way, some is questionable. Though your organisational skills leave something to be desired.”

“So it was you who has been moving my things.”

“Got to keep myself entertained somehow, don’t I?” Louis drifted over to the refrigerator, passing his hand through the door. “Besides, I wanted to get your attention. And now I have it.”

Harry leaned back against the counter, suddenly tired. This was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid. The entanglement, responsibility and the weight of another soul’s needs pressing against his carefully constructed defenses.

“What do you want, Louis?” he asked finally, the name feeling strange on his tongue.

Personal . Too fucking personal. An acknowledgment he’d been trying to avoid.

Louis’ expression shifted, the cockiness replaced by something more vulnerable, more genuine.

“I want to know what happened to me,” he said quietly. “I want to know why I’m still here when everyone else has moved on. I want…” He paused, seeming to struggle with the words. “I want to remember how I died.”

The confession hung in the air between them, heavy with implication. This wasn’t just any spirit asking for help. This was a soul trapped in a loop of confusion and partial awareness, unable to move on because fundamental pieces of his own story were missing.

“I don’t…” Harry began, already forming the refusal.

“You do,” Louis interrupted while moving closer. For a spirit, he had remarkably expressive eyes, determined, pleading, and challenging all at once. “You can help me. I know you can. I’ve been waiting for someone like you.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Harry protested, but the words sounded weak even to his own ears.

“I know enough,” Louis insisted. “I know you’re running from something, or someone. I know you talk in your sleep, begging someone named Anna to leave you alone. I know you’re lonely, even though you pretend isolation is what you want.”

He paused, his form solidifying as he concentrated.

“And I know you feel it too, this connection. Like you were meant to find this house….and me.”

Harry stared at him, momentarily at a loss for words. He’d spent years building walls, creating distance between himself and the spirit world. He carefully controlled interactions on his terms, never allowing attachment or emotional investment.

To ensure safety from that, he instead tried to remain clinical and professional.

And in less than fifteen minutes, this snarky, persistent ghost had bypassed every defense, seen through every pretense.

“I can’t help you,” Harry said finally, the words sounding hollow even to himself.

“I don’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.”

Louis studied him for a long moment, then nodded slowly.

“Right. Well, I’ve waited years. I suppose I can wait a bit longer for you to change your mind.”

“I won’t,” Harry insisted.

“We’ll see,” Louis replied, a hint of his earlier smirk returning.

“In the meantime, I should warn you, I’m a terrible housemate when I’m bored. Ask the family who moved in last spring. They lasted three weeks before the wife had a nervous breakdown over her missing wedding ring. Found it in the garbage disposal after they’d already packed the moving van.”

With that parting threat, he vanished, not gradually fading as most spirits did, but instantly, like a light switched off.

Harry exhaled shakily, the kitchen suddenly feeling too large, and too empty. He’d faced angry spirits before, malevolent entities, confused souls, but never someone quite like Louis Tomlinson. Never someone who saw through him so completely, who challenged him with such unapologetic determination.

Never someone who made him question his carefully constructed rules for survival.

He pulled out his phone, finger hovering over Gemma’s contact information. She would know what to do. She always did. But calling her would mean admitting he was involved, that he’d broken his own cardinal rule and engaged with a spirit.

Instead, he put the phone away and reached for the cupboard where he’d stashed a bottle of liquor. One finger, maybe two, just to settle his nerves. As he poured the liquid into a glass, the record player in the living room suddenly sprung to life, the now familiar melody filling the house. Harry closed his eyes, counted to ten, and took a long swallow of whisky.

It was going to be a very long night.

The music grew louder, louder than the old record player should have been capable of producing. Harry set his glass down with a sharp click against the countertop.

“Really mature,” he called out, knowing Louis could hear him even if he chose not to materialise. “This isn’t going to change my mind.”

No response, just the melancholy ballad repeating again as soon as it ended. Harry recognised the song now, some folk rock thing about memories and regrets. Fitting, he supposed.

With determined casualness, Harry finished unpacking his groceries, poured another finger of whisky, and retreated to the living room with his laptop. He had emails to answer, bills to pay, a semblance of normal life to maintain despite the supernatural tantrum unfolding around him.

The temptation to simply tell Louis what he knew lingered at the edges of his mind. It would be so easy. A few words, You drowned in the pond behind the house , and maybe the spirit would find closure, move on, and leave Harry in peace.

But Harry knew better.

Ghostly amnesia didn’t just dissolve with simple information. Louis needed to remember, not be told. And memory, for spirits, was visceral, and violent. When a ghost confronted the moment of death, the trauma echoed outwards, seeking living conduits to channel the overflow of psychic energy.

Harry had made that mistake once, of being that conduit for a spirit who didn’t remember their death. Anna, a young woman who’d been murdered in her apartment, had latched onto Harry during one of his early consultations. When she finally remembered, Harry had experienced every moment of her terror and pain as if it were happening to him.

He had spent three days in hospital after that, suffering seizures. To this day, he still has nightmares.

He never wanted to experience that again.

By midnight, Harry’s patience was wearing dangerously thin. The music hadn’t stopped once. Every time the record ended, invisible hands reset the needle. The melody that had seemed merely melancholy hours ago now felt like psychological torture, each note a deliberate attempt to break his concentration.

Worse, Louis had begun singing along.

His voice was surprisingly good, a clear, strong tenor that would have been pleasant under any other circumstance. But now it just served as another intrusion, another tactic to wear Harry down.

By two AM, Harry had abandoned his laptop in favor of pacing the living room, hands pressed to his ears in a futile attempt to block out the sound.

“This isn’t going to work,” he insisted to the empty air. “I don’t care how annoying you are. I’m not helping you remember how you died.”

The music paused briefly, then resumed at an even higher volume. Louis appeared, sitting cross legged aside the record player, his form almost completely solid now, a sign of just how much energy he was expending.

“Why not?” he demanded, his voice cutting through the music. “What’s the big deal? It’s not like I’m asking you to solve a murder or avenge my death. I just want to know what happened.”

“It’s not that simple,” Harry growled, fatigue making his shields slip dangerously.

“When spirits remember their deaths, it’s not just… information. It’s reliving it. And sometimes, when a medium is involved, we relive it too.”

Louis tilted his head, studying him with unsettling intensity.

“That’s happened to you before.”

It wasn’t a question, but Harry answered anyway.

“Yes. And I have no desire to drown alongside you, thank you very much.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Harry knew he’d made a tactical error. Louis’ eyes widened, his form flickering with shock.

“Drown?” he repeated, moving up and over to stand directly in front of Harry. “I drowned? Was it in the pond behind the house?”

Harry stepped back, cursing himself silently.

“That’s what people in the village say.”

“And you weren’t going to tell me?”

“I told you, I don’t do this anymore. Any of it. Not just the hard parts.”

Louis’ expression hardened, a mix of hurt and anger that made the air between them crackle with energy. “So you were just going to let me haunt this place forever, not knowing why I’m stuck here? That’s cold, Styles. Even for someone who claims to be a professional ghost ignorer.”

“You don’t understand…”

“No, I don’t,” Louis snapped. “Because no one will bloody tell me anything. Years of watching people come and go, of trying to communicate, of slowly forgetting what it was like to be alive. Years of nothing but this house and that fucking pond I apparently died in.”

The record skipped, the needle jumping across the vinyl in response to Louis’ agitation. Harry winced as the speakers emitted a harsh scratching sound.

“Look,” Harry said, desperate for sleep, for silence, for an end to this confrontation. “I get that you’re frustrated. But this isn’t a service I provide anymore. There are other mediums, other psychics…”

“None of them can see me!” Louis shouted, his voice reverberating through the house with supernatural force. “None of them even knew I was here! Do you have any idea what that’s like? To be completely invisible, completely alone, screaming at the top of your lungs and no one even turns their head?”

The lights flickered violently, and a framed print on the wall crashed to the floor, glass shattering across the hardwood. Harry flinched but held his ground.

“I can’t help you,” he insisted, even as exhaustion and something dangerously close to compassion wore away at his resolve. “I’m sorry about what happened to you. I really am. But I can’t be your conduit.”

Louis stared at him for a long moment, then his shoulders slumped.

“Fine,” he said quietly, his voice taking on an eerie, echoing quality that raised the hair on Harry’s arms. “Have it your way.”

He vanished again, but the music continued, louder now, interspersed with Louis’ voice singing along. Not just the same song anymore, but a range of music that seemed chosen specifically to prevent sleep. The record would play for thirty seconds, then abruptly switch to something else, jarring transitions from folk to blaring rock to classical to electronic dance beats.

Harry retreated to his bedroom, pillow over his head, but the sound followed him. Louis’ voice seemed to come from inside the walls themselves, sometimes singing, sometimes just talking, an endless monologue about his day, his thoughts, his observations about Harry’s book collection and clothing choices.

By dawn, Harry was a wreck, eyes bloodshot, head pounding, nerves frayed beyond endurance. He staggered into the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face, and stared at his haggard reflection in the mirror.

“Alright!” he shouted, voice hoarse with fatigue. “You win! Just stop the bloody music!”

Blessed silence fell immediately.

Louis became visible in the mirror behind him, a satisfied smirk on his lips.

“I knew you’d see reason eventually,” he said, examining his nails with exaggerated nonchalance.

Harry turned to face him, gripping the edge of the sink for support.

“I’ll tell you what I know. But that’s it. I’m not doing a full crossing over, memory recovery session. I’m just going to give you the facts as I heard them.”

Louis made a zipping motion across his lips.

“Scout’s honor. Just the facts.”

“According to the girl at the market, you drowned in the pond behind the house. On your birthday. December 24th. They found you there.” Harry delivered the information in clipped, clinical sentences, bracing himself for the psychic backlash that typically accompanied such revelations.

“You were twenty five. Your parents moved away afterwards. That’s all I know. See , you did all that for nothing. Now leave me alone…. Please.”

He tensed, waiting for the familiar surge of foreign memories, the disorienting rush of another’s death experience flooding his consciousness. The pain that would leave him gasping, curled on the floor, temporarily lost in someone else’s final moments.

But nothing happened.

Louis stood perfectly still, his expression unreadable. “December 24th,” he repeated softly. “My birthday. The pond. My birthday. My mum.” He seemed to be testing the words, turning them over in his mind. “That… doesn’t feel right.”

Harry blinked, surprised by both Louis’ reaction and his own lack of psychic distress.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It just… doesn’t ring true.”

Louis looked genuinely confused, his earlier cockiness replaced by uncertainty.

“But thank you for telling me.”

Harry didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t how these conversations typically went. There should have been recognition, emotional release, some kind of resolution, or at the very least, the anticipated psychic backlash.

“Right,” he finally managed. “So… we’re done here?”

Louis’ smile was sharp, yet knowing.

“Get some sleep, Harry Styles. You look terrible.”

And with that, he vanished, not just from sight, but from Harry’s psychic awareness as well. The oppressive sense of being watched, of another consciousness pressing against his own, lifted entirely. Harry waited, suspicious, but the silence held. No music. No whispers. No objects moving when he wasn’t looking. After nearly twenty four hours of Louis’ relentless presence, the absence felt almost as disorienting as the haunting.

He collapsed onto his bed fully clothed, too exhausted to question his unexpected reprieve. His last conscious thought before sleep claimed him was that of Louis, irritating, persistent, strangely compelling Louis, who had indeed thanked him, and that was not normal. For all his psychic training, all his experience with the spirit world, Harry couldn’t remember the last time a ghost had bothered with such a basic courtesy.

Maybe this haunting would be different after all.

And he most certainly had never seen such a pretty ghost.

Chapter 3

Harry slept for four uninterrupted hours, a luxury he hadn’t experienced since moving in. When he finally opened his eyes, the light had shifted. It crept in through the gap in the curtains and stretched across the floorboards, catching in the dust and the scuffed varnish near the door. For several blissful moments, he simply breathed in the silence, the wonderful, complete absence of spectral activity.

No music. No whispers. No Louis.

Something tugged at the edges of his consciousness, a vague uneasiness about how easily Louis had accepted the information about his death, the way he’d said that it “ didn’t feel right.“

The conspicuous absence of psychic backlash was puzzling him. In Harry’s extensive experience, spirits didn’t just politely thank you for information about their deaths before vanishing. They reacted. They remembered. They released emotional energy that could burn out light bulbs and trigger migraines in sensitive observers.

Louis had done none of that. He’d simply… gone .

But Harry wasn’t about to question his good fortune. After two straight weeks of subtle hauntings and one night of relentless torment, the absence of supernatural nonsense felt like a gift. He stretched languidly, muscles protesting after his fully clothed body collapsed onto the bed. A quick glance at his phone confirmed it was already past two in the afternoon. Outside, birds chirped, a gentle breeze rustled through the trees, and the world continued its ordinary rotation, blissfully free of paranormal complications.

“Right,” Harry muttered, running a hand through his tangled curls. “Normal human activities today.”

He started with a proper breakfast, or late lunch, technically, of scrambled eggs on toast. The kitchen felt larger somehow, emptier without Louis’ energy filling the corners. Harry found himself glancing at the spot where the spirit had leaned against the island, arms crossed defensively over his chest, blue eyes challenging and alive with personality.

Harry shook his head, dispelling the image. Peace and quiet was exactly why he’d moved here. Exactly what he wanted. The fact that the house felt strangely hollow now, lacking a certain sarcastic presence, well, that was just his mind adjusting to the absence of psychic pressure.

Absolutely not because he missed having someone to talk to.

After eating, Harry surveyed the property from the back porch, a steaming mug of tea in his hand. The Victorian terrace sat on nearly an acre of land, most of it overgrown from years of neglect. Tangled rosebushes threatened to consume the eastern fence line. Ornamental shrubs had morphed into wild, unruly masses. And at the far edge of the property, partially obscured by weeping willow branches, lay the pond, a dark oval of still water reflecting the afternoon sky.

The exact place where Louis had allegedly drowned.

Harry deliberately turned away from the sight. Instead, he focussed on the immediate garden space closest to the house, a more manageable project than tackling the entire wilderness. He changed into work clothes, located gardening tools in a small shed attached to the garage, and set to work with single minded determination.

Physical labour had always been Harry’s preferred method of distraction. There was something deeply satisfying about the rhythm of pulling weeds, the immediate visual reward of cleared flower beds, and the pleasant ache in muscles put to proper use. He lost himself in the methodical task, humming softly as sweat dampened his t-shirt and soil worked its way under his fingernails.

By late afternoon, he’d cleared a significant portion of the immediate garden and discovered several healthy rose bushes beneath the chaos. The work had served its purpose, grounding him firmly in the physical world, reminding his body that it existed for more than just channelling spiritual energy. He felt lighter, more present than he had in weeks.

And if occasionally his gaze drifted towards the pond, searching for some sign of disturbance on its mirror like surface, well, professional curiosity was hard to extinguish entirely.

Harry showered away the day’s grime, watching dirt and tiny leaf fragments swirl down the drain. The bathroom mirror had fogged completely, and he wiped a clear patch with his palm, studying his reflection critically. The dark circles under his eyes had faded somewhat after his long sleep, but his face still looked thinner than it had in London, cheekbones more pronounced.

Gemma would fuss over him if she could see him now, probably force feed him homemade lasagna and ask pointed questions about his eating habits. Maybe he should invite her to visit now that the house is truly…vacant.

As evening approached, Harry treated himself to a proper home cooked meal, sausages and mash with onion gravy, the very type of comfort food that his mother used to make when he was feeling poorly. The simple, domestic task of cooking felt reassuringly normal after the chaos of the past two weeks. He ate at the kitchen table rather than perched on the counter or sitting on the floor amid unpacked boxes, another small victory for normalcy.

The house creaked and settled around him as darkness fell. Just ordinary house sounds, Harry reminded himself when a particularly loud groan of timber made him look up sharply. Old Victorian homes always had their own unique symphony of structural complaints. There was nothing supernatural about that.

He was loading his dishes into the dishwasher when the kitchen light flickered briefly.

Harry froze, dirty plate suspended over the open dishwasher. One heartbeat. Then Two. The light remained steady.

“Faulty wiring,”

His voice sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet kitchen.

“Adding that to the to-do list.”

But a familiar prickle had begun at the back of his neck, the subtle awareness of being watched. Harry deliberately continued his task, rinsing each dish before placing it in the rack. He would not react to every minor electrical fluctuation like a nervous teenager at a slumber party. He was a professional. Or had been, anyway.

He made himself a cup of chamomile tea, carried it upstairs to his bedroom, and settled into the antique armchair by the window with his current novel, a paperback thriller with a thoroughly mundane plot about political conspiracies.

No ghosts, no psychics, no supernatural elements whatsoever.

After reading the same paragraph four times without absorbing a single word, Harry admitted to himself that he was listening for something.

Footsteps. Whispers. The record player downstairs suddenly springing to life.

Nothing but silence answered his heightened awareness.

Harry sighed, set down his book, and prepared for bed with the careful routine he’d established years ago to calm his psychic senses. Lavender oil dabbed at his pulse points. Deep breathing exercises. Mental shields checked and reinforced. He slipped between the sheets, switched off the bedside lamp, and closed his eyes.

As expected, sleep refused to come.

The bed felt too large, the room too quiet. Harry tossed and turned, punching his pillow into more comfortable shapes, adjusting and readjusting the blankets. When he finally did drift off, his dreams were fragmented and unsettling, images of dark water closing over his head, the burn of oxygen starved lungs, followed inexplicably by searing heat and the acrid smell of smoke.

He woke with a gasp just after midnight, heart racing, sheets tangled around his legs. Something had startled him awake, a sound perhaps, or the closet door, which he distinctly remembered closing before bed, but now stood open a few inches.

Harry stared at it, the rational part of his brain immediately supplying explanations: the latch was faulty; the house had settled, causing the door to drift open; he’d been mistaken about closing it fully.

But a deeper instinct, the same one that had kept him alive through encounters with entities far less friendly than Louis Tomlinson, sent cold adrenaline coursing through his veins.

“Very funny,” he said, voice steady despite the rapid pounding of his heart. “You’ve made your point.”

No response.

The closet remained partially open, revealing only darkness beyond.

Harry exhaled slowly and reached for the bedside lamp. His fingers brushed the switch, but before he could turn it on, the lamp slid several inches away from his hand, a smooth, deliberate movement.

“Stop it,” Harry said, more firmly this time.

“I know it’s you.”

A soft chuckle seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at once. The temperature in the room plummeted, Harry’s breath fogging in the suddenly frigid air. The closet door swung fully open, revealing nothing but his own clothes hanging in orderly rows.

Harry forced himself to remain still, to project calm despite the adrenaline coursing through his system. This was textbook poltergeist activity, annoying but rarely dangerous.

If the entity wanted to play childish games, fine. Harry wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of appearing frightened.

He reached for the lamp again, deliberately telegraphing his movements.

This time, it remained in place, allowing him to switch it on. Warm light flooded the bedroom, dispelling shadows but not the unnatural chill.

“I know you’re here,” Harry said to the apparently empty room. “You might as well show yourself instead of skulking about like a…”

The words died in his throat as something slithered beneath his sheets, a cold pressure wrapping around his ankle. Harry kicked reflexively, tangling himself further in the bedding. Another chuckle, closer now, right beside his ear.

“Miss me?”

Harry nearly fell out of bed in his haste to put distance between himself and the voice. He whirled around to find Louis lounging casually against the headboard, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

“You absolute wanker!” Harry spluttered, “Was that necessary?”

Louis’ grin widened, the blue of his eyes more vivid than Harry remembered, his form more solid than it had been during their previous encounters. “No,” he admitted cheerfully.

“But your face was absolutely worth it.”

Harry ran a hand down his face, trying to regain some semblance of dignity.

“I thought you were gone.”

“I was,” Louis said, far too pleased with himself. He glanced around the room like he’d just returned from somewhere exotic instead of the upstairs landing.

“Did a lap of the house. It is very scenic. The hallway’s still boring.”

He tipped his head at Harry.

“Then I retreated to the west wing.”

Harry frowned.

“There is no west wing.”

“Exactly. It was very tragic.”

He folded his arms.

“Anyway, I gave you some space and stayed out of your way. Thought I’d see if you enjoyed the peace and quiet and you did.”

He glanced up, eyes bright.

“Turns out I didn’t though.”

He shrugged one shoulder and Harry tried his best to hide his smirk.

“And let’s be honest here Harold, you’d have been unbearable if I’d left you alone much longer. Figured I’d come back before my favourite medium started missing me too much. You did miss me, didn’t you? Or wait, you didn’t start talking to the plants, please tell me you didn’t.”

Louis chuckled but Harry didn’t laugh. The words landed somewhere tender, and somewhere he hadn’t admitted existed. He folded his arms, more to steady himself than anything else.

“Ex-medium,” Harry corrected automatically. He pointed directly at Louis.

“And this is exactly why I got out of the business. Spirits with boundary issues.”

“Speaking of boundaries,” Louis said, sliding off the bed to stand directly in front of Harry.

“We should probably establish some. Since we’re going to be house mates and all.”

“We are not house mates,” Harry protested.

“You’re trespassing. I told you what you wanted to know about your death.”

Something flickered across Louis’ face, that same uncertainty Harry had noticed before.

“Yes, well, about that. I’ve been thinking.”

“That’s a dangerous habit.”

Harry’s snide remark had Louis rolling his eyes.

“Hilarious.”

Harry caught the smile as it formed and felt something warm settle in his stomach. He’d done that. He’d made it happen. And for a second, Louis didn’t look like a ghost at all, just unfairly, distractingly beautiful.

“Anyway, I’ve been thinking about what you said, about drowning in the pond. And I’m increasingly certain that’s not what happened to me.”

Harry crossed his arms, ignoring the slight shiver that ran through him at Louis’ proximity. Even for a spirit, he had absolutely no concept of personal space.

“Why not?”

“Because I remember water,” Louis said, eyes unfocussed as if looking inward. “But I also remember fire. And the two don’t typically go together, do they?”

A chill that had nothing to do with Louis’ spectral presence ran down Harry’s spine.

Fire and water.

The exact elements from his dream.

“Maybe you’re remembering a different trauma,” Harry suggested, professional curiosity reluctantly engaging despite his best efforts. “Spirits often conflate memories, especially after being earthbound for extended periods.”

“No,” Louis said with quiet certainty. “It’s from the same night. I’m sure of it.” He refocussed on Harry, his gaze suddenly sharp.

“And I think you could help me figure it out, if you wanted to.”

“I don’t.”

“Liar,” Louis countered, taking another step closer. Harry refused to back away despite every instinct screaming at him to maintain distance.

“You’re curious. I can see it in your eyes. The way they go all wide and green when you’re intrigued by something.”

“My eyes are always green,” Harry said nonsensically, then mentally kicked himself.

“Look, Louis. I meant what I said. I don’t do this anymore. I can’t be your spirit guide or psychic detective or whatever you’re looking for.”

“Why not?” Louis demanded. “Because of what happened with Anna?”

Harry stiffened.

“How do you know about that?”

“You talk in your sleep,” Louis reminded him, not unkindly.

“And I’m very good at filling in blanks.” He tilted his head, studying Harry with unsettling perception.

“Something went wrong. You helped her remember how she died, and it hurt you… badly.”

“That’s an understatement,” Harry muttered, crossing to the window and putting much needed space between them.

“She nearly killed me. Not intentionally, spirits rarely understand the impact they have on the living, but the result would have been the same either way. Dead is dead.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” Louis said quietly.

Harry laughed, the sound hollow and bitter.

“You don’t know that. You don’t even know how you died. And if something went wrong, if your death was violent or traumatic enough to leave you earthbound for years, then the psychic backlash could be…”

“What?” Louis prompted when Harry trailed off.

“Catastrophic,” Harry finished, turning back to face him. “Potentially for both of us.”

Louis considered this, his form briefly flickering with the effort of maintaining such a solid manifestation.

“So you’re afraid.”

“Damn right I’m afraid,” Harry admitted bluntly. “After Anna, I was hospitalised. Multiple seizures and internal bleeding and not to mention the brain swelling. The doctors couldn’t explain it, but I knew exactly what had happened. Her death experience used me as a conduit and it nearly burned me from the inside out.”

He rubbed absently at his temple, where phantom pain still occasionally flared.

“So yes, I’m afraid. And you should be too.”

“I’m already dead,” Louis pointed out. “Not much left to fear on that front.”

“There are worse things than death,” Harry said softly. “Believe me.”

A loaded silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken implications. Louis was the first to break it.

“Alright,” he said, making a visible effort to lighten his tone.

“I can respect that you’ve got trauma. Boundaries and self preservation instincts. All very healthy and mature of you.”

Harry raised an eyebrow, suspicious of this sudden capitulation.

“Thank you?”

“But,” Louis continued, the gleam returning to his eyes.

“I’m still stuck here. And you’re still the only person who can see me. So we need to figure out some ground rules for coexistence.”

Harry deadpanned.

“I don’t recall agreeing to coexist with you.”

“You don’t have much choice,” Louis said cheerfully. “Unless you’re planning to move out? Sell the house at a loss after less than a month? That might raise some eyebrows in the village. They already think you’re odd, you know. The pretty boy who bought the haunted house and talks to himself.”

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose, a headache forming behind his eyes.

“Fine. The rules, let’s hear them.”

“Fantastic!”

Louis clapped his hands together, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet bedroom.

“First rule: no more ignoring me. It’s rude, and frankly, it doesn’t work anyway.”

“I’m not agreeing to that.”

“Second rule,” Louis continued as if Harry hadn’t spoken, “no exorcisms, banishments, or other spiritual eviction attempts. I have squatter’s rights.”

“That’s not how squatter’s rights work.”

“Third rule: you need to tell me if you happen to learn anything else about me or my death. Full disclosure policy.”

Harry leaned back against the windowsill, resignation setting in.

“Are you finished?”

“I’m just getting started,” Louis assured him.

“Fourth rule: the record player is off limits. It’s mine. I’ve claimed it.”

“It’s MY record player,” Harry pointed out. “I paid for it.”

“Fifth rule: you really need to improve your music collection. It’s tragically limited to sad indie folk and obscure jazz. Where’s the fun, Harold? Where’s the Oasis? The Arctic Monkeys? Michael Jackson, the Beatles and ABBA?”

Despite himself, Harry felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards.

“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“Sixth rule,” Louis barrelled on, clearly enjoying himself now, “you have to talk to me for at least thirty minutes every day. I’ve been alone for too long. I’m socially deprived.”

“Fifteen minutes,” Harry countered before he could stop himself.

Louis’ eyebrows shot up in surprise, then a slow smile spread across his face. “Twenty minutes, and I won’t play music while you’re sleeping.”

“Deal,” Harry said, then immediately wanted to kick himself.

He was negotiating with a ghost. Engaging. Breaking every rule he’d set for himself over the past decade.

“Excellent!” Louis looked positively delighted. “What about your rules? I imagine you have several, given how tightly wound you are.”

“I am not tightly wound,” Harry protested.

Louis made a skeptical noise.

“Your shoulders are practically touching your ears right now. And that little wrinkle between your eyebrows? Permanent fixture.”

Harry deliberately relaxed his shoulders and smoothed his expression. “Fine. My rules are simple. No moving my things. No scaring me on purpose.”

He gave Louis a pointed look.

“And no messing with electronics or appliances. No definitely no manifestation when I have visitors.”

“Visitors?” Louis scoffed. “You’ve been here two weeks and the only person who’s knocked on your door was the delivery kid with questionable hygiene practices.”

“Gemma might visit,” Harry said defensively. “My sister.”

“Ah yes, the sensible sister who thinks you’re making a terrible mistake living in isolation.” Louis nodded sagely. “I look forward to meeting her.”

“You will not meet her,” Harry said firmly.

Fucking hell, tell me this ghost doesn’t listen without telling me this ghost doesn’t listen.

“That’s another rule, like it or lump it. You stay invisible and silent if anyone else is in the house.”

Louis sighed dramatically.

“Fine, you spoilsport.”

He floated upwards to perch cross legged in midair, defying gravity in a casual display of spectral ability that Harry refused to find impressive.

“Any other demands, your highness?”

Harry hesitated, then decided to address the elephant in the room.

“No more… whatever that was earlier. The thing under the sheets.”

“Be specific, Harold,” Louis teased, eyes twinkling with mischief. “What exactly are you forbidding?”

Heat crept up Harry’s neck.

“You know exactly what I mean. No touching. No… manifestations in my bed.”

“So the couch is fair game?”

“Louis.”

“Just clarifying the boundaries,” Louis said innocently. “Communication is key in any healthy relationship, ghostly or otherwise.”

“This is not a relationship,” Harry insisted.

“This is an unwanted haunting that I’m tolerating because exorcisms are expensive and messy.”

“Speaking from experience, are we?”

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose again.

“It’s late and I’m tired. And unlike some people, I need sleep to function.”

“Fine, fine.” Louis drifted down from his midair perch, landing without a sound on the hardwood floor.

“I’ll let you get your beauty rest. Not that you need it,” he added with a wink that should not have affected Harry in the slightest. “Sweet dreams, Harold. See you tomorrow.”

Before Harry could formulate a suitably dismissive response, Louis vanished, though the lingering chill in the air suggested he hadn’t gone far.

Harry collapsed back onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling. What had just happened? He’d gone from peaceful, ghost free existence to negotiating visitation rights with a spectral pest in less than twenty four hours. Every carefully constructed rule for self preservation crumbling in the face of Louis’ relentless… Louis-ness.

This was exactly why Harry had stopped working with spirits. They were manipulative, boundary pushing, exhausting entities who always wanted more than you could safely give them.

The fact that this particular spirit had devastatingly blue eyes, a sharp wit, and a smile that somehow managed to be both mischievous and heartbreakingly vulnerable had absolutely nothing to do with Harry’s weakening resolve.

“New rule,” Harry muttered into the darkness, already knowing he was in trouble.

“Don’t fall in love with a sassy, annoying, drop dead gorgeous entity.”

Chapter 4

The next morning, Harry attempted to resurrect some vestige of his previous professional life. He opened his laptop, scrolling through job boards for paranormal consultation work, the kind of gigs he’d been turning down for months. Freelance research positions. Academic writing opportunities. Paranormal investigation teams seeking a medium for historical site analysis.

Nothing felt right.

Each job description seemed like too much of a challenge, a reminder of why he’d walked away in the first place. The potential for connection, the risk of being pulled back into a world where spirits demanded more than he could safely give.

After two hours of useless searching, Harry pushed away from his desk with a frustrated sigh.

Louis, who had been suspiciously quiet all morning, chose that moment to make his presence known. A book on Harry’s desk suddenly slid to the floor, not violently, but with a deliberate, attention seeking nudge.

Harry didn’t look up.

“Nice try.”

Another book. Then a pen. Then his coffee mug, which Louis miraculously managed to set down without spilling a drop.

“You’re not subtle,” Harry said, still focussed on his laptop. “ Now pick them up.“

A soft chuckle filled the room.

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

Harry glanced at the clock. They were approaching the twenty minute chat requirement Louis had negotiated. He could feel Louis’ anticipation, a kind of electric excitement that seemed to pulse through the room.

“Fine,” Harry muttered. “I know what you’re doing.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Louis replied, suddenly occupying the chair opposite Harry, looking far too enthused.

“You’re trying to get my attention for our mandatory chat time.”

Louis placed a hand dramatically over his heart.

“Me? Manipulative? Never.” His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Though I’m impressed you remembered our agreement. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“I keep my word. Generally.”

“Generally,” Louis repeated, leaning forward. “Which means sometimes you don’t. Intriguing.”

A small smile tugged at Harry’s lips.

“Are we going to talk, or are you going to interrogate me?”

“Why not both?” Louis suggested, floating

the coffee mug back to Harry’s hand.

“Multi-tasking.”

The casual display of spectral ability should have annoyed Harry. Instead, he found himself fighting back a genuine laugh.

“Show off.”

“I prefer the term ‘talented’,” Louis corrected, waggling his eyebrows.

And just like that, they were talking. Really talking. Louis asked about Harry’s life in London, not the professional medium stuff, but the personal details. What he liked to do for fun. His favorite foods. The music he listened to when no one was watching.

Harry, to his own surprise, found himself answering. Telling stories about his sister Gemma. About growing up in Holmes Chapel. About the first time he realised he could see spirits, and how terrifying that had been.

Louis listened with genuine fascination, his form becoming more solid with each passing minute. When Harry described a particularly embarrassing childhood ghost encounter, Louis burst out laughing, a sound so genuine, so alive, that it caught Harry off guard.

“Wait,” Louis said, wiping away a spectral tear of laughter. “So you’re telling me you accidentally summoned a spirit in your school’s nativity play? As the Angel Gabriel?”

“I was eight!” Harry protested, but he was laughing too. “And the spirit was clearly more interested in critiquing the costume design than delivering any divine messages.”

Their laughter carried down the hallway and into rooms that hadn’t heard much of anything in a while. It felt strange in the house, new, almost out of place, but neither of them stopped. The house seemed to hold onto it for a second longer than expected, as if committing it to memory.

The flirting started subtly. A lingering glance. A charged comment. Louis’ eyes tracking Harry’s movements with something more than casual interest. Harry caught himself studying the curve of Louis’ smile, the way his eyes crinkled when he was truly amused.

“You’re dangerous,” Louis said softly at one point, floating closer. “You know that, right?”

Harry swallowed.

“Me? Dangerous? Not a chance.”

“Mm.” Louis drifted near enough that Harry could feel the cool electricity of his presence. “Most people can’t handle someone who sees as much as you do, who feels as deeply as you do.”

The compliment, if that’s what it was, made Harry’s cheeks flush. Which only seemed to delight Louis more.

“Are you blushing?” Louis teased, leaning closer.

“Absolutely not,” Harry lied, his face burning.

Louis’ laugh was like music, something Harry was absolutely not going to admit out loud.

As their twenty minutes drew to a close, the flirting had become so intense that they were both slightly breathless. Louis’ form flickered with an energy that seemed more emotional than spectral.

“Two minutes left,” Louis announced, his voice deliberately casual.

Harry raised an eyebrow.

“Counting, are you?”

“Always,” Louis said, something vulnerable beneath the playfulness.

And then, just as the tension became almost unbearable, Louis blushed, an actual, spectral blush that made him look impossibly young and sweet, and then he vanished, leaving behind only the faintest hint of a smile and a temperature drop that made Harry’s skin tingle. Harry stared at the empty space, heart racing, completely unsure what had just happened.

One thing was certain, this was going to be complicated.

The moment lingered long after Louis had vanished. Harry sat motionless, the ghost’s spectral blush burned into his memory, that impossible flush of vulnerability that seemed to defy everything he understood about the supernatural.

No , he thought. I can’t do this. I won’t investigate.

But the idea had already taken root.

Days passed. Harry tried to ignore the growing curiosity, the nagging sense that there was more to Louis than mere spectral encounters. He’d catch himself staring at the walls, wondering about the house’s history, about Louis’ past. The urge to know was like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

He argued with himself constantly.

This is madness , the rational part of his brain screamed.

You’ll lose everything…You’ll lose him.

The fear of losing Louis was paralyzing. What if digging into the past somehow weakened the delicate connection they’d formed? What if investigation meant Louis would fade away completely? The thought made Harry’s chest constrict with an almost physical pain.

But those eyes.

Those impossibly blue eyes that had looked at him with such depth, such history. They haunted him. They begged for understanding.

On the seventh night, Harry broke.

The attic had always felt off limits, and that thought only intensified the minute he stepped foot inside. The window let in just enough light to show that the air wasn’t empty, dust drifting lazily through it, visible only when it crossed the pale beam. Boxes sat like silent sentinels, their cardboard sides marked with faded labels that seemed to shift when he wasn’t looking directly at them.

It was behind an old trunk, beneath a stack of moth eaten quilts, that he found the journal.

Leather bound and old, its pages were yellow with age, the ink faded but still legible. Harry’s hands trembled as he opened it, a musty smell of secrets and forgotten memories escaping like a long held breath.

I can’t believe I’m doing this.

The first entry wasn’t dated.

“They will never understand. The sacrifice required is more than blood, it is a soul’s entire essence.”

Harry’s breath caught in his throat.

The journal belonged to someone with the initials L.B. someone clearly connected to the house, to Louis’ family? Each page revealed snippets of a story both beautiful and terrifying. References to a secret society. Hints of a ritual that required more than mere participation, it demanded complete surrender.

Louis’ name appeared repeatedly, but not as Harry knew him. These mentions spoke of a young man caught between duty and desire, trapped by family expectations and a love that threatened to consume everything.

There was a lover.

The entries spoke of betrayal. Of a love so powerful it could tear apart families, break centuries of tradition. Harry read about secret meetings, stolen moments, a passion that burned so bright it threatened to consume everything around it.

And then he saw the word that made him freeze.

Cult .

There were hints of a group that existed in the shadows, that believed in blood lineage and ancient promises. Rituals that required sacrifice.

The first nosebleed came without warning.

Bright red against his pale skin, droplets falling on the journal’s fragile pages. Harry grabbed a towel, pressing it against his nose, watching as the white fabric bloomed crimson. When had he become so fragile? So susceptible to the house’s strange rhythms?

Harry didn’t tell Louis anything, but still he kept diving into the journal hour by hour, day by day. But it took a turn not long after when time began to slip.

He’d find himself standing in rooms with no memory of walking there. Moments would vanish like smoke, leaving only a metallic taste in his mouth and a growing sense of unease. Photographs would be slightly rearranged. Books would be open to pages he didn’t remember seeing.

The most terrifying part? The growing certainty that he was uncovering something Louis desperately wanted, but definitely something that the house didn’t want to be known.

Should he tell him?

The thought terrified Harry more than any supernatural encounter. Because telling Louis meant risking everything. It meant potentially pushing him away, the possibility of losing him forever.

And Harry couldn’t bear that. Not when he’d only just found him. Truth be told, it felt nice not being alone, Louis’ energy made Harry feel….homely.

So he kept reading, kept investigating. Kept the journal hidden, its secrets pressed against his chest.

The house watched… and.. waited.

With each page he turned, Harry felt something shifting. Not just within himself, but within the house. Something was awakening, something that had been dormant far longer than he could imagine.

But the investigation wasn’t easy. Harry fought against his own curiosity like a man possessed. Some nights he’d crumple the journal pages, determined to forget everything. He’d pace the house, talking himself out of the madness.

“This is insane,” he’d mutter, running his hands through his hair. “You’ll lose everything. Louis will disappear. You’ll be alone again.”

Yet other moments found him drawn back in, like a moth to a flame. The journal called to him. Louis’ unspoken history seems to whisper from between its yellowed pages. He’d catch himself tracing the faded ink, wondering about the secrets locked within.

Each time he pushed the investigation away, it pulled him back stronger, and more insistent. The house seemed to breathe with anticipation, its walls watching, as though waiting for the moment of truth to arrive. Harry knew he was fighting a losing battle, with himself, with the house, and with the mysteries that refused to stay buried.

He needed a reprieve.

The shower was supposed to be his sanctuary.

Steam billowed around Harry, hot water cascading down his back, washing away the day’s tension. He’d just squeezed some shower gel into his palm when a familiar voice cut through the quiet.

“That shower gel smells disgusting. What is that? Lemon mixed with grapes or some shit. Ewe.”

Harry yelped, nearly slipping on the wet tiles. The shower curtain rustled, and there was Louis, casually perched on the bathroom sink, looking supremely unimpressed.

“Louis, we spoke of this! Boundaries!” Harry clutched the shower curtain tightly around himself, his face burning with shock.

Louis started to apologise, but something in his expression changed. Harry watched as Louis’ eyes widened, a look of pure confusion crossing his features.

“Wait,” Harry said slowly, “did you just… smell something?”

“ I did, I think.“

Louis sniffed, looking bewildered. “No, maybe I didn’t… I… wait, I did smell it though. I swear.”

Harry leant over and reached for the bottle, pulling it slightly closer to see. He stared at Louis, mouth slightly open.

“Lemon and grape,” he muttered, a deep frown creasing his forehead.

Never in his life had Harry witnessed a ghost that could smell. It was impossible. Ghosts didn’t have olfactory senses. They didn’t critique shower products. They certainly didn’t look as confounded as Louis did right now, flickering slightly between solid and transparent, caught between disbelief and something that looked remarkably like embarrassment.

“Out. Now.”

The command was loud against the porcelain and glass, Louis jumping at the sudden raise in voice.

Louis opened his mouth, clearly preparing something insufferable, but then he caught the look on Harry’s face. Whatever he saw there made him reconsider.

For once, he didn’t argue, smirk, or linger.

He disappeared in a flicker.

Harry stood there under the spray, completely stunned.

“Well. That’s new.”

Dried, and now dressed in trackies and a long sleeve jumper, Harry walked into what he optimistically called his “library.” It was more of a small room with a desk, a few carefully arranged books on makeshift shelves, and an earnest attempt at creating a scholarly space. The vision was more important than the current reality, a work in progress, full of potential.

Louis materialised with a mischievous smirk, his ghostly form shimmering slightly.

“So,” he drawled, a wicked glint in his eye, “almost got an eyeful in the bathroom, didn’t I? Shame I didn’t quite catch the full show.”

Harry suppressed a smile, refusing to give Louis the satisfaction. Instead, he fixed the ghost with a mock serious glare.

“Keep it up, and I’ll banish you from this house so fast your spectral head will spin.”

Louis let out a dramatic laugh.

“Oh, you think you could? I’d like to see you try, darling.”

His gaze wandered around the room, softening. “You’re making the place look nice,” Louis said quietly, a hint of genuine emotion breaking through his usual sass. “The past tenants… they didn’t care. Just let everything fall apart.”

Harry paused, curiosity piqued.

“What did it used to look like?”

Louis zoned out, his eyes going distant as he tried to remember. The room seemed to grow slightly colder as he concentrated.

“It was a proper Victorian home,” he began, his voice taking on a nostalgic tone. “Two storeys, with intricate woodwork everywhere. The main staircase had these beautiful carved banisters, mahogany, I think. Deep, rich wood that gleamed in the sunlight. The entrance hall had a massive stained glass window that would cast colored light across the marble floor when the sun hit just right.”

He gestured around the room.

“This was the formal sitting room back then. We had these heavy velvet curtains, a deep burgundy colour. A massive fireplace with a marble mantelpiece, white, with these delicate carvings of vines and leaves. The ceiling had elaborate plaster medallions that were hand crafted. Not like the plain stuff you see here now.”

Louis’ description was so vivid, so precise, that for a moment Harry could almost see the room as it once was, a testament to a bygone era of craftsmanship and elegance.

But the question still remained:

If Louis could remember this house, his life, his childhood, then why the fuck could he not remember his own death?“

Louis’ nostalgic description suddenly shattered.

“I don’t fucking get it,” he burst out, his form flickering with intense emotions. “Why can’t I remember anything else? I remember the house design, I remember the sounds around me, I remember all the shit I don’t need to. What happened to me? I don’t understand all this, THIS IS UTTER BULLSHIT!”

The room erupted.

Books flew from their shelves, spinning like deadly projectiles. The desk crashed against the wall, splintering wood echoing like gunshots. Picture frames shattered, their glass exploding outwards in a razor sharp symphony of destruction. The temperature plummeted, frost crystallising on the windows, spreading like poisonous tendrils across the glass.

Harry had seen supernatural events before. But this…this was different.

Pure, primal fear spread itself across his entire face. Not the controlled nervousness of a paranormal investigator, but the raw frightening terror of someone confronting something truly beyond comprehension. His breath caught in his throat, eyes wide, body frozen in absolute, visceral terror.

Louis froze mid-range, realising what he’d done.

The supernatural chaos hung suspended for a moment, books in the air, glass shards hovering, frost crystallised in impossible patterns.

“Leave,” Harry whispered, his voice small and trembling. “Just… leave.”

“I’m sorry,” Louis started, his form flickering with desperation.

“GO!” Harry’s voice cracked, a sound of pure, unfiltered fear.

Louis faded, the supernatural chaos collapsing with him. Silence crashed down as Harry shielded his body. His legs gave out. He stumbled down to the kitchen, hands shaking so badly he could barely grip the glass. The whisky went down harshly, burning a path of something close to comfort. With trembling fingers, he dialed the one person who might understand.

“Gemma,” he said the moment she picked up, “I need help. I think I fucked up.”

He didn’t go back upstairs. He sat at the desk long after the call ended, staring at the smear of condensation his glass had left behind, while every small sound made him flinch.

But nothing followed.

No flicker of movement in the corner of his eye. No dry remark about his taste in liquor. No irritated presence pacing just out of sight.

By two in the morning he was still awake, lights blazing in every room like he could bully the house into giving something back. He tried the bedroom once, stood in the doorway, and couldn’t step inside. The last time he’d been in there Louis had….

He scrubbed a hand down his face and retreated to the sofa instead.

Three a.m. came and went. Then four.

At some point exhaustion dragged him under, shallow and restless, fully clothed and half curled against the armrest, as if bracing for impact.

But, Louis didn’t come.

The next day, Gemma arrived. Harry had heard nothing from Louis since the previous night’s supernatural meltdown, no whispers, no manifestations.

She stepped out of her car, taking in the house with a raised eyebrow. “Well, aren’t you living in a prime horror movie set,” Her remark was a mix of sarcasm and genuine unease. “This place looks like it could eat souls for breakfast.”

Harry ushered her inside, his eyes constantly darting around the rooms, scanning for any sign of Louis. He jumped at every shadow, every slight movement, half expecting the ghost to appear and unleash another paranormal tantrum.

In the kitchen, Gemma settled at the table, accepting the cup of tea Harry prepared. Her sharp eyes studied him, taking in the tension, the nervous energy pouring out of him.

“So,” she said, stirring her tea, “tell me about this troubled ghost.”

“TROUBLED?”

Louis appeared out of nowhere, sitting cross legged directly on the table, interrupting their conversation.

“I’m not the troubled one here. Harry’s the one with issues.”

Louis didn’t say it mean, not really. He looked more sympathetic. It shouldn’t have made Harry’s stomach flip anyway.

Instead he growled, a low sound of frustration to hide the fact that yes, Louis was indeed okay, he had returned unannounced and is anyone even surprised?

“Did you forget the rules? I have a guest over. Now go and take your attitude with you.”

Louis smirked, but said nothing, fading away as quickly as he’d appeared.

Gemma stared blankly, tea halfway to her mouth. “Who the fuck are you talking to?”

Harry looked her dead in the face and sighed.

“You ain’t gonna believe this spirit, Gem. Cute, but a real pain in my arse.”

“That will never not sound weird….Cute huh.”

Harry didn’t appreciate the way she wriggled her eyebrows. Instead he opted to give her a pointed look.

Over the next hour, Harry explained everything, including Louis’ first appearance, their growing connection, the journal he’d found, and of course last night’s supernatural outburst. Gemma listened, her expression shifting between disbelief, fascination, and concern.

“He has these moments,” Harry said, staring into his tea. “Where he’s just… I don’t know. Vulnerable. Human even. Then the next minute he’s being an absolute menace.”

Gemma smirked.

“He sounds fun.”

Harry gave her an unsatisfied look.

“Fun isn’t exactly the word I’d use. Terrifying, maybe. Frustrating, definitely.”

“So let me get this straight,” she said finally. “You’ve got yourself a Victorian ghost boyfriend who throws supernatural tantrums when he can’t remember his past?”

“Boyfriend? Nope, no no no no no,” Harry replied too quickly, his cheeks colouring slightly.

Because how stupid would it be to feel anything towards something that wasn’t even breathing?

They spent the rest of the day together, mostly in the gardens where Harry felt safer, away from the confines of the house where Louis could appear at any moment. The late afternoon found them walking through the woods behind the property, fallen leaves crunching beneath their feet.

“You should look into it more,” Gemma said suddenly, breaking a comfortable silence. “Louis’ death, I mean. If things don’t feel right, there’s probably a reason.”

Harry hummed noncommittally, kicking at a pinecone.

“I’m kinda scared of what I might find, not gonna lie.”

Gemma stopped walking, turning to face him.

“But then Louis can know the truth and cross over, rest peacefully.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “And so can you then, brother.”

“What if it’s something terrible?” Harry asked, his voice quiet. “What if knowing makes things worse?”

“Or what if it’s exactly what he needs?” Gemma countered. “You said yourself he can’t remember. Imagine being trapped like that, Harry. Not knowing why you’re stuck here.”

Harry didn’t know how to explain the conflicting emotions churning within him. Yes, helping Louis find peace was the right thing to do. But the thought of Louis crossing over, of losing this strange connection they’d formed, left an ache in his chest he couldn’t quite name.

“Yeah,” he said finally, not meeting her eyes. “I guess so.”

They spent the rest of the evening in comfortable companionship. Gemma had brought a battered Scrabble board, insisting it was “tradition.” Harry put up a token resistance but secretly welcomed the normalcy. They sprawled on the living room floor, arguing good naturedly over dubious word choices.

A sharp, echoing thud from upstairs made them both freeze mid game.

Gemma looked up at the ceiling, then back at Harry.

“Is that your friend?”

Harry felt himself tensing, trying to sense Louis’ familiar presence, but there was nothing. Instead, he felt something else entirely, a colder, darker energy that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. His spine stung with a primal warning he couldn’t explain.

“No,” he said quietly, forcing a casual smile. “Just the regular sounds of being in an old house, I guess.”

He didn’t want to scare her with what he’d actually felt. Whatever that presence was, it wasn’t Louis.

Later, after Gemma had gone to bed, Harry lay awake as sleep evaded him completely. Louis hadn’t re-appeared all day, no more quips, no sudden manifestations, nothing. The issue from the other night remained unresolved, which inevitably created an invisible barrier.

Gemma’s words about Louis’ past played over in his mind on endless repetition. With a frustrated sigh, Harry sat up and flicked on the bedside lamp. He pulled his laptop from the nightstand and opened a new document, titling it simply “Louis.”

If he was going to investigate, he needed a plan.

He began typing a list:

1. Search historical records for the house (previous owners, noteworthy events)

2. Look up Louis’ family tree, Tomlinson was the surname, Victorian era

3. Check local historical society archives for information about the property

4. Visit the town library for old newspapers…obituaries, crime reports

5. Look for any mention of the cult referenced in the journal

6. Research supernatural occurrences in the area, any patterns?

7. Investigate Alexander (the lover mentioned in the journal)

8. Check property records for structural changes to the house

9. Visit the local cemetery for Tomlinson family graves

10. Search online ancestry websites for birth/death certificates

His fingers hovered over the keyboard. The weight of what he was undertaking settled on his shoulders. This wasn’t just academic curiosity anymore, this was Louis’ life, his death, his reason for being trapped between worlds. He stared at the list. This was also, quite possibly, Louis’ answers to crossing over.

Sleep eventually claimed him, laptop still open beside him, notes half formed on the screen. He closed his eyes, saw the bluest eyes he had ever seen, heard that soft voice that whispered, thank you Harry and fell asleep. Had it been his imagination though? Only time will tell.

Then the sunrise hit, alongside a very loud;

“HARRRRRYY!”

The scream tore through Harry’s consciousness, jolting him from a dreamless sleep. He bolted upright, heart hammering against his ribs. Gemma’s voice, unmistakable in its terror, echoed through the house.

“HARRY! OH MY GOD!”

He launched himself from the bed, bare feet slapping against the cold wooden floor, not bothering with slippers or a robe. The stairs seemed endless as he flew down them, nearly missing the bottom step in his panic. His ankle twisted slightly, sending a sharp pain up his leg, but adrenaline pushed him forward.

“Gemma?” he called, voice hoarse with sleep and fear.

He found her frozen in the kitchen doorway, one hand pressed against the wall for support, the other clutching the neckline of her pyjamas. Her face had drained of all colour, eyes wide and unblinking, fixed on something inside the kitchen, something Harry couldn’t yet see from his position in the hallway.

“Gem? What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer, nor did she move. She just stared, her entire body trembling slightly.

Harry moved cautiously, his shoulders noticeably tense. It wasn’t fear exactly, but something close enough to keep him alert.

As he reached her side, the scene beyond the doorway finally came into view.

Bacon sizzled in a pan on the stovetop. Nothing unusual there, except for the tongs suspended in mid air, moving methodically as they flipped the strips of meat. The tongs hovered, unsupported, turning the bacon with practiced precision. A full English breakfast, eggs, sausages, beans, tomatoes, and toast, was already arranged on the kitchen table. Two steaming cups of coffee sat beside the plates, the rich aroma filling the room.

And not a single person was visible making any of it happen.

Harry placed a gentle hand on Gemma’s back, feeling her muscles tense beneath his touch.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, leaning close to her ear. “Don’t be afraid. It’s only Louis.”

“Only Louis,” a familiar voice echoed from the vicinity of the stove. “Wow, that’s so mean, Harold.”

Gemma took a deep, shuddering breath, her shoulders relaxing slightly under Harry’s palm. “Only Louis,” she repeated, her voice barely audible. “Right. Your ghost. Making breakfast. I’ll just…” She trailed off, moving slowly towards the table, eyes darting around the room as if expecting something to jump out at her.

“Awww,” she suddenly exclaimed, hand going to her chest. Harry followed her gaze to see berries arranged next to her plate, spelling out “Nice to meet you” in a surprisingly elegant script.

Harry rolled his eyes, but couldn’t suppress the slight uptick at the corner of his mouth. He pointed to where he could see Louis standing, a smug grin on his spectral face. “He’s right there.”

Gemma squinted in the direction Harry indicated, but not seeing anything. “Thank you so much,” she said to the air. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

Louis beamed, a genuinely warm smile that transformed his features. “Nice to see one of you is nice and polite,” he said, shooting Harry a pointed look. “What happened to you along the way, grumpy pants?”

“You’re a prick,” Harry replied automatically.

Gemma’s eyes widened, her expression shifting to one of disgust. “Harry!”

“What? You didn’t hear what he said, Gem.”

She stared at him expectantly, clearly waiting for an elaboration that never came. Harry ignored her questioning gaze, instead moving towards his own plate. He stopped short when he saw the message spelled out in tiny cubes of toast: “I am sorry.”

Something tight and uncomfortable loosened in Harry’s chest. He looked over to where Louis had been standing, but the ghost had vanished from sight. Harry was about to sit down when he felt it, the lightest brush of cold air against the nape of his neck, raising goosebumps across his skin.

“I didn’t mean to scare you the other night,” Louis’ voice whispered directly into his ear, so close that Harry could almost imagine feeling breath against his skin. The words seemed to caress his senses, sliding like silk across his consciousness.

“You forgive me.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement, delivered with such intimate certainty that heat bloomed across Harry’s face, spreading down his neck and chest in a wave of unwelcome awareness. The tone was unmistakably seductive, an emotion Harry refused to admit.

Harry couldn’t answer and just nervously nodded.

Gemma, watching his face transform from across the table, raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, nah, I’m not even gonna ask,” she picked up her fork like everything was normal and took a bite.

Harry cleared his throat, willing the flush to recede.

“It’s nothing,” he muttered, taking his seat and stabbing a sausage with unnecessary force.

“Clearly,” she replied, hiding a smile behind her coffee mug. “Nothing at all.”

The rest of breakfast passed in strange awkward silences and half finished conversations. Gemma kept glancing around the room, clearly hoping to catch a glimpse of their invisible host. Harry kept his eyes firmly on his plate, refusing to acknowledge the phantom presence he could feel hovering just beyond his peripheral vision.

The food was perfect, better than anything Harry could have made himself. The eggs were cooked exactly to his liking, the bacon crisp but not burned, the toast golden and buttered just right. It was as if Louis had been watching him, learning his tastes, paying attention to details Harry hadn’t even consciously registered himself.

The thought should have been unsettling. Instead, it sent another unwelcome wave of warmth throughout his body.

“So,” Gemma finally said, breaking a silence that had stretched too long, “your ghost can cook. And apparently serve breakfast. That’s… convenient.”

“I’m not his ghost,” Louis’ voice floated from somewhere near the fridge. “I’m my own ghost, thank you very much.”

Harry snorted, then quickly disguised it as a cough when Gemma looked at him questioningly.

“He says he’s not my ghost,” Harry translated. “He’s his own ghost.”

“Ah,” Gemma said, nodding seriously. “Independent entity. Got it. Tell Mr Independent, I apologise.”

“You know I can hear you,” Louis said, popping up suddenly beside the table. “Just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I’m not right here.”

The temperature in the room dropped several degrees, a physical manifestation of Louis’ irritation. Harry resisted the urge to explain this to Gemma, who had pulled her cardigan closer around her shoulders, oblivious to the cause of the sudden chill.

“Did you look at the journal again?” Louis asked, his voice softer now. “Did you find anything?”

Harry’s head snapped up. As if to say “ How did you know about that ?“

Louis rolled his eyes and then as if he wanted nothing more than to recoil away like a child, he bit his lip.

“What? I see you sometimes, you know, when you don’t know I’m there and…”

Harry raised an eyebrow because… erm…

“Not creepy like, well sort of, sometimes, but, for fuck sakes I don’t like, watch you getting dressed or anything.”

Harry shook his head slightly and smirked, hoping Gemma wouldn’t notice.

“You’re talking to him right now, aren’t you?” she asked, eyes narrowing. “What’s he saying?”

“Nothing important,” Harry lied, avoiding Louis’ gaze.

Louis scoffed, crossing his arms.

“Nothing important. Right. Just my entire existence. No big deal.”

The guilt that had been simmering in Harry’s stomach since yesterday boiled over. He’d promised to help, had started making plans, but part of him was still hesitating, still torn between wanting to help Louis find peace and fearing the emptiness that would follow his departure.

As they finished breakfast, the used plates suddenly lifted from the table, floating through the air towards the sink. The tap turned on by itself, water cascading into the basin as dish soap squeezed itself into the stream, creating a mountain of bubbles. A sponge rose from the counter and began scrubbing the plates.

Gemma watched, transfixed, as the breakfast dishes cleaned themselves. She leaned closer to Harry, her voice lowered into a whisper.

“And he cleans,” she said, nudging Harry with her elbow. “On second thought, Harry, let’s keep him.”

Louis, standing by the sink with his sleeves rolled up, a purely habitual gesture, since ghostly arms couldn’t actually get wet, curled his lip at her words. The subtle expression of displeasure went unnoticed by Harry, who was too busy rolling his eyes at his sister’s comment.

“He’s not a pet.” Harry muttered.

“No,” Louis agreed, his voice carrying an edge Harry couldn’t quite identify. “I’m not.”

The temperature in the kitchen dropped several degrees, the windows fogging slightly with condensation. Neither human commented on the sudden chill, though Gemma pulled her cardigan tighter around her shoulders once more.

Gemma’s phone rang suddenly. She fished it out of her pocket, frowning at the screen. “It’s work,” she explained, stepping into the hallway to take the call.

Harry watched the dishes continue their ghostly cleaning routine, trying not to think about how domestic it all felt. How normal it felt, despite the complete abnormality of it.

Gemma returned minutes later, her expression apologetic. “I have to go back,” she said, sounding genuinely disappointed. “Emergency at the office. Some client crisis that apparently only I can solve.”

“Now?” Harry asked, surprised at the depth of his disappointment. Having Gemma there had been a buffer, a connection to normalcy amid the increasingly strange reality of his life.

“I’m really sorry.” She gave him a quick hug. “Keep me updated on…” she waved her hand vaguely around the kitchen, “all of this. And be careful, Harry.”

Her eyes held a seriousness that made Harry uncomfortable. As if she sensed more than she was saying.

“I’m always careful,” he protested.

Louis snorted from his position by the sink. “Right.”

“Well, I should get going,” Gemma says, shouldering her bag. She hesitates, curiosity taking over. “Before I go though…”

Harry raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Would it be alright if I… said goodbye to Louis?” Gemma asks, clearly both nervous and fascinated by the supernatural resident she’s just learned about. “Maybe even shake his hand? Is that possible with a ghost?”

Louis, hovering near the window, perks up with interest.

“Of course, like you can’t physically touch him though, even I can’t do that.”

He looks over to where Louis stands.

“Lou, Gemma wants to say goodbye, like, formally.”

Gemma glances uncertainly around the room.

“Where exactly is he?”

Harry gently takes her elbow and guides her towards Louis. “Right here,” he says softly, positioning her directly in front of the ghost only he can see.

“Hello again, Louis,” Gemma says, speaking to the seemingly empty air. “It was… interesting to learn about you today.” She tentatively extends her hand. “May I?”

Louis looks at her outstretched hand, then at Harry, a mischievous glint appearing in his ethereal eyes. Just as Gemma’s hand reaches the spot where he stands, Louis deliberately steps aside.

Harry frowns slightly. “He’s just here…” He adjusts Gemma’s position, moving her to where Louis now stands.

Again, as Gemma reaches out, Louis sidesteps with a silent chuckle, leaving her hand grasping at nothing.

Harry’s confusion morphs into realisation as he watches Louis’ playful antics. He tries to maintain a straight face. “Sorry, he’s just… let me help you find him.”

Louis continues his ghostly dance, evading Gemma’s attempts at a handshake while making increasingly silly faces at Harry.

Harry struggles to maintain his composure, pressing his lips together to stop the laughter building inside him. A small, strangled noise escapes his throat.

“What’s funny?” Gemma asks, her hand still waving uncertainly in the air.

“Nothing,” Harry manages, his voice tight. “He’s just being… Louis.”

Louis pretends to formally bow to Gemma, then mimes an exaggerated handshake with the air a foot away from where she’s reaching.

Harry can’t hold back anymore. A burst of laughter escapes him as tears form at the corners of his eyes.

Gemma drops her hand, looking between the empty space and her barely contained brother.

“He’s messing with me, isn’t he?”

Harry nods, unable to speak through his laughter as Louis takes a theatrical bow that only he can see.

Within the hour, Gemma was gone, her car disappearing down the long driveway. Harry stood in the doorway, staring at the empty road as if it might offer some guidance on what to do next.

“So,” Louis said, appearing beside him. “About that journal.”

Harry sighed.

“I was going to look into it today.”

“Promise?” Louis asked, his voice carrying an edge of vulnerability.

“Promise.”

The rest of the morning passed relatively calmly. Harry set up at the kitchen table, laptop open, journal beside him. Louis drifted in and out of visibility, occasionally peering over Harry’s shoulder at the research he was compiling, but mostly keeping his distance.

By early afternoon, Harry had started organising his findings into a timeline. Louis Tomlinson, eldest son of a wealthy merchant family. The house had been built by his father, Robert Tomlinson. The family had been prominent in local business, with connections to several influential families in the area.

But there were gaps. Significant ones. No clear record of Louis’ death. No obituary. No grave in the local cemetery records.

It was while searching through digitised newspaper archives that it happened.

Harry’s head began to throb, starting as a dull pulse behind his eyes. He ignored it, focusing on the faded newsprint glowing on his screen. There was something about a social gathering at the Tomlinson estate, mentions of prominent guests, and a celebration of…

Suddenly, the pain intensified, a spike of agony lancing through his skull. Harry gasped, his hands flying to his temples.

And then the nosebleed started.

Hot, thick liquid poured down his face, splattering onto the keyboard of his laptop. Harry fumbled for a napkin, and pressed it against his nose. The room seemed to blur at the edges, the furniture shifting in ways that defied the laws of physics.

“Louis?” he called, voice muffled by the napkin.

No answer.

The temperature dropped dramatically, frost crystallising on the inside of the windows. Not Louis’ usual cold presence, This was deeper, darker, something that seemed to suck the warmth from Harry’s very bones.

A shadow moved in the corner of his vision. Not Louis. Something else. Something that seemed to absorb light rather than displace it.

Harry tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate. The room tilted sickeningly. He reached out for the table to steady himself, fingers brushing against the leather cover of the journal.

The moment he touched it, the world went black.

When he came to, he was sitting on the floor of the attic. No memory of climbing the stairs. No memory of what had drawn him there. The journal lay open in his lap, pages turned to an entry he hadn’t seen before.

“They are watching. Always watching. The ritual must not be interrupted.”

His watch told him three hours had passed.

The copper taste of blood lingered in his mouth. His nose had stopped bleeding, but dried blood crusted his upper lip and chin. His shirt was stained, dark patches marking where it had dripped.

“Louis?” he called again, voice cracking.

Still no answer.

Something had changed in the house. Some subtle shift in the atmosphere that Harry couldn’t name but could feel deep in his marrow . The walls seemed to listen more intently. The shadows stretched longer and darker.

And somewhere, deep in the foundations of the house, something stirred. Something that had been dormant for a very long time.

Something that knew that Harry was coming closer to the truth.

Harry stumbled into the bathroom. He grabbed a handful of tissues and pressed them against his nostrils, tilting his head back slightly. The light flickered overhead as he leaned towards the mirror, inspecting the damage.

“Not as bad as it looks,” he muttered to himself, wiping away the last traces of blood. “Just a..”

The air behind him seemed to shimmer. Harry froze, watching through the mirror as Louis began to materialise. But something was wrong. The ghost’s form wavered, transparent one moment, almost solid the next. His edges blurred, and parts of him, an arm, his torso, would disappear completely before reappearing.

“Louis?” Harry turned, alarm rising in his chest.

Louis’ mouth moved, his expression strained. “Care…ful.” The word came through distorted, like a bad radio signal. “Don’t…”

“Don’t what? What’s happening to you?” Harry reached out instinctively, his hand passing through Louis’ flickering shoulder.

Louis’ eyes were wide with fear. He tried to speak again, his form destabilizing further. “They… know… you’re…” His voice cut out as half his face disappeared.

“Louis! Tell me what’s going on!” Harry demanded, panic setting in. “Is it the journal? What I found out about…”

Louis shook his head frantically, his vintage clothing, the waistcoat and high collared shirt from another era, fading in and out. For a brief moment, his entire form stabilised and it wasn’t the Louis Harry had grown to know.

“Harry, I can’t…” Louis managed before his image scattered like dust, leaving only faint words hanging in the air: “not… safe anymore.”

Harry stood alone in the bathroom, heart pounding. The air felt dangerous somehow. He splashed cold water on his face, trying to calm his racing thoughts.

“I need to get out of here,” he whispered to his reflection. The walls around him suddenly felt confining, were they watching his every move? Without bothering to grab a jacket, Harry rushed to the front door, fumbling with the lock before stepping out into the cool evening air.

He needed space to think, to process what was happening. But as he walked briskly down the street, Harry couldn’t shake the feeling that someone, or something was following him.

👻

The evening air bit at Harry’s skin as he walked aimlessly through the narrow paths, his mind racing with questions about Louis’ warning and sudden disappearance. The old metal sign of “Beer N Nuts” caught his attention, a small pub tucked behind some bushes. Harry hesitated only briefly before pushing open the heavy wooden door.

Another pub? How did he not know of this one?

The pub smelled like spilled beer and varnish that had long since given up trying to impress anyone. The lighting was uneven, yellow bulbs hanging too low over tables carved with initials and ringed with old watermarks. A fire burned at the back, not roaring, just steady, its glow catching in the dips and dents of the wooden floor.

Despite being a Tuesday night, a decent crowd had gathered, locals, Harry assumed, from the way conversations momentarily faltered as he entered.

He felt their eyes following him as he made his way to the bar. The village was small enough that strangers were immediately noticeable, and Harry had only moved in a few weeks ago. He hadn’t bothered to socialise much, too consumed with fixing up the old house and, more recently, with Louis.

“What’ll it be?” The bartender was a burly man with thick arms and a grey flecked beard.

“Whisky, neat,” Harry said, settling onto a barstool. “Double.”

The bartender raised an eyebrow but poured without comment, sliding the liquid across the polished surface. Harry downed it in one go, the burn spreading through his chest momentarily drowning out the anxiety that had followed him from the house.

“Another,” he said, pushing the empty glass forward.

Three drinks later, the edges of the room had softened pleasantly. The tension in Harry’s shoulders had eased, and the image of Louis fading in and out of existence seemed less terrifying, and now more like a strange dream. He was considering a fourth whisky when he noticed the conversations around him had dipped again.

An elderly man had appeared at his elbow, leaning heavily on a gnarled walking stick. His face was a topography of wrinkles, deep set around pale blue eyes that were surprisingly sharp. He wore a tweed flat cap and a weathered wool coat despite the warmth of the pub.

“Mind if I join you, young man?” His voice was rough but not frightening.

Harry gestured vaguely at the empty stool beside him.

“Free country.”

The old man settled himself with a grunt, signaling the bartender who nodded and brought over a dark pint without being asked. They sat in silence for a moment, the old man taking a long, appreciative sip of his beer while Harry swirled the remaining whisky in his glass.

“Not from around here, are you?” the old man finally asked, his gaze fixed straight ahead at the bottles lining the back wall.

Harry snorted softly.

“What gave it away? The fact that everyone’s been staring at me since I walked in?”

From the corner of his eye, Harry noticed several patrons quickly avert their gazes, returning to their conversations with renewed interest.

“Small village,” the man replied, unperturbed by Harry’s sarcasm. “We don’t get many new faces. Especially ones that move into old properties rather than just passing through.”

Harry signaled for another drink, which the bartender delivered with a concerned glance.

“Yeah, well. I needed a change of scenery. London was getting…” He trailed off, not entirely sure how to finish the thought.

“Too much? Too loud? Too empty?” The old man offered.

“All of the above,” Harry admitted, surprised by his own candor. The alcohol was definitely loosening his tongue.

The old man nodded sagely.

“And what brought you to our little corner of nowhere specifically?”

Harry took a long sip of his fresh drink, feeling the pleasant buzz transforming into something heavier, numbing him right where he needed it the most. In the background, someone had put on an old folk song that seemed to rise and fall with the fire’s crackling.

“Found a house,” Harry said, a bitter smile forming. Then, with sudden recklessness, he added, “A haunted one, actually.”

He’d meant it to sound like a joke, but his tone came out flat, serious. The admission hung between them.

The pub seemed to grow quieter around them, though Harry couldn’t tell if it was real or just his imagination. A woman at a nearby table whispered something to her companion, both of them glancing in his direction.

The old man didn’t laugh or smile. Instead, he turned slowly on his stool, those pale blue eyes studying Harry with unnerving intensity.

“Tomlinson House,” he said. Again, It wasn’t a question.

Harry felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. “How did you..? Been empty for almost thirty years before you,” the old man continued, taking another slow sip of his beer. “The last family didn’t stay more than six months. The one before that, even less. So really, it’s been pretty much empty.”

Harry’s fingers tightened around his glass. “Did they leave because of… unusual occurrences?”

A couple at the far end of the bar stood abruptly, tossing money onto the counter before making their way to the exit. They gave Harry a wide berth as they passed.

“That’s one way of putting it.” The old man’s voice had dropped to nearly a whisper. “You’ve seen something, haven’t you? Or someone?”

The room felt suddenly too warm, too close. Harry loosened his collar, wondering why he’d started this conversation, why he’d admitted anything to this stranger.

“Look, I was just joking about the haunted bit,” he said, though his voice lacked conviction.

“No, you weren’t.” The old man’s certainty was unsettling. He leaned in closer, the smell of tobacco and something herbal on his breath. “You’ve seen him, haven’t you? The boy who doesn’t belong.”

Harry’s heart stumbled in his chest. “Louis,” he whispered before he could stop himself.

The reaction around the pub was immediate and unmistakable. A glass shattered somewhere. Conversations halted entirely. The bartender froze in the act of wiping down the counter, his eyes locked on Harry.

“So it is true,” the old man murmured, something like pity crossing his weathered features. “Listen to me carefully, young man. That house, it doesn’t just have history. It has hunger . And you’d be wise to leave it before it decides to keep you.”

Harry stood unsteadily, the alcohol making the floor tilt beneath him. “Thanks for the cryptic warning, but I think I’ll head out now.”

He fumbled with his wallet, dropping several notes on the bar, too many in fact, but he couldn’t be bothered to count properly. As he turned to leave, the old man’s hand shot out with surprising strength, fingers curling around Harry’s forearm.

“Nothing good comes from digging into that house’s past, Mr. Styles,” he hissed, those pale eyes suddenly fierce. “Keep your nose out of trouble, or you’ll find more than just a friendly ghost waiting for you.”

Harry jerked his arm free, stumbling slightly.

The old man just stared back, saying nothing.

The entire pub had gone deathly silent. Every pair of eyes were fixed on Harry, expressions ranging from fear to suspicion to outright hostility. The fire seemed to dim, casting the room in a deeper shadow.

“Right,” Harry muttered, backing towards the door. “Lovely meeting you all.”

He pushed through the exit into the cold night air, gulping it down like a drowning man finally reaching the surface. Pun intended. His head was spinning, from either the whisky or the encounter, he couldn’t tell. As he walked, street lamps cast pools of yellow light on the cobblestones and he began almost running back in the direction of his house.

It was only when he was halfway home that the full impact of the old man’s words hit him. Mr. Styles. Harry had never introduced himself. Had never mentioned his surname to anyone in the village except for the estate agent.

Yet the old man had known exactly who he was.

And he’d known about Louis.

Chapter 5

Harry stumbled through his front door, the old man’s warning fresh in his mind. The whisky had left him with a pounding headache, but it wasn’t enough to dull the growing panic that had taken root. Louis hadn’t appeared since the bathroom incident, and the silence in the house felt different now, more oppressive.

For the next three days Harry spent his time scouring the internet for anything about spiritual communication, and about ghosts who were fading. Most of it was nonsense, but a few sources mentioned séances as a way to strengthen connections with the spiritual realm. Harry had never opted for this type of communication before Louis, but desperation made him willing to try anything. This was dangerous, he knew this and this was the reason he normally stayed away from it.

He’d been stewing about it for days, caught in a loop of thoughts he couldn’t decipher. Something about Louis ate away at him, tugging at a place deep inside that Harry hadn’t let anyone near in years. He tried to be logical, he usually was, but there was no logic to this. Louis was a ghost. A presence. A soul tethered to something long gone.

And yet, Harry felt drawn to him like gravity. It wasn’t just fascination, it was yearning. And that terrified him.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. Spirits came and went, lost echoes seeking peace or closure. Harry helped them move on. That was the deal. He didn’t want them. He didn’t miss them. He didn’t lie awake at night hoping one might return just to hear his voice again. He shouldn’t want to keep one.

But Louis… Louis was different. And Harry hated how much he felt that difference.

He tried to brush it off, to tell himself it was just human curiosity, or maybe pity, but it wasn’t. It was something warmer, something reckless. It lit up every time Louis was near, crackling under Harry’s skin like static.

And the worst part? Louis seemed to feel it too.

That scared Harry more than any spirit ever had.

That’s how he ended up here. The dining room table was covered with white candles of varying heights, their flames casting shadows everywhere. Harry had drawn what he hoped was a protective circle on the floor with salt, though he wasn’t entirely sure he’d done it correctly.

All he could smell was the heavy scent of vanilla, laced with something else, something that reminded him unpleasantly, of old roses and decay. However , he had no clue where the stench was coming from.

In the centre of the table lay the leather journal, its pages brittle. Harry had found more entries, darker ones that spoke of “the vessel” and “the binding.”

The handwriting grew increasingly erratic towards the end, and the final entry was barely legible:

It knows. It’s been waiting. God forgive me for what I’ve done.

Harry checked his watch: 11:47 PM. He’d read that the spiritual realm was strongest near midnight, when the veil between worlds was thinnest, not 3AM like most horror movies nowadays claimed. His hands shook slightly as he lit the final candle, the flame guttering before catching hold.

“Alright, let’s go.”

God, he couldn’t believe he was really doing this. His hands were trembling, cold despite the sweat on his palms. Everything about this felt wrong, like cracking open a door that should’ve stayed sealed shut. It went against everything he’d ever stood for.

Séances were something others performed that were carefully controlled, guided, and safe. But this? This was reckless. This was personal. And he knew better.

They were something often done for closure, for peace, not like this. Not alone. Not when he was this raw, this vulnerable. He knew better . Christ, he taught people better.

But here he was. Sitting in the dark, candles flickering, breath shallow, trying not to let the fear crawl up his spine. He shouldn’t be doing this. Not without backup. Not without any grounding. But who would he even ask?

The men at the pub? Yeah, right. They’d think he’d finally lost it. Maybe he had. Maybe chasing the ghost of a dead man he couldn’t stop thinking about was a sign he’d finally cracked.

Because this wasn’t about helping a restless spirit move on. This wasn’t about doing the right thing.

This was about Louis.

And Harry didn’t know what scared him more, the idea that Louis was really gone, or the terrifying possibility that he wasn’t.

“Louis, if you can hear me, I need you to try to come through. I need to understand what’s happening.”

Nothing. The candle flames remained steady, the shadows remaining still.

Harry consulted the printout of séance instructions he’d gotten from a dubious website.

Yeah he had been that desperate.

He placed his hands flat on the table, his fingers spread wide, and closed his eyes.

“I call upon the spirits of this house,” he began, “I seek to communicate with Louis William Tomlinson, born in the year”. He paused, realising he doesn’t know Louis’ exact birth year. “Shit. Louis, I summon you to this circle of protection.”

The candle flames flickered simultaneously, as if touched by an unfelt breeze. Harry’s heart rate picked up.

“Louis, please. I know you’re in danger. I know something is trying to prevent you from manifesting. I want to help you.”

One of the candles near the journal suddenly flared, its flame shooting up nearly a foot before settling back to normal. The temperature in the room dropped noticeably and Harry could see his breath misting in the air.

“That’s it,” Harry encouraged, though his voice wavered slightly. “Come through, Louis. I’m here.”

But something felt wrong. The shadows weren’t moving naturally anymore, they seemed to writhe and twist independently of the candle flames. The circle of salt on the floor began to darken as if something was seeping up through the floorboards.

A low sound filled the room and the only way he could describe it was like wind was blowing through an old pipe organ. Harry’s eyes snapped open to see the journal’s pages flipping rapidly, as if caught in a gale. The candles were burning too bright now, their flames unnaturally white and cold.

“Louis?” Harry called out, but his voice was swallowed by the growing sound.

The air in front of him began to shimmer, but instead of Louis’ familiar form, something else was taking shape. It was tall, unnaturally so, with features that seemed to shift and blur. When it spoke, its voice was frightening.

“You dare summon spirits in this house?”

Harry scrambled backwards, his chair toppling over. This wasn’t Louis. This thing radiated malevolence.

“Who are you?” Harry managed to stammer.

“I am the keeper of this place. The guardian of what lies beneath.”

The entity’s form became more solid, revealing a gaunt figure in tattered robes. Its face was a void where features should be, except for two points of red light that served as eyes.

“You have disturbed something that should remain buried.”

“I just want to talk to Louis,” Harry backed up against the wall. “I’m not trying to disturb anything else.”

The entity laughed. “Louis? That pathetic remnant? He was never meant to linger. He was supposed to fade long ago, to join the others who fed this house.”

“Fed the house?” Harry’s blood ran cold.

“Every soul that enters here adds to its power. Every death, every tragedy, every drop of despair. Your precious Louis was meant to be consumed decades ago, but something went wrong. Someone interfered. Someone made a big mistake and now he remains here, he is mine! “

The red eyes fixed on Harry with burning intensity.

“You are making it worse. You are giving the idiot strength when he should be dissolving into nothing.”

Suddenly, another presence entered the room. Louis materialised between Harry and the dark entity, but he was barely more than a wicker of light, transparent and flickering.

“Harry, stop!” Louis’ voice was faint and desperate. “You don’t understand what you’re doing!”

The dark spirit turned towards Louis with obvious fury.

“You dare show yourself in my presence, little ghost? You who refuses to accept your fate?”

“Leave him alone!” Harry shouted, surprising himself with his own assertiveness.

The entity whirled back to Harry.

“Silence! You have no power here, living boy. This house has claimed dozens of souls over the centuries. Your Louis should have been consumed like all the rest, adding his essence to the foundation of this place. But he clings to existence, and now you feed him with your attention, your… affection.”

Louis was fading further, his form becoming more and more translucent. “Harry, please,” he whispered. “Stop digging into the house’s history now. Stop trying to help me. I didn’t mean to bring you into this. The more you learn, the stronger it becomes.”

“What is it?” Harry demanded, looking between Louis and the dark entity.

“I am what this house was built to contain,” the entity replied. “A prison, if you will. But prisons require sacrifice to maintain their walls. The families who lived here, the tragedies that befell them, they were not accidents. They were offerings.”

One by one, the candles around the room began to sputter and die. As each flame went out, Louis grew fainter.

“No, no, no,”

Harry frantically tried to relight the nearest candle.

“Louis, stay with me!”

“Let him go,” the entity commanded. “Let him fade as he was meant to. Continue this path, and you will only bring more suffering upon yourself and everyone around you.”

“I won’t abandon him,” Harry said through gritted teeth, finally getting a candle relit.

Louis solidified slightly, though he still looked terrified.

The dark spirit’s form began to expand, filling more of the room.

“Then you will learn, as the others did, that some things are beyond your power to change. This house will have its due, one way or another.”

With that, the entity vanished. The remaining candles went out all at once, plunging the room into darkness. Harry fumbled for his phone’s flashlight, the beam shaking as his hands trembled.

When the light found Louis, the ghost was kneeling on the floor, his form so faint Harry could barely make him out.

“Louis!”

Harry rushed to him, wishing desperately that he could offer physical comfort.

“You have to stop,” Louis whispered, his voice barely audible. “Please, Harry. I’m not worth the risk. That thing, it’s been trapped here for so long, and it’s getting stronger every time you try to help me. The house feeds off of strong emotions, from connections between people. The more you care about me, the more power it has.”

“I don’t care about the risk,” Harry said fiercely. “I’m not going to let that thing have you.”

Louis looked up at him with eyes full of despair.

“You don’t understand. The people who built this house, they made a deal. They traded souls to keep something worse contained. If that binding breaks, if that thing gets free…”

“Then we’ll find another way,” Harry insisted. “There has to be something in that journal, some way to…”

“Harry.”

Louis’ voice was firm despite its weakness.

“Promise me you’ll stop digging. Promise me you’ll leave this house and never come back. Before it’s too late.”

But Harry was already shaking his head.

“I can’t do that now. I won’t leave you here alone with that monster.”

Louis’ form flickered one more time before disappearing entirely, leaving Harry alone in the darkness with the acrid smell of burnt candles and the lingering presence of something ancient and hungry.

The séance had been a disaster. Instead of strengthening his connection with Louis, Harry had awakened something far more dangerous. And now Louis was weaker than ever, barely able to manifest at all.

But despite the terror coursing through his veins, despite the warning from both Louis and the dark entity, Harry knew he couldn’t walk away. He’d seen the fear and desperation in Louis’ eyes. Whatever had trapped the ghost in this house, whatever was feeding from the souls of everyone who entered, Harry was determined to find a way to stop it.

As he sat in the darkness, surrounded by the debris of his failed séance, Harry made a silent vow. He would save Louis, no matter what it cost. Because somewhere along the way, the lonely ghost had become more than just a supernatural housemate.

He had become someone worth fighting for.

👻

The first night after the failed séance, Harry didn’t sleep at all.

He lay there with his hands folded over his stomach, studying the ceiling like it owed him answers. Every flicker of light pulled his attention, every shifting shape demanding to be something more than it was.. Every creak of the old house made him bolt upright, hoping, praying that Louis would emerge at the foot of his bed with that crooked smile and those beautiful blue eyes. But the darkness remained, filled only with the dark entity’s threats and Louis’ desperate pleas to stop digging.

Save Louis. Save Louis. Save Louis.*

The phrase had lodged itself in Harry’s mind repeating endlessly no matter what he tried to focus on. By dawn, he was pacing the floors, his hair dishevelled, still wearing the same clothes from the night before. The rational part of his mind whispered that he should heed the warnings, pack his things, and leave this cursed place behind. But every time he considered it, the image of Louis’ terrified face would surface, the way his form had flickered and faded until he was barely more than a flicker of light.

Harry couldn’t abandon him and he wouldn’t.

The second day began his systematic assault on the supernatural. If one séance had gone wrong, he would try another. And another. And another until he got it right.

He started in the dining room again, but this time he used different candles, black ones he’d ordered online, supposedly better for summoning spirits. He drew the salt circle wider, added crystals he’d bought from a new age shop in the next town over. The woman behind the counter had looked at him strangely when he’d asked about communicating with ghosts, her eyes lingering on the dark circles under his eyes and his unwashed hair.

“You look like you haven’t slept in days, love,”

Harry could tell just by her voice alone that she was concerned.

Harry grabbed his purchases and left without responding.

The second séance yielded nothing. No Louis, no dark entity, not even a flicker of candlelight. Just Harry sitting alone in a circle of salt, calling out to empty air until his voice grew hoarse.

He tried again that night. Different words this time, reciting incantations he’d found on websites he knew were dodgy and forums dedicated to ghost communication. The language felt foreign on his tongue, Latin phrases he wasn’t sure he was pronouncing correctly, ancient invocations that made his skin crawl even as he spoke them.

Nothing.

By the third day, Harry had moved the séance to the room where he had felt Louis’ presence most strongly. He lit white candles this time, then red ones, then a mixture of both. He tried sitting, standing, lying on the floor with his arms spread wide. He called Louis’ name until his throat was raw, pleaded with him to come back, and promised he would find a way to help.

The silence was deafening.

Save Louis. Save Louis. Save Louis.*

The mantra played on an endless loop in his head, growing louder and more insistent with each passing hour. Harry found himself muttering it under his breath as he researched, as he prepared for each failed ritual, as he stared at his hollow eyed reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Sleep became impossible. Every time Harry closed his eyes, he saw Louis fading away, growing more and more transparent until he disappeared entirely. He saw the dark entity’s burning red eyes, heard its grinding voice promising that the house would have its due. He saw himself alone in the sprawling rooms, talking to shadows and empty rooms, slowly losing his grip on reality.

So Harry stopped trying to sleep. He would doze fitfully in chairs, jolting awake at the slightest sound, always hoping it might be Louis trying to take form. But the hours stretched on with no sign of the ghost, and Harry’s exhaustion began to take its toll.

His hands developed a constant tremor from too much caffeine and too little rest. His eyes burned and watered, making it difficult to read the endless stream of articles and forum posts he devoured in his search for answers. Dark circles carved themselves deeper under his eyes, and his cheeks grew gaunt as he forgot to eat, too consumed with his research to remember basic human needs.

The kitchen counter became a graveyard of abandoned meals, toast gone cold and hard, cups of tea grown stagnant, takeaway containers that sat unopened until the smell forced Harry to throw them away. His stomach would clench with hunger, but the thought of food made him nauseous. Every minute spent eating was a minute not spent trying to bring Louis back.

Save Louis. Save Louis. Save Louis.*

Harry tried again, moving the séances to different locations throughout the house. The living room, where Louis had once sat reading. The kitchen, where they’d shared those comfortable moments of domesticity. The front hallway, the back garden, even the place where he’d found the journal. He lit candles in every configuration he could think of, drew symbols he’d found in books about witchcraft and occultism. Some of them felt wrong the moment he completed them, as if he were inviting something malevolent into the space, but desperation drove him forward.

Nothing worked. The house remained stubbornly silent.

By the end of the first week, Harry had stopped showering entirely. His hair hung lank and greasy around his face, and his clothes, the same shirt and jeans he’d worn to the pub that first night, had begun to smell of sweat and fear and burnt candle wax. He caught glimpses of himself in mirrors and windows and was shocked by how quickly he’d deteriorated. His eyes had taken on a wild, feverish quality that reminded him uncomfortably of the final journal entries, and the increasingly erratic handwriting of someone slowly losing their mind.

But he couldn’t stop.

The thought of giving up, of accepting that Louis might be gone forever, was unbearable. Every failed séance only strengthened his resolve. There had to be a way. There had to be something he hadn’t tried yet.

Harry began attempting multiple séances per day. One at dawn, when the light was soft and golden. Another at noon, when the sun was highest. A third at sunset, and always one at midnight, the traditional witching hour when the veil was supposedly thinnest. He varied the incantations, the candle arrangements, the offerings he placed on makeshift altars. He tried using Louis’ name, then avoiding it entirely. He attempted to summon other spirits who might be able to help, then focussed solely on Louis himself.

The repetition became a kind of madness. Light the candles, draw the circle, speak the words, wait in vain for something, anything, to happen. Blow out the candles, clean up the salt, and prepare for the next attempt. The ritual consumed his days and nights, an endless cycle of hope and crushing disappointment.

Save Louis. Save Louis. Save Louis.*

The words had become a heartbeat in his skull, a drumming rhythm that drowned out rational thought. Harry found himself saying them aloud without realising it, muttering Louis’ name like a prayer or a curse. The neighbors, if there were any close enough to hear, probably thought he’d lost his mind entirely.

Maybe he had.

Harry’s reflection became increasingly foreign to him. His cheekbones stood out sharply in his gaunt face, and his clothes hung loose on his shrinking frame. His hands shook constantly now, making it difficult to light matches or hold books steady. His vision would blur at random moments, forcing him to blink rapidly to clear it. Sometimes he would find himself standing in a room with no memory of how he’d gotten there, a lit candle in his hand and salt scattered at his feet.

The worst part wasn’t the physical deterioration, it was the creeping doubt that maybe everyone had been right. Maybe he should have listened to Louis’ pleas to stop digging. Maybe he should have heeded the old man’s warning at the pub. Maybe he was fighting a battle that couldn’t be won, chasing after someone who was already lost.

But then Harry would remember Louis’ laugh, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. He would remember their conversations, the easy companionship that had developed between them. He would remember the terror in Louis’ voice when he’d begged Harry to stop, and Harry’s resolve would harden once again.

He couldn’t give up. He wouldn’t give up. Even if it killed him.

Save Louis. Save Louis. Save Louis.*

The house seemed to mock his efforts, its rooms growing colder and more suffocating with each passing day. Shadows lingered in corners where no shadows should be, and Harry sometimes caught movement in his peripheral vision, fleeting glimpses that disappeared the moment he turned his head. The silence was so complete it felt alive, pressing against his eardrums until he wanted to scream, just to hear something, anything, to break the awful quiet.

Harry began talking to himself, filling the emptiness with a constant stream of muttered observations and theories. He would narrate his research aloud, explain his reasoning to the empty rooms, and carry on conversations with Louis as if the ghost were still there listening. It helped fight off the crushing loneliness, even though he knew it was another sign of his deteriorating mental state.

“Found another mention of binding rituals,” he would say to the empty living room, his voice hoarse and cracking. “This one talks about anchors, objects or people that keep spirits tethered to the physical world. Maybe that’s what you are, Louis. Maybe that’s why the dark thing is so angry that you won’t fade.”

But Louis never answered, and Harry’s theories remained untested hypotheses spoken to deaf walls and uncaring shadows.

By the tenth day, Harry had attempted over forty séances. His notebooks were filled with frantic scribbles, diagrams of ritual circles, lists of failed incantations. The house reeked of melted wax and burnt herbs. Every surface was stained with salt or covered in a fine layer of ash from countless candles.

And still, nothing. No Louis. No dark entity. No spirits of any kind.

Just Harry, alone with his obsession, slowly unraveling thread by thread as he chased after a ghost who might already be beyond saving.

Save Louis. Save Louis. Save Louis.*

The words had become his entire world, his reason for existing. Everything else, food, sleep, hygiene, sanity, had become secondary to this singular, consuming need. Harry knew he was losing himself, and could feel his grip on reality loosening with each failed attempt. But he couldn’t stop.

He wouldn’t stop.

Not until Louis was safe.

On the fourteenth day, Harry finally reached his breaking point.

He stood in the middle of the living room and slowly turned in a full circle. The curtains were half pinned shut with clothes pegs to block out the light. Extension cords snaked across the floor towards equipment he didn’t remember plugging in. A chair had been dragged against the wall and left there like he’d needed the angle for something. Pages had been torn from books that littered the rug, corners bent, passages circled so aggressively the paper had ripped. Even the coffee table was pushed off centre, buried under matchboxes, batteries, and a mug long since gone cold and empty takeaway containers that he’d actually managed to eat from over the past few days. The smell of his own unwashed body had finally become unbearable even to him, cutting through the fog of desperation that had consumed him for two weeks.

Save Louis. Save Louis. Save Louis.*

But the mantra was quieter now, more of a murmur than the thunderous drumbeat it had been. Harry felt hollowed out, like a shell of himself. His reflection in the blackened window showed a stranger, gaunt, wild eyed, and trembling. He looked like one of those people you crossed the street to avoid, the ones who muttered to themselves and stared at things that weren’t there.

Maybe that’s exactly what he’d become.

“This is insane,” Harry whispered, his voice cracking from disuse. “I’m going insane.”

For the first time since the first failed séance, he allowed himself to truly consider giving up. Maybe Louis was right. Maybe some things were beyond his power to change. Maybe the kindest thing he could do was walk away, leave this cursed house behind, and try to rebuild whatever was left of his life.

The thought made his chest ache with grief, but also brought a strange sense of relief. He was so tired. Bone deep, soul crushing tired in a way that sleep couldn’t fix.

Harry forced himself up the stairs, each step feeling like it took enormous effort. In the bathroom, he stared at his reflection properly for the first time in days. His hair was matted and greasy, hanging in dirty strands around a face that barely looked like his own. Dark circles carved deep under his eyes, and his cheekbones stood out sharply in his gaunt face. He’d lost so much weight in such a short time that his jumper sagged at the shoulders. His belt needed to be tightened another notch. Even his rings felt loose when he flexed his fingers.

It wasn’t normal.

“Jesus,” he muttered, touching his hollow cheek. “What have I done to myself?”

The shower was a revelation. Harry stood under the hot spray for what felt like hours, scrubbing away layers of grime and neglect. He washed his hair three times before it felt clean, watching the water at his feet run grey with dirt and oil. When he finally stepped out, the steam had fogged the mirror completely, and he was grateful not to see his reflection again just yet.

He found clean clothes, the first he’d worn in over a week, and made his way downstairs to the kitchen. The refrigerator was mostly empty except for some eggs that were miraculously still good and half a loaf of bread that wasn’t completely mouldy. Harry made himself scrambled eggs, forcing himself to eat slowly despite his stomach’s protests. The food tasted like cardboard, but he knew his body needed fuel.

As he ate, Harry tried to make a plan. He would pack his things, put the house back on the market, maybe see a therapist about whatever breakdown he’d just experienced. He would try to forget about Louis, about ghosts, about dark entities and binding spells and souls trapped in old houses.

He would try to go back to being normal.

But even as he made these reasonable, rational plans, his chest felt tight with loss. Giving up on Louis felt like abandoning a piece of himself, like walking away from something precious and irreplaceable.

After forcing down as much food as he could manage, Harry stepped outside for the first time in days. The fresh air hit him instantly, clean and sharp after the stale atmosphere of the house. It was late enough that the light had gone soft and uneven. The overgrown yard looked bleached in places, dull in others, the weeds bending under their own weight.

Harry had spent so much time focussed on the house itself that he’d never really explored the property. It stretched back much farther than he’d realised, the manicured lawn giving way to wild grass and then dense woodland. Something about the sight of those trees called to him, not in the obsessive, desperate way he’d felt called to perform séances, but with a gentler pull, more like a quiet suggestion.

He started walking without really deciding to, his feet carrying him across the yard and towards the tree line. The rational part of his mind protested that he should stay close to the house, that wandering into unknown woods in his weakened state was a silly, stupid, bad idea. But his legs kept moving, drawn by something he couldn’t explain.

The forest was old, with massive oaks and maples that formed a thick canopy overhead. Dappled sunlight filtered through the leaves. The air was cooler here, and Harry could hear the distant sound of running water, probably a stream or creek somewhere deeper in the woods.

As he walked, Harry felt a strange sense of peace settling over him. For the first time in two weeks, the constant chatter in his head began to quiet. The obsessive loop of save Louis, save Louis, save Louis faded to almost non existent, replaced by the gentle sounds of wind through leaves and birds calling to each other in the trees above.

But as he went deeper into the woods, that peace began to shift. He began to feel uneasy, followed by an intense feeling of being watched. Harry told himself it was just his imagination, his mind still rattled from days of obsessive behavior and sleep deprivation. But the feeling grew stronger with each step.

He should turn back. Every instinct told him to retrace his steps and return to the relative safety of the house. But his feet kept moving forward, as if guided by some unseen force. It wasn’t the malevolent compulsion he’d felt from the dark entity, this was gentler, more like a friend taking his hand and leading him somewhere important.

The trees grew denser as Harry walked, their branches intertwining overhead until very little sunlight penetrated through. The temperature dropped noticeably, and Harry shivered in his light shirt. He must have been walking for twenty minutes or more, following what might have once been a path but was now barely visible beneath years of fallen leaves and undergrowth.

Just as Harry was seriously considering turning back, he spotted something through the trees ahead. A break in the forest where more light filtered through, as if there was a clearing just beyond the next cluster of oaks.

His pulse quickened, and that strange sense of being guided grew stronger. Harry pushed through a tangle of low branches and emerged into a small clearing, maybe twenty feet across. Wildflowers grew in patches between the trees, and an old stone wall ran along one edge, probably a property boundary from decades or centuries past.

But it was what lay in the centre of the clearing that made Harry’s breath catch.

Partially hidden beneath a tangle of ivy and wild vines was a large stone, roughly rectangular and obviously placed there intentionally. It was old, weathered by years of exposure to the elements, but still solid and substantial. As Harry approached, he could make out carved letters on its surface, mostly obscured by the creeping vegetation.

His hands shook as he began pulling away the vines, careful not to damage whatever was carved beneath. The ivy came away in long strands, releasing the earthy smell of decay and old growth. Gradually, letters began to emerge from beneath the green shroud.

• TOMLINSON *

Harry’s heart stopped.

Below the name, in smaller letters, dates, and beneath that, barely legible after years of weathering: * BELOVED CHILD *

Harry sank to his knees in front of the gravestone, because that’s what it was, he realised. Louis’ grave, hidden away in this forgotten corner of the woods. His hands hovered over the carved letters, not quite daring to touch them.

“So young,” Harry whispered, “Taken way too soon, what happened to you?”

A wave of grief hit him so suddenly and powerfully that he nearly doubled over. All this time, he’d been trying to save someone who had been dead for over a century and a half. Someone who had lived and died and been buried in this lonely spot long before Harry was even born.

But then, as his fingers finally made contact with the cold stone, Harry felt it.

He felt it before he let himself acknowledge it, that familiar closeness at his back, the subtle awareness of someone just within reach.

The feeling was so strong, so real, that Harry didn’t even startle when he heard the voice behind him.

“It isn’t me.”

Harry’s eyes filled with tears, but he didn’t turn around. He’d missed that voice, that gentle accent with its hint of fond exasperation.

“I wish it was,” Louis continued, and Harry could feel him moving closer, his footsteps silent on the forest floor. “Would make things much simpler, wouldn’t it? If I were just a regular ghost, tied to my earthly remains, easily put to rest with a proper burial and a few kind words.”

Harry finally turned, but there he… wasn’t?

The space behind him was empty, yet Louis’ voice still lingered in the air, low and close, like breath against his ear. It sent a shiver down Harry’s spine. He had missed that feeling.

He couldn’t see him. Not even a flicker.

But he could hear him, and something in that voice had changed. The usual edge, the teasing lilt, it was gone. In its place was a weight Harry hadn’t heard before, a quiet sorrow that had settled.

He didn’t ask. He didn’t dare. Because part of him already knew. And the other part…. was too afraid to find out.

“You look terrible,” Louis said, his tone gentle despite the words. “When’s the last time you slept? Like, actually slept, not just passed out in a chair surrounded by melted candles.”

“I’ve been trying to save you,” He didn’t mean to whisper. He was just finding it hard to breathe all of a sudden.

“I know.” Louis moved closer, stopping just a few feet away. “And you nearly killed yourself doing it. Harry, look at yourself. You’re skin and bones, you can barely stand upright, and you smell like you’ve been living in a herb shop that caught fire.”

“I had a shower.”

Louis looked him up and down slowly.

“Bold of you to call it that.”

“You can’t smell!”

“No, I can’t. Sometimes I can, but if I could right now, I suspect I’d be filing a complaint.”

“To who exactly?”

Despite everything, the exhaustion, the grief, the bone deep weariness, Harry found himself laughing. It was a broken, slightly hysterical sound, but it was still laughter.

“There he is,” Louis said softly, his own smile growing warmer. “I was starting to worry you’d forgotten how to do that.”

“How are you here?” Harry asked, wiping at his eyes. “The séance went wrong, you disappeared, I haven’t been able to reach you for weeks.”

“Because you were trying too hard,” Louis interrupted. “All that ritual and ceremony, all those desperate attempts to force a connection, you were drowning out any possibility of real communication. Sometimes the simplest approach is the most effective. I just can’t manifest at the moment.”

Harry looked back at the gravestone, running his fingers over the carved letters.

“If this isn’t you, then who…”

“I don’t know, I don’t remember,” Louis said quietly. “My older sister Lottie maybe, she died before me I think. I was… I was supposed to be buried next to her, in the family plot behind the old church in town. But something went wrong. No one is where they should be… I think.”

“What kind of wrong are we talking about?”

Louis was quiet for a long moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was heavy with old pain.

“The same night Lottie died, something else happened at the house. Something terrible. There was an accident, and… well, let’s just say I never made it to my intended resting place.”

Harry turned to face him fully.

“Louis…”

“The point is,” Louis continued, “finding a grave doesn’t solve anything. I’m not tied to these earthly remains because they aren’t mine. I’m tied to that house, Harry. To whatever dark thing is trapped there with me. And the more you try to save me, the stronger that connection becomes.”

“I don’t care,” Harry said fiercely. “I won’t give up on you.”

Louis’ expression softened.

“You stubborn, beautiful, absolutely mental man,” he said with fond exasperation. “Do you have any idea how much it terrifies me, watching you destroy yourself trying to help me? You haven’t eaten properly in days, you look like you haven’t slept since the séance, and you’re talking to yourself constantly. I am starting to think you have lost your mind.”

“Have I?” Harry asked. “Lost my mind?”

“A bit, yeah,” Louis admitted with a small smile. “But the good news is that it’s entirely reversible. All you have to do is take care of yourself. Eat regular meals, get some proper sleep, maybe consider calling a friend or family member so you remember how to have conversations with people who aren’t dead.”

Harry laughed again, this time with less hysteria and more genuine amusement.

“You’re giving me mental health advice. A ghost is telling me that I need therapy.”

“Well, when you put it like that, it does sound rather absurd,” Louis grinned. “But I’m not wrong, am I? You’ve been running yourself into the ground for weeks. I may be dead, Harry, but you’re still very much alive. And I need you to stay that way.”

The sun was setting. Harry realised he’d been gone for hours, though it felt like only minutes since he’d found the gravestone.

“I should get back,” he said reluctantly, not wanting to break this moment of peace.

“Yes, you should,” Louis agreed. “And when you do, I want you to eat a proper meal, take a hot bath, and sleep for at least ten hours. Can you do that for me?”

Harry nodded, though he felt tears threatening again.

“Will I see you again?”

“Harry,” Louis said gently, “I never really left. I’ve been there the whole time, watching you make yourself sick with worry. I just… couldn’t manifest properly anymore after what happened during the séance. It takes enormous energy to appear to you, to talk to you, to move something, and that dark thing has been siphoning most of my strength.”

“Are you saying I’m not going to see you anymore?”

Louis’ smile turned mischievous.

“Oh, you’re not getting rid of me that easily, Styles. I may be dead, but I’m also incredibly stubborn. Almost as stubborn as a certain curly haired idiot who thinks he can single handedly save me.”

Harry found himself smiling back, feeling lighter than he had in weeks.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Louis said softly. “Now go home, you absolute disaster of a human being. And for the love of all that’s holy, please shower again.”

Still laughing, Harry stood and took one last look at the grave. He would come back, he decided. Bring some flowers, clean away more of the vines. It felt like the right thing to do.

As he started to walk back towards the house, Harry felt Louis’ presence beside him, a comforting warmth in the gathering dusk. They didn’t speak, but the companionable silence was worth more than all the desperate séances and failed rituals combined.

For the first time in weeks, Harry felt hope.

Chapter 6

Harry woke to the alarm and immediately knew something was off.

Not the sound, the sound itself was fine. It was where it was coming from. Faint, muffled, like it had moved across the room just to annoy him.

He blinked and turned his head. His pillow wasn’t under him anymore either.

He groaned and swung his legs over the side of the bed, the blanket twisting around his ankles. Across the room, on top of a stack of books, his phone vibrated softly. His pillow leaned against the books, crumpled in a way that made it look like it had tried to escape.

Harry blinked. Of course. Louis.

“Real mature,” he muttered, letting a reluctant smirk creep onto his face.

He dragged himself towards the bathroom, shuffling on tangled blankets and bare feet. The light flicked on once as he reached for the switch, just a blink, like a silent little nudge.

The bathroom was exactly how he’d left it, but nothing felt normal. The towel had fallen onto the floor overnight. His toothbrush sat in the cup. And the faint chill in the air made the hairs on his arms rise.

Harry rolled his eyes and muttered, “Glad to see you are back.”

He turned on the shower, letting the sound mask the room.

Harry should have told him to leave. He needed privacy. And yet, for some reason he didn’t.

He inhaled sharply, let the blanket drop, and stood there completely exposed. Heat soared under his skin, part embarrassment, and part adrenaline.

He knew Louis was here. He could feel him. Leaning somewhere just beyond perception. Waiting. Watching.

A slow, almost mischievous grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. Shaking his head at himself, he stepped into the shower and pulled the curtain closed.

A full thirty seconds passed before the faint click of the bathroom door hinted that Louis had moved again. Left the room?

Even unseen, even silent, Louis left traces everywhere. The subtle creak of the floorboards, the shift of air around him, the way the room seemed to lean slightly towards him, every little thing carried that familiar, teasing signature.

Harry didn’t laugh. But he felt it, the small ripple of something electric crawling all over his body. Somewhere, somehow, Louis was still there. Waiting. And Harry, absurdly, found himself wanting more of it. This was the exact moment that Harry knew he was getting himself in serious trouble.

The moment Harry entered the kitchen, the toaster popped.

He jumped.

Harry glanced around the room, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

“You’re an idiot.”

The cabinet door nudged open behind him. Nothing inside but teacups. Harry leaned his elbow on the counter and stared around the room as if Louis might offer some kind of apology.

Instead, the kitchen clock froze for three seconds, then resumed ticking.

Harry picked up his phone, checked the time, and shook his head.

“Don’t think this gets you out of making a cup of tea.”

And Harry swore he heard a barely there laugh.

It wasn’t until later, when he was on his second cup and watching dust float through a sunbeam, that the temperature dropped slightly. Just enough for goosebumps.

He didn’t look up right away. He knew Louis was nearby again.

Sure enough, there was the edge of a shadow in the reflection of the fridge.

Lingering. Waiting.

“You’re unusually quiet,” Harry said softly, keeping his gaze low.

The chair across from him scraped faintly. Not in a horror movie way. Just a gentle drag. Like someone was unsure if they were still welcome.

Harry sipped his tea. He hesitated. Then set it down.

“I’ve been thinking,” he began, slow and cautious. “About your death.”

The air didn’t shift. Not right away.

“I know we said we’d leave it alone. But something’s been bugging me. There’s a detail I overlooked before. I just…”

The cupboard above his head slammed shut.

Harry flinched. Not hard. But enough.

“I’m not saying I’ll do anything reckless,” he said quickly. “I’m just talking about looking into it. From here. Safely.”

The silence that followed wasn’t cold. Harry knew Louis was mad.

Harry finally looked up. Louis was leaning against the doorframe, just visible enough to make out his shape. His arms were crossed, but there was no humour in his posture now.

Harry stood. Not fully, just enough to lean forward, resting his hands on the edge of the table.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he said. “I just… I want to know. You deserve that.”

Louis didn’t move. His form flickered briefly, a ripple through static. Then, barely noticeable, he shook his head.

Harry’s throat tightened.

“You’re scared,” he said quietly.

“Aren’t you?”

Louis stepped back once. One slow step, like he needed space he couldn’t actually take.

Harry walked around the table and stopped short of where Louis hovered. They weren’t close enough to touch, but the urge was there. A magnetic pull that lived just beneath the skin, even when they tried to ignore it.

“I don’t want to lose you again,” Harry whispered, eyes trained on nothing and everything. “And I know I never really had you. But… still.”

Louis flickered again. The kitchen light above them dimmed, then steadied.

He hovered there, expression unreadable, for what felt like a very long time.

He stepped forward, just enough that Harry could feel the change without knowing why.

Harry didn’t move. He didn’t reach out. Louis didn’t move back. They were close, but not touching. Close enough that Harry could see the little catch in Louis’ breathing, the faint lift of his chin, the way his weight shifted almost lazily from one leg to the other.

They didn’t say anything. Not a word passed between them. Not a laugh, not a sigh. Just the two of them, standing like idiots who had no idea what the other would do next.

They stood like that. Not a couple. Not quite lovers. But something in between.

Harry noticed the faint crease at the corner of Louis’ eyes when he blinked, the way his shirt pulled slightly where he leaned forward. Everything about him seemed deliberate and completely careless all at once.

Harry swallowed and almost stepped forward, almost, but suddenly stopped. Louis didn’t give him anything. Didn’t invite it. And that made Harry somehow want it more.

What? A kiss? Stupid stupid Harry. Like how did he think that would work?

Louis tilted his head a fraction, just enough that Harry thought it might be a question. Or a dare. Harry couldn’t tell, and he didn’t care. He just knew he wanted to close the distance and didn’t know if Louis would let him.

The presence in the house, the other one, the one that rarely made itself known in daylight, normally stayed quiet.

But Harry could feel it now. Watching. Noticing what was happening between the two of them.

And maybe Louis felt it too. Because just before he faded out of view, he glanced over his shoulder. Not at Harry but behind him.

Harry followed his gaze instinctively, turning, but there was nothing there.

When he turned back, Louis was gone.

And this time, he didn’t leave a punchline behind.

Harry didn’t move for a while after Louis vanished. He just stood there, one hand still resting on the edge of the table, the other limp at his side. The quiet felt sharper now. Less like peace, more like punishment and fuck he hated it.

Eventually, he exhaled hard through his nose, and muttered

“Nice one, idiot,” to himself, and wandered back towards the living room.

He didn’t sit. He couldn’t. Resting meant thinking, and thinking meant replaying the look on Louis’ face. The flicker of hurt or maybe fear, or both, that Harry couldn’t unsee.

So, instead, he grabbed the mop.

It wasn’t even dirty. The floor had already been cleaned. But Harry filled the bucket anyway, poured in too much solution, and got to work like the ghost of domestic guilt himself.

It was ridiculous. He was mopping like a 1950s housewife who’d been ghosted by her poltergeist boyfriend.

Not boyfriend. Just a ghost. Just… Louis.

He groaned aloud and pushed the mop harder. “ Stop thinking.“

When that didn’t work, because of course it didn’t, he tossed the mop aside and sank cross legged onto the living room rug. He closed his eyes and did his best to steady his breathing.

He tried to focus.

Channel.

Open the line.

“Come on, come on,” he whispered under his breath, fingers curling loosely against his knees.

But nothing came. No shift in the air. No pressure behind his eyes. No cold draft.

Nothing.

Just stillness. He listened harder. The faint rattle of a loose window latch. A cupboard door settling in its frame. Harry froze, listening, knowing perfectly well he was the only one there.

He gave up.

Harry let out a long, miserable sigh and flopped backwards onto the rug, staring up at the ceiling. After a moment, he reached for his phone and scrolled through to Gemma. He didn’t hesitate. Just pressed the call button.

She picked up on the third ring.

“Well, this must be serious. You hate phones.”

Harry didn’t even greet her properly.

“Do you remember when I said I wasn’t lonely living alone?”

“Oh, God. He ghosted you again, didn’t he?”

Harry groaned and covered his face with his forearm.

“Not like that. I mean, he left. But not because of me. Not…ugh. Never mind.”

“Harry.”

“He’s just being weird. I said something about maybe looking into his death again and he freaked out.”

A pause.

“Okay, that’s… kind of valid. And also possibly incredibly stupid.”

“Yeah, thanks, I got the message. He slammed a cupboard above my head.”

Gemma made a non committal hum.

“Sounds like your type.”

She couldn’t help but laugh.

Harry rolled onto his side, cheek smushed against the floor. “He’s cute,” he muttered, more to himself than her. “And I like having him around. It’s… not as lonely when he’s here. There’s just something about him. I really like him.”

There was a long silence on the line.

Then Gemma made her point,

“You’re the one who wanted to be alone. And bro, honestly, I can’t blame you, he is something, that is for sure.”

Harry blinked.

His mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again with nothing to say.

He sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his neck, feeling a little bit like someone had slapped him with a soft cushion of brutal honesty.

“Yeah,” he finally said, quietly. “I did.”

And then, almost automatically, he looked towards the hallway, because he realised, too late, that Louis could’ve been listening this entire time.

No cold chill. No flickering lights. Nothing. Still gone. Thank goodness.

He hung up a few minutes later, after Gemma made him promise not to fall in love with any more dead boys without at least checking their haunting radius.

Harry was halfway through trying to toast a crumpet, after burning the first one to a crisp and muttering under his breath, when the kitchen light flickered sharply.

He didn’t jump this time. He just closed his eyes.

“Perfect timing.”

The cupboard door creaked open on its own. Slowly. With unnecessary drama.

“You really need to stop doing that,” Harry said, flipping the crumpet and pretending not to care.

From behind him, the air shifted. Then it came, the words that made Harry instantly blush.

“So. I’m cute, am I?”

Harry froze.

Louis sounded far too smug. Which was impressive, considering he wasn’t visible yet.

“You really need to stop listening in on private conversations,” Harry muttered, cheeks already burning. He turned the dial down on the toaster, suddenly obsessed with his breakfast.

“I live here,” Louis said, materialising fully in the reflection of the microwave door. “It’s not my fault you’re loudly confessing your ghost crush in the middle of the lounge.”

Harry turned, holding the knife like a weapon. “I didn’t say I had a…you know what, shut up.”

Louis didn’t move. He just leaned against the counter like he owned the place. Arms folded, eyes twinkling.

“I’m flattered,” he said innocently. “Lonely Harry likes having me around. Almost sweet, really. I might’ve blushed if I had blood circulation.”

Harry turned away, mostly to hide his grin. “I should’ve saged the place when I had the chance.”

“Yeah, but then who’d make you laugh in the morning and rearrange your breakfast items for fun?”

“You put my alarm clock in the toaster once”

“I stacked it on the toaster. You’re welcome. Gave the place a bit of an art school edge.”

Harry set the knife down and leaned against the counter beside him.

They didn’t touch. They never did. Couldn’t. But they stood there, in parallel lines.

And for a moment, the silence between them felt a lot like comfort.

Until Harry muttered, without thinking,

“You really heard everything?”

Louis didn’t respond right away. But the smirk faded slightly.

“Not everything,” he said finally. “Just enough to know you don’t hate me.”

Harry glanced sideways.

“Well. You do make a decent toaster guardian.”

Louis cracked a grin, and Harry felt something inside him ease. Just a little.

And they stood there, side by side in the half lit kitchen, haunted, both of them, just in different ways.

The crumpet finally popped, only slightly burnt this time, and Harry fished it out with a butter knife, holding it up like a trophy.

“Victory,” he said.

Louis, still leaning like a model in a haunted IKEA ad, raised a brow.

“You know, your cooking’s really improved since I started haunting you.”

Harry spread butter with too much force.

“You didn’t start haunting me, you moved in.”

“Potato, poltergeist. Same thing”

Harry snorted and passed through Louis’ hovering form on his way to the table. It was instinctual, he didn’t mean to walk through him, and the second he did, he grimaced.

“Ugh…God, it’s like static wrapped in freezer burn.”

“Good morning to you too,” Louis said, amused, drifting across the kitchen like he had nowhere better to be, which, to be fair, he didn’t.

“Do you ever think of just… I don’t know. Sitting in a chair?”

“I have sat in a chair. Once. It wasn’t very fulfilling.”

“Because your arse is made of air, Louis.”

Louis floated a few inches off the ground and spun slowly in place. “Exactly. No pressure points, no spine pain, no circulation problems, being dead has its perks.”

Harry took a bite of his crumpet and mumbled around it.

“Yeah, like no responsibilities, no bills, no laundry…”

“No shame, no filter, and zero fear of social interaction,” Louis added proudly. “I am, essentially, evolved.”

Harry chuckled with his mouth full.

“You’re a knob.”

Louis grinned, turning lazily.

“A cute knob, apparently.”

“Okay, we’re done with that now.”

“Oh no. You called me cute and said you liked having me around. I will absolutely be milking this for at least a fortnight.”

Harry finished his breakfast and stood to rinse his plate, deliberately ignoring Louis’ victory dance in the reflection of the window.

“Ghosts have egos I see.”

Louis crossed his arms and hovered a little higher, now upside down and slowly rotating.

“You love it.”

They kept at it for a while, harmless bickering laced with heat neither pulled back from. Harry wasn’t sure when the teasing had started feeling like a thread holding him together. It wasn’t romantic, he told himself that often, but sometimes it came close enough to sting.

And maybe Louis felt it too, because after a long pause, he said, “You know, this would be a whole lot easier if you were ugly.”

Harry dropped his spoon.

“I’m… what did you say?”

Louis shrugged one shoulder, that ridiculous half smile reappearing.

“Less distracting. Less… complicated. You wouldn’t have me standing here, staring like an idiot. Lucky I have willpower.”

Harry blinked, lips parting, and then he tried to roll his eyes but failed spectacularly.

“Right. Because you’ve got this under control, do you?”

Louis tilted his head, just a fraction, letting the smirk linger.

“I’m not saying I do. I’m just saying… it’d be easier if you were forgettable. If you didn’t make me feel …..things.”

Harry opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. Louis was watching him like it was the funniest thing in the world. Or maybe not funny at all.

Harry’s stomach gave a quick, stupid lurch, because Louis’ words had landed somewhere deeper than the joke, and he knew it.

The room shifted. Not physically. Not audibly. Just… changed. They shared a quick glance.

It was as if someone had drawn the breath out of the kitchen. Everything felt wrong.

Louis stopped floating. Stopped spinning. He drifted downwards slowly, feet brushing the floor.

Harry’s back straightened. He glanced over his shoulder without meaning to.

“Do you feel that?” he asked, voice quiet.

Louis didn’t answer. His gaze had already slid to the ceiling. Or beyond it, like he could sense something. Just reminding them: I’m still here.

A low hum passed through Harry’s ears. Not noise, more like the suggestion of noise. The kind that made his stomach churn.

“I thought it was sleeping,” Harry said under his breath.

Louis still didn’t move.

“It was.”

They stood there, Harry with damp hands, Louis no longer smiling, watching the space between them suddenly grow more dangerous.

Then, just as quickly as it came, the pressure eased and the tension released.

But an oily residue remained in the air.

Louis looked at Harry, his expression was unreadable.

Harry swallowed as he slowly dried his hands on a tea towel.

“So. That’s new.”

Louis nodded once.

“Not a good type of new either.”

“Figured.”

Louis drifted backwards, flickering slightly at the edges.

“You were right before.”

Harry blinked.

“About what?”

“About this not just being a haunting.”

He didn’t explain further. He didn’t need to.

And just like that, everything changed. The humour was gone, left behind in the shape of a butter knife and an unfinished crumpet.

Harry stared at the space Louis had just left behind, the corners of the room now feeling too dark. He felt scared, not that he would admit it.

Whatever was coming, knew they were getting closer.

And the spirit, whatever it was, didn’t like it at all.

👻

Harry was bored. He literally felt like he had nothing to do. Louis hadn’t shown up for hours. Not since that weird moment in the morning when everything had gone tight and strange and then… normal again. Like it had never happened. Harry tried not to think about that. But he could still feel him, somewhere. Like a static charge clinging to the edges of his thoughts.

So he kept busy by attempting some light chores, those mundane tasks that kept him grounded..

First, the laundry. The basket was overflowing again, mostly because Harry had ignored it for three days in favour of researching half dead Victorian occultists and, when that got too grim, he attempted to roast vegetables like a functioning adult. The latter had gone badly, hence returning to the laundry.

He started sorting clothes, muttering under his breath about why socks couldn’t behave like normal items and stay in pairs.

That was when he caught the first flicker.

He caught a glimpse of him, in the black glass of the turned off television, just over his shoulder: Louis. He was faint, vague, his arms crossed and one eyebrow visibly lifted like he was judging Harry’s folding technique from beyond the veil.

Harry didn’t jump. He didn’t even react, at least, not outwardly. He just smiled a little to himself, lips twitching as he tossed a pair of underwear into the “needs serious help” pile.

“Pervert,” he whispered, just for himself.

The reflection didn’t move.

Later, he cleaned the hallway mirror. It had been smudged for days, possibly by his own forehead the last time he’d leaned in too close trying to pop a pimple. He grabbed some spray and a cloth, humming to himself as he worked.

And there he was again.

Louis was faint as usual, but clear enough to see, his body caught in the far curve of the mirror.

Not close. Not beside him. Just standing back, very still.

Watching.

Harry didn’t turn around. Didn’t acknowledge it. He kept his focus on the glass in front of him, drawing slow circles with the cloth, even though it was already clean.

In the reflection, Louis’ eyes weren’t on his face.

They had dropped.

Not subtle and not accidental.

Harry swallowed once and kept wiping. He went out of his way to take his time. He shifted his weight onto his back foot, just slightly allowing his shoulders to roll back. The hem of his shirt lifted a fraction when he reached higher, exposing a thin strip of skin above his waistband.

He didn’t rush to cover it.

Didn’t hurry the movement. And why should he? Harry was enjoying this just a little too much.

He adjusted his stance again, small enough to look natural, deliberate enough to know it wasn’t.

Still, Harry is not looking at him, instead enjoying every moment of Louis’ attention.

An hour later, he was watering the plants. Or what was left of them. The fern on the windowsill had given up entirely, and the fig looked offended that it was still expected to live. As Harry leaned forward to tilt the watering can, the metal of the faucet caught just enough of his reflection, and Louis’, standing behind him, his expression a little too interested for someone who didn’t technically have hormones anymore.

Harry bit back a grin.

He arched his back slightly, just a stretch, nothing too obvious. But he held the position for a beat longer than necessary. The curve of his hips was now exaggerated by the angle, the fabric of his joggers pulling a little tighter across the back.

In the faucet’s curve, Louis tilted his head.

Harry turned around abruptly like he hadn’t seen a thing. The room, of course, was empty.

He smirked.

“You’re not as slick as you think.”

When he swept the floor, it happened again, this time in the oven door. Louis was closer now. Still watching. Harry gave an exaggerated bend as he picked up a small piece of rubbish. On purpose.

And he saw it, Louis biting his lip. Or at least miming the action, out of habit. The reflex of someone who was not, in fact, above admiring the living.

Harry stood slowly, wiped his hands, and looked directly at the oven door.

Nothing.

He tilted his head.

“Coward.”

Still nothing.

But Harry knew he was being watched, and he was enjoying it far more than he had any right to. There was something thrilling in the game, how close they always seemed to the edge of something, neither of them willing to cross it. Not yet.

So he kept going.

Every now and then, another reflection. A shadow behind the cupboard. The curve of a shoulder in the stainless steel pot lid. The faintest smirk caught in the side of the hallway frame.

Louis never said a word and Harry just kept stretching, leaning, poking and perching.

And Louis stayed hooked on every move.

Unseen, uninvited like always, but clearly not going anywhere.

By the time evening fell, Harry had done a full sweep of the house. Towels rotated. Plants slightly less depressed.

He sat on the couch with a book in his lap, eyes flicking to the black mirror of the TV just once.

Louis was there.

Still smug. Still trying not to be caught.

Harry grinned without looking up from his book.

“Like what you see?”

The TV flickered on once. Just a glitch. Just enough.

Then he was gone again.

👻

The bathroom steamed up quickly. Harry leaned into the spray, hands braced against the tiles as the heat soaked into his shoulders, trying to relax, but failing miserably.

He’d been on edge since the laundry. Not in a bad way. Just… keyed up. Like every nerve was tuned to the same static frequency. It wasn’t just the glances, or the fact that Louis had made himself visible so often today. It was how present he felt.

Harry hadn’t seen him since dinner. No flickers in the hallway mirror, no smartarse comments through the kettle, no levitating toast. But he knew.

He wasn’t alone in the bathroom.

The air behind the curtain held a pressure. Not threatening. Not cold.

Just… there.

Harry closed his eyes. A drip traced down his spine, chased by a slow chill that had nothing to do with the water.

“Louis?” he asked aloud, more breath than voice.

Nothing. No reply. Not even a playful flick of the lights.

But the energy spiked. Just slightly.

It wasn’t how it usually felt when Louis was near. This was sharper. More intimate. As if something in him, whatever part of Louis still felt, had tuned itself to Harry’s thoughts.

Harry’s pulse skipped.

This was stupid. He was probably imagining it. It had been a weird day.

Still…

He rolled his lip between his teeth, uncertain.

Was it wrong? Flirting with a ghost? Could you even call it that?

And why did it feel so real, like more than banter, more than teasing?

Harry swallowed hard and let his hand trail down his chest slowly, watching the way goosebumps followed even through the steam. He paused low on his stomach, eyes half lidded now.

He was being ridiculous.

Except, he couldn’t shake the feeling. The sensation of Louis right there, just on the other side of the curtain. Not looking. Not touching. But knowing.

Feeding that awareness back to Harry without words.

Harry’s fingers dipped lower.

Slow as if testing.

The water pounded around him, muffling everything except his own shallow breath and the thunder of blood in his ears.

There was no rush to it. Just a drawn out ache that he let build with every inch. A dare as such, knowing Louis was near. Maybe watching.

He moved with purpose. Slowly and sensually, like he was performing.

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t even open his eyes.

The tension had been sitting in him since he stepped under the water.

Not nerves, not even fear. Just excitement.

His hand moved steady at first, sliding down his stomach, lower. Testing and almost hesitant.

Nothing changed.

No retreat. No flicker. Nothing. Harry needed something. Some type of sign from Louis, to know that this was just not on him, that this wasn’t one sided.

So he wrapped his hand around himself properly.

The first proper stroke felt nice. He sucked in a breath through his teeth as the water ran over his shoulders and down his chest, over his wrist, over the place where his fingers were already tightening.

He could feel how hard he was. How exposed and he didn’t turn around.

That was the point.

His hand moved again. Slower this time. Thumb dragging along the head before sliding back down. His breathing thickened almost immediately. He adjusted his stance without thinking, feet planted wider, one shoulder angling just enough that nothing was hidden.

If Louis was there, he had a very clear view.

Harry let his head fall back slightly, throat exposed to the spray. His hand started moving with more intention now. Firmer and faster. The slick sound of it almost swallowed by the shower.

His mouth parted. He didn’t make noise, but he was close, he wanted to.

The idea of being watched, but not touched, not interrupted, just observed completely made his stomach tighten. Made his movements rougher and less controlled.

He squeezed harder.

His hips shifted forward into his own hand. Once. Then again, and again.

He was breathing openly now, chest lifting rapidly with each stroke. Every drag of his fingers sent a sharp pulse through him, building fast, way too fast. He knew he couldn’t slow down.

He didn’t want to.

His jaw clenched. His free hand flattened against the tile for balance as his rhythm lost any pretense of control. He was chasing it now. Letting it climb without resistance.

His body jerked forward, a broken breath tearing out of him as he came, hand tightening instinctively as wave after wave hit. His forehead nearly touched the wall as he rode it out, muscles shaking, knees weak enough that he had to brace himself to stay upright.

Water washed over him. Down his stomach and between his fingers.

His breathing stayed ragged long after it was over.

And then…

The faintest sound.

A soft drag of the curtain rings along the rail.

Not harshly or slowly but not an accident either.

Harry stood there, still catching his breath, one hand against the tile, the other hanging loose at his side now.

Louis hadn’t spoken.

Hadn’t shown himself.

But he had stayed.

And he had watched.

The mirror was nearly opaque with steam when Harry stepped out, towel around his hips. He wiped a lazy arc across the glass with his hand and began drying his hair, still lost in his own quiet disbelief.

Then he reached for his toothbrush.

And froze.

The words hadn’t been there a second ago. But now they were, drawn through the foggy mirror in messy, teasing letters:

“That was hot.”

Harry stared at it.

No flicker of movement. No giggle from the vents.

Just that simple phrase.

He huffed a single laugh and shook his head, shoulders rising in a helpless little shrug.

And then, he smiled.

Really smiled.

Harry padded around his room with a towel still slung low on his hips, feeling a bit more self conscious than usual, not that he had any reason to be. Louis had already seen him. Hell, at this point, Louis had basically attended a private performance. Front row seat, no ticket required.

And yet… Harry felt giddy.

He tugged on a worn shirt and soft pyjama pants, trying not to let his smile get too big. He wasn’t even sure what he was smiling about. Just… the whole thing. The curtain, the energy, the writing on the mirror. The fact that Louis hadn’t denied it.

In fact, Louis hadn’t said anything at all.

Which made Harry more curious than embarrassed.

As he pulled back the blanket on his bed, he caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of the room. Nothing obvious. Just a flicker near the dresser mirror, like the light bent wrong for a moment.

He said nothing.

He settled into bed, pulled the covers up to his chest, and let out a content sigh. The room was quiet, and a little humid from the shower. He stared up at the ceiling in the low light, waiting and hoping.

Nothing.

He reached over and flicked the lamp off. The click echoed softly. The room dimmed into darkness.

And then…

“Next time, maybe take your time with the towel too.”

Harry jerked slightly, startled, then grinned so fast it almost hurt.

“Jesus, Louis,” he whispered into the dark. “You can’t just whisper in someone’s ear like that.”

“Can’t I?”

His voice was closer now. Near Harry’s head. Low and quiet and undeniably smug.

Harry bit back a laugh and turned on his side, facing the space beside the bed that always looked empty, but never quite felt that way.

He didn’t say anything right away.

Then:

“I liked that you saw me,” Harry whispered. “Felt… kind of special.”

There was a pause.

And then, so softly it barely stirred the air.

“You are special.”

There was no snark and no sass.

Harry turned further, curling slightly beneath the blankets, smiling so hard his cheeks hurt.

“Goodnight, Louis.”

Silence.

He waited.

Five seconds. Ten.

Still nothing.

And Harry’s smile faltered, just slightly. He blinked into the dark and whispered one last time, almost hopefully.

“…Louis?”

But there was no answer, just that slight ache of wanting more.

👻

It had been a good day, he thought to himself, the feeling almost seeming foreign after everything that had come before it. There had been no icy sweep down the hallway, no strange distortion crawling through the radio, no tightening ache behind his eyes that made him brace for something he could not see. There had only been Louis who watched him in a way that felt intentional rather than threatening.

For once, Harry had not wanted the day to end.

He had not felt hunted or unsettled. He had felt chosen, held, truly seen. The difference mattered more than he wanted to admit.

That feeling followed him to bed. He sank into the mattress without the usual tension coiling through him, his head settling into the pillow as if his body had finally decided it did not need to stay alert. The quiet did not feel ominous. He let his eyes close without bargaining with himself first, without counting the minutes, without listening for signs that something would start the moment he drifted off.

Sleep took him easily, without resistance, and for the first time since moving into the house he did not fight it.

What is the saying? If things seem too good to be true, they usually are? .

There was no gradual change, no sense of falling. One moment there was the familiar weight of blankets and the shape of his room around him, and the next there was nothing recognisable at all.

He became aware of the absence first. No texture beneath his hands. No outline when he reached slightly to one side of his bed.

He opened his eyes.

He blinked once, slow and disoriented, then again, harder this time as if that might correct it.

It didn’t.

His body went rigid as he took in what surrounded him. The proportions were all wrong. The walls were not his. The ceiling was not his. The space did not carry the shape of his bedroom or the memory of it.

He pushed himself upright abruptly, scanning every corner with mounting disbelief.

This was not his bed.

And this was not his room.

It didn’t even feel like dreaming, it felt lucid, and strange, like something had been stitched together with the wrong thread. In all his spiritual encounters this had never happened before, he had never felt this way.

He looked around. No ground beneath him, yet he stood. No visible light, yet he saw.

Harry narrowed his eyes. He would know that stance anywhere. The slight angle of his head, the way he carried himself like he was braced for a joke he had not made yet.

“Louis…?”

Louis turned.

It was him. Not faded. Not half formed, instead he was completely there. Every line of him was steady and defined, like he belonged in this place just as much as Harry did. There was nothing blurred about him, nothing that suggested he might dissolve if Harry blinked.

Harry took a step nearer, trying to understand what he was looking at.

“Where are we?”

He glanced around, searching for something familiar, but the surroundings offered nothing. No detail stood out. It felt unfinished, like a backdrop that only existed because they were standing in it.

Louis looked unsettled in a way Harry had never seen. His lips parted slightly before he answered.

“I… I don’t know.”

There was no bite to it. No smug edge, just confusion for them both.

Harry studied him more carefully. The faint line between his brows, the way his hands hung at his sides instead of tucked away. He looked tangible and Harry couldn’t believe it when he realised how solid he appeared. He was close enough that Harry could see the small movements in his throat when he swallowed.

“This hasn’t happened before,” Louis said, almost like he was thinking it through as he spoke.

Harry stepped nearer again without fully meaning to. He stopped when there was barely any space left between them. He could see the full facial details now. The faint shadow of stubble along Louis’ jaw. The shape of his mouth, slightly parted like he was about to say something else and thought better of it. Those blue eyes.

They stood facing one another, neither moving away.

Harry became very aware of how simple it would be to reach out, and that unsettled him more than anything else had so far. The space between them no longer felt impossible or unreachable. It felt achievable and within reach, a boundary he could now cross if he chose to.

He lowered his gaze to his own hands, turning them slightly as if testing their steadiness. They looked ordinary, very capable of contact. Slowly, and with care that bordered on hesitation, he lifted one and extended it towards Louis.

He had already prepared himself for the familiar disappointment of reaching through nothing. He only wanted confirmation, proof that this followed the same rules as every other time.

His fingers hovered for the briefest moment before brushing against Louis’ arm.

They did not slide through.

There was resistance, and warm skin beneath his fingertips, the subtle firmness of muscle under it.

Harry jerked his hand back as if he had touched something electric, his eyes widening as the sensation lingered in his fingertips.

Louis drew in a breath that sounded sharp and entirely human.

Harry stared at him, stunned, his voice unsteady as he spoke.

“Did you feel that, Louis oh my god, did you…?”

Louis moved back immediately, putting a clear step between them, the retreat too abrupt.

“No,” he answered, far too fast.

Harry watched him closely, catching the way his jaw tightened, the way his shoulders drew in slightly as if bracing. “Louis,” he said again, more insistently now, “what the hell is this? How is this possible?”

Harry knew Louis was lying. He was scared, scared of what this all meant.

Louis shook his head as though refusing the reality of it might undo it. His expression had changed, whatever composure he usually carried was gone. “This is wrong,” he said, the words strained. “You’re not supposed to… We shouldn’t… We will get in trouble. We…”

He did not finish the thought.

One second he was there, solid and standing in front of him. The next, he wasn’t.

Harry bolted upright, lungs dragging in air that suddenly felt cold. He stared at the ceiling, chest rising and falling too fast, trying to ground himself, but it was no use.

He threw the covers back, legs trembling as they hit the floor, and stumbled out to the kitchen, each step sharper than the last. The dark pressed in. The silence was absolute. He gripped the edge of the sink with both hands, head bowing between tense shoulders.

What the hell had that been?

His fingers clenched, blood roaring in his ears. The way Louis had looked at him. The way they’d touched. That wasn’t dream logic. That wasn’t his subconscious playing tricks.

He felt it. He knew he had.

“Louis…” he called out softly, unsure whether he was pleading or just hoping.

No answer.

Of course not.

But still, he waited. Just in case.

What he didn’t know was that Louis stood in the doorway behind him, barely visible even in the shadows. His hands were curled into fists at his sides, not to hide his presence, but to stop himself from revealing it.

He wanted to speak. Wanted to step forward. But his entire body vibrated with something else.

Not fear of Harry.

Fear of what touching him had felt like.

Of what it meant.

Louis had died. He’d made peace with that. But this? This shook him deeper than death ever had.

That spark, that jolt that had passed between them like a soul bond promise, it was more terrifying than anything he’d faced in the darkness of this house, even more than the thing currently in the basement, the thing that lurked in the shadows, the entity Harry hadn’t yet fully understood. The one unholy presence Louis had managed to keep at bay….until now.

Because whatever this was between them, it was something neither of them could protect the other from.

Louis stepped back, melting into the dark again.

He couldn’t let Harry see him, his feelings , Not yet. Not like this.

Not when love, or whatever cruel illusion it had been, was the only thing he couldn’t haunt without tearing himself to pieces.

Louis was scared.

👻

The drop of blood from his nose hit the page out of nowhere. It was expected that the encounter they had shared would throw Harry right back into research. Harry blinked down at it, just one drop at first, right on the corner of the notebook where he’d been scribbling notes. Then another fell, warm and far too fast.

He sniffed and brought his fingers to his upper lip.

Blood. A full blown nosebleed. A bad one.

He tipped his head back instinctively, heart thudding once in recognition.

This wasn’t random. It wasn’t dry air or stress or anything remotely normal.

This was a warning.

The house had felt strange all day, like the walls were listening. It was starting to feel like the entity that usually kept to the basement was starting to take an interest in the living again.

And Harry had known. Of course he had. But he’d pushed it aside. Let himself get distracted. Let Louis distract him.

Because of a moment. A spark. A dream that shouldn’t have felt like anything real but had.

He wiped his nose carefully, then shoved the bloody tissue aside and returned to his notes.

“Fine,” he muttered to the empty air. “You want me to stop ? A little bit of blood doesn’t scare me.”

He did exactly what Louis had begged him not to, he dove right back in.

Old names. Records. Death notices. Patterns that he couldn’t quite pin down but knew were there lingered just beyond his reach. There was something rotten in the foundations of this house, something older than Louis and more violent than even the energy Harry was used to filtering through. He flipped to another page, one hand pressed to his nose just in case the bleeding started again. The handwriting was frantic, the ink smudged.

There was a symbol, one he remembered from weeks ago, but it hadn’t meant anything then. It does now. Something about binding. A mark of spiritual ownership.

Louis hadn’t died randomly.

Harry was sure of it now.

He did not notice him at first.

Harry was still sitting at the table, staring down at the open notebook. The page had warped where the drops had soaked in, the dried nosebleed had turned a dark, rusty brown that cracked slightly where the paper had buckled. It looked ugly against the ink, the paper now permanently ruined.

Out of instinct, he felt the need to lift his head.

Louis stood in the doorway.

Not fully there, faded at the edges, and seemingly thinner somehow. His face looked drawn, the usual sharpness dulled. There was something hollow about him, like he had given up more than he had meant to.

Harry straightened without thinking.

Louis stepped inside as Harry’s eyes followed him the entire way.

He looked tired.

The notebook sat between them on the table, the dried blood impossible to ignore. Harry resisted the urge to close it, to hide it.

Louis came to a stop beside the table.

Close enough that Harry could remember exactly how it had felt in the dream when his fingers met solid skin instead of passing through nothing. That memory hit harder than he expected. His fingers flexed lightly against the wood.

Neither of them mentioned the dream. Neither of them acknowledged the blood.

Harry kept looking at him, trying to read what this version of Louis meant.

But he couldn’t help but try. Harry, slowly and carefully, almost against his own will, lifted his hand. He reached forward, watching Louis’ face closely for any sign of fear, any flinch, any pull away.

Louis didn’t move.

Harry held his breath and touched.

Nothing.

His hand passed through Louis’ arm like mist. No spark. No connection. Just empty air and the ache of what should have been.

Louis’ expression didn’t change right away. But something in his posture dropped, like a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding had gone bitter in his lungs.

He looked down at Harry’s hand. Then back up.

“Knew it was too good to be true,” he whispered.

It wasn’t angry. Just sad. The kind of sorrow that didn’t lash out, it sank deep and folded in on itself.

Harry let his hand fall. He didn’t try again.

Louis stepped back, just a little, but it felt like miles.

They didn’t speak after that. What could they really say?

Harry returned to the couch, the notebook closed now, forgotten. Louis lingered near the window, not watching the world, not really watching Harry either, just existing in the same space, because it was the only thing they could do.

And somehow, that made it feel worse.

It had gotten too quiet.

Louis hadn’t moved in ten minutes, his form still flickering faintly by the window. Harry could feel his presence, but it wasn’t comforting. It was volatile. Like lightning trying to settle into water. Harry shifted on the couch, fingers brushing the spine of the closed notebook, his gaze fixed on the floor. He didn’t want to be the one to break the silence. But he also couldn’t sit there, pretending he hadn’t seen Louis’ eyes when their hands passed right through each other, pretending as if it hadn’t wrecked him a little.

The ache between them wasn’t going away. It was building.

So he tried.

“Louis…What happened the other night… in the dream. Or whatever it was. That was real, right?”

Louis didn’t turn. His jaw clenched, the muscle in his cheek ticking tight in his profile.

“I don’t know what it was,” he muttered. “Don’t ask me to explain something I don’t understand.”

Harry stood and stepped closer.

“You felt it. When we touched. You flinched. You gasped. You…”

“I didn’t,” Louis cut in sharply, but there was no heat in it. Just panic, crumbling beneath the surface.

Harry swallowed, voice gentler now.

“Louis… I felt it too. I know you did.”

That finally made Louis turn, sharp and sudden, like the weight of the moment had finally shoved him off whatever edge he was clinging to.

His face twisted. Angry, but not at Harry, at himself.

“I’m scared, Harry,” he snapped. “I’ve been scared since that night. You think I just disappeared because I had better things to do? I don’t eat, I don’t sleep, I don’t breathe, I have literally nowhere else to be!”

Harry stepped forward again, slowly.

“Then why are you pulling away?”

Louis shook his head.

“Because I felt something I shouldn’t have! Something I didn’t think I could feel. And it makes no sense. It shouldn’t be happening.”

Harry was quiet, heart pounding, every cell in his body screaming not to say it, not yet, not like this.

But he said it anyway.

“Maybe it doesn’t make sense,” he said, eyes searching Louis’ face, “but I think… I think I’m falling in love with you.”

Louis blinked.

Just once.

And the whole room changed.

He didn’t cry. Didn’t shout. He just stared, like Harry had spoken in another language he almost understood, but desperately wished he didn’t.

Then slowly, Louis stepped back.

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “No. No, no, no, Harry. You, me, this is bullshit. It can never happen. You know that, right?”

Harry’s mouth opened, eyes stinging, but Louis didn’t let him speak.

“I’m a fucking ghost, Harry! A dead, un-living spirit…I’m not breathing…I’m…”

His voice cracked. His hands shook as they lifted in frustration, then dropped like they weighed too much.

“…well. I’m nothing.”

Harry flinched like he’d been hit. He didn’t like hearing those words.

“No,” he said, firmer now. “You are not nothing. You are everything.”

Louis let out a bitter laugh, stepping further back now, trying to put space between them, again , distance between what he was feeling and what he refused to feel.

“Oh, come on, Harry,” he spat. “That’s real romantic. The ghost boy with the tragic past is everything is he? Did you practice that in the mirror or…”

“Don’t do that,” Harry said as he clenched his jaw. “Don’t mock it because you’re scared.”

“Of course I’m scared!” Louis snapped. “Look at you. With your soft eyes and your stupid, beautiful heart. You’re looking at me like I’m someone worth loving.”

Harry didn’t move.

“You are.”

Louis laughed again, sharp and awful, but it cracked halfway through and he had to turn his face away.

“God, you’re killing me,” he whispered.

Harry stepped forward once more, slow, deliberate. “Yeah? Well, you’re haunting me. Physically and emotionally and I don’t care. I want you.”

Louis looked at him full on then, like every wall had just been torn down.

His lip trembled, and he hated that it did. He hated that the air between them felt electric. That it still buzzed with the ghost of that touch, even if they couldn’t repeat it.

Because he wanted to, so badly it scared him more than the entity in the basement ever could. He wanted to believe Harry. Wanted to take the step forward instead of the one back. Wanted to trust that maybe love didn’t need breathing or a body to exist.

But instead…

He vanished.

Right in front of Harry.

And Harry, alone in the room again, whispered into the space he’d left:

“You’re everything.”

Even if Louis couldn’t hear it anymore.

👻

The days slipped by with no sign of Louis.

Not really.

Harry didn’t speak of it. Not to himself, not to Gemma, not to the quiet corners of the house. It wasn’t like Louis was gone, he couldn’t be gone. Not completely. There was just no closure in his absence. Just a hovering sense of waiting.

Louis hadn’t flicked a light switch. Hadn’t changed the TV channel on him in the middle of a documentary. Hadn’t pushed open a cupboard to scare him when Harry was too deep in thought.

He just… didn’t show up.

Not visibly.

But Harry still felt him.

It started the first night. Just a moment. A flicker of sensation when he pulled the covers up and turned his face to the pillow.

He felt something. A warmth, barely there.

Then soft pressure. Right at his hairline. Right at the edge of his temple.

A kiss.

It wasn’t a draft. Wasn’t his imagination.

He knew the shape of it. He didn’t move. He didn’t ask questions.. He just let it happen.

And when he woke in the morning, there was no trace of it. No clue. No Louis.

The next night, it happened again.

Harry laid still for longer this time, wondering if tonight would be different.

It wasn’t.

The kiss came quietly, brushing his forehead gently. It was intimate. It lingered just a little longer this time. Harry’s chest hurt in the best and worst way. He never opened his eyes. He never reached out.

It became routine after that. Three, four, five nights in a row. Louis still didn’t appear during the day, no sarcastic remarks, no playful banter, no flickers in the window glass. Just that kiss. Like a ghost’s apology. A confession that came too late every night.

And Harry let it happen. Because there was nothing he could say, nothing he could do to dispel how Louis felt about it all. He understood, sort of.

But each night it got harder. To stay still. To keep his eyes shut. To pretend he wasn’t hoping, aching, for something more.

By the sixth night, Harry went to bed earlier. He couldn’t read, because he couldn’t concentrate. His notes were still spread across the kitchen table, the blood stained tissue from earlier days long thrown out, but the case felt cold now. Frozen without Louis’ presence pushing him forward.

It wasn’t just Louis’ absence in form. It was his absence in spirit. Like part of the house had dimmed with him gone. Like something had been unplugged.

Harry rolled onto his side, blinking into the dark.

He waited.

And just like before, he felt it.

Soft and feather light.

Another kiss.

But this time, he didn’t keep his eyes shut.

This time, he opened them.

There was nothing there. Just the empty room. The quiet darkness.

His head still buzzed from the warmth of it, skin tingling like it had been brushed by memory instead of touch.

Harry swallowed hard.

He didn’t speak right away. He almost didn’t at all.

But then, low and tender, like it would crack if said any louder he whispered.

“I miss you.”

Silence.

No flicker. No breeze. No teasing reply.

Just quiet.

Harry closed his eyes again, slower this time. Not because he was tired, but because it hurt.

Because even ghosts could disappear.

And Louis had.

Sort of.

And maybe that hurt more than if he’d left completely.

Harry closed his eyes.

His body sank into the mattress with a sigh that came from somewhere deeper than exhaustion, it was surrender. To the ache, the waiting, all of it. He shifted slightly under the sheets, found the pillow’s cool side, and let his shoulders drop.

There it was, that liminal place, the space between sleep and waking. When your thoughts stopped making sense and your breath slowed, but your mind hadn’t quite let go yet. Everything felt soft around the edges. Like floating with half your memory.

Then it happened.

He felt it.

Not a kiss this time.

A pull.

His breath caught as the dark behind his eyelids grew lighter. Not bright, but less real. Less grounded. He blinked once, then again, and when his eyes opened fully, he was somewhere else.

The same somewhere as before.

Still and quiet and impossible.

Harry turned slowly, looking around. The space was familiar. Vast in a way dreams sometimes are, where rooms stretched too far and gravity didn’t work quite the same. There were no walls. Just shadow and stillness.

And then…

Louis .

He stood a few feet away, lit from nowhere, looking just as unreal and impossibly real as the first time Harry saw him there. His edges glowed faintly. Not like light, like memory, like a soul remembering how to shine.

Harry smiled.

It was instant and full, the kind of smile that tugged his whole face upwards. His eyes warmed, his shoulders loosened. He took a step forward, excitedly.

But Louis moved back.

Only a step, but it was enough. Enough to bring doubt crashing through Harry’s ribs like a stone.

Harry stopped and swallowed.

“Do you… hate me now?” he asked quietly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t have told you how I felt, I shouldn’t have-”

Louis frowned, eyes softening with something unnameable. He took a small step forward this time. Careful yet tentative.

“Who could ever hate you, Harry Styles?”

Harry’s laugh came out all wrong, twisted with relief and that horrible type of hope that always showed up when you weren’t ready for it.

Louis gave him a smile, soft, with a little curve that almost teased, almost didn’t. But he didn’t move again. He just looked at him. Like he was memorising.

Harry’s heart beat hard against his ribs. He wanted to run into his arms, wanted to hold him like that dream made him believe he could. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

He stood still, his stomach twisting.

He was terrified of waking up again. Terrified of saying too much. Of ruining whatever this was, this thread of something between them that felt stronger than flesh.

God, he thought, I’m hopelessly devoted to a ghost.

He almost laughed at himself for it, for standing there clinging to something that made no sense, but that sharp, punishing voice in his head told him not to let go. It told him to hold on tighter. To endure it. To see it through.

Louis’ expression changed.

Louis frowned again, like the thought had made it across the space between them. Maybe it had.

Harry felt the timing of it land heavy.

Louis looked at him more intensely then, as if he were hearing words that hadn’t been said out loud.

Maybe he had heard it. Maybe it had carried further than Harry meant it to.

And then, slowly… he moved.

He just took one step. Then another.

He stopped in front of him, too close now to pretend this wasn’t real.

“Stay still,” Louis whispered.

Harry froze, lips parting slightly, chest rising as if trying to draw Louis in with each breath.

Louis raised his hand with reverence. Like touching Harry was sacred. A gift…a risk that he was willing to take.

His fingers hovered, and then he gently stroked Harry’s cheek with the back of them. The tenderness in the gesture was so powerful that Harry couldn’t breathe.

Louis’ fingers found a strand of Harry’s hair, curled at his temple, and brushed it gently back behind his ear.

“My god,” Louis whispered, “you are so stunning.”

Harry felt it like a jolt through his entire being, not in body, but somewhere deeper inside him. It reached something that had been waiting years to be seen this way. Not for his body, or his ability, or his damn house, but him .

“I can feel you,” Harry whispered. “Here. In this place… Louis, I can actually feel you.”

Louis smiled, shy, sweet. It made him look younger somehow.

“Well, don’t let it go to your head. You probably just have really sensitive dream skin.”

Harry snorted, shoulders shaking a little. “You’re such a dick.”

Louis grinned. “Only sometimes.”

They laughed together, and it was so normal that it hurt.

Then Louis took one last step forward.

Their noses nearly brushed.

The space between them wasn’t space at all, it was everything they hadn’t said, everything they were too afraid to scream out for.

The pull between them was soul deep. It thrummed through the air, not electric, not cold, just alive. Like something ancient, and destined. Like their essences were straining forward, aching to close the tiny gap.

Louis leaned in. Slower than anything Harry had ever experienced. Like even a blink would break it. Their lips were a breath apart. Harry’s eyes fluttered shut.

DING DONG.

The doorbell screamed through the house.

Harry startled upright with a gasp, heart thudding wildly in his chest.

He stared at the ceiling in the pitch black, panting.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

His voice echoed off the walls, righteous and gutted all at once.

From somewhere in the room came a sound Harry adored.

Louis laughed.

It wasn’t a cruel laugh.

It was soft. Warm.

But absolutely smug.

The doorbell rang again.

Harry threw the covers back with a groan. His heart was still racing from the almost kiss, his mouth still half open like it had been waiting for Louis’ mouth to meet his.

But now?

Now the universe wanted to send Jehovah’s Witnesses at midnight, apparently.

He checked the time on his phone with a low grunt.

11:48pm.

Brilliant.

“Who the hell rings a doorbell this late?” he muttered as he tugged a hoodie over his head and shuffled barefoot down the hallway.

He hesitated at the door. There was that feeling again, the lingering energy from the dream still clung to his skin like static. Louis’ laugh still echoed faintly in his mind. But now something colder settled in his gut.

Harry unlocked the bolt and pulled the door open with far more irritation than caution.

“Look, unless someone’s on fire or offering a free pizza, I…”

He stopped.

The woman standing before him didn’t blink.

She was immaculately put together, not a single hair out of place in her swept up silvery blonde bun, pulled tightly in place. Her deep plum coat was buttoned to the throat, structured and vintage looking, but undeniably expensive. And on her arm, a glossy black handbag that Harry was pretty sure cost more than his last car. Her shoes that were patent leather and polished clicked faintly as she shifted her weight.

She didn’t look like someone lost or frightened.

She looked like someone who belonged here, even if she absolutely didn’t.

Harry blinked. His irritation drained instantly, replaced by confusion and a stab of concern.

“Are you… okay?” he asked carefully, glancing out to the darkness.

He couldn’t see any car, or anyone else.

“Do you need help? Are you hurt? Do you want to come in or…?”

She didn’t answer. She just stared. Her expression was unreadable as her chin slightly lifted. Her eyes were locked on something over his shoulder.

Harry paused.

He turned around slowly, heart stuttering once in his chest.

Louis.

He was half manifested, pale and flickering, standing motionless halfway down the staircase. The shadows pooled around him like he’d stepped straight out of another plane of existence.

For one second, one long, stretching second, Harry swore she could see him.

But she didn’t say anything, nor did she react. She just blinked slowly, and returned her gaze to Harry.

He turned back around, frowning.

“I’m… sorry,” he said, trying not to sound rude. “It’s just very late. Maybe you’d be better coming back in the morning?”

The woman didn’t move. Instead, she cleared her throat delicately, as though the conversation had barely begun.

“I need to talk to you,”

Her voice was velvet and iron all at once.

Harry stiffened. His hand still on the edge of the door, body half shielding the inside of the house, as if to protect Louis even now.

“I understand,” he said slowly, “but it’s nearly midnight. I’d be happy to talk tomorrow if it’s important.”

The woman tilted her head.

“It is important.”

He sighed.

“Right. Well…”

“It’s about Louis.”

Harry’s heart jerked. He snapped his head back around. Louis hadn’t moved. Not an inch. If he’d had lungs, Harry was certain he wouldn’t be breathing. He turned back to the woman slowly.

“What… what did you say?”

She was already watching Louis again. Her lips curved, just slightly.

“So the rumours are true,” she said, tone almost amused. “He’s here. And you can see him.”

Harry’s whole body tensed. Cold shot up his spine. Louis still hadn’t moved. Still hadn’t spoken.

“Who…” Harry started, wetting his lips. “I’m sorry, who exactly are you?”

The woman extended one gloved hand, sharp and poised, like she was offering a business card at a funeral.

“I am a direct lineage from Louis Tomlinson,” she said calmly. “My name is Flossie Burton.”

Chapter 7

Harry stepped back from the door slowly, nodding his head towards the hallway.

“Come in,” he said, cautious but polite.

The woman didn’t thank him, just walked forward with a stately sort of grace, heels clicking gently against the old timber floors like she’d walked this exact path before. Her handbag swung gently from her arm, the designer label catching the hallway light. Hmm, Gucci.

She paused inside the threshold. Her eyes scanned the house, ceiling to floor, then back again, like she was noting every corner, every grain in the floorboards, every pocket of activity.

Harry closed the door behind her and locked it, then glanced towards the kitchen.

“Uh… I’ll put the kettle on?”

She nodded softly then followed behind.

Harry busied himself by collecting a mug from the cupboard and filling the kettle. His hands worked automatically, but his eyes kept flicking to the woman, Flossie, as she moved quietly around the space.

Nosy? Yes.

She didn’t sit. Just paced slowly near the bookshelf, one gloved hand trailing close to the spines, not quite touching them. The tip of one finger hovered near a small photo frame Harry hadn’t even realised had been left out. It held a blurry snapshot of his mum and Gemma at the beach.

Harry cleared his throat.

“So… why didn’t you just come in the morning?”

Flossie turned slightly, one eyebrow lifting.

“Night is for movement,” she said matter of factly. “Daytime is for resting.”

Harry frowned.

“That’s a bit backwards, isn’t it?”

Flossie didn’t answer. Just turned and finally sat down, crossing one leg over the other at the kitchen table with the kind of composure that made Harry suddenly self conscious of his mismatched socks.

He handed her a mug of black tea. She didn’t ask how he knew. He didn’t either.

Halfway through her first sip, she said, casually,

“So I suppose I should explain myself.”

Harry leaned against the counter, arms crossed loosely.

“That would be nice, yeah.”

Flossie exhaled lightly through her nose, almost like she was amused.

“I’d heard… whispers,” she said. “Gossip. That someone had bought the old Tomlinson house and that, that someone wasn’t quite like the rest.”

Harry gave a dry laugh, eyes narrowing.

“What gave me away, the plants on the windowsill or the rampant spiritual trauma radiating from me?”

Flossie didn’t smile.

“The neighbour three houses down said that the birds don’t fly overhead anymore.”

Harry grimaced.

“Charming.”

She sipped again, unbothered.

“That’s when I knew. Someone new was here… and Louis was still here , too.”

Harry froze for half a second. Then carefully lowered himself into the seat across from her.

“I’m sorry… You knew Louis?”

Flossie nodded and reached into her handbag.

Harry’s eyes flicked down to it again. The leather was pristine, the clasps gold. A subtle ‘FB’ embossed on the front. It opened with a soft snap , and from inside, she withdrew a photo, aged and worn but well preserved in a hard plastic sleeve.

She turned it towards him as she spoke.

“This is my mother,” she said. “Her name was…”

“Lottie,” Louis said behind him.

Harry turned just slightly, noticing Louis’ reaction.

Louis stood at the edge of the room, translucent but solid enough in presence to knock the breath from Harry’s lungs. His expression was something Harry had never seen on him before, not even in the worst moments.

There was sorrow there.

But something else, too.

Recognition….heartache.

Louis stepped forward, slowly, gaze fixed on the photo in Flossie’s hands. He moved as if pulled by some invisible thread, like the image itself called to him.

Harry watched him get closer and closer, leaning slightly over Flossie’s shoulder to see.

Harry’s skin buzzed with tension. He desperately wanted to ask.. He wanted to reach out and touch Louis’ arm, to pull him back, to speak to him, but it felt wrong. Too intimate. Too sacred. Too open.

Louis didn’t look at him.

Not at first.

Then…“Oh my god,” Louis whispered, voice breaking.

His eyes found Harry’s, wide and glassy.

“I remember so much now. Harry, shit, this is Flossie. I haven’t seen her since she was one year old. I… held her. She had this tiny red dress on and… and a white ribbon in her hair. I used to hum to her. I used to…”

He stopped. His voice cracked into silence.

He looked like he wanted to cry as he glanced at Flossie.

Harry didn’t know if ghosts could cry. But if they could, this would be it. His jaw worked, but no sound came. He looked so alive at that moment it made Harry’s throat tighten.

Then Flossie did something strange.

She reached up and pulled her coat a little tighter around herself. As though the room had gotten colder.

She slid the photo across the table to Harry without another word.

Then, from the same handbag, she drew something else.

A journal.

Weathered leather, corners frayed, tied with a thin strip of twine. It looked familiar instantly… too familiar.

Harry didn’t even need Louis to say it.

But Louis did anyway. “That’s mine.”

Flossie placed it carefully in front of Harry.

“I thought you should have this,” she said. “He’d want you to read it.”

Harry glanced toward Louis again, whose gaze was locked on the journal like it held his last heartbeat.

Harry reached out and touched the cover gently. It was still warm, somehow. Like it remembered him.

Flossie stood suddenly, smoothing her coat as if her work here was done.

Harry looked up, startled.

“Wait…are you leaving?”

She nodded once.

“I’ll see myself out.”

She walked to the front door without looking back. But just before she stepped outside, she paused. She had her hand on the frame and her back to Harry.

“I’m very sure,” she said softly, “that I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

Then she stepped into the night and was gone. The house was instantly silent again. The door had barely clicked shut after Flossie’s visit, and Harry still sat frozen at the kitchen table, the old journal in front of him like it might open itself.

Not like it hadn’t before.

Louis had disappeared the moment Flossie left, vanished without a word. He had expected something like “Well that was unexpected” or “ Omg i cant believe that happened“ etc but, nope, not a thing.

Harry had waited. Called out once or twice. Nothing.

Now the journal sat there untouched and unopened. Just… there.

Later, after brushing his teeth and flicking off the hall light, Harry stood at the foot of his bed and sighed. His body didn’t feel tired, but his soul did.

He crawled under the covers anyway.

For a while, he just laid there. Letting the weight of the past few hours sink into the mattress with him.

Then, like it always did these days, that feeling settled in beside him.

No visuals and no sound.

Just the sudden, comforting warmth of Louis.

It wasn’t physical. Not really.

But it pressed along his side, a soft presence against his back. Not quite touch, but close enough that Harry’s body sighed without his permission. His spine eased. His face relaxed. The air felt calmer. Like it had been holding its breath until now.

Harry closed his eyes, whispering into the dark,

“You alright?”

A pause.

Then, softly, right near his ear, “Yeah.”

Harry smiled faintly, but didn’t move.

Louis didn’t manifest. He didn’t need to. His presence alone filled the room with more emotion than most people’s words could. Harry reached down and clutched at the duvet near his stomach.

“You wanna talk about Flossie?” he said after a while, his voice low. “That must have been a lot for you to take in.”

Louis didn’t reply immediately. Then, quietly and disregarding Harry’s words, his voice dipped softer as he whispered,

“Harry… I want to know more. About what happened to me. About everything. I really do, especially now.”

Harry held his breath.

“But I’m scared. It’s dangerous,” Louis continued. “The last time you poked around, something got angry. You bled, remember?”

Harry swallowed, glancing briefly towards the dark hallway.

“Yeah. I remember.”

“I don’t want it to hurt you,” Louis said. “I…”

Harry rolled onto his back, reaching up to rub his hands over his face.

“Louis. If there’s even a chance that you get answers, that we both do, then we have to try. Carefully. Together.”

Another pause.

Then, low, almost as if shy, Louis asked,

“Are you going to read my journal?”

Harry didn’t open his eyes. He just breathed in, soft and slow.

“Only if you allow it.”

Silence stretched.

Harry thought he imagined the smile behind Louis’ voice when he finally answered,

“Just… Don’t laugh at me, okay?”

Harry turned his head towards the presence beside him, even if there was nothing to see.

“I wouldn’t.”

“I don’t even remember what’s in it,” Louis said, his tone lighter now, playing with the edges of his own nerves. “Could be school crushes. Could be soup recipes. Could be, I dunno, a murder list. Who knows.”

Harry huffed out a soft laugh, the tension finally easing.

“I’m hoping for all three,” he whispered. “With your taste in boys, the murder list and the crush list might overlap.”

Louis laughed quietly. It filled the space beside him in a way Harry didn’t realise he’d missed all day.

They were quiet again for a while. Louis stayed beside Harry, soft and warm and somehow more real than half the people he’d ever known. Harry didn’t need to reach out. Just being next to him felt right. Like a puzzle piece slotting into a place you didn’t know was empty.

If only Louis felt the same.

Because lying there, invisible and unmoving, Louis was doing everything he could not to let the thoughts win.

This is stupid, he thought.

This was stupid, and selfish, and so goddamn dangerous. Not just because of the entity still buried in this house, but because Louis knew better.

He knew how this ended.

With Harry crying into a pillow and Louis disappearing into nothing.

That was always the ending.

He was already dead.

Dead

.

And Harry was alive and brilliant and so stupidly kind. He didn’t deserve to be haunted like this, literally and emotionally.

Louis closed his eyes, not that it made much difference anymore and sighed.

He wasn’t sure what the statistics were for successful ghost/human relationships, but he was pretty sure they weren’t good.

And even if they were, what then?

A wedding with no groom? A honeymoon with one cold side of the bed? Were they supposed to say vows like ‘til death do us part’ when one of them was already on the wrong side of life?

It was doomed.

It had always been doomed, right from the very beginning.

But as Harry turned over slightly in his sleep, letting out a small contented sigh, Louis couldn’t help but stay there a little longer.

Just one more night.

Just one more night of bliss beside him would not ruin anything. That was what he told himself. One more second standing there, memorising the way Harry moved about, the way he always looked at him, like he was something worth keeping.

It should not have felt dangerous. It should not have felt final.

But it did.

And in that minute, with Harry right there and closer than he had any right to be, it settled into him with a kind of quiet certainty he could not fight.

He could not stay.

Not like this. Not if it meant pulling Harry under too.

The thought did not come with anger. It came heavy and steady. He had been holding on for himself, not for Harry. That was the truth of it.

So he lay there and let it sink in.

He had to let him go.

But could he actually do it?

That was the part that hollowed him out.

It was easy to think the words. Easy to tell himself that walking away would be the right thing, the decent thing, the thing that kept Harry safe. It sounded noble in theory.

In reality, it felt like tearing off his own hand.

And when would he even start? Tonight? Tomorrow? After one more look, one more almost touch, one more day pretending this could stay suspended in time like this forever?

The question hung there with no comfort attached to it. No timeline. No sign. No mercy.

There was no answer waiting for him. No voice telling him now was the time. Just the slow, awful understanding that the longer he stayed, the harder it would be to leave, and that he might already be too late to make it hurt any less.

Just when Louis thought Harry had finally slipped into sleep, he heard it.

A whisper. Barely audible. Soft, and cracked with the edge of a smirk.

“Are you gonna visit me in my sleep again so we can start back up where we left off or…”

Louis froze. If his cheek could flush, it would’ve gone scarlet. He bit back the automatic laugh that bubbled in his throat. That little shit.

He hovered just a little closer, letting the warmth of his energy nudge around Harry’s shoulders. Then, in the gentlest, most teasing tone he could manage, he whispered back,

“Well, if you’re asking nicely… guess I could check my afterlife schedule.”

But Louis knew he couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t cross that line, the one that only ever led to a dead end. (Pun intended) Still, just looking at Harry stirred something in him he hadn’t felt in years. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt this way before. And that was saying something, considering he was a bloody ghost.

Harry let out a quiet chuckle, half asleep, half hopeful. He didn’t respond after that, just smiled lazily into the pillow and drifted off.

Louis hovered above him for another moment, his gaze softening.

How was he supposed to walk away from him? This beautiful man, the love of Louis’ fucking life (and death?).

Carefully, he leaned in and pressed the faintest, invisible kiss to Harry’s forehead.

Louis swore he saw Harry’s face morph into a smile.

Louis stayed a little longer, watching the rise and fall of Harry’s chest, soaking in the quiet he’d never thought he’d love so much.

Maybe doomed things could be beautiful, too.

Could they?

👻

Harry blinked awake with a slow stretch that tugged at every inch of his body. His arms slid above his head, his toes curled under the blanket, and a small sound escaped his throat, half sigh, half satisfied groan.

He hadn’t felt this good in… he didn’t even know how long.

It was like every muscle had been unravelled and tucked neatly back into place while he slept. His skin felt cool against the sheets, his chest light, like he’d finally put something down he’d been carrying for years. He almost questioned it, how rested, how comfortable he was feeling.

It may have been the best sleep of his life.

He rolled onto his side out of habit, already expecting that familiar feeling at his back. Not weight. Not an imprint. Just that subtle sense of not being alone.

There was nothing.

The room felt ordinary and kind of flat. The same four walls, the same ceiling, the same early light pressing through the curtains. There was no faint awareness that someone stood just out of sight.

He stayed there for a moment anyway, staring at the blank stretch beside him as if something might gather there if he waited long enough.

It didn’t.

It should not have surprised him. Louis never stayed once morning came. Whatever allowed him near at night always faded with the dark.

Still, Harry had checked anyway..

He let out a slow breath and covered his face with his hand, palm pressing into his eyes until colours flared behind them. It felt stupid, how automatic it had become. The turning over, the expectation, the excitement.

But the space beside him remained exactly what it was.

Empty.

What does a ghost do all day, anyway? Harry thought as he sat up. Surely he’s not off cleaning gutters or fixing the plumbing. Harry laughed to himself. Nah, he is probably loitering in the attic talking shit to a spider.

It made him smile faintly, briefly at the thought.

“ Eight eyes and you still didn’t see me coming? Tragic.“

“Listen, if you’re going to freeload in my haunted house, at least pay rent in flies.”

“Your web’s about as intimidating as a doily, darling.”

But even those thoughts faded when his stomach growled.

He padded to the kitchen, scratched his bare chest, opened the fridge, and groaned.

Nothing. Nothing worth eating, anyway. No leftovers, no quick fix. His perfect start to the morning was already beginning to dim.

“Course,” he muttered.

A shower helped only a little. He dressed quickly, slid on his slides, and grabbed his keys with the reluctant drag of a man heading into war.

The drive down his long gravel path was quiet, he had no close neighbours, no one to wave to or avoid. Just the trees lining the driveway like sentries, and the basic sound of tyres on uneven stone. Just the way he liked it.

He was just easing towards the end of the driveway when he suddenly lifted his foot gently off the accelerator and leaned forward.

There, floating about a metre off the ground, was a small, hand tied bouquet of sunflowers.

There was no breeze, no string. They were just there, suspended, golden, and delicate. It had felt like something from a strange painting had come to life, but boy did it look so magical, so beautiful and poetic in its own way.

Harry eased the car to a soft stop and stared at them, brow furrowed, until a smile pulled at the edge of his mouth. He rolled the window down slowly and leaned towards them, squinting slightly in disbelief.

“For me?” he asked under his breath, grin tugging wider.

He reached out and gently plucked the bouquet from the air.

As soon as his fingers wrapped around the stems, he heard it:

“Morning, Styles. Be careful.”

He was gone just as quickly as it came. No rustle. Just the echo of Louis’ voice in his mind. Harry didn’t get a chance to respond. Of course he didn’t.

He stared down at the flowers. The stems were damp, freshly plucked. The petals were bright, almost obnoxiously cheerful. One of them had a slight curl at the edge, like Louis had tried to pick the prettiest ones but got impatient halfway through.

“Jesus Christ,” Harry whispered, breath catching.

He sniffed the flowers, nose twitching as the warm grassy scent hit him. He rolled his eyes, but the grin stayed.

Sunflowers.

Fucking sunflowers.

Ghosts. They were supposed to rattle chains and scream through walls and write cryptic threats in blood. Not give a man flowers on his way to do his shopping.

Are ghosts scary? The answer is simply no. However, they are, apparently, romantic.

He placed the bouquet on the passenger seat like it was made of crystal and sat back.

His chest ached, but not in a bad way. Just that heavy, heart swollen feeling when someone does something you absolutely didn’t expect. That feeling when you are in ….

Shit.

He knows it’s crazy, one hundred percent bat shit, stupid crazy.

It’s madness at its finest. The kind that should come with warning signs and a straight jacket. But somehow, it still feels impossible to walk away. Because, how could you not adore this

Human being.

He wished Louis could come with him, just once, even to something as dull as a grocery run, but the house had its rules, and Louis was bound to them. Louis couldn’t go with him, but it felt like a part of him had come along anyway. And Harry was perfectly fine with that. Harry looked out at the empty road ahead. Then back at the sunflowers. He didn’t stop smiling the whole drive.

👻

Harry pulled into the driveway with a heavier heart than when he had left. The sunflowers on the passenger seat seemed to mock him now, their bright cheerfulness a stark contrast to the knot of unease that had settled in his stomach.

The trip to town had been… unsettling.

Every person he’d encountered had given him the same treatment: sideways glances, hurried steps in the opposite direction, conversations that seemed to die the moment he approached. The cashier at the grocery store had barely made eye contact, hands trembling slightly as she’d rung up his items. When he’d tried to make polite conversation about the weather, she’d just nodded mutely, as if speaking to him might bring some terrible curse upon her.

Even Mrs. Patterson from the post office, who’d been nothing but friendly during his first weeks in town, had practically recoiled when he’d walked in. She’d handed him his mail without a word, her usual warm smile replaced by something that looked disturbingly like fear.

What the hell?

Harry couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone knew something he didn’t. The way they looked at him, like he was dangerous, like he carried some invisible plague, made his skin crawl. Had word gotten out about the house? About Louis? But how could it? He’d barely told anyone except Gemma.

He carried his groceries inside, the weight of the town’s collective rejection sitting heavy on his shoulders. The house felt different too, quieter, if that was possible. No sign of Louis anywhere.

“Louis?”

He set the bags on the kitchen counter. No response, not even a temperature drop.

Harry found himself gravitating towards the study, where the journal Flossie gave him still sat on his desk. The old woman’s cryptic warnings replayed in his mind. Maybe it was time to take her gift more seriously.

The leather binding felt warm under his fingers as he opened to the first entry. Louis’ handwriting was elegant but hurried, the ink slightly smudged in places as if written in haste.

15th October

“ The noises from the basement have grown worse. Father insists it’s merely the house settling, but I know better. Houses don’t settle with such… purpose. There’s a rhythm to it, almost like footsteps, but not quite. Something heavier. Something that shouldn’t be there. It does not feel right. Elias thinks I’m being foolish, but I’ve seen the way his eyes dart towards the basement door when he thinks I’m not looking. He knows something.“

Harry’s pulse quickened. Elias, that must be the lover mentioned in the other journal. He flipped ahead a few pages.

3rd November

“I hardly recognise Elias anymore. The man I fell in love with, gentle, kind, with laughter that could light up even the darkest winter day, he’s disappearing bit by bit. Yesterday he snapped at me for no reason, his eyes flashing with something I can only describe as malice. When I tried to comfort him, he pushed me away so hard I nearly fell. “Don’t touch me,” he had hissed, and for a moment I swear his voice wasn’t his own. The basement noises continue.“

Harry’s hands were trembling slightly as he turned the page. The handwriting had become more erratic, and less controlled.

20th November

“I found Elias in the basement tonight. He was standing in the far corner, perfectly still, staring at the wall. I called his name three times before he turned around, and when he did… Christ, I wish he hadn’t. His eyes were completely black. Not just the pupils, everything. Like looking into a void. He smiled at me, but it wasn’t Elias’ smile. It was something wearing his face. “The ritual is almost complete,” he said in that voice that wasn’t quite his. “Soon, we won’t need to pretend anymore.” I ran. God help me, I left him down there and I ran.“

Harry’s breath came in short, sharp gasps. His mind raced, connecting dots he didn’t want to connect. The dark presence he’d felt. The lost time. The way the townspeople looked at him like he was something to be feared.

What if it wasn’t just about Louis?

He flipped frantically through more pages, Louis’ terror bleeding through every word.

25th November

“ They’re all in on it. The whole bloody town. I see it now, the way they look at our family, the whispered conversations that stop when I approach. We’re not their neighbours. We’re their… offering. Father won’t listen. Mother pretends nothing is wrong even as Elias grows stranger by the day. Yesterday I caught him in my room, going through my personal belongings. When I confronted him, he laughed. “Looking for secrets,” he said. “Everyone has them. Even you, my darling Louis.” The way he said ‘darling’… it made my blood run cold. The noises from the basement have stopped. Somehow, that’s worse.“

Harry slammed the journal shut, his heart pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears. The parallels were too obvious to ignore. The town’s sudden coldness towards him. The dark presence in the house. The way Louis seemed to be avoiding him now.

History was repeating itself.

And if Louis’ journal was any indication, Harry was walking the same path towards whatever horrible fate had claimed Louis over a century ago.

The house seemed to lean in around him, walls pressing closer, shadows deepening. Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard it, a sound from below. Not quite footsteps, but something moving quickly..

Something that had been waiting a very long time for its next victim.

The days blurred together after that. Harry couldn’t stop reading.

He’d wake up with the journal in his hands, pages marked with his own fingerprints, ink smudged from where he’d fallen asleep mid sentence. His meals went cold, forgotten on the kitchen counter. He ignored his phone when it rang. The outside world ceased to exist.

There was only Louis’ voice, desperate and terrified, bleeding through the yellowed pages.

2nd December

“ Elias brought me tea this morning. I didn’t drink it. I’ve stopped eating anything he touches. He watches me now, follows me from room to room with those black eyes. Sometimes I catch him muttering under his breath in a language I don’t recognise. The basement door was open when I woke up. I know I locked it.“

Harry rubbed his eyes, blinking away the strain. His vision had started going blurry around day three. Or was it day four? Time moves strangely now.

8th December

“I can’t tell what’s real anymore. Elias claims he’s normal, says I’m the one acting strange. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m going mad. But then I see him standing at my window at night, perfectly still, watching me sleep. When I confront him about it in the morning, he laughs and calls me paranoid. The townspeople whisper when I pass. I heard Mrs. Whitmore say something about ‘the ritual’ yesterday. When I asked what she meant, she went pale and hurried away. What ritual?”

Harry slammed his fist on the desk, making his cold tea jump and splash. The anger came from nowhere, sudden and violent. Why wouldn’t anyone just tell Louis what was happening? Why were they all so fucking useless?

He caught himself, breathing hard. Where had that rage come from?

December

“ Found symbols carved into my bedroom wall behind the wardrobe. Fresh cuts in the wood, still bleeding sap. Elias swears he knows nothing about it. His eyes aren’t black anymore but there’s something worse there now. Hunger. I think they want to kill me. I think they need to kill me. I don’t know why I’m writing this down. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely hold the pen. If something happens to me, if I disappear, maybe someone will find this someday. Maybe they’ll understand.“

The handwriting was deteriorating rapidly now. No more dates written, just letters slanted at odd angles, words all running together. Harry had to squint to make out some of the text.

December

“ The basement, the basement, the basement, it’s all about the basement. Why won’t anyone tell me what’s down there? I tried to go down but the door was locked and when I turned around Elias was standing right behind me smiling that awful smile and he said “soon my love soon you’ll understand everything”. But I don’t want to understand. Leave me alone. I want to run but my legs won’t work right and my head feels like it’s full of cotton and I can’t think straight, can’t think, can’t.“

Harry’s vision swam. His own handwriting, scribbled in the margins of the journal, looked just as erratic. When had he started writing notes? The words made no sense.

“ Make it stop make it stop make it stop “

His writing. His pen. His desperation bleeding onto Louis’ pages.

December

“ He’s not Elias anymore, something is wearing his face, wearing his voice, wearing his hands that used to touch me so gently but now burn when they brush against my skin. He keeps talking about forever, about how we’ll be together forever, and I know he doesn’t mean it the way lovers do. I know but I can’t run, can’t hide, can’t do anything but wait for whatever comes next The fire dreams, every night, I dream of burning.“

Harry threw the journal across the room. It hit the wall with a satisfying thud, pages fluttering like injured wings. His chest heaved, fury pounding through his veins like poison.

Why hadn’t Louis fought back? Why hadn’t he just left? Why had he stayed to die like some pathetic, helpless…

Harry stopped. Those weren’t his thoughts.

Were they?

👻

Weeks passed in a blur of constant readings and sleepless nights. Harry’s world shrank to the four walls of his study, the journal becoming his entire universe. He’d forgotten what sunlight felt like. Food turned to ash in his mouth. The mirror showed him a stranger with hollow cheeks and wild eyes.

Louis watched from the shadows.

He materialised only when Harry wasn’t looking, hovering at the edges of rooms like a guilty secret of some sort. The sight of Harry hunched over that cursed journal made something twist in Louis’ spectral chest. Dark circles carved deep crescents under Harry’s eyes. His hands shook constantly now. His voice, when he called out for Louis in those broken moments between reading sessions, cracked with desperation.

“Louis, please. I know you’re there. I can feel you watching me.”

Louis pressed himself against the wall, fighting every instinct screaming at him to comfort Harry. But he’d seen this before. The obsession. The slow unravelling. History repeating itself.

Harry was falling too deep, too fast into all this and it was his own fault.

It didn’t help that Louis could now see so clearly how attached Harry was to someone who was already dead. Louis had watched it happen to Elias, though back then he hadn’t understood what he was seeing. The way love could become possession. The way devotion could twist into something hungry and desperate. He couldn’t let this happen to Harry. Not this beautiful soul.

No. It was better to let Harry hurt now than to damn him later. Better to wait for another medium, another decade, another century if necessary. Someone who wouldn’t look at Louis like he hung the stars. Someone who wouldn’t make Louis forget that they were supposed to be helping people cross over, not keeping them tethered to ghosts.

Even if every fibre of his being screamed that Harry was different, something deep in his essence recognised Harry in a way that defied explanation. Even if letting go felt like tearing himself apart. Letting go felt wrong in a way he could not dress up or justify. It felt like pulling at a thread that was stitched straight through him, knowing it would not come free without taking something important with it.

Louis did not disappear all at once. He receded. The lines of him grew faint, the details blurring until the wall behind him took over completely. The house absorbed him the way it always did, like it had more claim to him than anyone else ever could.

And just like that, Harry was on his own again, left with the demons. The rooms felt bigger without Louis standing in them. Harsher. Whatever kept the worst of it at bay when Louis hovered nearby no longer held. The thoughts crept back in. The old fears. The heavy quiet that pressed in from every corner.

Maybe it was selfish to step back. Maybe it was easier to vanish than to stay and risk more.

But for someone who had no pulse, no blood in his veins, Louis still carried something that resembled a heart. Not the physical thing. Just the memory of it. And when Harry looked at him the way he did, when he reached for him without fear, it stirred in a way that felt dangerously real.

Harry made him feel alive.

And that was the problem.

Because whatever Louis was now, he was not meant to feel that again.

24th December

“ Elias missed my birthday. Everyone did.“

25th December

“ Christmas morning, I woke up to Elias standing at the foot of my bed. How long had he been watching me sleep? His mouth was moving but no sound came out, like he was reciting something over and over. When I sat up, he smiled. “It’s time,” he said. “The solstice has passed. The dark moon rises tonight.“I asked him what he meant but he just kept smiling that awful smile. His teeth looked different. Sharper. Mother made Christmas pudding but it tasted like copper. Father carved the goose but the knife seemed to drip with something that wasn’t grease. Everyone was laughing but the sound was all wrong, like music played backwards. I’m writing this in the attic. I can hear them downstairs, singing carols, but the words don’t match any hymns I know.”

Harry’s pen moved across his notebook, copying down every word. His handwriting had deteriorated to match Louis’ panicked scrawl. When had that happened?

27th December

“ They took me to the basement. Elias, my father and three men I didn’t recognise. The walls were covered in symbols carved so deep they looked like wounds. Candles were everywhere, hundreds of them, casting shadows that moved independently of their flames. There was an altar in the centre. Stone, ancient looking, stained dark with something I didn’t want to identify. “This is how it begins,” Elias whispered in my ear. “This is how we become eternal.” I tried to run but my legs wouldn’t obey. Something held me there, invisible chains wrapped around my soul.“

Harry’s eyes darted across the page with a frantic, almost feral urgency, each flicker pulling at something raw inside Louis. It felt like pieces of himself were being stripped away, though he had never once dared to read the journal. Then Harry’s head tipped back abruptly, as if some unseen force had dragged him out of the room entirely.

Panic surged through Louis before he could think; he manifested at Harry’s side, his presence solidifying with the need to protect. Only then, with a reluctant heaviness, did his gaze fall to the open pages.

“ They showed me the knife.“

Louis vanished into the far corner, his form flickering as a vision slammed into him. It wasn’t a fragment this time, it was whole, living, suffocating, a real memory! He saw eyes, glinting like polished obsidian. Darkness wrapped fully around him, thick and unyielding, seeping into all his bones. A voice followed, low and demonic like curling into his ear until every muscle locked.

Elias.

He remembered now, the terror of that presence, the way it crushed the breath from his chest, the way fear became something tangible, clawing under his skin.

And then, in the vision’s edges, Harry stood, alone, unaware, while those same eyes turned towards him.

Louis’ fear shattered into urgency. The past wasn’t staying in the past. It was here.

“Harrrry!”

Harry’s eyes shot open, his hands trembling as he copied the words in front of him out loud.

“Must obey Elias.”

Harry’s vision blurred, but not from exhaustion this time. The temperature in the room plummeted. Frost spread across the windows in patterns that looked almost like writing.

From his hiding place in the corner, Louis watched Harry’s face contort with anguish. Every word of that journal was like a knife in Louis’ spectral heart. He wanted to rip the book away, to spare Harry from reading whatever came next. Because Louis didn’t want this anymore. Not if it meant hurting Harry. But Harry needed to know. Needed to understand the danger. Even if it destroyed them both. Harry didn’t care anymore. But it’s not like he had a choice. The journal had taken control.

29th December

“I understand now why they chose me. Elias explained, while he sharpened the blade. Love, he said, was the most powerful magic of all. But it had to be pure and untainted. The kind of love that would willingly die for the beloved. “I do love you,” he whispered, and for a moment his eyes cleared, became human again. “That’s what makes this so perfect. Your love will make the ritual work. Your death will make us immortal. We’ll be together forever, just like you always wanted.” I told him I never wanted forever like this. Never wanted a love that required blood and screaming and the stench of burning flesh. He just laughed and said it didn’t matter what I wanted anymore.“

Harry slammed his fist on the desk so hard his coffee mug shattered. Ceramic shards scattered across the journal pages, drops of coffee mixing with his tears.

Wait. When had he started crying?

“Louis!” he screamed at the empty room. “Where the fuck are you? I know you’re here! I can feel you watching me like some voyeuristic freak! Come out and face me!”

Silence.

Louis pressed himself deeper away, every atom of his being aching to materialise. Harry’s pain was like acid in Louis’ empty veins. But he’d seen what happened when ghosts got too involved with the living. He’d lived through Elias’ obsession firsthand.

Better to break Harry’s heart now than to damn his soul later.

👻

The days bled together. Harry was falling apart. Louis, who was still keeping his distance, could only watch on in horror.

He hated it. He hated standing idle while Harry unravelled. But he couldn’t let him back in. Not now. Not with what he knew.

Still, watching Harry’s nose bleed steadily for fifteen straight minutes… that broke something in him. He had to try. It wasn’t a plan, at least not a real one. More like a desperate, last ditch Plan Z. But it was all he had.

He drifted to the table and seized Harry’s phone, staring down at it like it was some alien artifact. He’d never used one before, only observed from afar. His fingers fumbled across the screen, pressing the wrong buttons, swiping the wrong way, cursing himself under his breath. Finally, by some miracle Louis thinks may have been sent by God, Gemma’s name lit up the display and the call connected. She couldn’t hear him. Couldn’t see him of course. So Louis dug deep, deeper than he’d ever gone before, summoning every ounce of will and rage and fear until it burned in his chest. He forced it outwards, ramming his voice against the barrier between worlds. On the other end, Gemma’s voice was frantic.

“Harry? Are you there? Harry, please, answer me!”

Louis forced himself to focus, to gather whatever part of him could still reach. He strained against the pull of the house, trying to push his voice through something solid for once. The effort burned in a way he did not expect, like trying to shout through a throat that no longer worked. The walls around him seemed to distort, the edges of the room pulling inward, dark corners stretching long and uneven. The phone on the table rattled faintly in its cradle.

But it was not just the phone reacting.

The house reacted.

The dark along the ceiling deepened. The corners thickened, drawing closer, pressing towards him instead of away. It felt aware. Attentive. Like something had turned its head. A crawling sensation crept up the back of him, sharp and invasive, as if something unseen had traced a line there just to remind him it could. It was not random. It was deliberate. It was listening.

Louis ignored it.

He pushed harder, gathering everything he had left and forcing it towards the connection on the other end of the call. The strain made the room distort further, the air turning dense and oppressive as though the house itself were trying to smother the attempt.

He did not stop.

He forced himself through it, pouring every remaining fragment of will into a single point.

Something finally gave.

The sound that followed barely existed. Not through the speaker. Not through the wires. It slid past all of that, thin and invasive, carrying only one clear command as it entered her thoughts directly.

“Help him.”

Gemma went completely still.

A second later, the line erupted with her panicked voice, sharp and frantic, the calm from moments before gone entirely.

31st December

“ New Year’s Eve. How fitting.

They came for me at midnight. The whole town was in on it, I think. I saw faces in the crowd I’ve known my whole life. Mrs. Punter from the bakery. Old Mr. Webb who taught me to fish. Even little Sarah Mills who couldn’t be more than twelve. All of them watching. All of them smiling those hungry smiles. Elias wore white robes that made his skin look corpse pale. The knife gleamed in the candlelight. He kept whispering apologies that sounded more like promises. “This won’t hurt for long,” he said. “And then we’ll have eternity.” But I could see the lie in his black eyes. This wasn’t about love. This wasn’t about eternity. This was about power. About feeding something dark and ancient. They tied me to the altar. The stone was warm, like it had been sitting in sunlight, but we were deep underground. I could feel it drinking in my fear, my desperation, growing stronger with every terrified heartbeat. Elias raised the knife., and then the flames started.“

Harry couldn’t draw in a full breath. Every attempt stalled halfway, like something had lodged beneath his ribs and refused to move.

The words on the page would not sit still. The ink seemed to blur and reform, sentences slipping out of focus no matter how hard he tried to pin them down. He tightened his grip on the paper until it crumpled at the edges, forcing his eyes to track each line again. Slower this time. Careful. He would not look away.

A dull ache spread through his torso, deep and insistent, as if the fear pressed into those paragraphs had weight of its own. It felt like reading something that should never have been written. Like every word carried a pulse of panic that did not belong to him but was crawling under his skin anyway.

He swallowed and kept going.

The tighter his throat grew, the harder he focused. His vision sharpened through sheer effort. He refused to skim. Refused to skip ahead. If Louis had felt this, if he had lived through this kind of dread, then Harry would sit there and take it too.

By the time he reached the bottom of the page, his hands were shaking and his body felt wound so tight it hurt.

Still, he did not stop reading.

“ I don’t remember much about burning. The mind protects itself, I think. There are flashes. The smell of my own hair catching fire. Elias screaming, not from grief but from rage, because something was going wrong with the ritual. The flames weren’t supposed to spread to him.

But they did.

And in those final moments, as the fire consumed us both, I understood. The ritual failed because we weren’t what it needed. Weren’t what the darkness craved. Our love was real but incomplete. Missing something essential.

Missing the other half of our souls.

I burned but I felt water at some point. Elias had vanished into thin air. And the thing in the basement went hungry for another hundred years.

If anyone finds this, if anyone reads these words, know this: it’s still down there. Still waiting. Still hungry for the kind of love that transcends death itself. A love so pure, a soul connection, a love that defines all rules.

And it will keep trying until it finds what it needs.

The perfect match.

A love so consuming that it demands the worst of them. Even in death, they will be forced to choose the ritual over each other, because the nearer they stood, the harder it would be to say the words that ended it.

The closer the lovers became, the more likely they were to fail the ritual.

Missing pieces that locked together without effort, edges aligning so perfectly it felt ordained. Two halves that, once joined, would not want to separate again. One soul split across two bodies, drawn back together whether it was safe or not.“

And then, almost as an afterthought, a final line.

“God help whoever that turns out to be.”

Harry’s vision went white around the edges. The journal slipped from his numb fingers, pages fluttering to the floor like dying birds. He could hear screaming, raw and desperate, and realised dimly that it was coming from his own throat.

From his corner, Louis watched Harry shatter and hated himself for every second of it. This beautiful, kind man who’d brought warmth back into Louis’ cold existence was destroying himself over a love story that had ended in flames over a century ago.

But as Harry’s sobs echoed through the house, Louis noticed something that made his unearthly blood freeze.

The basement door was standing open.

And something was climbing the stairs.

The last thing Louis saw was Harry at the door, hand braced flat against the wood as he forced it shut.

His voice was wrecked, the Latin spilling out rough and urgent, each word stumbling into the next. He was not graceful about it. He was not composed. He was terrified and doing it anyway.

The door slammed into place with a force that shook the frame. Harry did not step back. He pressed himself against it like his body alone could hold the line, continuing the chant even as his voice cracked under the strain. And Louis knew those words.

He had heard them before, spoken in different voices, over different years. Strangers standing in that same house, reading from worn pages, trying to purge it of things like him. He had listened as they demanded spirits leave, commanded them to break ties, to sever whatever bound them there.

Those words were never meant to protect.

They were meant to banish.

Something inside him twisted at the sound of them falling from Harry’s mouth.

But he understood.

Harry was not casting him out. He was not trying to be rid of him. He was trying to draw a line between Louis and whatever was pressing at that door. Trying to make sure the damage stopped there. Trying to carry it himself.

There was no hesitation in him. No flicker of doubt. Harry did not once look over his shoulder. He was not shutting Louis out. He was placing himself in front of him.

And the last thing Louis saw before everything ripped apart, was Harry choosing Louis without question. Pure love, put above anything else.

The perfect match.

Two days later, Louis jolted back to consciousness.

Consciousness. That was the wrong word. Ghosts didn’t sleep, didn’t dream, didn’t lose time the way the living did. But that’s exactly what had happened. One moment he’d been watching that thing emerge from the basement, the next he was floating in the hallway, disoriented and confused, with no memory of what had occurred in between.

Panic seized him immediately.

“Harry?”

He used what little energy he had left, and became fully visible for the first time in weeks.

“Harry!”

The house felt wrong. Empty in a way that went beyond simple absence. Louis raced through the rooms, searching every corner, every nook and cranny. The study was spotless, that journal nowhere to be seen. The kitchen showed no signs of recent use. Even Harry’s bedroom looked sterile, unlived in.

Where was he? What had that thing done to him?

Louis was about to check the basement when he heard voices outside. He rushed to the front window, pressing his face against the glass, and he felt himself sink.

Harry was there in the car, watching Gemma load boxes into his car. His face was pale, drawn, but he looked lucid. An older woman was beside him, making him stay in the car. He was “present” as such. He looked more like himself than he had in weeks. Gemma moved between the house and the car with practiced efficiency, carrying what appeared to be the last of Harry’s belongings.

Louis watched in stunned silence as Harry raised his hand on the window and turned to look back at the house one final time. Even from this distance, Louis could see the tears tracking down his cheeks.

“Louis, please,” Harry whispered, his voice barely audible but somehow reaching Louis through the glass, through the walls, straight to his very core.

The words broke something in Louis that he hadn’t realised was still whole. Harry was leaving. Really leaving. And it was Louis’ fault for staying away, for being too much of a coward to face what was happening between them. The whole thing had been unexpected, too unnatural, too “real”.

Gemma emerged from the house carrying a final box. As she passed the window where Louis stood invisibly, she paused and turned. She looked directly at the spot where he hovered, making Louis gulp.

Their eyes met through the glass, and Louis knew with absolute certainty that she could sense him there.

“Thank you,” she said simply, her voice soft but clear. “For calling. I will look after him.”

Then she was gone, walking to the car without another glance back.

Louis watched Harry with such intensity, watched him break down completely as the engine started. The sight of Harry’s shoulders shaking with silent sobs was unbearable.

Without thinking, Louis made a decision that went against every rule of the supernatural world.

With the risk of being seen by anyone else, he appeared beside the car, invisible to Harry, and leaned through the window. Harry was crying too hard to notice the sudden drop in temperature, too lost in his grief to sense the other-worldly presence inches from his face.

Louis pressed the softest kiss to Harry’s temple, a whisper of cold air against warm skin.

“You’re safe,” he murmured. “ It’s for the best, I’ll miss you, Harry.“

Harry sat frozen, every part of him still as he savoured that voice, soft, aching, unmistakably beautiful voice. For a mini second, his heart dared to hope, to believe that maybe, just maybe, Louis was really there to stop him. To ask him to stay. To rip him out of the car and hold him. He wanted to call out, to reach out, but before he could, Louis had already recoiled, slipping back towards the house. Harry’s eyes followed, catching him paused by the front door, like a ghost caught between worlds, close enough to touch but forever just out of reach. The ache of that distance settled deep in Harry’s chest.

Harry banged on the window.

“Louis!”

The car pulled away, gravel crunching under the tires. Louis walked down the driveway until the red taillights disappeared around the bend, until even the sound of the engine faded to nothing.

Because Harry was gone. And Louis was alone again. But it was for the best.

Wasn’t it?

Harry had told Gemma everything. Every supernatural encounter, every conversation, every moment of growing attachment to a ghost who’d become more real to him than his own reflection. She listened without judgement, though he caught the worry creeping into her eyes with each revelation.

He begged her to take him back to the house. Pleaded until his voice cracked and his knees gave out. Gemma held him while he sobbed but her answer remained unchanged. “No. Absolutely not.” Not after what she’d witnessed, what she’d felt in that final moment of thanks to an invisible presence.

Therapy was her compromise. Harry went through the motions, sitting in sterile offices with kind faced professionals who nodded sympathetically while he spun elaborate lies about stress and isolation. He never mentioned Louis. Never spoke the truth that was eating him alive from the inside out.

Weeks crawled by. Harry slept sixteen, sometimes eighteen hours a day, hoping Louis would visit his dreams. But sleep only brought emptiness. He told himself it was because he wasn’t in the house anymore, that distance was the barrier keeping them apart.

Every waking moment was consumed by thoughts of Louis. The way he’d produce that crooked grin. The gentle teasing that had made Harry feel alive for the first time in years. The spectral kiss on his temple that still burned like a brand against his skin.

Gemma fed him, medicated him when the sleepless nights became too much, and loved him with the fierce protectiveness only siblings possessed. But nothing worked. Harry existed in a state of living death, breathing but not alive, present but not really there.

Back at the house, Louis watched an old man arrive with boards and nails. The stranger’s hands shook as he worked, eyes darting nervously to every shadow. In another time, Louis might have delighted in terrorising the poor soul, sending him running with a few well placed supernatural pranks.

Now, he just missed Harry.

The man hammered boards over every window, sealing the house like a tomb. Each bang of the hammer felt like another nail in the coffin of whatever Louis and Harry had shared. When the stranger finally left, hurrying to his truck without a backward glance, the house fell into a deeper darkness than Louis had known in over a century.

“It was all stupid anyway,” Louis muttered to the empty rooms. “Just a lonely ghost getting attached to the first person who could see him. Nothing special. Nothing real. Get over it.”

But even as he said the words, he knew they tasted like lies.

He drifted through the house, each room a museum of overlapping memories. The parlour brought flashes of his mortal life, playing piano while Lottie danced, her laughter erupting from the walls like silver bells. But now those memories mixed with newer ones: Harry standing in the doorway that first night, his eyes wide with disbelief. Harry rolling his eyes at Louis’ dramatic manifestations. Harry’s face softening when Louis had offered genuine conversation instead of supernatural theatrics.

The library held childhood memories, hiding from his father’s business associates, nose buried in books about far off places he’d never see. But it also held the weight of Harry’s presence: the way he’d run his fingers along the spines of books, muttering about wanting to build a proper collection someday. The careful way he’d arranged his few volumes on the makeshift shelves, creating order from chaos with the same methodical patience he brought to everything.

His old childhood bedroom brought flashes of Elias in the early days, before everything went wrong. Stolen kisses and whispered promises. The naïve belief that love could conquer anything, even family expectations and societal conventions. But those faded memories were now overshadowed by the vivid recollection of Harry sleeping in that same space. The gentle rhythm of his breathing. The way he’d call out Louis’ name in his sleep, as if even his subconscious ached for connection.

In the dining room Louis had recalled where his mother had served tea to the women from town, their faces masks of polite interest while their eyes were calculated and measured. Now it held the echo of Harry’s laughter. Real laughter, not the polite tittering Louis remembered from his mortal life. A laugh that was warm and genuine, usually prompted by one of Louis’ more ridiculous observations about modern life.

Even the bathroom held ghosts of Harry’s presence. The way he’d clutched that shower curtain when Louis had interrupted his washing, face flushed with embarrassment and indignation. The products lined up on the sink, the towel always hung exactly straight, as if Harry was fighting some internal battle for control over his environment.

The kitchen was perhaps the worst. Louis could still see Harry standing at the sink, washing dishes and not even appearing bored about it. The way his shoulders relaxed when he cooked, like the simple act of creating something nourishing brought him peace. The careful way he’d arranged flowers in a vase, Louis’ ghostly sunflowers taking pride of place on the windowsill. The trust in Harry’s eyes when Louis had made him breakfast, accepting supernatural offerings like they were the most natural thing in the world.

The study was the most painful of all. Louis could see Harry hunched over that cursed journal, growing more hollow and desperate with each passing day. The way his hands would shake as he turned each page. The tears that had fallen onto the paper, mixing past and present grief into something unbearable. Louis had watched Harry’s slow destruction from the shadows and done nothing to stop it, too terrified of his own growing feelings to intervene until it was too late.

And always, threading through every memory, the growing sense that something dark was still watching, waiting, feeding off the emotions that saturated these walls like blood in the floorboards.

Louis pressed his palms against his temples, trying to stop the flood of images. But they kept coming, vivid and relentless, as if the house itself was forcing him to remember more. Perhaps so he’d understand exactly what he’d lost, and what he’d never have again.

Weeks passed in this torment. Louis found himself trapped in a cycle of self recrimination and desperate longing. He’d spent so long in this house without feeling the crushing weight of loneliness, but now every moment stretched like an eternity.

He tried to occupy himself with the old routines. Rearranging furniture that would only be reset by morning. Practicing manifestations in empty rooms. Even attempting to terrorise the occasional trespasser who wandered too close to the boarded up windows. But his heart wasn’t in it. Everything felt hollow, and pointless. The house felt wrong without Harry’s presence. Not just empty, but fundamentally broken, like a clock with essential gears missing. Even the supernatural energy felt different, stagnant even.

After weeks and weeks of this endless circling through memories and regrets, Louis finally forced himself outside. The garden had grown wild since Harry’s departure, weeds choking out the careful plantings that Harry had started. Louis materialised fully in the afternoon sunlight, something he rarely bothered with anymore, and tried to appreciate the natural beauty that had once brought him comfort.

The roses were blooming despite the neglect, their petals scattered across overgrown grass like confetti after a celebration no one remembered. The old oak tree spread its branches protectively over the space, leaves rustling with secrets Louis no longer cared to decipher. This garden had witnessed over a century of seasons, countless cycles of growth and decay, yet somehow it felt smaller now, diminished by the absence of someone who’d spent only a few short months tending it.

Louis was contemplating whether he had the energy to attempt some ghostly gardening when he heard the distinctive crunch of gravel under tires. A car was pulling up the long driveway, moving slowly as if the occupants were taking their time to study the property.

For one wild, impossible second, Louis’ spectral heart leaped. Harry . Harry had finally convinced Gemma to bring him back. Harry had realised that whatever dangers lurked in the house were worth facing if it meant they could be together again.

But as the car came into full view, Louis’ hope crumbled like ash.

It was an elderly couple in a sensible sedan, the kind of car that spoke of retirement and practical choices and it made him scrunch his nose. The woman in the passenger seat held a folder of papers, pointing at various features of the house while her husband nodded and squinted through thick glasses. They were clearly prospective buyers, though that struck Louis as odd.

He’d been expecting the house to go back on the market for weeks now. After Harry’s dramatic departure and whatever supernatural incident had preceded it, surely the property would be listed for sale again. But no real estate signs had appeared. No agents had come by with their measuring tapes and optimistic promises. No photographers had arrived to capture the house’s better angles for online listings.

The couple sat in their car for several minutes, making notes and having what appeared to be a serious discussion. The woman kept shaking her head while the man gestured emphatically towards the house. Finally, they drove away without even getting out of the car, leaving Louis more confused than before.

If the house wasn’t for sale, why were people still coming to look at it? And if it was for sale, where were all the usual signs of a property changing hands?

Louis floated back towards the house, questions multiplying in his mind. The boarded windows stared back at him like blind eyes, offering no answers. Whatever was happening in the world of the living, he was clearly not privy to it, unfortunately, it was just another reminder that he was trapped between worlds, belonging fully to neither, understood by no one.

The loneliness crashed over him again, heavier than before. At least before Harry, he’d grown accustomed to the silence. Now he knew what connection felt like, what it meant to be seen and wanted by another soul, the loss of it was like losing a limb he hadn’t known he possessed.

Maybe in another lifetime, he thought, and yeah that hurt, the words echoing in the empty garden like a prayer….or a curse. Either fit.

👻

Two years.

It has been Two years since Harry had driven away with tears streaming down his face. Two years of absolute, crushing silence.

Not once had either Gemma or Harry returned. Not even to check on the property, to see if the boards had fallen or if vandals had broken in. Nothing . It was as if Harry Styles had never existed, had never filled these rooms with laughter and warmth and the kind of companionship Louis had thought was lost to him forever.

The isolation ate at Louis. Days blended into weeks, weeks into months, until time became meaningless. He’d stopped manifesting entirely for stretches, existing as nothing more than consciousness floating through familiar spaces. Sometimes he’d forget he’d ever been human at all, forget that he’d once had a body that could touch and be touched, a heart that could beat with something other than spectral longing.

But it was the anger that finally broke him.

Not at Harry. Never at Harry. Louis understood why he’d left, why Gemma had refused to bring him back. They were protecting him from something dangerous, something that had nearly destroyed him the first time. Louis couldn’t fault them for that, even if it felt like having his soul torn out through his ribs.

No, the rage was directed at everything else. At life itself for being so bloody unfair. At death for trapping him in this liminal space between worlds. At the universe for dangling the possibility of connection in front of him only to snatch it away the moment he’d dared to hope.

At karma, most of all.

Because that’s what this had to be, didn’t it? Some cosmic punishment for whatever he’d done wrong with Elias. Maybe if he’d been stronger, smarter, less naive, he could have saved them both. Maybe if he’d seen the signs earlier, recognised the darkness creeping into the man he’d loved, none of this would have happened.

Maybe he deserved to suffer for eternity. Maybe this was justice.

The dark entity that had terrorised Harry seemed to have vanished completely after his departure, as if it had only existed in response to Harry’s presence. Without a living soul to feed on, it had retreated back to whatever hellish dimension it had crawled from. Even the malevolent force had abandoned him.

Louis existed in a state of furious, impotent grief that grew more toxic with each passing day. He raged at empty rooms, screamed at boarded windows, poured his anguish into the walls until the very foundation seemed to tremble with his pain.

And then, on a grey Tuesday afternoon that felt identical to every other day in the past two years, something inside Louis finally snapped.

The thought came to him with startling clarity. If he was going to be trapped here forever, if he was doomed to relive his failures for eternity, then he might as well understand exactly what those failures were.

For as long as he could remember, he’d avoided the basement. The place where everything had gone wrong, where his mortal life had ended in fire and screaming. But what was the point of avoiding it now? What did he have left to lose?

The basement door stood at the end of the hallway like a mouth waiting to swallow him whole. Louis had walked past it thousands of times, and had felt its malevolent pull, a constant calling at the edge of his consciousness. Now he stopped in front of it, his hand hovering over the tarnished brass handle.

The wood looked older than it should, darker, as if it had absorbed decades of fear and pain. Strange symbols were carved into the frame, so faint they were almost invisible unless you knew how to look. Now he traced their outline with his finger, feeling a sick recognition settle in his stomach.

The handle turned with surprising ease, as if it had been waiting for him.

The stairs descended into absolute darkness, each step creaking under weight that shouldn’t exist. He could have just floated through the walls, but what’s life without some dramatics? The air grew colder as Louis descended, and not the pleasant chill of his usual manifestations. This was the type of cold that represented graves, of spaces that had never known sunlight or warmth or hope.

The basement was larger than Louis remembered, stretching far beyond what should have been possible given the house’s footprint. Stone walls wept with moisture that might not have been water. The ceiling disappeared into dark tones, giving the impression of descending into a vast cavern rather than a simple cellar.

But for all its ominous atmosphere, the space looked surprisingly… normal.

An old washing machine sat against one wall, its white enamel surface spotted with rust. Wooden shelves held canning jars filled with preserves that had turned black with age. Cobwebs draped themselves across forgotten furniture like funeral shrouds, and the floor was thick with dust that showed no footprints, no sign that anyone had been down here in decades.

Louis moved through the space cautiously, expecting at any moment for the horrors of his memory to surface. But there was nothing. Just the detritus of ordinary domestic life, abandoned and forgotten. He was beginning to wonder if his memories had been wrong, if trauma had distorted the truth of what had happened here, when his foot caught on something partially buried beneath a pile of moth eaten curtains.

Louis knelt and brushed away the fabric, revealing a wooden crate filled with what appeared to be old documents. Most were too damaged to read, but at the bottom, wrapped in oiled cloth as if someone had taken great care to preserve it, was the journal!

Not his journal. This one was bound in black leather, its pages thick with age but surprisingly well preserved. On the cover, embroidered in faded gold lettering, was a name that made Louis’ blood turn to ice.

Elias Whitmore.

Louis gasped, the sound echoing strangely in the enclosed space. His hands shook as he lifted the journal, half expecting it to burst into flames at his touch. But it remained solid and real, a torturous link to the past he’d spent over a century trying to forget.

How had it come to rest here, after all these years? Had someone hidden it deliberately, or had it been lost in the chaos that followed that night, forgotten in the rush of survival? And why now, of all moments, did it surface for Louis to find, as if waiting for him alone?

The questions multiplied in his mind, but underneath them all was a deeper, more terrifying possibility.

Maybe he was meant to find it? Maybe this was part of whatever cosmic punishment he’d been enduring, the next phase of his eternal torment. Or maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe it was time he finally learned the truth about what had happened between Elias and him, about the ritual that had gone wrong, about why he’d been trapped in this house while Elias had simply… disappeared.

Louis clutched the journal to his chest and shot back upstairs with more speed than he’d used in months. The study called to him, that familiar space where Harry had spent so many hours reading Louis’ own words, trying to piece together the mystery of his death.

Now it was Louis’ turn.

He settled into the chair Harry had always used, positioned the desk lamp exactly as Harry had positioned it, and opened Elias’ journal with hands that barely trembled. If he was going to do this, if he was finally going to confront the truth of his past, then he would do it properly. He would follow the same path Harry had walked, read the same kind of desperate words Harry had read.

Maybe, in some small pathetic way, it would bring Harry closer to him again.

The first page was dated just three months before Louis’ death, written in Elias’ familiar handwriting. But even from the first few words, Louis could see that something had been wrong, terribly wrong, long before he’d realised it.

“ I found the book today. Hidden in Father’s study, locked away like the secret it is. The Ritual of Eternal Binding. At first I thought it was just another of his occult curiosities, the kind of thing wealthy men collect to feel important. But the more I read, the more I understood. It said words like, This is real. This is possible. And Louis is perfect for it.“

Louis’ heart clenched. Even in those first lines, he could see the seeds of what would come. Elias hadn’t stumbled into darkness by accident. He’d sought it out, deliberately, with Louis already in mind as the key to whatever he’d hoped to achieve.

The entries continued, each one revealing another layer of calculation, another step in a plan Louis had been blind to until it was far too late.

“The ritual requires a willing sacrifice, but not in the way most people would understand. It’s not about death, exactly. It’s about binding. One soul anchors itself to this world through the complete possession of another. The consumed soul becomes a battery, if you will, feeding power to the survivor for eternity. Louis loves me. He would do anything for me. He’s told me as much a hundred times. He just doesn’t need to know exactly what he’s agreeing to.”

Louis felt sick. The casual way Elias wrote about betrayal, about using Louis’ love as a weapon against him, made his ghostly form flicker with rage. He’d known Elias had changed, had become something darker in those final weeks, but to see it laid out so coldly, so deliberately from the very beginning.

“I’ve been testing the boundaries of the ritual for weeks now. Small things at first. Making Louis forget conversations we’ve had. Influencing his dreams. It’s remarkably easy once you know how to access the connection love creates. He trusts me so completely that his mind barely resists. The townspeople are already under my influence. Father helped with that, though he doesn’t realise the full extent of what he’s facilitated. He thinks this is about business connections, about securing the family’s position in the community. He has no idea I’m preparing to transcend mortality itself. Soon, my darling Louis. Soon you’ll help me become something magnificent.”

Each page made Louis feel more nauseated, more horrified by his own naivety. He’d thought he was losing his mind in those final weeks, had questioned his own memories and perceptions because the man he loved had convinced him he was going mad. The gaslighting had been systematic, deliberate, designed to make Louis more susceptible to whatever Elias had planned.

“The fire will be the culmination. Not just any fire, but one fed by the deepest emotions. Love, betrayal, terror, desperation. The flames will burn away everything mortal, leaving only the eternal essence. Louis’ soul will be consumed to fuel my transformation, and I will emerge as something beyond human limitations. I almost pity him. He still looks at me with such devotion, such complete trust. Even as I prepare to destroy him, he loves me with everything he has. It would be touching if it weren’t so useful. The basement is ready. The symbols are carved. The altar has been consecrated with the blood of smaller sacrifices. Everything is in place. Tomorrow night, Louis will help me become immortal. And he’ll do it willingly, right up until the moment he realises what’s really happening.”

Louis slammed the journal shut, unable to read another word. His entire relationship with Elias had been a lie, a manipulation designed to groom him for destruction. Every tender moment, every whispered promise, every declaration of love had been a calculated move in a game Louis hadn’t even known he was playing.

The worst part was knowing how perfectly it had worked. Louis had walked into that basement willingly, and had believed until the very end that Elias loved him. Even as the flames started, even as he’d realised something was terribly wrong, part of him had still hoped it was all a mistake, that Elias would save him.

But Elias hadn’t been trying to save him. Elias had been trying to consume him.

Louis picked up the journal again, hands shaking with fury and disgust. There were only a few pages left. He needed to know how it ended, needed to understand why the ritual had failed, why he was still trapped here instead of having been devoured completely.

“The ritual has failed. Something went wrong at the crucial moment. Louis burned, yes, but his soul didn’t transfer to me as it should have. Instead, we’re both trapped, we’re both bound to this place but separately. I can feel him here, I can sense his presence, but I cannot reach him. I cannot claim what should be mine. I don’t understand what went wrong. The preparations were perfect. Every symbol correctly carved. Every word of the incantation spoken precisely as the book instructed.

Unless…

The book mentioned something about true soulmates, about bonds that even transcend magical manipulation. It claimed that such connections were nearly impossible to break, that the ritual would fail if attempted on souls that were genuinely meant to be together. But that’s ridiculous. I chose Louis precisely because he loved me so completely. How could he be bound to someone else? Unless the book doesn’t mean romantic love. Unless it means something deeper, something that exists beyond conscious choice or even conscious awareness. If Louis’ soul is bound to another, if his true match exists somewhere in the world, then the ritual would indeed fail. His soul would resist consumption because it belongs to someone else entirely. True love is the answer to destroying everything? How infuriating. How perfectly, cosmically unfair.“

Louis stared at the page, pieces of a puzzle clicking into place with devastating clarity. The ritual had failed not because Elias had made a mistake, but because Louis’ soul had been protecting itself. Because somewhere in the world, his true match existed, and his essence had refused to be consumed by an inferior connection.

Which meant…

“Thank fuck Harry didn’t see this.”

Harry’s obsession with the ritual, his descent into madness while reading about Louis’ death, made so much more sense now. If Harry had read these entries, if he’d seen the casual cruelty with which Elias had planned Louis’ destruction, it would have destroyed him completely.

Louis was about to close the journal when his eyes caught the final entry, written in handwriting so shaky it was barely legible.

“ I found a way. After decades of research, of searching through every occult text I could find, I’ve discovered how to undo the binding. How to complete what was started that night. The original soul match must be brought to the place of power. Must be made to understand their connection to the trapped soul. And then, with their willing participation, the transfer can be completed. The true soulmate’s love will lower all defenses. Their presence will make the trapped soul vulnerable in ways the original ritual couldn’t achieve. All I need is to bring them here…And complete it.“

Louis dropped the journal as if it had burst into flames. Those final words seemed to burn themselves into his vision, their implication so horrifying he could barely process it.

The dark entity that had tormented Harry. The supernatural incidents that had grown stronger the longer Harry stayed in the house. The way Harry had become obsessed with the journal, had lost time and suffered nosebleeds and experienced all the same symptoms Louis himself had endured in those final weeks with Elias.

It hadn’t been trying to scare Harry away.

It had been trying to complete the ritual.

Louis, bound by a fate he couldn’t escape, had fallen for Harry with a force that ignored caution, and in letting their connection grow, he had unknowingly walked straight into its grasp.

👻

Miles away, Harry drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, exhaustion weighing down his shoulders. The drive had taken longer than expected, traffic and construction delays turning what should have been a manageable journey into an endurance test. He’d been driving for nearly eight hours, stopping only for gas and coffee. His eyes felt gritty with fatigue, his back ached from sitting in the car, and his hands had gone slightly numb from gripping the wheel too tightly.

But underneath the physical exhaustion, nervous energy lay where it had been building for weeks, ever since he’d made the decision that had led him here. His stomach churned with anxiety and anticipation in equal measure, his mind cycling through all the ways this could go wrong, all the reasons he should turn around and go back to the safety of Gemma’s house.

He pulled over to the side of the road, hazard lights blinking as traffic rushed past. The phone felt heavy in his hands as he scrolled to Gemma’s contact, fingers hesitating over her name before finally typing out a message.

“Almost there. Stop worrying.”

The phone buzzed almost immediately with an incoming call. Gemma’s name flashed on the screen, and Harry sighed before accepting.

“Harry,” her voice was tight. “You don’t have to do this. You could still come home. We could figure out another way.”

“There is no other way, Gem.”

Harry rubbed his free hand across his face, feeling the stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning.

“You know there isn’t.”

“This is dangerous. After everything that happened before, after how sick you got…” Gemma’s voice cracked slightly. “I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t lose me.”

Harry tried to inject more confidence into his voice than he actually felt.

“I’m stronger now. I understand what I’m dealing with.”

“Do you? Because from where I’m sitting, this looks exactly like what happened two years ago. You’re obsessing again, Harry. You’re putting yourself in danger for something that might not even be possible.”

Harry was quiet for a long moment, watching cars blur past in his peripheral vision. She wasn’t wrong. The past few months had felt disturbingly similar to his original descent into madness, the way thoughts of Louis had consumed his waking hours, the way he’d thrown himself into research with single minded determination.

But this time was different. This time he had a plan.

“I need to do this by myself,” he said finally. “But I promise I’ll call if anything goes bad. If I feel like I’m losing control, if things start getting dangerous, I’ll leave immediately.”

“And if you can’t call? If something happens to you before you have the chance?”

Harry didn’t have a good answer for that. They both knew that supernatural forces didn’t always play by rules that allowed for phone calls and escape plans.

“Then you’ll know I died trying to save someone I love,” Harry said quietly.

Gemma was silent for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was thick with unshed tears. “I hate this. I hate all of it.”

“I know. But Gem… What if it works? What if I can actually help him find peace?”

“And what if it kills you in the process?”

Harry closed his eyes, feeling the weight of that possibility settle in his chest.

“Then at least I’ll have tried.”

They talked for a few more minutes, Gemma extracting promises and contingency plans that they both knew might prove useless when supernatural forces were involved. Finally, reluctantly, she let him go with a reminder to call her in exactly twenty four hours, regardless of what happens.

Harry tucked the phone away and pulled back onto the road, the familiar knot of anxiety tightening in his stomach as his destination grew closer. The GPS indicated only fifteen more minutes to his final turn, fifteen more minutes before he’d have to face whatever waited for him.

The landscape had grown more rural over the past hour, rolling hills giving way to dense forests and occasional farmhouses. This part of the country felt older, steeped in history and secrets that modern development hadn’t quite managed to scrub away.

When he finally turned onto the narrow lane that led to his destination, Harry’s heart was pounding so hard he could hear it over the engine noise. The driveway was longer than he’d expected, winding through tall trees that blocked out most of the afternoon sunlight.

Harry’s car crunched along the pristine gravel driveway, past manicured gardens that seemed to glow even in the evening light. The grand Victorian mansion rose before him, its ornate windows gleaming like watching eyes, every detail perfectly maintained.

He parked and sat in the car for a long moment, gathering his courage. Everything he’d worked towards for the past two years had led to this moment, this conversation he wasn’t sure he was ready to have.

But he’d come too far to turn back now.

The brass knocker was polished to a mirror shine, and Harry hesitated before it, his reflection distorted and strange in its surface. He raised his hand, hesitated for one final moment, but before his knuckles could make contact with the metal, the heavy oak door swung open.

There stood the woman who looked exactly as he’d remembered her, though perhaps a bit frailer around the edges. Her hair was pulled back in that neat bun, and her sharp eyes studied him with the same penetrating intelligence that had unnerved him two years ago.

“Hello, Flossie.”

She stood framed in the doorway like a portrait, her hair perfectly coiffed, wearing an elegant dress. Yet despite the obvious wealth surrounding her, those pale, knowing eyes held the same unsettling quality he remembered. She looked as though she’d been standing there for hours, waiting for his arrival.

“Come in then,”

She stepped aside with fluid grace. Her voice carried that same mysterious quality from their previous encounter, like she held secrets that could unravel the very fabric of reality.

Harry hesitated on the threshold, his palms sweating despite the cool evening air. There was something about Flossie that made his skin crawl, an otherworldly knowing in her pale eyes that seemed to see straight through him. But his desperation for answers outweighed his unease.

“Thank you,” he managed, stepping into the dimly lit interior.

The mansion’s interior was breathtaking, all crystal chandeliers and silk wallpaper, antique furniture that probably belonged in museums. Yet despite the opulence, shadows seemed to move independently of their sources, the air thick with the scent of expensive perfume and something else he couldn’t quite identify. Flossie moved with grace, her heels clicking softly against the marble floors as she led him through hallways lined with oil paintings towards an elegant sitting room.

“Sit,” she commanded, not asked, gesturing to a plush velvet armchair.

Harry’s hands trembled slightly as he sank into the luxurious seat. Everything about this woman and her surroundings set his nerves on edge. The wealth was overwhelming, yet there was something ancient and knowing in her eyes that made him more nervous. The disconnect between her obvious fortune and the supernatural knowledge she possessed was deeply unsettling. But he needed answers. About Louis. About everything.

“What brings you here, dear?”

Flossie gently moved towards the tea she’d already prepared in a fancy tea set on a side table, even though her tone suggested she already knew the answer. Fine china clinked softly as she elegantly poured the tea, each movement precise and refined.

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it again, the words sticking in his throat. How could he possibly explain the turmoil inside him? The confusion, the longing, the way Louis had consumed his thoughts since he’d fled?

The silence stretched between them, heavy and expectant. Flossie’s knowing gaze never left him as she poured the steaming liquid into delicate china cups worth more than Harry’s monthly rent, the steaming tea catching the light from the crystal chandelier overhead like liquid gold.

She nodded slowly, as though his silence had told her everything she needed to know.

“Oh, I see. You fell in love with Louis didn’t you.”

Harry’s head snapped up, his eyes wide with shock and something close to panic.

“How did you know that?”

The cup rattled against its saucer as his hands shook. He hadn’t told anyone besides Gemma. Hell, he’d barely admitted it to himself until this very moment. Yet this strange old woman had seen through him as easily as reading an open book.

Flossie’s perfectly painted lips curved into a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, an expression both knowing and slightly predatory. Despite her elegant appearance and obvious wealth, there was something deeply unsettling about her, something that made Harry’s instincts scream danger even as his desperation for answers kept him rooted to the spot.

“It’s common knowledge, dear. Everyone falls in love with my uncle.”

Harry frowned. Everyone?

“What brought you here tonight?” she continued, settling into the chair across from him with fluid grace. “Was it Elias?”

The name sent a chill down Harry’s spine. How did she seem to know about everything?

Harry nodded slowly, his throat dry despite the warm tea.

“I need to know what to do.”

Flossie’s smile stretched, precise and almost unnerving.

“Yes,” she said, simply. “I expect you do.”

They spoke for hours, the conversation winding through plans, questions, and confessions, filling the sitting room with a gravity that made the ornate furniture and heavy curtains feel less like decoration and more like witnesses.

Flossie’ voice filled the room as she carefully explained their family’s complex history, her words weaving a web of connections Harry had never imagined. She spoke of bloodlines and legacies, of gifts passed down through generations like curses disguised as blessings, all while surrounded by the trappings of immense wealth that somehow made her revelations even more unsettling.

She told Harry everything she knew about Louis. About his mortal life, filled with passion and creativity, cut brutally short by circumstances beyond his control. About the women and men who had loved him, been consumed by him, destroyed by their devotion to someone who could never truly be theirs. About the supernatural forces that had bound his spirit to the earthly realm, trapping him in an existence between life and death.

Harry learned about his own lineage, about ancestors he’d never known existed, about the strange twist of fate that had brought him to Louis in the first place. Not the house, as he’d assumed, but something far more complex and binding. Flossie spoke of family secrets buried beneath layers of time and denial, and the supernatural sensitivity that ran in their blood.

She explained how their families had been intertwined for centuries, bound by love and loss, by tragedy and hope. How Harry’s arrival hadn’t been coincidence but destiny, written in bloodlines and carved into the very fabric of their shared history.

The revelations overwhelmed Harry. Each new piece of information shifted his understanding of everything he thought he knew about himself, about Louis, about the inexplicable pull that had drawn him to the supernatural world he’d stumbled into. Hours passed quickly, the house growing darker around them while Flossie’s voice continued its hypnotic cadence.

He learned about Louis’ previous lovers, mortals who had been consumed by their impossible devotion, driven to madness or death by their love for someone who was already cosmically claimed. He discovered the rituals and rites that could potentially free a spirit, though Flossie’s warnings about the costs and consequences made his blood run cold.

As the night deepened around the mansion’s glittering windows, Harry felt as though he were drowning in information, in possibilities, in the terrifying scope of what loving Louis truly meant. The supernatural world Flossie described was vast and dangerous, filled with rules he didn’t understand and prices he wasn’t sure he was prepared to pay. The contrast between her obvious wealth and the dark knowledge she possessed made everything feel even more surreal.

Finally, hours after their conversation had begun, the weight of it all became too much.

“I cannot believe this. I have to go.”

Harry bolted up from his chair, his heart racing, and ran towards the front door. He needed air, needed space, needed time to process everything Flossie had revealed.

“Harry, be careful!” she called after him, a warning.

But Harry had already spun around, his emotions overwhelming his fear of the strange woman. He rushed back to wrap Flossie in a fierce hug, her frail frame surprisingly solid beneath his arms.

“I cannot thank you enough,” he whispered against her shoulder.

Flossie smiled, her hand patting his back with the gentle touch of someone who had guided many lost souls through similar revelations. When she spoke, her voice carried the weight of prophecy.

“Go get him, tiger..”

Harry pulled back, meeting her pale eyes one last time. There was something ancient in her gaze, something that had seen centuries of love stories unfold, both beautiful and tragic. He turned and headed to his car, his hands shaking as he fumbled with the keys.

His mind raced with everything Flossie had told him as he started the engine. The supernatural tie that bound him to Louis’ world. The family history that made their connection inevitable. The terrible and wonderful truth about what it meant to love a ghost.

As he pulled away, Harry turned the wheel towards the one place he thought he would never return. The estate where it all began. Where Louis waited, trapped between worlds, unaware that Harry now understood the full scope of what they meant to each other.

The place where everything had started, and where, perhaps, everything could finally be resolved.

Chapter 8

The estate felt different without Harry’s presence. The rooms that had once buzzed with the electricity of their connection now stood with hollow emptiness, each small sound seeming to mock Louis’ in every way. He drifted through the corridors like smoke, his translucent form flickering with sadness.

Days had passed since Harry had left, or perhaps it was weeks, months, even years! Time meant nothing to the dead, especially when eternity stretched endlessly ahead with no hope of reprieve. Louis had stopped counting the sunrises and sunsets, and he most certainly stopped listening for the sound of footsteps that would never come.

He had given up.

He had accepted that there would be no rescue, no salvation, no happy ending to this nightmare that had become his existence. Harry was gone, and with him, any chance Louis had of finding peace. Without Harry, he had nothing. Less than nothing. He was a shell, a remnant, a ghost trapped in the cruel space between life and death with no purpose except to suffer. The brief glimpse of happiness Harry had offered only made the darkness that followed more unbearable.

Louis found himself in the library, surrounded by books he could no longer even look at, their pages as intangible to him as everything else in this cursed realm. Memories of the life he once held crashed over him in waves now, no longer held at bay by hope or distraction. They came with the clarity of yesterday, each detail sharp enough to cut. They just kept coming, every hour a new memory.

He could see it all as if he were still living it. The warmth of Elias’ hand in his own as they walked through the gardens of their family estate. The way sunlight caught in Elias’ dark hair, making it shine like polished mahogany. The sound of his laughter echoing through rooms that had once been filled with joy instead of shadows.

“Stop.” he would beg.

Their childhood had been perfect, unmarred by the event that would later consume them both. Two boys growing up together, sharing secrets and dreams, their bond deeper than brotherhood, or so Louis had thought. Louis remembered the exact moment he’d realised his feelings for Elias had grown beyond friendship, the terrifying and wonderful recognition that what he felt was love in its purest, most consuming form.

But even those golden memories were tainted now by what came after.

The lies, the deceit, the fire. God, the fire.

Louis pressed his hands to his temples, trying to block out the images that tormented him nightly. The orange flames in the basement. The acrid smoke that filled his lungs as he tried to fight his way out. The cheers that had fallen. The sickening crack of wood and plaster. The moment everything had gone dark.

He could still feel the heat against his skin, still taste the ash in his mouth. Still hear Elias screaming his name as the flames consumed him. The memory played on an endless loop, each repetition as fresh and agonising as the first.

Was that creature in the basement Elias?

The thought now haunted him, growing stronger with each passing day. The thing that whispered from the shadows, that called to him with promises of release, sometimes its voice carried an echo of something familiar. Something beloved and twisted beyond recognition. Louis wasn’t sure anymore and perhaps it didn’t matter. Whether it was Elias or some other demon feeding on his despair, the result was the same. He was trapped, tormented by memories of a life cut short and a love that literally couldn’t bloom.

Eternity pressed on, crushing what remained of his spirit. He thought of Harry, probably miles away by now, living his life free from the supernatural nightmare that Louis represented. It was better this way. Harry deserved happiness, deserved love that wouldn’t drag him down into darkness and madness.

But the knowledge that he’d lost his one chance at redemption, at connection, at something resembling peace, was more than Louis could bear. The pain was beyond physical, beyond emotional. It was a spiritual agony that reached into the very core of what he’d once been, shredding the last vestiges of hope he’d clung to.

He couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t spend eternity reliving his failures, his losses, his guilt. Couldn’t endure another century of watching the world change around him while he remained frozen in his moment of tragedy. The memories of Elias, of his old home, the fire and the mere thought that he lost everything he’d ever loved, they had to stop, the memories had to stop. They were killing him by inches, if a ghost could be said to die twice.

And Harry. Sweet, beautiful Harry who had offered him a glimpse of what love could be in this half life. The memory of Harry’s touch, his laughter, the way he’d looked at Louis as if he were something precious instead of cursed, was perhaps the cruelest torture of all. He wanted it all gone. Every memory, every feeling, every scrap of identity that made him who he was. If he couldn’t have peace, at least he could have oblivion.

“I can’t do this anymore,” He whispered into the empty library, his voice barely more than a breath of wind through the dusty air. “I surrender.”

There was nothing but silence for a moment, heavy with finality. Then Louis raised his voice, calling out to whatever force had kept him trapped there for so long.

“DO YOU HEAR ME?” he shouted, his form flickering with force. “I surrender! I give up! I can’t fight anymore! TAKE ME!”

His voice rang loud through the corridors, bouncing off walls that had witnessed decades of his suffering. “I want it to be over! All of it! The memories, the pain, the endless waiting for something that will never come. Take it all!”

Tears that couldn’t fall, burned behind his eyes.

“I want to forget everything. Forget Elias, forget the fire, forget what I was and what I can never be again… Forget Harry!”

The last word came out as a broken sob. Even as he spoke it, Louis felt something inside him shatter. To forget Harry meant to lose the only light he’d found in years of darkness. But keeping the memory was too painful, like holding burning coals in his hands.

“Please,” he begged. “Just make it stop. Make me stop. I don’t want to exist anymore. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to feel. I just want it all to end.”

The silence that followed was deafening. For a moment, Louis wondered if even the forces that tormented him had abandoned him to his misery. Then the temperature in the room plummeted, frost forming on the windows in spiralling patterns that looked almost like screaming faces.

The shadows in the corners began to move, coalescing into something that was more absence than presence, a void in the shape of something that might once have been human. The figure was so complete it seemed to devour light itself, creating a pocket of nothingness that hurt to look at directly.

“Good choice,” it said, and its voice was every nightmare Louis had ever dreamed. It was the crackling of flames and the groaning of burning wood. It was Elias’ harsh words and his own dying breath mingled. It was the whispered promises of relief that had haunted his dreams for decades. It was everything, every sad, hurtful, heart breaking memory contorted into one nasty figure.

Louis felt a moment of pure terror as he realised what he’d done. This thing, whatever it was, had been waiting for this moment. Waiting for him to break completely, to give up the last of his resistance.

But it was too late for regrets. Too late for anything except the inevitable.

It surged forward with inhuman speed, and Louis felt something grab his legs with a grip like ice and iron. The sensation was shocking in its density, the first truly physical contact he’d experienced since his death. Cold shot through his ghostly form like lightning, and he realised with horror that whatever this thing was, it could touch him in ways nothing else could.

“No, wait,” Louis gasped, panic overriding his despair as the reality of what was happening hit him. “I changed my mind. l take it back!”

But the creature’s laughter was like breaking glass, sharp and merciless.

“Too late for that now, Louis. You called out to me. You surrendered. There are no take backs in deals with the damned.”

The grip on his legs tightened, and Louis felt himself being dragged across the library floor. Books scattered in his wake, their pages fluttering as a supernatural wind whipped through the room. The carefully ordered shelves collapsed as the spirit pulled him through them, centuries of knowledge reduced to scattered paper and broken wood.

“Stop!”

He clawed desperately at the floorboards. But his hands found no grip, no salvation.

“Please, I was wrong! I want to remember! I want to feel! I want to exist!”

The creature’s grip was relentless, dragging him towards the door with inexorable force. Louis’ screams echoed through the house as he was pulled from the library into the hallway, his form leaving trails of ectoplasmic light that faded as quickly as they appeared.

“Harry!”

The name tore out of him raw and breaking. It was a plea thrown into nothing, even though he knew Harry was gone, far beyond reach.

“Harry, help me! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please… please forgive me.”

The words collapsed over each other, frantic and useless. He said them anyway. He kept saying them, like repetition might bridge the miles, like regret might travel further than he could.

Nothing answered. No footsteps. No voice. No miracle.

There was only the darkness left pressing in, swallowing the sound of him until even his own echo faded. The basement door, which had remained sealed, burst open with a sound like thunder. The staircase beyond was lost in shadows so deep they seemed solid, and the smell that rose from the depths was decay and sulphur and something far worse.

“Welcome home, Louis,”

The creature hissed as it dragged him towards the opening.

“You’ve kept me waiting so long. But patience is a virtue when you have all of eternity.”

Louis’ screams reached a pitch that would have shattered glass if there had been anyone alive to hear them. He fought with every ounce of strength his ghostly form possessed, but it was useless against the thing that had finally answered his call for release.

The basement swallowed him whole, his cries echoing up from the depths before being cut off abruptly as the door slammed shut with the finality of a coffin lid. The sound reverberated through the house, and then there was only….. silence.

Louis was gone, dragged down into whatever hell had been waiting for him in the darkness below. His surrender was complete, his fate sealed by his own desperate words.

Dust motes floated in the evening moonlight that slanted through the cracked panels, and somewhere in the distance, a clock continued its endless ticking. But Louis Tomlinson, who had haunted these halls for decades, who had found and lost love in the space of a few precious months, was gone. Dragged into the depths by the very darkness he had finally invited in, his last coherent thought was a desperate wish that Harry would somehow, impossibly, forgive him for giving up.

👻

The headlights of Harry’s car cut through the darkness as he approached the familiar iron gates, their ornate metalwork now twisted with dead vines and rust. The gardens beyond looked exactly as they had when he’d first brought this place, wild and overgrown, shadows lurking between gnarled trees that reached towards the night sky like skeletal fingers. Death clung to everything here, as if the very earth had been poisoned by whatever darkness resided within these grounds.

The gates groaned open with a sound like grinding bones, and he drove through slowly, his heart hammering with each metre closer to the house.

He killed the engine but didn’t get out. The car ticked softly as it cooled, the only sound in the otherwise empty drive. The house loomed through the windscreen, unchanged, and waiting.

He had made it all this way and now he couldn’t open the door.

He sat staring at the front door, knowing what was inside. Knowing who was inside.

His hands stayed on the steering wheel, fingers tightening against the worn leather until his knuckles paled. Every memory tied to that front door rose up at once, crowding his head. He swallowed hard, blinking against the sting in his eyes, and finally let go of the wheel.

His hand dipped into his pocket for his phone. He almost dropped it when he pulled it free. The screen lit up brightly. He scrolled to Gemma’s name with unsteady fingers, gathering what little resolve he had left. Then he pressed the call button. . The call went straight to voicemail.

“Gemma,”

His voice cracked slightly as he stared up at the boarded windows of the estate.

“It’s me. I’m… I’m back at the house, where Louis…” He swallowed hard, the words sticking in his throat. “Look, I know you’re probably asleep, but I needed someone to know where I am. Just in case something happens. I’m going to try to make this right. I have to try. I love you.”

He ended the call and sat in the suffocating silence of his car, watching the house that had once been both paradise and hell. The boards covering the windows made it look like a corpse with coins over its eyes, and Harry felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. Taking a shuddering breath, he forced himself to drive the rest of the way to the front entrance. Each heartbeat felt like a drum in his chest, loud enough that he was sure anyone within miles could hear it. But there was no one here. No one alive, anyway.

He parked and sat for another moment, his keys biting into his palm where he gripped them too tightly. The estate loomed over him, dark and silent and somehow disapproving. Harry had hoped that coming back would feel like coming home, but instead it felt like walking into a tomb. The front door was boarded up too, heavy planks of wood nailed across what had once been a beautiful entrance. Harry stared at them with a mixture of anger and heartbreak. This place had been magnificent once, alive with possibility and Louis’ laughter. Now it looked abandoned, forgotten, left to rot like everything else Harry had touched.

But as he stood there, keys still clutched in his white knuckled fist, something else struck him. Something that made his blood turn to ice in his veins.

He couldn’t sense Louis….at all.

It hit him then, stealing the air from his lungs and making his vision swarm. When he’d lived here before, Louis’ presence had been constant, a warm buzz at the edge of his consciousness, a feeling of being watched and cherished and never truly alone. Even when Louis wasn’t visible, Harry had always known he was there.

Now there was nothing. Just empty silence and the smell of decay.

Panic clawed at Harry’s throat, threatening to overwhelm him entirely. Was he too late? Had Louis finally found a way to move on, to leave this place and Harry’s memory behind? The thought was both devastating and somehow better than the alternative, because at least if Louis was gone, he was free…right?

But then Harry remembered what he’d learned in the years since he’d fled this place. The countless hours he’d spent buried in research, desperate to understand what he’d experienced, what he’d lost, what he might still be able to save.

After Gemma and his mother had dragged him away, kicking and screaming about ghosts and hallucinations, Harry had thrown himself into studying everything he could find about the spiritual realm. Books on hauntings and exorcisms, academic papers on paranormal phenomena, ancient texts about the barriers between life and death. He’d learned about the different types of spirits, about what kept them bound to the earthly plane, about the delicate balance between the world of the living and the dead.

He’d discovered that his ability to see and interact with Louis wasn’t madness or imagination, but a rare gift that ran in certain bloodlines. A sensitivity to the supernatural that allowed him to bridge the gap between worlds in ways most people never could. Flossie’s words tonight had confirmed what years of research had already taught him: he wasn’t crazy, and what he’d shared with Louis had been real.

More importantly, he’d learned about the signs of a spirit in distress, about what happened when ghosts were pulled deeper into the darkness of the afterlife. The sudden absence of presence, the way the very air seemed to thicken with dread, the feeling of something fundamentally wrong that made living beings instinctively want to flee.

Harry forced himself to breathe, to think, to remember everything he’d studied. Louis’ absence didn’t necessarily mean he was gone. It could mean he was trapped, pulled down into whatever hellish realm existed beneath the veil between worlds. And if that was the case, then Harry might still be able to reach him.

He had to try.

Harry found the side entrance, the boards there looser and easier to move. His hands shook as he pried them away, splinters digging into his palms until blood ran down his wrists. The pain was almost welcome, a sharp reminder that he was alive, that he was here, that he still had a chance to make things right.

The door opened with a groan of protest, and Harry was immediately hit with a wall of stale air that made his skin crawl. He coughed violently, his lungs rejecting the atmosphere that filled the house. But he pushed forward anyway, pulling out his phone and using its flashlight to illuminate the familiar hallways. Every step sent up clouds of dust that danced in the beam of light like tiny spirits.

The memories hit him as soon as he crossed the threshold. Not specific moments, but the emotional attachment of everything this place had meant to him. The joy of those first days when Louis had revealed himself, shy and beautiful and impossibly real. The growing love that had bloomed between them like flowers in spring. The passion that had consumed them both, desperate and hungry and perfect in its intensity.

And then the fear. The doubt. The voices of his family telling him he was losing his mind, that he was sick, that he needed help. The way those voices had grown louder than Louis’ whispers, until Harry had stopped believing in what his heart knew to be true.

He pushed the memories down, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. The kitchen was his destination, the heart of the house where he and Louis had spent so many hours just talking, just being together. If Louis was anywhere, if any trace of his presence remained, it would be there.

But as Harry stepped through the kitchen doorway, his heart dropped. A wave of sadness so profound, so absolute, that it drove him to his knees on the dirty floor. It wasn’t his own emotion, he realised through the haze of pain that clouded his vision. It was an echo, a psychic imprint left behind by someone else’s despair.

Louis’ despair.

Harry doubled over, clutching his chest as the ghost of Louis’ final moments in this room washed over him. He could feel the hopelessness, the surrender, the terrible decision to give up everything rather than continue fighting. It was like drowning in someone else’s nightmare, and for a moment Harry thought he might be sick.

When the wave passed, leaving him gasping and shaken on the kitchen floor, Harry struggled to his feet. His whole body felt weak, drained by the psychic assault, but his resolve had only strengthened. Louis had been here. Louis had suffered here. And somehow, Louis had been taken from here.

“Louis,” He called out, “Louis, I’m here. I came back.”

Harry’s eyes filled with tears as he realised how much he’d hoped, despite everything, that Louis would simply appear. That his voice would be enough to bridge whatever gap had opened between them. But there was nothing. No shimmer of translucent form taking shape in the dusty air. No familiar voice answering his call. Just terrible and absolute silence.

“Please,” Harry whispered, tears now flowing freely down his cheeks. “I know you’re angry with me. I know you have every right to hate me for what I did. But I’m here now. I understand now. I know what we had was real, and I know I was an idiot for running away.”

Still nothing. The emptiness pressed against him from all sides, suffocating and somewhat cruel.

Harry wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, leaving streaks of dust and tears across his cheeks. Maybe Louis simply didn’t want to see him. Maybe his abandonment had been so complete, so devastating, that Louis had found a way to shut him out entirely. The thought was like a knife twisting in Harry’s chest, but he couldn’t say he didn’t deserve it.

He wandered around the ground floor aimlessly, calling Louis’ name every few minutes, hoping against hope for some sign that his presence was acknowledged. The house felt like a mausoleum, every room a shrine to what they’d lost, what Harry had thrown away in his moment of weakness and fear.

It was as he passed the basement door that everything changed.

The door stood slightly ajar, which was wrong. Harry remembered it being sealed, locked, a barrier that Louis had never wanted him to cross. Now it hung open, and from the gap came a smell that made Harry’s stomach turn. Decay and sulphur, something that belonged in nightmares rather than reality.

Harry felt his knees go weak as a wave of nausea hit. Whatever was down there, whatever had taken root in the darkness beneath the house, it was wrong on a fundamental level. His body knew it even if his mind couldn’t quite process it, every instinct screaming at him to run, to get as far away from this place as possible.

Instead, he stumbled towards the kitchen sink, his stomach heaving violently. He retched into the sink, his body rejecting not just the smell but the very presence of whatever evil lurked below. Tears streamed down his face as he gripped the edge of the sink, his whole frame shaking with the force of his body’s revulsion.

When the worst of it passed, Harry lifted his head and called out again, his voice now thick with tears and desperation.

“Louis, please. If you can hear me, if you’re anywhere in this place, please answer me. I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry for leaving you. I’m sorry for not believing, for letting them convince me I was crazy. You were the best thing that ever happened to me, and I threw it away because I was scared and stupid and weak.”

His voice completely broke as he slumped against the sink as sobs wracked his body. The house absorbed his cries without giving anything back, cold and unforgiving.

“I love you,” Harry whispered into the darkness, the words he should have said years ago, the words that might have changed everything if he’d found the courage to speak them when it mattered. “I love you, and I came back because I can’t live without you. I won’t survive losing you again. LOUIS PLEASE”

Harry began to fear that he was already too late. That whatever had opened that basement door had taken the only thing in this world that had ever truly mattered to him. But somewhere in the darkness below, something that had once been beautiful was trapped in a hell of its own making, screaming soundlessly for the man who had finally come home .

👻

Harry spent the first three days trying to convince himself that Louis had found peace. He wandered through the dust covered rooms, touching surfaces that had once held warmth, breathing air that felt stale. Perhaps Louis had finally moved on while Harry was away. Perhaps the years of torment had ended naturally, his spirit finally releasing its hold on the earthly realm to find whatever rest awaited beyond.

It would make sense, Harry told himself as he sat in the library surrounded by books that no longer rustled with unseen presence. Louis had been trapped here for decades, bound by circumstances Harry was only beginning to understand. Maybe his departure from Louis’ existence had been the final push needed to break whatever chains held his spirit to this place.

The thought should have brought comfort. If Louis had passed peacefully, if he’d found the freedom that had been denied to him for so long, then Harry’s abandonment might have served some greater purpose. His cowardice could be reframed as mercy, his weakness as an unwitting gift.

But the house wouldn’t let him maintain that fiction.

There was no sense of release here, no feeling of completion or closure that should accompany a spirit’s peaceful transition. Instead, the atmosphere grew heavier with each passing hour. Harry had researched enough during his years away to recognise the signs. When a ghost moved on naturally, they left behind a sense of resolution. Witnesses often reported feeling lighter after such a departure, as if a weight they hadn’t realised they were carrying had been lifted. The location would settle into ordinary emptiness, just another old house with nothing more supernatural about it than creaking floorboards and drafty windows.

This felt nothing like that.

The wrongness became impossible to ignore on the fourth night. Harry had been lying in the master bedroom, the same room where he’d once felt so safe wrapped in Louis’ ethereal embrace. Now the room somehow felt violated..

The scratching started just after midnight.

At first, Harry tried to dismiss it as mice or the settling of old wood. But the sound was too deliberate, too rhythmic. Something was clawing at the inside of the walls, moving through spaces that shouldn’t exist, following pathways that defied the house’s architecture. The scratching would start in one corner of the room, travel across the wall behind his head, pause directly above him, then continue to the opposite side before falling silent.

Then it would start again, the same pattern, the same desperate rhythm.

Harry pressed his ear to the wall during one of these episodes, trying to locate the source. The scratching stopped immediately, as if whatever was making it knew it was being listened to. In the silence that followed, Harry could swear he heard breathing on the other side of the plaster, shallow and pained and somehow familiar.

“Louis?” he whispered to the wall.

The breathing stopped.

Harry spent the rest of that night awake, waiting for the sounds to return. But the house had fallen into the kind of silence that felt more like suppression than peace.

The shadows started moving the next evening.

Harry was in the kitchen, heating a can of soup on the ancient stove, when he noticed movement beside him. At first he thought it was just the flickering of candlelight creating the illusion of motion. But when he turned to look directly, he saw a shadow detach itself from the corner where no shadow should have been able to form. It stretched across the floor like spilled ink, reaching towards him with fingers of darkness before suddenly snapping back to its corner as if yanked by invisible strings.

Harry dropped the spoon he’d been holding, the metal clattering against the floor with a sound that seemed to echo far longer than it should have. He stood perfectly still, watching that corner, but the shadow had resumed its ordinary behavior, falling exactly where the candlelight dictated it should.

But he’d seen it move. He was certain of that.

The whispers came on the sixth night.

Harry woke to the sound of voices so faint they might have been his imagination, might have been the wind through broken window seals or the settling of old pipes. But as he lay there in the darkness, straining to hear, the whispers grew clearer. Multiple voices, overlapping and contradictory, speaking words he couldn’t quite make out but that filled him with a dread so profound his entire body began to shake.

The voices weren’t coming from inside the house. They were coming from inside the walls themselves, as if the building had developed the ability to speak and was using that gift to share secrets too terrible for human ears. One voice rose above the others occasionally, and Harry’s heart clenched because he knew that voice. Almost Louis’ warm tones, but distorted as if filtered through water or heard from a great distance. The words were impossible to understand, but the emotion behind them was clear as day: fear, pain, and a desperate kind of pleading that made Harry want to tear the walls apart with his bare hands.

“I can hear you,”

Speaking into the darkness, he stood still and listened harder. .

“I’m here. I’m listening.”

The whispers stopped abruptly. Harry waited for what felt like hours, but the voices didn’t return. Instead, he was left with the terrible certainty that Louis hadn’t moved on at all. Something far worse had happened to him.

The evidence became undeniable as the days continued. The house was actively fighting against Harry’s presence now, resisting his attempts to make it feel like home again. Doors that had stood open for decades suddenly slammed shut when he approached them. Windows that had never latched properly now refused to open no matter how hard he pulled. The temperature fluctuated wildly from room to room, creating pockets of arctic cold that made his breath mist even on warm days.

But most disturbing were the changes to objects that Louis had once favoured.

The armchair in the library where Louis used to appear for their evening conversations had always been soft and welcoming. Now it felt wrong under Harry’s hands, the fabric rough and somehow oily, the cushions hard and rigid. When Harry tried to sit in it, the cold that seeped through his clothing was so intense it left him gasping and shivering within seconds.

The piano bench where Louis had spent hours playing melodies that existed only in his spectral memory had warped overnight, its elegant lines twisted into something that hurt to look at. The wood felt feverish to the touch, as if burning from within, and when Harry pressed the piano keys, the sounds that emerged were discordant and wrong, nothing like the beautiful music Louis had once coaxed from the instrument.

Even the books Louis had loved, the volumes Harry had often seen him reading with transparent fingers turning pages that shouldn’t have been able to move, had changed. Their bindings had cracked and split, their pages yellowed and brittle as if they had aged decades in the space of years. When Harry tried to open one of them, a book of poetry that Louis had quoted from memory, the text was completely scribbled, the words replaced by dark stains that looked disturbingly like dried blood and they weren’t his own.

Everything Louis had touched, everything that had held even the faintest impression of his presence, was being systematically erased.

Harry knew he needed answers, needed some explanation for what was happening to this place and to Louis. He began searching the house more systematically, looking for anything that might shed light on the supernatural forces at work here. He’d explored most of the main rooms during his previous stay, but there were areas he’d never investigated, spaces Louis had subtly steered him away from without explanation.

It was in a room that never got used that Harry felt it first. Not a sound, not even a draft through the cracked window, but something weighty curling in his chest, pulling him forward without his consent. His hand brushed past the lamp, the dust furred chair, until it landed on the desk.

There it sat. A book. Not Louis’ journal that he had hidden away years ago. This one was older, its cover darkened with age, corners rubbed soft. The leather looked bruised rather than bound, as if it had absorbed every secret ever pressed into its pages.

Harry hesitated. He couldn’t say why, but the room seemed to lean in with him, air thickening the longer he stared. He reached out, fingertips grazing the surface. The skin on his arm prickled instantly, like he’d stepped into a cold wind. The book shivered under him, just barely, but enough to make his stomach plummet.

The book was sitting on a desk as if someone had just been reading it, although dust covered everything else in the room. Harry’s hands shook as he opened it, partly from anticipation and partly from the way the journal seemed to radiate icy cold.

Harry sank into the chair, his back straight, hands hovering just above the journal. He stared at it, the words ominously inviting, and he swallowed hard . His heart hammered, not from fear alone, but from memory, the last time he had opened a book like this, he had been pulled into something darker than he could have imagined. The blood, the whispers, the ghostly touch of Louis lingering just beyond his grasp.

He breathed slowly trying to ground himself, but every thought spiraled inevitably back to Louis. Louis, with that impossible light in his eyes, the warmth he couldn’t have, the ghost who had haunted both his nights and his dreams. Even after all this time, he felt the pull, magnetic and unrelenting. His fingers itched to lift the cover, to know, to connect, to see everything Louis had lived through.

Yet fear swarmed the edges of his courage. What if the truth hurt too much? What if the dark corners of that life were too much for him to face again? But he was stronger now. Stronger than he had been the last time, stronger than he had ever thought. Louis had given him pieces of himself, shards of memory and touch, and Harry refused to lose that.

With a shaking hand, he rested his palm on the journal. It felt alive beneath his skin, as if it breathed in time with him. Every instinct screamed caution, every memory whispered danger, but he could not stop. He could not stop thinking about Louis. Every pulse of his heart called the ghost’s name silently. And so, with a trembling exhale, he lifted the cover just enough to peek inside, his mind spinning with anticipation, dread, and longing all at once.

The entries were written in elegant handwriting that grew increasingly erratic as the pages progressed. They detailed a love so consuming it had driven Elias to madness, a devotion to Louis that had survived death itself and twisted into something monstrous.

June 15th,

“Louis grows weaker each day since the fire. The physicians say there is nothing more to be done, but they are fools. Love like ours cannot simply end because flesh fails. I have been researching, consulting texts that most would consider blasphemous. There are ways to bind a soul, to prevent it from departing even when the body can no longer sustain it. The process must be completed while both souls are present, one willing to serve as anchor, the other as the tethered spirit. Louis need not consent. Love is consent enough. It is done. The binding is complete, though not as I intended. Louis’ soul is anchored here, but he cannot see me, cannot touch me as I can him. We exist in the same space but different planes, close enough to drive us both to madness but not close enough to find peace. I fear I have created a hell for us both.”

Harry’s blood ran cold as he continued reading. The entries that followed detailed Elias’ growing desperation as he realised what he’d done. The ritual hadn’t preserved their love; it had destroyed any possibility of happiness for either of them. Louis was trapped, alone and confused, while Elias remained equally bound but unable to make contact. He was NOT immortal as planned.

The final entries were barely readable, written in what looked more like claw marks than pen strokes:

“ The void calls to me now. I can feel it pulling at my consciousness. I am becoming something monstrous. I can feel it but there’s a part of me that…loves it? I cannot damn him. But I cannot save him either. What have I done? I have condemned an innocent soul for my own ambitions. The power I sought remains beyond reach, and Louis pays the price for my failures. When his true soulmate finally arrives, they alone will have the power to complete what I started or to damn him utterly if they prove too weak. No, I am still going to try this ritual. It will work. It will work. It will work. I must be immortal. Everyone is counting on me…Shit, Louis is dead.“

He read on and on until Harry understood with terrible clarity what had happened. Elias had eventually surrendered to the void, unable to bear the torment of his half existence any longer. But his act of surrender hadn’t freed Louis. Instead, it had left Louis vulnerable, tethered to the house but without an anchor, easy prey for whatever malevolent forces existed in waiting. And when Louis had finally reached his own breaking point, when Harry’s abandonment had pushed him to his own moment of surrender, the void had been waiting to claim him just as it had claimed Elias. Louis hadn’t passed peacefully. He’d been devoured by darkness, consumed by the same force that had taken the man who’d bound him to this existence in the first place.

But he wasn’t gone. Not entirely. The scratching in the walls, the moving shadows, the whispered pleas that sounded almost like his voice. These were fragments of Louis trying to break through from whatever hell he’d been dragged into. He was still here, still fighting, still hoping for rescue. He closed the journal with trembling hands, his mind racing. If Louis was trapped in the void but still connected to this house, there might be a way to reach him. The research Harry had done during his years away had included studies of rescue rituals, methods for pulling lost spirits back from the brink of dissolution.

But first, he needed to make contact. He needed to prove to himself that Louis was really there, that this wasn’t just wishful thinking or guilt manifesting as supernatural phenomena.

Harry had brought supplies with him in the car, tools he’d gathered during his research into the paranormal. Candles blessed by priests who understood the reality of spiritual warfare. Mirrors polished to perfection and inscribed with protective symbols. A pendulum made from crystal that had been charged under seven full moons.

He set up the ritual in the library, one of the rooms where he’d felt closest to Louis during their time together. The candles formed a perfect circle, their flames steady and bright despite the drafts that plagued the rest of the house. The mirrors reflected the candlelight in patterns that seemed to pulse with their own rhythm, creating the illusion of movement in the spaces between reflections. Harry sat in the centre of the circle, holding the crystal pendulum in steady hands, and opened his mind to whatever presence might be waiting in the darkness.

“Louis,” he said clearly, “I know you’re here. I know you’re trapped. I’m going to help you, but I need you to show me you can hear me.”

The pendulum began to swing immediately, its crystal surface catching the candlelight as it moved in slow, deliberate arcs. Back and forth, back and forth, the rhythm matching Harry’s heartbeat.

“If you can hear me, make the pendulum swing in a circle.”

The motion changed instantly, the crystal now moving in perfect clockwise circles, the movement too controlled and purposeful to be natural.

Harry’s breath caught in his throat.

“Louis, is that you?”

Three sharp swings to the right, then stillness. Yes.

“Are you hurt? Are you trapped somewhere I can’t see you?”

Again, three swings to the right.

“Can you show me where you are? Can you give me a sign?”

The pendulum went still for a long moment, then began swinging violently, the crystal moving in wild, erratic patterns that spoke of panic and desperation. The candle flames flickered as if touched by an unfelt wind, and the mirrors began to cloud over with condensation that formed no recognisable shapes.

Then, in the largest mirror positioned directly across from Harry, something appeared.

It wasn’t Louis, not as Harry remembered him. It was a shadow in roughly human shape, writhing and twisting as if trying to break free from invisible bonds. The shadow moved frantically, pressing against the surface of the mirror from the inside, its movements growing more desperate with each second.

And then Harry heard it. Faint but there, Louis’ voice calling his name. But the sound was muffled. The voice was filled with such pain and terror that Harry felt his own chest tighten in sympathetic agony.

“Harry!” The voice grew clearer for just a moment. “Harry, help me! I can’t… I can’t get back! It’s so dark here, and I can’t remember… I can’t remember your face!”

“I’m here!”

Harry shouted back, reaching toward the mirror.

“I’m right here, Louis! I’m going to get you out!”

But even as he spoke, the image in the mirror began to fade. The shadow figure gave one last desperate push against the glass surface, then dissolved into wisps of smoke that disappeared entirely. The candles went out all at once, plunging the room into darkness, and the pendulum fell still in Harry’s hand.

Harry sat in the sudden blackness, his heart pounding so hard he thought it might burst from his chest. But mixed with his fear was a fierce determination, one that burned brighter than any candle flame.

Louis was alive. Trapped in some hellish dimension, being slowly consumed by the same void that had taken Elias, but still fighting. Still hoping. Still calling Harry’s name.

And Harry was going to save him.

👻

Harry sat in the darkness of the library long after the candles had died, the journal still clutched in his trembling hands. Elias’ confessions had angered him, each revelation more horrifying than the last. Louis hadn’t just been trapped by circumstance or accident. He’d been deliberately manipulated, used as a pawn in a ritual that had condemned him to decades of suffering. Elias was a maniac.

But now Harry understood something else, something that made his pulse quicken. The ritual had been incomplete. It required Louis’ true soulmate to serve as the final anchor, and Elias had never been that person. Flossie had said that herself. He’d been nothing more than a predator who’d wrapped his cruelty in false affection.

Harry rose slowly from his position on the floor, his legs unsteady beneath him. A decision was brewing in his mind. It was dangerous, potentially fatal, and certainly insane. But as he thought of Louis trapped in that hellish void, calling his name through the mirrors and walls with such desperation and pain, Harry knew there was only one choice he could make. Flossie had said to be careful, that it could rupture and disrupt the ritual but could also be more harmful. But Harry had trouble fighting with his heart. He always did.

He walked through the house quickly, no longer the lost and grieving man who’d stumbled through these rooms for days. His footsteps sounded so loud in the empty halls as he made his way towards the one place he’d been avoiding, the one door that everyone had warned him never to open and venture into, especially alone.

The basement door stood slightly ajar as it had since his return, that horrible smell still seeping through the gap. Harry had circled this door dozens of times over the past week, approaching and retreating like a moth drawn to a flame but smart enough to fear the burn.

Everyone had warned him about this place. Louis, with his gentle but firm redirections whenever Harry’s curiosity had led him too close. Gemma, with her frantic pleas for him to leave this house and never return. Flossie, with her cryptic words about choices and consequences that Harry was only beginning to understand. But beneath all those warnings, beneath the rational voice in his head that screamed at him to run, Harry’s heart whispered something else entirely.

Save him.

As Harry reached for the door handle, his phone unexpectedly emitted a sound, causing him to startle. The timing could not have been more unfortunate, especially considering his existing state of anxiety.

Gemma’s name flashed across the screen, her timing uncanny. His finger hovered over the answer button for a split second before he pressed decline instead. He couldn’t afford distractions now. Couldn’t let anyone talk him out of what he was about to do. This moment required every ounce of courage he possessed, and he knew that hearing Gemma’s voice, hearing her fears and pleas for his safety, would shatter his current confidence.

He pushed the door open wider and stared down into the blackness below. The wooden stairs descended into nothing, and Harry had that urge to vomit. The smell that rose to meet him was overwhelming now, making his eyes water and his stomach churn with each breath.

But Louis was down there somewhere. He knew he was. Every fibre in his body told him so. Lost, trapped, and calling for help that only Harry could provide.

Harry descended one step at a time, his hand gripping the railing so tightly his knuckles went white. Each step took him further from the world above, deeper into a realm where the normal rules didn’t seem to apply any more. He fumbled along the wall until his fingers found an old light switch, the metal corroded with age and moisture. He flicked it hopefully, and a single bulb hanging from a frayed cord flickered to life, emitting its sickly yellow light across the stone walls.

For a moment, Harry felt a surge of relief at being able to see his surroundings. But the feeling lasted only seconds before the ancient bulb gave up entirely, exploding in a shower of sparks and glass that sent shards raining down around him.

The darkness that followed was terrifying, so much so that Harry couldn’t see his own hand when he held it inches from his face. He stood frozen, his heart racing as he fumbled for his phone, his fingers shaking so badly he nearly dropped it twice before managing to activate the flashlight.

The weak beam cut through the blackness, revealing glimpses of stone walls stained with moisture and something darker that Harry didn’t even want to identify. The floor was uneven, covered with debris and what looked like the remnants of old furniture, creating a maze of obstacles that made each step treacherous.

“Louis,” Harry whispered, “Louis, are you here?”

Harry could feel something watching him from the shadows, could sense a presence that made every instinct scream at him to flee. The air itself felt hostile, pressing against him like invisible hands trying to push him back towards the stairs.

But Harry forced himself forward, sweeping the phone’s light from side to side as he searched for any sign of Louis’ presence. The basement seemed to go on forever, filled with forgotten objects that cast grotesque shadows in the shifting light. Old trunks sat open like gaping mouths, their contents long since rotted away. Broken chairs lay scattered across the floor like the bones of some prehistoric creature.

Had the basement always been like this?

It was as Harry was examining what looked like the remains of an old altar, covered in symbols that hurt to look at directly, that something caught his attention. A section of the far wall looked different from the rest, newer somehow despite the obvious age of the stones. The mortar between the bricks were a different colour, lighter, as if it had been replaced more recently than the surrounding structure.

Harry approached slowly, his phone light shining across the suspicious area. As he got closer, he could see that several of the bricks were slightly out of alignment, creating hairline cracks that formed an almost rectangular pattern. It looked like a section of wall that had been carefully removed and then rebuilt, sealed away from prying eyes.

Kneeling on the damp floor, Harry began running his hands along the edges of the displaced bricks. They felt a bit loose under his touch, held in place by mortar that crumbled at the slightest pressure. Whatever was hidden behind this wall, it hadn’t been meant to stay hidden forever.

Harry found a broken piece of metal among the debris and began using it to chip away at the mortar, working carefully to avoid bringing the entire wall down on top of himself. The work was slow and exhausting, made worse by the eerie atmosphere and the constant feeling of being watched by unseen eyes.

Gradually, the bricks began to come loose. First one, then another, each removal making the next easier as the structural integrity of the false wall began to fail. Harry’s hands were bleeding from the rough stone, his clothes soaked with sweat despite the basement’s chill, but he couldn’t stop now. Something was behind this wall, something that had been deliberately hidden, and every instinct told him it was connected to Louis.

The wall finally gave way all at once, collapsing inwards with a sound like thunder. Dust and debris swarmed the air, making Harry cough violently as he tried to clear his vision. When the settling dust allowed him to see again, when he was able to point his phone light into the revealed cavity, Harry’s scream echoed through the basement with such force that it seemed to shake the very foundations of the house.

There, in a space that had been bricked away from the world for so long, were bones.

Human remains, arranged with careful precision in what must have once been a sitting position, though time and decay had caused them to collapse into a pile of white calcium and tattered fabric. The skull sat at an angle, empty sockets seeming to stare accusingly at Harry through the darkness, while the rest of the skeleton lay scattered like discarded pieces of some sort of puzzle.

But it wasn’t just the bones that made Harry recoil in horror. Surrounding the remains, carved into the stone walls of the tiny chamber, were symbols that seemed to writhe and shift in the phone’s unsteady light. Protective runes, binding circles, containment spells that spoke of dark magic and darker intentions.

And everywhere, covering every surface of the hidden tomb, was salt. Thick layers of it, yellowed with age but still forming unbroken lines and circles around the skeletal remains. The salt had been placed with caution, creating a prison of purification that was meant to hold something in as much as keep something out.

Bone charms hung from iron spikes driven into the walls, their surfaces carved with more symbols. They swayed slightly in the disturbed air, clicking together with a sound like chattering teeth. The entire hidden chamber reeked of old magic and older death, a stench that was somehow worse than simple decay.

Harry stumbled backwards, his phone light shaking wildly as his trembling hands struggled to keep it steady. Every rational part of his mind was screaming at him to run, to get as far away from this horror as possible. But as the initial shock began to fade, it was replaced by a crushing realisation, as Harry felt his knees give out entirely.

These were Louis’ bones.

The knowledge hit him fast, stealing his breath and making his vision blur with tears he couldn’t stop. Louis hadn’t been a ghost bound to this house by some tragic accident. He’d been murdered, killed by Elias and then hidden away like garbage, his body sealed behind this wall with all the trappings of a supernatural prison.

But not just hidden. Trapped. The salt, the runes, the bone charms, they’d all been carefully arranged to keep Louis’ spirit bound to his earthly remains, accessible to Elias for whatever dark purposes the ritual had required. For many years, Louis had been trapped not just in this house, but tethered to his own corpse like a dog on a chain.

“Oh God,” Harry whispered, crawling forward despite his terror.“Louis, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

He reached out with shaking hands, not quite daring to touch the ancient bones but close enough to see the places where fabric still clung to the skeleton. The remains of what had once been elegant clothing, now nothing more than rotted scraps that fell apart at the slightest disturbance.

This was what was left of the man he loved. These bones, this pile of calcium and decay that had once held laughter and music and the most beautiful soul Harry had ever encountered. The Louis he’d known, the translucent figure who’d brought such joy and passion into his life, had been bound to this horror for decades.

Harry’s sobs rang through the basement, raw and broken sounds that seemed to be torn from the very depths of his soul. It was weird. Although his time with Louis was relatively brief, Flossie had elaborated on the concept of soulmates, describing the intensity and escalation of such emotions. He called Louis’ name over and over, hoping that somehow his voice would reach through whatever barrier separated them, begging that it would bring some sort of comfort to the spirit he’d failed so miserably.

Through his tears, Harry could see that some of the bone charms had been disturbed when the wall collapsed. Several lay broken on the floor, their binding power shattered along with their physical forms. The salt circles too had been disrupted, centuries of careful containment undone by falling stones and settling debris.

Acting on instinct rather than conscious thought, Harry began systematically destroying the remaining charms. He pulled them from their iron spikes, threw them against the stone walls until they shattered into pieces too small to hold any power. The salt circles came next, swept away by Harry’s desperate hands until nothing remained but scattered granules that no longer formed any recognisable pattern.

He worked with frantic energy, tears streaming down his face as he dismantled the supernatural prison that had held Louis captive for so long. Each charm destroyed, each binding circle broken, felt like a small victory against the monster who had created this horror.

It was as Harry was sweeping away the last of the salt lines that he felt it. A change in the air behind him, a shift in temperature that made the hair on his neck stand up in recognition rather than fear. Slowly, afraid to hope but unable to stop himself, Harry slowly turned around.

Louis stood at the entrance to the basement, his form clearer than Harry had ever seen him. There was no ethereal glow, no supernatural radiance, just Louis as he had been in life. Young and beautiful, his clothes elegant and perfectly fitted, his hair styled in the fashion of his era. But most importantly, his eyes were clear, no longer clouded by confusion or torment.

“Harry,”

His voice was warm and familiar, exactly as it should be.

“You found me. You…you actually found me.”

Harry couldn’t speak for a moment, overwhelmed by relief at seeing Louis whole again, even if he remained incorporeal. Louis was here, free from whatever darkness had been consuming him in the void.

“You freed me,” Louis continued, his expression filled with so much gratitude. “Breaking the containment, destroying the binding charms, you gave me back my strength. I’m trapped here still, to the house I think, somehow, but I’m okay with…”

“No, Louis, you don’t understand,” Harry interrupted, struggling to his feet. “I know how to set you free.”

Harry expected Louis to look happy at that news, expected relief or joy or hope. Instead, Louis’ face fell, guilt and sadness replacing the gratitude that had been there moments before.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked, confused by Louis’ reaction.

“Lou, what’s the matter?”

Louis moved closer, reaching out as if to touch Harry’s face, his ghostly hand stopping just short of contact. The longing in his expression was heartbreaking.

“I will not let you risk your life for me,” Louis said softly.

Harry frowned, understanding dawning on him.

“You knew.”

Louis’ face softened, but Harry could see his anger building.

“I saw it in Elias’ journal. How did you…”

“Flossie told me about the history,” Harry interrupted. “About us, our families, our souls, Louis. We are destined. You felt it too when we met, right? You love me, Louis. I’m an empath, I can feel it. Let me set you free, for fuck’s sake!”

Louis shook his head, hit with too many emotions at once.

“If I let you set me free, then you die too. Yeah, I saw that part, but I can’t allow it, no way. Because yes, I do love you too, Harry.”

At that moment, they heard a noise from somewhere deep around them. The house began to rumble, the very foundations shaking as if something massive was stirring beneath them. Then came a roar, inhuman and filled with such rage that it seemed to rattle Harry’s bones.

The darkness knew what had happened. Harry felt something he had never experienced before, a primal terror that went beyond fear and straight into the realm of existential dread. Something ancient and sinister was awakening, responding to the breaking of bonds that had held it in check for over a century.

Harry looked at Louis, his face pale in the dim light of his phone, and spoke the words that made his blood run cold.

“He is here.”

The temperature dropped so sharply Harry could see his breath mist in front of him. Then, from the space between them, he appeared.

Elias.

He did not crawl from the shadows nor did he arrive with thunder. Harry’s breath caught as Elias took form right before their very eyes.

The air grew heavier, dense with something ancient and wrong, yet the man who emerged looked human. Refined. Handsome, even. His dark hair was neatly styled, his clothes immaculate, as if he’d stepped directly from one of Louis’ old memories rather than the depths of the void.

He looked… normal. Young. Beautiful . His suit was flawless, his posture graceful. His expression was calm, almost curious, as if he were stepping into a room that had simply been waiting for him all this time.

Harry’s stomach twisted.

This was the man who had once held Louis. The man whose hands had traced his face, whose lips had spoken promises that ended in betrayal. And the realisation that this was the person Louis had once loved, it carved something hot and ugly into Harry’s chest.

Harry hated that Elias was beautiful. Of course Louis had fallen for someone like this, a man whose charm was silk wrapped around a blade. There was something ruinous about him, the kind of beauty that survived its own destruction. And for the briefest, most self-loathing heartbeat, Harry almost envied him.

But then Louis made a small, broken sound beside him, a sound that didn’t belong to the confident, defiant ghost Harry had come to know. It was the sound of pure fear.

Harry blinked, forcing himself back to the moment. The jealousy evaporated as he saw Louis, utterly still. The colour had drained from Louis’ face, his expression frozen somewhere between recognition and horror. His mouth parted slightly, but no sound came out again. He looked like he couldn’t breathe, if ghosts even could.

“Harry,” Louis whispered, voice trembling. “Don’t.”

Elias’ gaze flicked toward Louis, and there was a smirk there, faint, knowing, and cruel.

“My darling,” Elias murmured. “You’ve brought someone new into our little tragedy. How quaint.”

“Don’t you fucking speak to him,” Harry snapped, his voice cracking with rage. He stepped forward, fists trembling. The air around Elias shimmered faintly with residual power, dark, ancient, hungry, but Harry didn’t care. “You don’t get to say his name. You don’t get to look at him.”

Elias tilted his head, studying Harry with faint amusement.

“Oh, I see. You’re the empath. The replacement. Tell me, how does it feel, feeling his pain, knowing you can’t take it away?”

Louis flinched, his voice breaking.

“Harry, stop, he’s feeding on you.”

But Harry couldn’t stop. His eyes burned, chest heaving, emotion flooding through him so thick it was choking him.

“You killed him,” Harry spat. “You loved him, and you still killed him. You sacrificed him for your own fucking immortality…You selfish prick.”

Elias’ smile widened.

“And he stayed, didn’t he? His soul is bound here, forever within reach. What’s a little blood, a little suffering, when eternity was the reward?”

Louis’ body flickered. His eyes were wild now, darting between them both.

“Harry, please,” he begged. “You don’t understand, this is what he wants. He’s drawing you in.”

Harry turned towards him, and the look on Harry’s face hit Louis. There was so much sorrow there, so much guilt and love and inevitability all tangled together that Louis almost forgot to “breathe”. He’d seen that look once before, centuries ago, in Elias’ eyes before the knife had fallen. But this time, it was different. There was purity in Harry’s pain.

There was… choice …love.

“Harry, don’t you dare,” his voice was breaking now. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Elias stepped closer, the faintest shimmer of darkness swirling behind him.

“He’s already made his choice, my sweet boy,” he said softly. “You feel it too, don’t you? The ritual’s bond is calling to him. You can’t fight destiny. The perfect match.”

Louis’ voice rose higher.

“He is not you! You hear me? He’s not you, Elias! He’s not going to damn himself for me!”

Harry took a breath, forcing his shaking hands still. His eyes never left Elias, but his voice softened, breaking as he turned to Louis.

“Maybe I am,” he whispered. “Because you’re worth it. I will do anything for you.”

Louis’ head snapped up, pain flooding his features.

“Don’t say that. Don’t you fucking say that, Harry. You don’t get to decide that for me. I’d rather fade away than lose you! It is not your time Harry!”

It took a few seconds before Harry smiled faintly, and for a heartbeat, Louis believed him. He wanted to believe him. The warmth in Harry’s eyes, the small curve of his lips, it felt real. It felt like surrender, like he’d finally heard reason. The crushing weight pressing against Louis’ chest eased, just a fraction, and his shoulders loosened with a trembling exhale.

“Okay, good.” Louis breathed out. “We’ll find another way. We always do.”

For the first time in what felt like centuries, hope sparked in him, a delicate, trembling thing that dared to live.

But then he saw it. The subtle shift in Harry’s expression, the way that faint smile hardened at the edges. His eyes, soft moments ago, grew distant, resolved. The air changed around him, thickened with intent. Louis felt it in his core, that cold, sinking dread that always came before everything went wrong.

“Harry,” he said, a plea forming in his throat before he even understood why. But he already knew why, he saw it in the tightening of his jaw. Harry wasn’t calming down, he was preparing.

And Louis’ brief, but precious speck of hope shattered into millions of pieces.

Harry’s gaze flicked back to Elias, and his expression morphed further. The softness hardened into full resolve. His eyebrows drew even tighter together, his jaw set, and the faintest shimmer of energy began to crackle in the air around him.

Louis’ stomach dropped.

“Harry,”

His voice was shaking.

“What are you doing? Listen to me. I won’t let you do this! Harry, what are you doing!”

Harry’s eyes, wet, green, and full of impossible love, sadly met his own.

“What I was meant to do,” he said quietly. “I’m ending this.”

Louis’ scream tore through the house.

If he had still possessed a heart, it would have been in revolt.

The knowledge hit him with a force he could not brace for. Harry was going to do it. Not threaten it. Not consider it. Do it. Give himself up in some twisted attempt to set things right.

Something inside Louis recoiled violently at the thought.

He had no pulse, no blood to surge, no ribs to contain the damage, yet the reaction was there all the same. A crushing pressure where something vital used to live. A phantom ache so sharp it almost felt real. It was as if his body remembered what panic was supposed to feel like and tried to recreate it without the necessary parts.

Elias stood between them like a phantom reborn, the perfect image of composure, his dark eyes glinting with something smug.

Louis barely noticed the ground trembling beneath them. His gaze was locked on Harry, his stubborn, impossible, beautiful Harry, whose expression was all too familiar. That infuriating courage.

“Harry, please,” Louis whispered, stepping closer. “You don’t understand what this will do.”

But Harry didn’t answer. His gaze had shifted to Elias.

“Look at you,” Elias said softly, circling him like a predator admiring its prey. “So ready to play the saviour. Do you even know what you’re offering, clairvoyant?” His smirk curved dangerously. “Your soul, and then you die. That’s what it takes to trade one bound spirit for another.”

Louis flinched.

“Don’t listen to him!”

Elias ignored him, his tone silken.

“He doesn’t tell you, does he? How he lingered? How he let me love him once, how he whispered my name the same way he whispers yours now.”

Harry’s nostrils flared. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

Louis’ entire form trembled.

“That’s not true,” Louis said, shaking his head violently. “It’s not…”

“Not what, love?” Elias purred, eyes flicking to Louis. “Not your truth? You were mine before you were his. You always will be.”

Harry’s control cracked. His voice came out low, but dominant.

“You don’t get to talk about him like that.”

Elias only smiled wider.

“Oh, but I do. You see, this is the part where you make the same mistake I did. You think love can save him.” He leaned closer, whispering, “But love only binds. It traps. You’ll free him, and you’ll rot here in his place. And he’ll forget you, like he forgot me.”

“Harry, stop!” Louis begged, panic flooding his voice now. He reached for him, his ghostly hands trembling as if sheer will could stop him. “He’s lying! Please, don’t do this, don’t..”

Harry turned to him then, and Louis’ words caught in his throat. The look on Harry’s face, that mix of pain and tenderness, was unbearable. His eyes glistened like someone already halfway gone.

“Louis,” he said softly, almost reverently. “You deserve to rest. You’ve been trapped long enough.”

“No…No, you listen to me. You can’t fix this by dying. You can’t…”

Harry smiled faintly, and for a second, Louis thought maybe, maybe he’d heard him. But then he saw it. That shift again, the tightening around his mouth, the quiet determination returning to his eyes. Louis knew that look. It was the look of someone who’d already made up his mind.

“Harry, DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE…” Louis cried out.

Harry turned toward Elias, raising his voice over the howling wind.

“If it’s a soul you want,” he shouted, “then take mine.”

“NO! “ Louis screamed.

The room erupted. The floorboards cracked, light flared from beneath them like molten gold searing through the darkness. Elias’ form shimmered, laughing, his voice echoing through the house.

“Go ahead, hero, you know the words,”

Elias snarled.

“You’ll only bind yourself here forever!”

Harry’s eyes blazed with tears and fury as he began the incantation, his voice shaking but unyielding:

“ By blood and bone, by breath and flame,

I break the chain, I end the claim.

Let his spirit rise and mine remain,

Take the darkness, take the pain.“

The candles shattered, bursts of light exploding like stars. The air vibrated with impossible energy. Louis lunged forward, screaming his name, his voice raw and breaking.

“Harry, please! I love you, don’t you understand? That’s enough! That’s enough!”

But Harry didn’t stop. He lifted his hands toward Elias, the sigils on the floor igniting in crimson light. The spell, meant to transfer, twisted, responding not to fear, not to death, but to love .

Elias’ smirk faltered.

“What are you doing?”

Harry’s voice grew stronger, and louder.

“You bound him with betrayal. I free him with love. You used him as a vessel. I choose him as my heart.”

Louis fell to his knees, the words ripping through him like knives.

“Harry, don’t, please..” he cried.

The light grew blinding, engulfing everything. Elias screamed, his form fracturing, burning away into shadow. And in that final moment, as Harry’s figure started to blur at the edges, his form thinning as it was swallowed by the blaze overtaking the room, Louis reached out, just as he had that night so long ago, but this time his hand met warmth.

“Harry,” he sobbed, clutching his hand, “don’t leave me, not again.”

Harry smiled through tears.

“Rest now, Louis. Be at peace.”

And then the light took them, slowly at first, like it was learning the shape of them, tracing every line, every touch, until even their hands began to slip, fingers loosening no matter how tightly they tried to hold on. It pulled them apart in the gentlest, most unforgiving way, dissolving warmth into nothing, turning presence into memory, until there was nothing left to hold onto, no weight, no breath, not even each other.

👻

Louis blinked against the soft light around him. It wasn’t harsh or blinding, just warm, settling over him like quiet sunlight, something he could feel but not quite touch. For the first time in what felt like centuries, he felt safe .

He lifted his head slowly, disoriented, taking in the white expanse around him. There was no ceiling, no walls, just endless stillness and peace. And then he heard it.

“Sweetheart.”

That voice. That voice.

Louis spun around, and there she was.

His mother. She was radiant, and smiling, exactly as he remembered her from his childhood, her eyes kind, her arms open wide. For a moment he couldn’t move; he just stared, trembling, as if afraid that if he blinked, she’d vanish again.

“Mum?” His voice cracked, small and uncertain.

“Oh, my boy,” she whispered, and he was in her arms before he even realised he’d moved. She held him tight, her hands running over his hair like she used to, grounding him. “You’ve been so lost for so long.”

Louis clung to her, his face pressed into her shoulder. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“I know.” Jay smiled softly against his temple. “But you found your way back.”

“ Elias, Mum. He, he hurt me, he…“

“I am so sorry sweetheart. I swear I didn’t know,”

For a long moment, there was silence, the kind that felt sacred. But then it hit him like a strike to the chest.

Harry .

Louis’ breath hitched.

“Harry,”

He pulled back, eyes darting around the glowing space.

“Where’s Harry? I…I need to find him. He was…”

Jay’s hand came up, resting gently on his cheek.

“Louis.”

He froze at the sound of her voice, calm, and steady, filled with something deeper than comfort. “Look,” she said softly, turning him by the shoulders.

The air rippled, and suddenly the glow around them shifted, forming into a vision. A hospital room. The smell of antiseptic seemed to cling to the image. Machines hummed quietly as Gemma sat at the bedside, her hand clutched around Harry’s.

And Harry, pale, fragile, but alive sat propped up against the pillows, blinking groggily as if waking from a dream.

Louis’ lips parted. His knees almost gave out.

“How?” he whispered, tears instantly spilling down his face.

“How is he…? He should’ve, he…”

Jay watched him with that knowing softness only a mother could have.

“He should’ve died, yes,” she said quietly. “And he nearly did. But he didn’t finish the ritual the way it was meant to be.”

Louis turned to her, eyes wide, heart shattering and mending all at once.

“As the ritual began,” she continued, “Harry started reciting the incantation. But instead of finishing the transfer, he turned it back on Elias, using your bond, your love, to twist the spell. He chose you, Louis. Not the house. Not the curse, not immortality, You. Love always wins . “

Louis’ breath trembled. He stared at Harry’s image, at the soft rise and fall of his chest.

“He… he twisted it?”

Jay nodded.

“He gave Elias back what was his, the darkness, the binding, the pain, and let love rewrite the rest. It saved him and it freed you…from the house and Elias, for good. You can cross over now, darling.”

Louis let out a choked sound, pressing his hand to his mouth. The tears came harder now, sliding down his cheeks unchecked. “He… he really did it,” he whispered, shaking his head in disbelief. “He actually did it. After everything, he still…”

“Loved you,” Jay finished gently. “Enough to give you peace. Enough to give you freedom.”

Louis’ gaze stayed fixed on Harry, on the faint bruises along his neck, the steady rhythm of life pulsing beneath his skin. “He’s my soulmate,” Louis said, barely audible. “He always has been.”

Jay smiled, tears glistening in her own eyes now.

“In every lifetime, my boy. Every single one.”

Louis turned towards her then, his chest heavy, his voice breaking.

“I don’t want to leave him.”

“I know,” she whispered. “And you won’t. Not yet.”

He frowned, confused.

“What do you mean?”

Jay stepped closer, brushing a tear from his cheek with her thumb.

“You have one year,” she said softly. “One year to live, to love, to be his again. Then, when your time is done, you’ll come home for good.”

Louis shook his head slowly, stunned beyond proportion.

“A year? WHAT! Mum, what do you mean?”

Her smile trembled.

“It’s a gift, Louis. From the ones who’ve watched you both suffer. From love itself, maybe.”

She leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“Make it count, sweetheart. One year, that is all.”

And as she blew a gentle kiss against his skin, the light around them began to fade. The vision of Harry shimmered closer, his voice appearing faint in the distance, an illusion calling out Louis’ name.

Louis turned back to his mother one last time, his heart overflowing with emotion he couldn’t contain.

“Thank you.”

Jay smiled through tears.

“Go to him.”

And then Louis was gone, the world tilting and spinning as the light dissolved, replaced by the sound of rain and the faint, steady heartbeat of the man who had saved him.

👻

It had been four days since they’d pulled Harry out of the house. Four days since he’d opened his eyes to fluorescent brightness that stung like a bitch, to a clipped voice asking his name like they weren’t sure he’d remember it, to the rhythmic beeping of a monitor tracking a heartbeat that felt like it belonged to someone else entirely. He didn’t know who had saved him or how he had gotten there, and frankly he didn’t care.

They’d kept him overnight for observation. That’s what they’d called it, anyway. Observation. As if watching him would reveal something the tests couldn’t. Harry knew better. He’d caught the way the nurses lingered outside his door, speaking in hushed tones that carried just enough for him to hear the shape of their worry. He’d seen how the doctor’s eyes had softened when asking if there was someone he could call, how her smile had tightened when he’d said yes too quickly, and lied too smoothly about having somewhere safe to go.

He’d performed normalcy like a script he’d memorised. Smiled at the right moments. Answered their questions with the appropriate amount of detail. Reassured them he was just exhausted, that he’d slipped and hit his head, that the house was old and the basement stairs were treacherous. Nothing supernatural. Nothing they’d feel obligated to report or investigate further.

They’d let him go eventually, though not without a pamphlet about trauma and a referral he’d never use.

The truth was more complicated than exhaustion or head injuries. The truth was that Harry didn’t know what he was anymore. He existed in some strange liminal space between relief and devastation, between gratitude for breath and guilt for breathing. He’d walked into that ritual, fully prepared not to walk out of it. He made his peace with the ending and accepted the cost. His body, his pulse, his very existence offered up as payment for Louis’ freedom.

But here he was. Still alive. Still walking and talking and taking up space in a world that suddenly felt too bright, too loud, too insistent on continuing.

And Louis wasn’t.

Or maybe he was. That uncertainty gnawed at Harry constantly, a low ache that never quite faded. For years, he’d felt Louis everywhere. There had been a constant awareness, a sense of presence that had become as familiar as his own heartbeat.

Now there was nothing. Complete and utter absence where connection used to live. The silence was so profound it felt physical, like someone had scooped out something essential and left only hollow space behind. Maybe that meant it had worked. Maybe the ritual had done what it was supposed to do. Maybe he’d destroyed Elias for good, shattered whatever dark magic had kept Louis trapped for over a century. Maybe Louis was finally free, existing somewhere beyond Harry’s ability to perceive, whole and safe and at peace.

Harry told himself this story on repeat. Whispered it in the dark when sleep wouldn’t come. Repeated it while staring at his reflection, trying to convince the hollow eyed stranger in the mirror. Louis was free . That’s what mattered. That’s what everything had been for.

But the story wouldn’t settle. It sat wrong in his chest, refusing to take root.

When he finally returned to the house, it did not feel like coming home.

The front door opened the same way it always had, the hinges giving that faint groan he used to ignore. The floorboards were still scuffed in the same places. The coat hook by the stairs still leaned slightly to the left.

None of it helped.

The house felt wrong. Not changed. Just unfamiliar in a way that made his stomach knot. He stood just inside the doorway with the keys still clutched tight in his hand. He could not make himself move. It felt like stepping further in would mean admitting everything that had happened here was real. That it was still waiting for him.

So he stayed there, staring down the hall like it might shift back into something he recognised if he gave it enough time.

The basement door remained firmly closed. He couldn’t even look at it for the first two days. Just walking past it made memories surface that he wasn’t ready to remember. On the third day, he’d forced himself to approach it, hand outstretched towards the handle, but his fingers had started trembling so badly he’d had to walk away.

The library was worse somehow. The space that had once felt warm, almost alive with possibility, now sat empty in a way that hurt to perceive. Harry had stood in the doorway, unable to cross the threshold, staring at the chair where Louis used to appear, the window he’d stared through while lost in thought, the shelves he’d gestured towards while telling stories about his mortal life.

All of it was exactly as Harry had left it, but none of it felt right anymore.

He’d thought about selling the house. Seriously considered it. Had even looked up real estate agents on his phone at two in the morning when the silence became unbearable. It would be so easy to walk away, to let someone else deal with whatever remained in these walls. This place wasn’t home anymore. It was just a shell stuffed full of memories he couldn’t process and losses he couldn’t cut.

But every time he got close to making the call, something stopped him. This was where he’d found Louis. Where they’d laughed together over breakfast. Where they’d shared stories and secrets and touches that had felt more real than anything in Harry’s ordinary life. Where he’d fallen completely, irrevocably in love with someone who existed between worlds.

Leaving felt like betrayal. Like admitting Louis had never mattered, never existed, never changed everything about who Harry thought he was. So he stayed. Moved through rooms like a ghost himself. Tried to figure out how to be alive when everything felt like mourning.

For days he had held it together out of sheer stubbornness. He had spoken when spoken to. He had eaten when he knew he had to. Slept in short, restless stretches without letting himself think too hard about why the other side of the bed stayed empty.

But something in him finally gave.

The first sob came out of nowhere, torn from somewhere deep and unguarded. It startled him, the sound of it. Ugly and broken. Nothing like the careful quiet he had maintained since it happened. He pressed a hand over his mouth as if he could shove it back in, but that only made it worse. Another sob followed. Then another. His body folded in on itself as the grief he had been swallowing for days rose up all at once, violent and unstoppable.

He had lost him.

The truth of it hit in waves, each one harsher than the last. He would never hear his voice again. Never see that half smirk. Never feel the almost touch that had once made everything else fade away. It was done. Final.

His knees gave out.

He sank to the floor without grace, barely catching himself before his shoulder struck the wood. He drew himself inwards, curling tight as if he could make himself smaller, as if that might dull the pain ripping through him.

The sobbing turned brutal. His body shook with it. Tears soaked into his sleeves, into the floor beneath his face. He did not try to stop it anymore. There was no dignity left to protect. No one was there to witness it.

He let himself break.

He let himself mourn the love of his life, the future that would never happen, the words that would never be said.

Eventually the sobs quieted to hoarse, broken sounds, his body wrung out and trembling. He lay there on the floor, eyes raw, throat burning, knowing this was the only night he would allow himself to fall apart like this.

When morning came, he would have to stand up.

He would have to keep going.

But for now, he stayed there and let the grief take everything it wanted.

👻

Which was how he ended up here, four days later, standing in a café line that barely seemed to move, surrounded by people who didn’t know the world had fundamentally shifted. His body performed the necessary actions automatically. Stand. Step forward when the line moves. Keep your eyes down. Don’t make eye contact that might invite conversation.

But his mind existed somewhere else entirely, heavy and sluggish like he was moving underwater. Sleep had become something that happened in thirty minute increments, interrupted by dreams he couldn’t remember but woke from gasping. Food was texture and temperature with no actual taste. The people around him were bright and animated, living lives that continued without interruption, and Harry felt like he was watching them through frosted glass, separate and unable to quite reach them.

This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? Louis to be free. The curse to be broken. The house’s dark history finally laid to rest. He should feel relief. Should feel proud of what he’d accomplished. Should feel something other than this persistent numbness interrupted by sharp stabs of loss.

But every so often, something would change. A subtle displacement in the air. A sensation of being watched that always caught his attention. He’d catch himself turning towards empty corners, expecting to see a translucent form take form. His peripheral vision kept suggesting movement that disappeared when he looked directly.

Earlier that morning, while brushing his teeth, he’d seen Louis in the bathroom mirror. Just for a second. Standing behind him with that soft expression he used to get when watching Harry do ordinary things. Harry had spun around so fast he’d dropped his toothbrush, but of course no one was there. In the kitchen, he’d heard humming. Specifically, Louis’ humming, that tuneless melody he’d unconsciously made while thinking. Harry had frozen mid-step, hardly breathing, straining to hear it again. But there was nothing. Just the hum of the refrigerator.

Now, waiting for the coffee he didn’t really want, he saw it again. Movement in his peripheral vision. The sense of someone standing just to his left, close enough that he should be able to feel body heat. Harry didn’t turn to look this time. Didn’t want to confirm the emptiness he knew would be there.

These were just hallucinations. Grief manifesting as sensory experiences. His mind was trying to fill the Louis shaped void with familiar patterns. He’d read about this during his research years ago. People who’d lost someone often reported seeing them in crowds, hearing their voice, feeling their presence. It was normal, to be expected, even.

It didn’t mean anything. Louis was gone. Free . That’s what the absence meant. That’s what Harry had to believe. But standing here, surrounded by the ordinary chaos of café noise and the smell of burnt espresso, Harry couldn’t shake the strange certainty pressing at him. Louis was gone, yes. But somehow, impossibly, not gone the way he should be.

Something was wrong. Something was incomplete. The ritual hadn’t ended the way Elias’ journal had described. Harry had walked out alive when he should have died. And now the emptiness where Louis should be, felt less like peace and more like a held breath, like the moment before a storm breaks. Harry told himself he was imagining it. That grief was playing tricks. That he needed to accept reality and move forward.

But a part of him, deeper than logic or reason, knew better.

Harry closed his eyes against the bright glare of the café lights. Behind his eyelids, memories surfaced unbidden like photographs developing in a darkroom. Louis perched on the kitchen counter, feet swinging, arguing passionately about which century had produced the best literature. Louis sprawled across the library floor, chin propped on his hands, watching Harry read with an expression of such fond contentment it had made Harry’s throat tight. Louis giving instructions on how to cook breakfast while Harry followed them, both of them laughing when the eggs burned anyway.

The smile that tugged at Harry’s mouth felt like it might crack his face open. It hurt in a way that was becoming familiar, this peculiar ache of loving someone who existed now only in the past tense.

A laugh rang out somewhere behind him, bright and uninhibited. The cadence of it, the particular rhythm and pitch, sent recognition sparking through Harry’s nervous system. He didn’t turn around. Refused to give his mind the satisfaction of confirming what he already knew. It wasn’t real. Just his brain, desperate and grieving, superimposing familiar patterns onto random strangers. Within seconds, the laugh faded into the general din of conversation and clattering dishes. Gone. Like it had never existed at all.

Something poked his shoulder blade, sharp and insistent.

“Hey, let’s scoot along. What are you waiting for, Christmas? Move your butt.”

The voice was close, irritated in that particular way Louis used to be when Harry was being deliberately obtuse. The sass dripping from every syllable. The pronounciation was exactly right, that slight emphasis on the second word, the way the consonants clicked together. Harry’s stomach dropped like he’d missed a step going downstairs.

God, he wished his mind would stop doing this. Stop crafting such perfect imitations. Stop making him hope. He didn’t turn around. He kept his gaze fixed firmly forward on the menu board he’d already memorised.

“Sorry,” he muttered, shuffling forward in the line, shoulders hunched like he could make himself smaller, less noticeable to whatever part of his psyche was torturing him with these phantom encounters.

The line crawled forward with agonising slowness. Harry kept his eyes down, studying the scuffed tile floor, the splatter patterns of dried coffee that the mop had missed, anything to keep from scanning faces and finding similarities that would gut him. Finally, mercifully, he reached the counter.

“Medium black coffee, please,” he said to the barista, a young woman with purple streaks in her hair who looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. She rang him up without making eye contact, took his card, and handed it back with his receipt.

“Name?”

“Harry.”

She scribbled something on a cup and waved him towards the pickup area. Harry moved to the side, extracting his phone from his pocket more for something to do with his hands than any real interest in what might be on the screen. He needed to appear busy, the shield of being absorbed in something important that would discourage anyone from attempting conversation.

His thumb scrolled through his news feed without processing any of it. Headlines blurred together into meaningless strings of words. He paused on one article, mostly because the accompanying photo had caught his eye. A middle aged woman with wild curly hair and too much jewellery, eyes closed in an expression of theatrical concentration.

Local Medium Claims Direct Line to the Deceased: “Your Loved Ones Want to Talk.”

Harry scoffed, the sound bitter even to his own ears. He clicked out of the article without reading past the headline. Charlatans and con artists, all of them. Preying on desperate people who couldn’t accept that death was final, who’d pay any amount for the comforting lie that their grief could be resolved with a séance and a payment plan.

Nope. Not today. Not ever, actually.

He went back to mindless scrolling, letting the blue light wash over his retinas, reading nothing, seeing nothing, just moving his thumb in repetitive motions that felt like meditation.

“Louis! Louis Tomlinson!” The barista shouted.

Harry’s head snapped up so fast his neck cracked audibly. His eyes swept the crowded café with frantic intensity, searching for the source, for confirmation that he’d actually heard that name spoken aloud and not just hallucinated it. But the café was absolutely packed, every table occupied, people standing in clusters near the walls, a sea of unfamiliar faces and winter coats.

He couldn’t see anyone moving towards the counter. Couldn’t spot anyone who looked like they’d just heard their name called. But he’d heard it. He’d heard it clear as anything, cutting through the ambient noise like it had been spoken directly into his ear. Louis Tomlinson. That name. That specific, impossible name.

Harry started weaving through the crowd, muttering apologies as he bumped shoulders and stepped on feet. His pulse hammered in his temples. He wasn’t going mad. He wasn’t. That had been real. The barista had called that name. Someone in this café was named Louis Tomlinson, or had ordered under that name, and Harry needed to see them, needed to confirm they were real and solid and not some grief induced hallucination.

Through a gap in the crowd, he caught a glimpse of the top of someone’s head. Brown hair, styled in a way that tugged at Harry’s memory. He’d seen that silhouette before, he was certain of it. Somewhere. Recently maybe. Or years ago. The certainty and the uncertainty existed simultaneously, making his head spin.

“Harry!”

His own name, shouted by the same barista, jerked his attention back towards the counter. Harry hesitated, torn between retrieving his coffee and continuing his search for whoever had ordered under Louis’ name. The crowd shifted, bodies moving in the complex choreography of a busy café, and when Harry looked back towards where he’d seen that familiar head of hair, the person was gone.

Vanished. As if they’d never been there at all.

Harry stopped moving, standing still in the middle of the café while people flowed around him. He forced himself to breathe. In through his nose for four counts. Hold for four. Out through his mouth for four. The anxiety management technique was what his therapist had taught him years ago, back when panic attacks had been a semi regular occurrence.

He felt like an idiot. Standing here, frozen, searching desperately for someone who probably didn’t exist outside his own desperate imagination. People were starting to stare, he could feel their eyes on him, could sense their curiosity and concern. His coffee was getting cold on the counter. The barista was calling his name again, more insistent now, annoyed.

Harry made himself move. Wove back through the crowd to collect his drink, wrapped his fingers around the cup’s warmth, used it to ground himself in physical sensation. Hot. Cardboard texture. The slight give when he squeezed too hard.

He did one more sweep of the café with his eyes. Methodically checking every face, every corner, every possible place someone could be standing or sitting. Nothing. No one who looked remotely like Louis, no one who seemed to be waiting for a drink ordered under that name.

It had been in his head. All of it. The laugh, the voice telling him to move, the barista calling Louis’ name, the familiar silhouette. Just his grief, manifesting in increasingly elaborate ways, his mind unable to accept what his body already knew.

Louis was gone.

Harry sipped his coffee. It was too hot, it burned his tongue, but the pain was almost welcomed, it was something real and immediate to focus on instead of the constant ache of absence.

He surrendered to it, then. Let himself acknowledge what he’d been fighting for four days. His mind was going to play these tricks on him. Probably for months, maybe longer. Every laugh he heard would sound like Louis’. Every movement in his peripheral vision would suggest his presence. Every crowded place would hold the phantom possibility of seeing him again.

This was just how grief worked. Time would dull it, supposedly. Everyone said time healed everything, though Harry had his doubts about the universal truth of that particular platitude.

But maybe. Maybe eventually the hallucinations would fade. Maybe eventually he’d go a whole day without thinking he saw Louis in a crowd, hearing his voice in the next room, feeling his presence just out of reach.

Maybe.

Harry pushed through the café’s glass door, stepping out onto the sidewalk. The temperature difference was shocking, the winter cold against café warmth, but the sun was out at least. It was bright and clear in a cloudless sky, the kind of day that felt like it should herald good news and new beginnings.

The warmth of it hit his face immediately, soaking through his skin. Harry stopped moving, tilted his face upwards, closed his eyes against the brightness, and let its warmth chase away some of the persistent chill that had taken up residence in his bones.

For just a moment, standing there with his face turned towards the light, Harry felt something close to peaceful.

Then he felt it.

A breath. Definitely not his own. He could feel the warmth of it against his neck, could sense the displacement of air as someone exhaled directly behind him. Too close. Much too close. Near enough that if he stepped backwards even an inch, he’d collide with whoever was standing there.

Harry’s body locked up completely. Every muscle going rigid simultaneously, his coffee cup frozen halfway to his lips. His heart kicked into overdrive, slamming against his ribs so hard he could feel it in his throat, his wrists, his temples. But he couldn’t move. Couldn’t turn around. Couldn’t confirm what every nerve ending in his body was suddenly, insistently telling him.

The next breath he felt was warmer, more deliberate. Like whoever was behind him had stepped closer still, closing the already minimal distance to nothing.

Then, soft enough that it might have been imagination, faint enough that Harry almost convinced himself he’d invented it, but real, undeniably real, spoken directly into his ear with breath that felt impossible:

“Hi, Harry.”

Harry couldn’t move. His heart was going to explode. It was going to burst straight through his chest and paint the sidewalk with evidence of this moment. Surely but painfully, slowly, moving like he was underwater or drugged or trapped in a dream, Harry began to turn around.

He felt as if his world tilted sideways and his vision tunnelled, darkening at the edges like someone had placed a vignette filter over reality itself. His knees wanted to give out, buckle completely, send him sprawling onto the concrete. But his body had locked up, frozen in place. Every muscle went rigid. Every nerve firing signals his brain couldn’t process. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t form words even if his mouth would have cooperated, which it wouldn’t. His lips parted but nothing came out except a strangled sound that might have been an attempt at speech. His eyes, though. His eyes worked just fine. Too fine, maybe. Taking in details with excruciating clarity, cataloguing every impossible feature of the figure standing before him.

Ocean blue eyes. That specific shade that Harry had convinced himself he’d exaggerated in memory, had told himself couldn’t possibly be as brilliant as he remembered. But there they were, exactly that vivid, exactly that devastating. Flecks of darker blue around the pupils, lighter streaks near the edges, the whole composition more complex and beautiful than any paint palette could capture.

Hair was swept up into a small quiff, artfully tousled in that way that looked effortless but Harry knew from experience took actual effort to achieve. The strands caught the sunlight, highlighting variations in colour Harry had forgotten existed. Not just brown, but auburn and copper and gold all threaded together. The face. God, the face. Delicate bone structure that bordered on ethereal. Sharp cheekbones that could cut glass. A jawline that softened into a chin Harry wanted to trace with his fingers. Lips that held a natural pout even in neutral expression, slightly chapped in a way that made them look more real somehow, more human. Lastly, the frame. Petite, compact, smaller than Harry in every dimension but somehow taking up more space than physics should allow. Shoulders that were narrow but not fragile. Hands that Harry could see clearly now, long fingers and knuckles that stood out slightly, nails trimmed short.

This Louis wore normal clothes, not clothes from the last century. Jeans that fit well, slightly worn at the knees. A simple jumper, nothing elaborate, the kind you’d buy at any High Street shop. Trainers that had clearly been worn in, and scuffed at the toes.

Everything about his figure was solid. Three dimensional and subject to gravity, light and all the normal laws that governed physical objects. There was no ethereal glow, no translucent quality, no suggestion of otherworldliness whatsoever.

Which meant this couldn’t be Louis. Harry’s mind was playing its cruelest trick yet, conjuring not just a voice or a silhouette but an entire person. Solid and real looking and standing right in front of him in broad daylight.

Louis, meanwhile, had been debating this moment for what felt like forever. He had run through a thousand different scenarios of how to reveal himself to Harry, what words would adequately convey the impossibility of what had happened. How to ease Harry into understanding without sending him into complete shock.

He’d imagined something profound or meaningful that would capture the magnitude of what they’d accomplished, what they had survived, and what they now had the chance to be.

Instead, watching Harry’s face drain of colour, his knees beginning to buckle, Louis spoke, his usually sassy mind completely overwhelmed by the feeling of finally, finally seeing Harry again, and the stupidest word possible slipped out.

His face contorted into something between a grimace and a smile, concern and self-deprecation warring for dominance. Louis’ eyebrows shot up as he registered what he’d just said, questioning every choice that had led to this particular moment.

“Boo?”

Harry’s coffee cup slipped from his fingers. The lid popped off on impact, sending liquid spraying across the pavement in a wide arc. Harry stumbled backwards, colliding hard with another pedestrian who’d been walking past. That person’s drink went flying too, adding to the puddle of spilled beverages growing on the sidewalk.

Harry didn’t apologise. Didn’t even acknowledge the collision. His eyes stayed locked on the figure in front of him, glued there like if he looked away for even a second, the apparition would disappear.

“You’re not real,” Harry said, his voice breaking on the last word. “You’re not real, you’re not real, you’re not real.”

He kept repeating it like a mantra, like if he said it enough times his brain would accept it and stop generating this elaborate hallucination.

Louis looked around at the gathering crowd, at the concerned faces of strangers who’d stopped to witness whatever breakdown was happening on their peaceful street. This was going spectacularly badly. He needed to de-escalate before someone called emergency services.

“Harry. Listen to me. I’m very real right now. I can explain. Just relax for me, yeah?”

But Harry’s eyes had gone distant, and unfocussed. Louis could see his lips moving, forming words, but whatever Harry was hearing, it wasn’t coming from Louis. He was seeing Louis speak but not processing the sounds, his brain refusing to make the connection between sight and sound.

Because there was no glow. No translucent quality. No suggestion of anything supernatural at all. This person standing in front of him looked completely, utterly, impossibly human.

Which meant it couldn’t be Louis. Louis was a ghost.

This was someone else. Some stranger his mind had dressed up in Louis’ features as a coping mechanism. A particularly vivid hallucination brought on by stress and grief and possibly, actual madness.

“Louis is at peace,” Harry said, still backing away, his voice gaining strength and certainty. “You are not him. Not real, not real, not real, not real.”

His heel caught on the uneven pavement and he went down hard, landing on his tailbone with enough force to jar his teeth together. But he didn’t try to get up. Just sat there on the cold concrete, staring up at the figure who couldn’t possibly be who it looked like.

The sun shifted slightly, angling through the buildings to illuminate the person from behind. For a second, just a fraction of a moment, Louis looked golden. Bathed in light that turned his hair into a halo, highlighted the planes of his face until he looked like something out of a Renaissance painting. Beautiful, devastating and so perfectly Louis that Harry’s heart stuttered in his chest.

An older woman who’d been watching the scene unfold stepped forward, bypassing the hallucination entirely to extend a hand towards Harry.

“Are you okay, dear? Do you need a hand?”

And there it was. Confirmation. The woman hadn’t even glanced at the Louis figure. Hadn’t acknowledged him at all. Because he wasn’t there. Not really. Harry was the only one who could see him, which meant this was all happening inside his own head.

Without moving from his position on the ground, Harry lifted one hand to wipe at his forehead, brushing away grit from the pavement.

“Sorry. I’m okay. I mean, I will be. I just… I thought I saw someone and…”

He trailed off, not sure how to finish that sentence without sounding completely unhinged. “ I thought I saw my dead boyfriend who I’ve been hallucinating for days, but this time, the hallucination was extra vivid…“ It probably didn’t qualify as reassuring.

But to Harry’s complete surprise, the woman who had been nodding along sympathetically turned her head to look directly at the Louis figure.

“Is this a friend of yours? Does he need some help?”

Harry froze, every thought in his head grinding to a simultaneous halt. The woman was looking at Louis. Actually looking at him. Addressing him directly like he was a real person standing there taking up space on the sidewalk. As if someone had snapped their fingers, Harry shot to his feet with frantic energy.

“Wait. You can see him?”

The words came out too loud and too desperate. Harry knew he sounded insane but he couldn’t help it, couldn’t modulate his tone when everything he thought he understood about reality was being challenged.

Louis began to panic then, watching Harry spiral, watching the small crowd of onlookers exchange glances that suggested they were seconds away from intervening more forcefully. The woman was frowning, clearly questioning whether Harry was actually okay or whether she should be calling someone.

Louis leaned closer, just slightly, his voice dropping to something more intimate.

“Harry. You’re looking rather insane right now. Do me a favour? Relax. Please.”

He reached out, placed his hand on Harry’s upper arm.

The contact sent electricity shooting through Harry’s entire nervous system. Not metaphorical electricity, not the kind of spark people describe when they’re being poetic about attraction. Actual, physical sensation that felt like touching a live wire, like every nerve ending firing at once, like his DNA recognising something fundamental and essential. The touch was solid. Warm. Real in a way that dreams and hallucinations could never replicate. Harry could feel the slight pressure of fingertips through his jacket sleeve, could sense the heat of another person’s palm, could detect the subtle shift of weight as Louis maintained the contact.

But it was more than just physical sensation. Something deeper responded to the touch, something that lived underneath Harry’s skin and bones, something he didn’t have words for because language hadn’t evolved to describe it. The part of him that had recognised Louis the first moment they met, that had known without being told that this person was important, that had understood on some fundamental level that their connection transcended normal human interaction. It felt like coming home after years of wandering. Like finding something he’d lost before he even knew he was looking for it. The sensation travelled up his arm, spread through his chest, settled somewhere behind his sternum where it pulsed in time with his heartbeat. Recognition. Certainty. The absolute, unshakeable knowledge that this was Louis. His Louis. Not a hallucination or a stranger or a grief induced fantasy.

Harry looked at the woman, forcing himself to speak normally, to sound like someone who wasn’t having a complete metaphysical crisis on a public street.

“Sorry. I lost my footing and hit my head. I’m okay, though. No need to worry. I’m fine. Thank you for your concern.”

His voice came out steadier than he expected, almost convincing. The woman studied him for another moment, clearly debating whether to accept this explanation or push harder. But eventually she nodded, seemed satisfied that Harry wasn’t about to collapse again, and moved along.

The other onlookers, seeing the drama had concluded without requiring their intervention, dispersed as well. They returned to their lives and their errands, probably already composing the story they’d tell later about the weird incident they’d witnessed outside the café.

This left Harry and Louis standing there in the middle of the pavement, staring at each other. The noise of the street continued around them. Cars were passing by, people continued talking. The general hum of urban life going about its business. But Harry couldn’t hear any of it. His entire world had narrowed to this moment, to this person, to the impossible fact of Louis’ hand still resting on his arm.

Louis’ eyes were wide, slightly uncertain, like he wasn’t quite sure what Harry’s reaction would be now that the initial shock was wearing off. His fingers tightened slightly on Harry’s arm, a small gesture that felt like reassurance and a question combined.

Harry’s mouth opened. Closed and opened again. A thousand questions were fighting for priority, trying to organise themselves into something coherent. How was this even possible? The answer was simple, wasn’t it? What had happened after the ritual? Why did Louis look human now? Where had he been for four days?

However, what was eventually expressed, was considerably simpler.

“What the actual fuck?”

Chapter 9 - Final Chapter

Louis glanced around the street, noticing too many faces lingering and pretending not to stare. He shifted closer to Harry and said quietly,

“We can’t stay out here.”

Harry didn’t argue. He just nodded, his face still drained of colour. Louis hesitated before touching Harry’s elbow again, a gentle pressure guiding him towards the curb where Harry’s car sat waiting. The warmth of his palm seeped through Harry’s jacket, just enough to remind him this was real.

Harry fumbled with the keys like his hands had forgotten their purpose. The first attempt missed the lock completely. The second time the metal scraped and rattled before finally sliding in. Louis watched but said nothing, though something playful flickered across his face. When the door opened, Harry motioned for him to get in, half convinced the seat would be empty by the time he closed his own door.

It wasn’t.

Louis sunk into the passenger seat settling in with his legs drawn in slightly, one hand resting loosely on his knee as if this were just another drive, just another ordinary day.

The car felt too small all of a sudden.

Harry kept his eyes fixed ahead. He turned the key and the radio burst to life, blaring far too loud with some pop song about love and second chances pouring through the speakers.

’ We were written in the stars, then lost, then found again.’

Louis wrinkled his nose and chuckled.,

“Christ, that’s a bit ironic innit?”

Harry shut it off without replying and moved out onto the road.

Everything outside looked absurdly normal. Traffic lights cycled through their colours like always, people walked their dogs, a delivery van cut them off at an intersection, a completely normal day. Harry couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t square that mundane reality with the impossible fact that Louis was sitting right there beside him, breathing actual air. Every few seconds he’d steal a glance bracing himself to find the seat empty. But Louis remained. His reflection showed in the window, his shadow fell across the dashboard.

After a few blocks, Louis spoke.

“You’re not about to faint on me, are you?”

Harry kept his eyes forward.

“I’m trying very hard not to.”

“Good. It would be a total waste to survive all that, just to wrap us around a tree.”

Harry’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, the leather creasing beneath his fingers as he kept his eyes fixed on the windscreen.

“You shouldn’t even be here.”

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. The strain in it said enough.

Beside him, Louis gave a small shrug, casual on the surface, though there was something guarded in the way he did it.

“Could say the same about you.”

Harry’s mouth pressed into a thin line. The words landed exactly where they were meant to. He had no argument ready. No sharp comeback. Just the uncomfortable truth sitting between them.

That ended it. There was nothing else to say that wouldn’t cut deeper than either of them were ready for.

When Harry finally pulled up outside his house, he didn’t kill the engine right away. The car hummed softly as Louis watched him patiently.

Harry just stared at the steering wheel.

“If you disappear when I blink,” he said, his tone low and serious, “I’m actually going to lose it.”

Louis considered that, his mouth pulling into something almost like a smile.

“Then don’t blink.”

Harry turned his head, still half afraid he’d imagined everything. But Louis met his gaze without wavering, solid and present, like he had no intention of going anywhere.

They climbed out of the car in tandem, doors closing with dull thuds. Harry’s hands shook as he unlocked the front door, the key scraping against the lock twice before it turned. He pushed the door open and stepped inside, Louis following close behind.

The formal lounge stretched out before them, and Louis glanced around, taking it all in with actual proper eyes this time, then said dryly,

“Is it too late to say ‘Honey, I’m home’?”

Harry let out a soft, startled sound that might’ve been a laugh under different circumstances. But his face was still drawn, his eyes too wide, and when he turned to face Louis properly, he looked terrified.

They stood there in the middle of the room, just staring at each other. The space between them felt impossible to cross and yet unbearably close all at once. Louis could see Harry’s chest rising and falling too quickly, could see the way his hands trembled at his sides.

Louis moved first. One step, then another, slow and deliberate. When he was close enough to touch, he stopped.

Harry’s eyes tracked over him with a silent desperation. He stared at Louis’ face, studying every detail like he was memorising it, the slope of his cheekbones, the exact shade of his eyes, the small scar near his temple Harry had always loved. Then his gaze dropped lower, tracing the line of Louis’ shoulders, the way his chest moved with each breath, the familiar shape of his hands.

Louis felt something twist in his chest at the intensity of it, felt his mouth curve despite himself. But he stayed still, letting Harry take it all in.

Harry moved around him in a careful circle, never more than a foot away, his eyes never leaving Louis’ body. He was checking, Harry realised dimly, checking that Louis cast a shadow, that he displaced the light properly, that he was three dimensional and solid and actually ‘there’. His hand lifted once, hovering near Louis’ shoulder but not quite touching, like he was afraid contact would shatter the illusion.

When Harry completed the circle and came back to stand in front of him, they locked eyes again. The fear hadn’t left Harry’s face, but something else had joined it now, a fragile longing that looked like it might break him.

Louis moved with infinite care. He reached out and took Harry’s hand in his, so gentle it barely qualified as contact. His thumb swept across Harry’s knuckles in a slow caress, warm and undeniably real.

“It’s me,” Louis said softly, holding his gaze. “I promise. Here in the flesh. And all thanks to you.”

Harry’s eyes went glossy, tears gathering at the edges but not quite falling. His lips parted like he was going to speak, like he had a thousand questions demanding answers.

“How did…” he started, but Louis lifted his free hand, one finger extending to press gently against Harry’s mouth.

The touch was featherlight, barely there, but Harry froze like he’d been struck by lightning. His breath caught audibly, his whole body going rigid with the shock of it.

Louis stepped closer, eliminating the last inches between them. His hand slid from Harry’s mouth to cup his jaw, then both hands came up to frame Harry’s face, thumbs resting against his cheekbones with exquisite tenderness.

“I’ve waited way too long for this,” Louis murmured, his eyes never leaving Harry’s.

Harry made a sound that might’ve been a sob or a laugh or both. His hands finally moved, coming up to clutch at Louis’ sides like anchors.

Louis leaned in, slowly giving Harry every chance to pull away. But Harry didn’t move, couldn’t move, could barely breathe as Louis closed the distance between them.

Their lips met soft and tentative, like neither of them quite believed this was allowed. For a moment it was nothing more than gentle pressure, a question more than an answer. But then something shifted, some dam broke, and the kiss deepened.

It was still careful, so careful, like they were both afraid of breaking something precious. Louis’ mouth moved against Harry’s with devastating softness, each small movement loving and sure. But beneath the gentleness ran a current of something fierce and hungry, something that had been denied for far too long.

Harry’s hands fisted in Louis’ shirt pulling him impossibly closer. Louis made a quiet sound against his mouth that sent electricity down Harry’s spine. The kiss tasted like relief, as if finally coming home after years of being lost. Louis’ thumb stroked along Harry’s cheekbone while his other hand slid into Harry’s hair, angling his head to deepen the kiss further.

Time seemed to fold in on itself. The kiss lasted seconds and hours simultaneously. Harry felt like he was falling and flying and completely grounded all at once. Every point where their bodies touched felt hyperaware, alight with sensation. Louis’ hands were on his face and in his hair, their chests pressed together, their legs tangled, their mouths moving in perfect synchronisation like they’d spent lifetimes learning this exact rhythm.

When they finally pulled apart, barely enough to breathe, they stayed close, foreheads touching, sharing the same shaky exhales. Louis’ hands were still cradling Harry’s face, and Harry’s fingers were still twisted in Louis’ shirt, a sign that he might never want to let go.

Louis pulled back just enough to study Harry’s face, and then he sighed, a long heavy exhale that seemed to carry weight.

Harry’s stomach dropped. The warmth that had been flooding through him turned cold in an instant. Oh god . Louis regretted it. Now that he was human, now that he could actually feel things properly, maybe whatever connection he’d thought they had was gone. Maybe it had only existed because Louis was trapped, desperate, clinging to the first person who’d shown him kindness in decades.

But then Louis looked up at him with those eyes, those impossibly expressive eyes, where they were full of something that looked like fear or fury or heartbreak, and Harry was scared to find out.

“You nearly died for me, Harry,” Louis said, and his tone climbed by the end, louder and sharper than Harry had ever heard it. “What were you thinking?”

Harry blinked, caught off guard.

“I…”

He took an involuntary step back. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but something in Louis’ raised tone made his pulse kick up in a way that had nothing to do with attraction.

“And I’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant setting you free.”

He tried to sound brave, tried to sound certain, to which he most certainly was.

Louis went still. Not frozen. Just still in a way that stripped all the usual expressions from his face. The sarcasm dropped. The faint amusement disappeared. What replaced it was much flatter, and harder to read.

His eyes held on Harry.

There was no outburst. No raised voice. Just that look, steady and unblinking, like he was weighing something and not liking the answer he’d come to.

It was enough.

Harry felt his posture change without thinking, shoulders pulling back slightly. Whatever had just passed over Louis’ face wasn’t simple irritation. It meant something.

“You don’t even know me.”

“No, I don’t,” Harry agreed instantly, his words tumbling out faster now. “But I feel you. I feel your strength, your courage, your wisdom, your sass, your heart, and I can’t turn away from any of it. You pull me in, Louis. Can’t you feel that?”

Louis tried to find words, but failed. Because yeah, he knew exactly what Harry meant.

“When I touch you,”

Harry sounded uncertain as he continued, his tone dropping lower.

“Shit, when I kissed you before, it felt so natural. Like we’ve done it thousands of times. And now I’m starting to worry if, look it doesn’t matter, Louis, listen to me.”

He swallowed hard, his eyes searching Louis’ face.

“When you look at me, it’s like you’re looking directly into me, beyond my soul or something.”

He paused momentarily.

“Fuck, I think I would choose you in every lifetime if I could.”

Louis’ expression crumbled at that. Something fierce and aching crossed his features, and he pulled Harry back in, kissing him hard and quick. When he pulled back, Harry tried to collect himself, trying to ground his spinning thoughts.

“How are you even here?” he asked, his brow furrowing. “I mean, you’re human now, but why didn’t you… I don’t know, cross over? Isn’t that what was supposed to happen, when…”

Footsteps echoed down the hallway, rapid and purposeful.

“Harry, where are you?”

Gemma’s frantic shout preceded her appearance.

“I came as quick as I could. The doctor said you’d left and that you were… oh.”

They hadn’t heard her pull up.

They were too caught up in their own little world, their attention narrowed to whatever was being said between them. Everything else had gone unnoticed.

She rounded the corner into the lounge and stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes landed on Louis, still standing close to Harry, both of them looking thoroughly caught.

“Who is this?”

She had asked slowly, her gaze moving between them with growing confusion.

Harry’s head whipped towards Louis. Louis looked back at him with equal parts panic and something that might have been amusement. His mouth twitched despite the situation, like he couldn’t quite help himself.

“Gem,” Harry said weakly, gesturing vaguely at nothing. “You better sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit down.”

Her tone had changed. She was staring at Louis now with an intensity that made him shift his weight.

“Harry, what’s going on? Who is he?”

Harry opened his mouth and then closed it again. He looked at Louis like maybe he’d have a better explanation.

Louis cleared his throat.

“Hello, Gemma. Um, thank you for looking after him for me, just like you promised you would.”

Her face went pale. Not the gradual draining of colour that happens when someone gets bad news, this was instant, like someone had flipped a switch. She took a step back, her hand coming up to grip the doorframe.

“No,” she whispered. “That’s not… you can’t be…”

“I know this is…” Louis started, but she flinched away from him like he’d lunged at her.

Harry moved instinctively, putting himself slightly between them.

“Gem, it’s okay. He’s not going to hurt you.”

“He’s dead, Harry!”

Her tone was climbing now, edging towards hysteria.

“He’s been dead for what, seventy something years! And now he’s just standing in your house looking like he’s twenty two and breathing and…”

Her breath hitched.

“Oh god, am I having a breakdown? Did I crash the car on the way here? Is this a coma dream?”

“You’re not in a coma,” Harry confirmed firmly. “And neither am I, before you ask. I know how this looks, but…”

“How it looks?”

Gemma’s laugh was slightly unhinged.

“Harry, this is impossible. This doesn’t happen. Dead people don’t just… they don’t just show up in your living room looking fresh out of a vintage catalogue!”

Louis’ mouth twitched at that, but he had the good sense not to comment, even though he looked down at himself and nodded in agreement.

Gemma’s breathing was coming faster now, short and sharp. Her eyes kept darting to Louis and then away, like she couldn’t decide whether looking at him directly would make him more or less real. Her hands were trembling.

“Gemma,” Louis said gently, carefully, like he was approaching a spooked animal.

“I know this is completely mental. I know you’ve got no reason to believe any of this. But I promise you, I’m not here to cause trouble. I’m not going to hurt anyone.”

She stared at him. Really stared this time, taking in every detail of his face. And then something in her felt different, calm. Her eyes went glassy, filling with tears that caught the light.

“It’s really you,” she breathed. “You’re really here. You’re alive?”

“Yeah,” Louis said softly. “I am.”

The tears spilled over then, tracking down her cheeks in twin streams. For a moment she just stood there, frozen, like she couldn’t make her body cooperate with what her brain was trying to process. And then she moved.

She crossed the space between them in three quick steps and threw her arms around Louis, nearly knocking him backwards with the force of it. Louis let out a startled “oof” but caught her, his hands coming up to pat her back somewhat awkwardly.

“I can’t believe it,”

Gemma was mumbling into his shoulder, half laughing, half sobbing.

“This is insane. This is completely insane. You’re real. I can feel you.”

“Very real,” Louis confirmed, shooting Harry a slightly helpless look over her shoulder. Harry just shrugged, looking somewhere between relieved and overwhelmed.

Gemma pulled back after a long moment, keeping her hands on Louis’ shoulders like she needed to maintain contact to prove he wouldn’t evaporate. She studied his face with wonder, reaching up to wipe at her eyes with the back of one hand.

Then she squinted at him, her head tilting.

“Is this something like from that TV show? What was it called… The Resurrected? No, wait, The Returned? I don’t know, never mind.”

Louis looked completely lost.

“What?”

Harry laughed, actually laughed, the sound startled out of him despite everything.

“It was a show about dead people coming back to life,” he explained. “French, I think. Or maybe there was an American version?”

“There were both,” Gemma said, still squinting at Louis like he was a particularly complex puzzle. “But they came back weird, didn’t they? All mysterious and wrong somehow.”

She poked Louis’ shoulder experimentally.

“You seem pretty normal. Well, apart from the whole being dead and now not thing.”

“Cheers for that,” Louis said dryly, but he was smiling now, something genuine and warm that made Harry’s heart do stupid things.

Gemma’s attention swung back to Harry.

“Okay. Okay, someone needs to explain what the hell is happening. Right now. Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”

Harry and Louis exchanged another look. There was so much to explain, so many impossible things that had led them to this moment. Harry wasn’t even sure where to begin.

But Gemma crossed her arms and lifted her eyebrows expectantly, clearly not planning to move until she got answers.

“Right,” Harry said, taking a deep breath. “So. Remember when I told you about Elias?”

👻

It had been one hell of a day, and after sitting with Gemma for well over an hour explaining everything from the mirror, to the ritual, to the hospital, she’d announced she was going to stay at a motel. She’d planned to stay with Harry originally, but once she’d put the pieces together about this being their first night together, she’d quickly backtracked, insisting she didn’t want to impose. She’d mumbled something to Louis that Harry didn’t quite catch, something that made Louis’ face break into a bashful smile.

Louis had actually felt bad about her leaving. He’d wanted her to stay, they both had, actually. But Gemma was firm in her decision. She’d hugged them both, made them promise to call if anything weird happened (then laughed at herself because what could possibly be weirder than this), and headed out with the promise of seeing them tomorrow.

Now that she’d finally gone, and without that peaceful buffer between them, the awkwardness crept back in.

They stood in the kitchen, both acutely aware of now being completely alone together.

“So…” Harry said, clearing his throat. “Are you hungry?”

He turned towards the fridge, reaching for the handle, when he felt warm hands settle delicately on his hips from behind. Louis was close, so close Harry could feel the heat of him through his shirt.

“Starved, actually,” Louis murmured, his tone low and deliberately ambiguous.

Every nerve ending where Louis was touching him felt hyperaware, sending little sparks all over his body. He couldn’t tell if Louis meant food or something else entirely, and the uncertainty was making his head spin.

Louis smiled against Harry’s shoulder, Harry could feel the curve of it even through the fabric, and then stepped back, breaking the contact. The loss of warmth was almost painful.

“Do you mind if I shower?” Louis asked, and his tone was normal again, casual. “Like, damn, I’ve missed hot water. You have no idea.”

Harry laughed, trying to shake off whatever that moment had been.

“It’s up the stairs and…”

“To the left. Yeah, I lived here, remember?” Louis finished.

His mouth quirked up at one corner as he winked. Actually winked, like some sort of movie star from his era, and Harry felt his knees go weak. He gripped the counter for support, fairly certain he was about to embarrass himself. Louis headed for the stairs, and Harry heard him mutter something under his breath about missing being able to manifest places and hating having to walk everywhere now.

“Lazy as a ghost, lazy as a human,” Harry called after him, shaking his head with a grin.

“Hey, I heard that!” Louis’ reply echoed down from the stairs, indignant and amused in equal measure.

Harry giggled, giggled like a bloody teenager, and pressed his palms against his face. He couldn’t believe this was real. Louis Tomlinson was in his house, about to take a shower, alive and very human.

Shit. He needed to find Louis some clean clothes.

When Louis stepped out of the bathroom into the hallway, steam billowing out behind him, Harry was waiting with a small stack of folded clothes in his hands.

Louis was draped in just a towel.

Just…a… towel.

A towel that was slung low around his hips, dangerously low, the kind of low that made Harry’s brain shortcircuit. Water droplets were trailing down Louis’ chest, following the lines of his collarbones, and the flat plane of his stomach. His hair was wet and messy, pushed back from his forehead, making him look younger somehow. Softer.

“Fuck,” Harry said out loud, before his brain could catch up with his mouth.

Louis’ eyebrows shot up. A slow, wicked smile spread across his face.

“I mean, we can if you want?”

Harry made a strangled noise and shoved the clothes at his chest.

“Oh my god. Get dressed.”

Louis caught them easily, laughing, that delighted sound that Harry was quickly becoming addicted to.

“You’re the one who showed up with clothes while I was half naked. That’s on you, mate.”

“Just, please, for the love of…” Harry gestured helplessly at Louis’ entire situation. “Clothes. Now.”

“Bossy,” Louis said, but he disappeared back into the bathroom, still grinning.

When Louis emerged a few minutes later, he was dressed in grey sweats that hung perfectly on his hips and a plain white t-shirt that shouldn’t have been attractive but somehow was, Harry was standing in the kitchen with two cups of tea.

“Made you one,”

He slid a mug across the counter.

“Figured you might want it. Or, I don’t know, maybe you don’t even like tea anymore? Maybe being human again changed your taste buds or…”

“Harry,” Louis interrupted gently. “Tea’s perfect. Thank you.”

They sat at the table in comfortable silence, both cradling their mugs. Harry tried to disguise a yawn behind his hand, but Louis caught it anyway.

“Tired?” Louis asked.

“Bit,” Harry admitted. “It’s been a long day.”

“Understatement of the century,”

Louis took a sip of his tea. He was quiet for a moment, then added,

“I’m knackered too, actually. Which is weird. I haven’t been properly tired in decades.”

The silence that followed was different. Because they were both thinking the same thing, both doing the mental calculation about the logistics of sleeping arrangements in this house that Louis used to haunt but now had to physically inhabit.

Louis set his mug down with a soft clink.

“Well,” he said, his tone carefully light, “since you’ve gone and claimed my bedroom…”

Harry’s face went hot.

“I didn’t know it was yours! Not at first anyway, and then by the time I found out…”

“Relax, I’m winding you up.” Louis’ smile was gentle, and teasing. “It’s fine. Really. I can sleep on the couch, I don’t mind.”

Harry opened his mouth to argue, to say what, exactly? That Louis should sleep in his bed? With him? That felt too presumptuous, too fast, even though they’d kissed twice now and Harry was fairly certain he’d crawl through fire for this man.

“That’s not… you don’t have to…”

Harry stumbled over the words, trying to find a way to suggest sharing without actually suggesting it.

Louis waited, one eyebrow raised, but Harry couldn’t make himself say it.

“Okay then,” Louis said finally, standing up. “Well… goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Harry echoed weakly.

Louis headed down the hall towards the lounge, and Harry stayed frozen at the table, watching him go. He could hear Louis’ footsteps, actual footsteps, the weight of a real person moving through the house. He caught the edge of Louis’ shadow stretching across the wall as he passed the lamp.

Harry frowned. He wanted to kick himself. Louis was here, in the same house, and Harry was letting him sleep on a couch that was uncomfortable even for sitting. What was he doing?

But it felt too complicated to chase after him now, too awkward to backtrack after they’d already said goodnight. So Harry cleaned up their mugs, turned off the lights, and headed upstairs.

He went through the motions of getting ready for bed on autopilot, brushing his teeth, changing into sleep clothes, checking his phone out of habit even though he had no idea what he was looking for. When he finally crawled under the covers, he laid there staring at the ceiling, freaking out at the fact that Louis was downstairs, in his house, alive and real, sleeping on a lumpy couch.

It felt wrong and somewhat ridiculous. But Harry was too exhausted to untangle the knot of feelings in his chest, too worn out from the day’s impossibilities. His eyes drifted shut despite himself. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep when soft footsteps pulled him back towards consciousness. His eyes cracked open, still heavy with sleep, adjusting to the darkness. The bedroom door was open just enough to let light from the hallway spill across the floor. And there, silhouetted in that sliver of light, was Louis.

Harry stayed perfectly still, watching as Louis approached the bed. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t move. Just waited to see what Louis would do.

Louis reached the edge of the bed and paused. Then, with a gentle tug, he lifted the bottom of the duvet.

Harry bit back a smile as he realised what was happening.

Louis crawled onto the bed, crawling up from the bottom, moving slowly over Harry’s legs, his knees sinking into the mattress on either side of Harry’s hips as he made his way up. It was such a ridiculous, roundabout way to get into bed when he could’ve just slipped in from the side, but it was so perfectly Louis that Harry couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him.

When Louis’ face finally appeared above his own, close enough that Harry could make out the gleam in his eyes even in the darkness, Harry was grinning.

“I think we’ve met like this before,” Harry said softly.

Louis’ grin mirrored his, small and knowing.

“I remember,” Louis murmured.

He braced a hand beside Harry’s shoulder, the mattress dipping. For a heartbeat neither of them moved, both caught in that fragile moment that only exists when something extraordinary is about to happen.

Harry’s breath faltered when Louis leaned in.

It was the smallest change, just enough to close what little gap remained between them. A few strands of Louis’ fringe brushed across Harry’s forehead, light and unintentional, but it was enough to make his thoughts trip over themselves.

This close, Louis didn’t feel like something imagined or half there. He felt real.

There was heat coming off him, steady and undeniable, seeping into Harry’s skin. The front of Louis’ shirt grazed Harry’s chest, the contact firm, and solid. Harry could feel the faint rhythm inside him, strong and alive, beating in that narrow strip of space that was separating them. It made the rest of the room feel distant.

All Harry could focus on was how real he felt.

He reached up, hesitant at first, fingers trembling as they skimmed the edge of Louis’ jaw. The touch drew a quiet sound from Louis, like he’d been starving for contact and didn’t know how to process finally having it.

“You’re warm,” Harry whispered.

“Should hope so,” Louis replied, his tone deliberately light. “Be a bit concerning otherwise, wouldn’t it?”

Harry laughed under his breath, a small, breathless sound that faded as Louis leaned closer still. Their foreheads touching. The world seemed to tilt, condensing down to that single point of contact. Harry’s hands slid into Louis’ hair, holding him there, needing to catalog every proof of life, every tiny shift, every shiver, every exhale against his skin.

Louis let out a soft breath.

“You believe it now?”

Harry nodded, words lodged somewhere behind his ribs. He didn’t need to say it. Louis could see it written across his face, the quiet wonder, the fierce ache of finally having him here, solid and whole.

When Louis kissed him, it wasn’t sudden. It was slow, and tender, the kind of kiss that felt like a memory being rewritten in real time. Everything that had once been ghostly, cold, weightless, untouchable, was replaced by heat and gravity and skin. Harry felt anchored for the first time in months, like he’d been drifting and finally found shore.

Louis broke the kiss only long enough to rest his forehead against Harry’s again.

“I missed you,” he whispered, and the words cracked slightly at the edges.

Harry’s hand slid down his back, tracing the curve of his spine like he was reading braille, trying to memorise the shape of him.

“You have no idea,” Harry said quietly.

Louis smiled, eyes half closed.

“Oh, but I do.”

He shifted closer, their bodies aligning in a way that left no room for doubt or distance. Every movement was unhurried, almost ceremonial, two people relearning what it meant to touch, to be touched, to exist in the same space without barriers.

Outside, the night pressed on quietly, the world carrying on as if nothing miraculous was happening inside that small room. But for Harry, there was nothing else, just Louis, and his , for the very first time since everything had fallen apart.

Louis shifted again, slow and careful, like he was afraid any sudden movement might shatter the moment. His thigh brushed along Harry’s, and Harry felt the tremor that went through both of them. It wasn’t nervousness exactly, just the sheer magnitude of being here, after all the times Harry had thought they never would be.

Harry reached up again, tracing the line of Louis’ throat with his fingertips. He could feel the flutter of his pulse there, steady and insistent.

“You’re still here,” he said, like he still needed convincing.

Louis smiled faintly, eyes impossibly soft in the dim light.

“Told you I wasn’t going anywhere.”

Not yet at least.

Before he could stop himself, he pulled Louis down again. The kiss that followed was slower this time, drawn out and searching, like they were rediscovering each other one breath at a time. Louis made a low sound against his mouth, and Harry felt it resonate through him.

Their movements grew easier, more certain. Louis’ hand found Harry’s cheek, thumb brushing the corner of his mouth in a silent question that didn’t need words. Harry answered by leaning into the touch, pressing another kiss there, soft, open, lingering like he had all the time in the world now.

Louis smiled.

“Always so gentle.”

Harry huffed a quiet laugh.

“You bring it out of me.”

“Yeah?” Louis murmured. He tilted his head, his nose brushing Harry’s.

“Guess I’ll have to keep doing that then.”

Harry’s breath stuttered as Louis leaned in again, his lips finding the curve of his jaw, then lower. Every touch was almost filled with the kind of patience that said we have time now . There was no rush, no desperation, just the slow, building hum of connection, of wanting and belonging and everything sewn up in between.

Harry’s hands roamed aimlessly, memorising the familiar shape of Louis’ back, the dip of his waist, the warmth of his skin through the thin t-shirt. He couldn’t stop touching him, couldn’t risk letting go, not even for a second.

Louis lifted his head, eyes searching his face in the half darkness.

“You okay?”

Harry nodded, barely able to find his voice.

“Better than okay.”

Louis let that smile slip through, the small crooked one that never quite reached full symmetry. The one Harry used to pretend he didn’t stare at for too long. Seeing it now sent butterflies straight to his stomach.

“Good,” Louis murmured.

There was no teasing in it. No edge.

“Because this… it feels like home.”

The word landed heavy.

Harry had to swallow twice before he trusted himself to speak.

“That’s because it is,” he managed, voice rougher than he meant it to be.

He didn’t look away when he said it.

He couldn’t.

Because if this wasn’t home, then he didn’t know what was.

Louis let out a shaky breath, and something in him seemed to surrender then, his body sinking fully against Harry’s, the space between them vanishing entirely. The rest happened wordlessly, the way it does when two people already know each other’s rhythms, each breath a promise not to drift apart again.

Brushing his thumb across Louis’ bottom lip, he felt it curve under his touch.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited to do this without you disappearing on me?”

Louis’ mouth pulled into the smallest grin.

“Didn’t plan on giving you that kind of trauma, love.”

Harry let out a shaky laugh, but it fractured halfway through. He felt his throat tighten, and Louis must’ve seen it too, because his expression softened immediately. He leaned in until their noses brushed, until Harry could count his eyelashes if he wanted to.

“Kiss me, you fool.”

It was said with such tenderness it nearly undid him. He reached up, curling his fingers in Louis’ hair, grounding himself in the warmth and weight of him.

The next kiss wasn’t gentle anymore. It was full of everything that hadn’t been said, apology, longing, relief, and promise. Harry felt it ripple through him like a current, dizzying and unstoppable. Louis pressed closer, fitting against him perfectly, every inch a reminder that he was real and here and not going anywhere.

It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t frantic. It was necessary . When Louis finally pulled back, his voice was barely a whisper.

“I can’t believe I’m actually getting to do this, to touch you, for real, I don’t think I want to let you go.”

Harry looked at him, really looked, and something inside him just cracked open. He pulled Louis back down, murmuring against his mouth.

“Then don’t.”

Louis smiled but it suddenly faltered. He had been so caught up in finally getting to touch Harry, to be alive again that he had forgotten, completely pushed it to the back of his mind.

One year.

Louis was unable to inform him of that information, at least not at this moment. For now, he required this experience. He wished to savour whatever the universe was allowing him to absorb, at least for the time being. Though, he offered a smile, which Harry perceived more than observed.

“I will always be here for you.”

It was not a falsehood, at least not to Louis. In a sense, he understood that he would consistently discover a means to offer solace and support to him, even when the time came for his departure.

“Good,” Harry breathed. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Louis laughed softly, a sound that trembled with something too big for words, and he pressed another kiss to the corner of Harry’s mouth, then another, slower, until Harry’s hands were shaking again, but for an entirely different reason now.

It felt endless, not time exactly, but the suspension of it. Like they’d stepped outside of everything normal and found something sacred instead. And when Louis whispered his name again like it was the only word that mattered, Harry swore he could see constellations behind his closed eyelids, like something cosmic had finally clicked into place and the universe was celebrating with them.

Louis’ t-shirt rode up as he shifted showing the curve of his ribs and the outline of his stomach. Harry hooked his fingers into the hem and tugged it up.

“Oi, hands off, geez no patience at all.”

Louis had cheekily muttered, but the warning came with a suggestive smirk that made Harry push further. Louis didn’t argue. He removed his shirt and then his sweatpants, a somewhat clumsy manoeuver that evoked a mixed reaction of amusement and awkwardness in Harry. Clothes hit the floor and the bed seemed suddenly too small for how much they were trying to keep contained.

The kiss started at the mouth and then moved, as if creating a map. Harry’s hands slid up Louis’ back, finding the firm set of muscles beneath the skin and holding on. Louis’ fingers spread across Harry’s ribs, steady and sure, as if he were grounding himself in the reality of being able to feel him, a sensation far removed from the dreamlike encounters they were accustomed to.

They took their time. Louis’ mouth wandered, and Harry tracked it with a heat that started in his chest and spread like wildfire. Louis used his lips, then the tip of his tongue, teasing the sensitive skin along Harry’s collarbone, at the hollow beneath his throat. He gently kissed the small scars and freckles, then observed Harry with keen and attentive eyes. His smile had a captivating effect on Harry, causing him to momentarily lose his train of thought.

When Louis’ hand found the waistband, he hesitated for the smallest moment, one careful pause to check, to read the permission on Harry’s face, then hooked his fingers and eased the fabric down. Harry gasped at the cool air hitting him, and Louis laughed, the sound small and almost embarrassed. He wrapped his hand around Harry, careful and bold, thumb rubbing slow circles around the top of his slit where Harry was most sensitive. Harry’s knees bent without planning it, his fingers clutching the sheet, nails catching the cotton.

Louis lowered his head, and the first contact was a sharp, electric shock that had Harry’s mouth falling open. Louis’ lips were divine, hot, unrelenting, and sinful in the way they pulled Harry apart piece by piece until all he could do was give in.

Pure….. bliss.

Louis worked with intent, using his mouth like he’d practiced on a thousand remembered fantasies and was finally getting the technique right on an actual living person, an angel even, in Louis’ eyes anyway.

Harry’s voice tore out of him, half want, half something else.

“Lou.”

Louis took him deeper. Heat pooled low, fingers gripped too tightly. Louis knew him too well already.

Harry was pretty sure that he was the next one about to die and go to heaven.

Just as Harry’s legs began to tremble, Louis pulled away, his palm replacing his mouth in one smooth motion. He kissed the inside of Harry’s wrist, a soft, almost apologetic gesture before he spoke.

“Turn over,” he said.

The command was delivered with a quiet but firm demeanor, devoid of any harshness or overbearing qualities. It suggested a potential exploration of leadership by Louis, the one who never used to top, perhaps stemming from a newfound confidence after years of feeling constrained by Elias. Whatever it was, Harry was all for it.

“I want to see you.”

Louis bit his lower lip.

“All of you.”

Harry flipped, face down, arse high with need. Louis stayed for a second to gather himself, hands moving over Harry’s back, then slowly down to his hips. He reached around at the sides of the bed and started rummaging, searching like someone who didn’t have a clue where anything humanly useful would be kept. Harry watched, puzzled, and Louis froze with a rueful half smile.

“Rubber?” Louis asked, brow lifting. He checked drawers like it was an odd new ritual. “Vaseline or olive oil?”

Harry frowned, rolling his head to the side. Then it clicked. He knew condoms were called rubbers back in Louis’ time, so that one was clear. But olive oil?

“Oil? You plan on baking some pastries mid orgasm or something?

Harry laughed at his own words, but Louis frowned.

“What? No. To make things slide and enter a little easier down there, Harry.”

Oh .

“Right. Gotcha. You mean lube. It’s called lube these days .We don’t use olive oil anymore.”

Louis looked surprised at the new revelation but smirked anyway.

“Okay, any luuube then, Styles?”

Harry laughed at the way he over exaggerated the word Lube, right before he realised.

“I… don’t have any. I never thought…”

He stopped, because the look Louis gave him was not panic. It was lopsided and amused and oddly steady.

Louis shrugged.

“We’re improvising then.”

He scrubbed the heel of his palm over his face and then, with that same easy stubbornness that made Harry trust him, he watched as Louis spat into his hand and wiped it right over his hole, aligning himself at Harry’s entrance.

Okay, no prep then. Was that even a thing back then?

His touch was imminent and slow, fingers pressing, easing, making sure the first press was the kind that would widen rather than tear. The stretch bit quick and sharp, and then melted into a deeper, fuller sensation that made Harry cry out.

“Don’t ever stop touching me, ever.”

It caused Louis to temporarily pause. This is because Harry is still unaware that Louis cannot sustain this indefinitely. For 365 days, yes, but forever, that would only ever remain a dream.

Louis didn’t hurry after that, he wanted to take his time, to cherish, to love, to remember. He leaned forward, hands braced on either side of Harry’s hips, and pushed in the smallest, most calculated increments. He met every tiny squeeze Harry gave him with patience, letting Harry set the pace until Harry’s muscles let go enough for Louis to sink in more. The first real movement was soft and exploratory, sending a hot shockwave through Harry’s entire body. Louis rocked, then paused, and Harry realised the pause was a gift: Louis was checking that they were both okay, that Harry could take more.

Louis pushed in closer each time, using his body to keep Harry right there with him, skin to skin, until nothing else mattered. Harry’s hands braced against the mattress, fingertips digging into the weave as he found anchors in the bed.

Each thrust from Louis struck deep, pressing against parts of him that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the ache of years spent searching and yearning. It was not polished in any sense, and it did not need to be. It was push and pull and gasps and a string of curses that sounded more like prayer than profanity.

Louis bent his head and pressed his lips along Harry’s shoulder, right where the skin met the collarbone, and murmured something that made Harry laugh, sharp and incredulous and wet with truth, because Louis had said it like it was a joke.

“Romantic music would have been nice, but not the shit you always used to play.”

Harry thinks back to Louis’ bombarding Harry with his own music when he didn’t get his way at the very beginning. He wants to make mention of it, but right now he is feeling pleasure in such a way he hasn’t experienced in a long time that, well, fuck the music.

Harry shoved his hip up, answering with a moan that rattled in his chest.

“Funny, now please shut up and move.”

Louis laughed, then obeyed, faster now, each thrust deeper, less cautious, more wanting to feel himself in every inch of Harry. Harry’s body began to coil, a sensation that built and built until there was nowhere for it to go but out. He let go, fingers clawing at the sheet, a sound ripping out of him that left him hollow and unsteady. Louis’ grip tightened, then stilled as he felt the way Harry clenched him, felt Harry’s release unfolding around him. White ropes of come splurted all over the bed.

Louis followed fast after, his own hot release knocking him backwards. They collapsed together, breathless in the literal sense, skin pressed, and sweat cooling in the subsequent stillness.

Louis rolled to his side and dragged Harry with him until they lay tangled, naked, sticky, everything messy and human . For a minute neither spoke. Then Louis blinked, glanced at the ceiling like it might validate his existence, and gave a grin that was all teeth and mischief.

“Well,” he said, “That’s definitely better than being dead.”

Harry barked out a laugh and pressed his forehead to Louis’ chest.

“I mean… it was better than your cooking, at least.”

“Hey! I can cook, thank you very much.”

Louis’ hand found his thumb rubbing the pad in long, lazy circles.

“Seriously, that music isn’t-.”

“Oh my god, let it go.” Harry answered, but the retort was soft, and fond.

Louis glanced over, smirking.

“Not my fault your playlist nearly killed me twice over, if that’s even possible. I swear if I have to hear those horrible tunes again, I’ll start haunting the bloody stereo, if I still can.”

Harry groaned, burying his face in Louis’ shoulder.

“You love my music.”

“I tolerate it,” Louis corrected. “Under protest.”

“You danced to it once.”

“Out of pity.”

Harry laughed, shaking his head.

“You’re insufferable.”

Louis grinned.

“And you’re predictable. Still, I’d pick this over the afterlife any day.”

Harry didn’t answer. He just reached out, finding Louis’ hand and holding it there, like it belonged. Louis’ palm pressed into the small of his back claiming in a way that felt gentle and fierce at the same time.

“You do realise,” Louis said, “that being able to touch you is kind of distracting.”

Harry tipped his head back.

“How romantic, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Louis rolled his eyes, but the expression softened on the next breath.

“Don’t turn this into romance,” he said, but his hand squeezed Harry’s and his mouth twitched with something like warmth.

“I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

“Of course,” Harry said, murmuring.

“Your secret is safe, but you’re enjoying this too much.”

“Maybe a little,” Louis admitted, his grin teasing, warm, and dangerous all at once.

He leaned closer, letting his chest press fully against Harry’s, hand moving a fraction lower, tracing circles that made Harry stiffen.

Harry shifted instinctively, hips pressing up just enough to meet him, a quiet shiver running through him.

Seriously, one touch and he was ready again?

Louis chuckled at the reaction, low and throaty, letting the sound vibrate against Harry’s back.

“Look at you,” he murmured, then stopped.

Harry laughed despite himself, the sound low and tired in the best way.

“You really know how to wear a man out.”

Harry snorted, half into Louis’ shoulder.

“Yeah, well… now you know how it feels.”

Louis grinned, leaning down so his temple brushed Harry’s, warm and insistent.

“That’s fair,” he said. “But don’t forget… I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

Harry tilted his head up, a smirk creeping onto his face.

“For this? Or just to finally shut me up?”

Louis laughed, a short, sharp sound that rumbled through them both.

“A bit of both,” he admitted. “But mostly… this.”

The two of them stayed like that, their bodies pressing together, hands exploring, teasing, and testing, the world outside falling away. Louis’ fingers moved carefully along Harry’s side, dipping under, nudging, coaxing reactions that made him laugh, groan, and whimper in turns. Harry smiled into him, easy, small, and careful enough that Louis could see it without needing to be told. For the first time in so long Harry let himself believe that whatever came next might not be impossible.

👻

If you had asked either of them what had happened in the last three months, neither could have given you a straight answer. Time had become slippery, a beautiful thief that stole moments when no one was looking. Louis had joked once, “You turn your back for five minutes and a week’s gone, love. You’ve got to start pinning time down before it runs off again.”

Harry had only smiled, replying softly,

“Maybe we’re too happy to notice it moving.”

And maybe they were.

The days started to run together. Coffee in the mornings, Louis teasing him over how strong he made it, the two of them sitting outside when the sun went down, talking about nothing yet everything. Harry liked those moments best, the way it felt easy, like this was how it was always meant to be.

Louis spoke like he was building the past back into the earth, one memory at a time, his hands brushing petals and soil as if reacquainting himself with life itself. Harry would listen, chin in his palm, wearing that fond smile that said I’d listen to you talk forever.

The garden became their world. Louis filled it with old stories, stories of how the vines once climbed the trellis, how the roses had been his mother’s pride. Sometimes he’d pause and look out towards the fading light, the nostalgia softening him.

“Funny thing about time,” he’d said one evening, eyes tracing the horizon, “it takes and it gives. Took my life once, gave me you the second time around. Maybe it knows what it’s doing after all.”

Harry hadn’t trusted himself to answer that.

The biggest change, the one that made Louis cry, came the day weeks ago when Harry had led him down to the gates. It was meant to be a small thing, a symbolic step. Louis had hovered at the edge of the property for days, teasing Harry about being nervous, though the truth was it terrified him. When Harry took his hand, firm and steady, Louis squeezed back so tight it hurt.

“You can do this. You are not trapped here anymore, It’s just a gate, Harry had whispered.

Louis shook his head, voice barely a breath.

“It’s more than that. You know it is. I landed near that cafe when I came back. I didn’t have a choice. But here in this house, I was trapped, I couldn’t leave for so long. This is not the same, but let’s do it.”

When he stepped through, the world didn’t shatter, the sky didn’t fall. It was quiet, almost anticlimactic, but to Louis it felt like a rebirth. The tears had come before he could stop them. Harry saw one fall and then he was crying too, pressing his face against Louis’ shoulder. They held each other on the path, two men who had both been lost to the same curse, finally breathing in the same world again.

After that, things began to feel normal. They went on long walks through town, Louis fascinated by how the world had changed, the lights, the shops, the faces. More than once Harry caught people doing double takes, some even gasping.

“Probably think I’m him,” Louis had said with a smirk, tucking his hand in Harry’s pocket. “I am him, technically. Just… not the way they’d imagine.” Harry laughed, half choked by affection.

By the time summer came, the house felt like theirs again. Louis had brought back the Victorian charm it once had, heavy drapes, polished wood, the smell of books and lavender. Yet, the most beautiful thing was the little corner of the garden he’d turned into a haven. Beneath the old oak tree, he’d strung lights that shimmered like tiny stars. There was a small table set with candles, a record player crooning softly in the background, and two wine glasses always waiting.

When Harry saw it that night, he was blown away.

“Louis… what is this?”

Louis just smiled, shy for once.

“Just dinner. For us. For everything we’ve been through.”

They ate under the soft glow of the lights, watching the world settle around them. At one point, Harry leaned back, staring at him as though memorising every detail, before he spoke.

“You know,” he said quietly, “I used to think heaven was light and clouds and all that rubbish. But I think it’s this. Just all of this.”

Louis’ heart stung at that, a soft, beautiful pain he couldn’t bear to show. He’d felt the pull for weeks now, the slow fading that came with borrowed time.

He’d meant to tell Harry tonight that he couldn’t stay forever. That was the plan.

One year. Fuck, he hates those two words.

But then Harry produced those dimples, and Louis lost his nerve. How could he say it now, when that grin made the whole room feel alive again? He just couldn’t do it. Break that smile? Break him? There’s never going to be a right time.

He reached across the table, fingers brushing Harry’s wrist.

“If I ever disappear again,” he murmured, “don’t stop living, okay? Promise me that. You have to keep walking forward.”

Harry frowned, confused by the sudden seriousness.

“Lou, what are you talking about?”

Louis smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Nothing. Just… nothing at all, I was just thinking.”

He looked up towards the stars, their faint shimmer reflecting in his eyes. Three months already, he thought. Three months of life, laughter, and love. Three months of him and it’s been better than anything else he has ever experienced. His heart felt heavy in the best and worst way, full beyond measure, aching because it truly was.

And somewhere deep down, beneath the hum of summer and the sound of Harry’s laughter, Louis felt the first whisper of goodbye .

👻

Louis had slipped into life beside Harry like he’d always belonged there. He still didn’t understand half the things around the house, the remote, the coffee machine, the strange obsession Harry had with online grocery shopping, but he liked the routine. The small things, like the clatter of mugs in the morning, Harry humming under his breath as he cooked, evenings spent on the couch, pretending the future wasn’t creeping closer.

Now, the two of them were in Harry’s car, heading nowhere specific. Harry had convinced him that getting out for the day would do them both some good. Louis sat in the passenger seat, one knee drawn up slightly, glancing between the open road and the strange arrangement of buttons and blinking lights on the dashboard.

“You sure you don’t want to drive?” Harry teased, flicking him a look.

Louis let out a laugh.

“Not a fucking chance. I wouldn’t even know how to start this spaceship.”

“You turn a key…well, actually, you press a button now.”

Louis groaned.

“See? That’s exactly why I shouldn’t be driving. I don’t even have a license.”

The highway opened into stretches of farmland, long grass rippling as the wind pushed through. It was the kind of day that looked simple, clear skies, a few clouds drifting, sunlight cutting through in lazy streaks. Louis leaned his arm against the door, the wind catching his hair, his shirt tugging at his chest as he shifted to face Harry. The light made him look alive in a way Harry hadn’t seen before, impossibly golden.

They were both smiling when Harry slowed down, noticing something up ahead. On the edge of a gravel driveway, a cluster of kids had set up a makeshift lemonade stand with cardboard signs, plastic cups, and a jug that looked far too big for their small hands.

Louis’ eyes lit up.

“Pull over.”

Harry blinked.

“What, you want lemonade?”

“I’m thirsty,” Louis said, already reaching for his seatbelt. Then he stopped, realising something, his hand hovering awkwardly. “Uh, can you…um… lend us a few dollars? I didn’t exactly earn any money the last few decades.”

Harry laughed and dug into his pocket, handing him a few coins and notes.

“Are you planning to pay me back in ghost money?”

Louis shot him a look but his ears turned pink.

“Not a ghost anymore, so, just shut up and let me support the local economy.”

He climbed out, straightened his shirt, and strolled up to the kids, all charm and easy confidence. They lit up instantly, giggling as he complimented their hand painted sign and asked about their ‘secret recipe’ He paid for two cups, left a few coins extra, and crouched low to tell them they should raise the price because ‘good lemonade deserves respect.’

Watching from the car, Harry felt something new twist in his chest. It was the smallest thing, the way Louis smiled at them, the way his laughter made the kids beam, but it hit Harry hard. He could see, just for a second, what type of father Louis would be.

Perfect.

When Louis got back in, he handed over one of the cups and took a sip from his own. He flinched slightly.

“It’s a bit bitter.”

Harry snorted into his drink.

“Guess they’re still figuring out the recipe.”

Louis grinned, glancing back at the stand as they started driving again.

“Still, they’ve got spirit. We used to do that back in my day, only ours actually had real lemons, none of this powdered business.”

Harry chuckled, shaking his head.

“Do you want kids, Louis?”

It slipped out before he could stop it. He hadn’t even meant to ask, not now, not like this, but the words were there, impossible to take back.

Louis didn’t respond. He kept staring out the window, his fingers tapping against his thigh.

Harry waited a few seconds, then glanced over.

“Louis?”

Harry felt it before Louis even spoke, something shifting, heavy, inevitable maybe? He pulled the car over, gravel crunching beneath the wheels as they came to a stop.

Louis unbuckled his seatbelt slowly, then stepped out, moving around to the front of the car. He leaned back against the bonnet, hands braced against the metal, staring at the horizon like it might give him the courage he didn’t seem to have.

Harry followed suit, shutting the door softly.

“Louis, what’s wrong?”

Louis blinked hard. Tears were already stinging. He reached for Harry’s hand but stopped halfway, his fingers curling back into a fist instead.

“I love you, Harry.”

Harry frowned, something uneasy settling in his stomach, because where had this come from?

“Lou… you’re scaring me.”

“I didn’t tell you everything.”

His words came out strangled, barely held together.

“Okay. What do you mean? About what?

Louis sighed. This was it. He had to say it. It was time.

“When I saw my mum before I came back… there was more to it. Things she didn’t tell me until the very end. Things I…” His voice cracked. “Things I should’ve told you straight away but I couldn’t. I was too scared.”

Harry’s stomach twisted violently.

“What are you talking about?”

Louis swallowed, his throat working hard. Just looking at Harry, so open, so trusting, so completely his , made his ribs feel too tight, like they might crack under the pressure.

“As much as I want to see that life with you, the kids, the home, watching you get old and cranky and grey, all of it…..I can’t.” His voice broke completely. “I won’t get that chance, Harry. I won’t be here.”

Harry’s brows drew together, confusion carving deep lines into his forehead.

“What do you mean you won’t be here? Louis, you’re not making sense.”

Louis forced the words out. Fuck, this was hurting more than he thought it would.

“I can’t stay here, on earth, as a human. I only have one year.”

Silence.

Complete, suffocating silence.

Harry stared at him like the sentence was in a language he didn’t speak. Like if he waited long enough, the words would rearrange themselves into something that made sense.

“What?”

Louis took a step closer, his hands visibly shaking now.

“Harry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to tell you like this. I didn’t want to tell you at all, but I can’t keep lying to you.”

“What?”

Harry’s voice splintered this time, jagged and broken. When Louis tried to reach for him, Harry jerked his hand away like the touch burned.

“What do you mean one year? One year until what?”

Louis felt his lungs seize. Every word was agony.

“One year until I have to go back. Until I, until I’m gone… for good.”

“Gone where?”

Harry’s words were coming faster now, more desperate.

“Gone where, Louis?”

“I don’t know exactly. Wherever I was before. Wherever souls go when they’re not here anymore, heaven hopefully.”

Louis was crying openly now, tears streaming down his face.

“I don’t know all the details. That’s just how it works. I got time, borrowed time. Three hundred and sixty five days. That’s all they gave me.”

Harry stepped back, shaking his head in quick, frantic movements. Panic was crawling up his spine, taking root in every nerve.

“No. No, you can’t, you can’t just tell me that. That’s not how this works. You came back. You’re alive . You can’t just….”

His breathing was coming faster now, shallow and uneven. His eyes were too wide, too bright, glossy with tears that hadn’t fallen yet.

“You can’t leave me. I only just got you back. We only just started living.”

Louis reached out again, desperate, his fingers trembling so badly he could barely control them.

“It’s not my choice! Do you think I want this? Do you think I want to spend every single day knowing it’s one day closer to losing you?”

Harry’s face crumpled, something inside him breaking apart.

“We’re soulmates, Louis! That’s what you said. That’s what we are . Soulmates don’t just, they don’t get a year and then nothing. If you leave me, I’ll die too. Do you understand that? I will actually die.”

“Don’t say that…”

“I mean it, I can’t live without you!”

Harry was crying now, tears streaming down his face. His shoulders were shaking, pacing in tight jerky circles like his body didn’t know what else to do with the agony ripping through him.

“You can’t just vanish on me. Not after everything we’ve been through. Not after I nearly died to bring you back. Not after you promised.” His voice broke completely. “You promised me you were here. You said you weren’t going anywhere.”

“I know, I know I did…”

“So what was that? Just a lie? Just something to say to make me feel better?”

“No! Harry, no…”

Harry shoved both hands through his hair, yanking at the roots hard enough to hurt. His movements were chaotic, uncoordinated, like he was trying to physically shake the information out of his head.

“You kept this from me. You’ve known this the whole time, haven’t you? All those months. Every single day we spent together, you knew you were leaving.”

“I was going to tell you,” Louis choked out, his words tumbling over each other. “I swear to God I was. I kept trying to find the right time and there was never a right moment. How do you tell someone that? How do you look at the person you love more than anything and tell them you’re going to break their heart?”

“You tell them the truth!” Harry shouted, his voice cracking on the last word. “You don’t let them fall deeper in love with you! You don’t let them plan a future with you! You don’t…” He gasped, doubling over slightly. “Oh my god. You let me talk about growing old with you. You let me talk about kids and houses and forever, and the whole time you knew it was all bullshit.”

“It wasn’t bullshit to me!” Louis was sobbing now, ugly and broken. “None of it was bullshit. I want all of that so badly it physically hurts. I lie awake at night thinking about it, about the life we could have if I just had more time.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” Harry’s words were getting louder, more frantic. “Why didn’t you tell me so we could, so we could figure something out? So we could try to fix it?”

“Because there’s nothing to fix!” Louis shouted back, his voice cracking. “Do you think I haven’t tried? Do you think I haven’t spent every single second trying to find a way around this?”

“There’s always a way…”

“There isn’t! Not this time.” Louis took a shaky breath. “I talked to my mum about it. Before I came back. She told me the rules. One year. That’s what I get. And at the end of it, I go back. There’s no bargaining, no loopholes, no second chances.”

Harry was shaking his head violently now, backing away.

“No. No, you can’t, this isn’t fair. We just found each other. We just…”

“I know.”

“We’re supposed to have a lifetime!”

“I know, Harry. I know .”

Harry pressed his palms so hard into his eyes that it had to hurt. His back was heaving, his whole body wracked with sobs he was trying to suppress. When he finally dropped his hands and spun back around, his face was blotchy and red, his eyes wild and searching and utterly devastated.

“Are you for real right now? Are you actually standing there telling me this?” His laugh was hysterical, bitter, painful to hear. “My God, I should’ve seen it earlier. I should’ve known. Nothing comes for free. Nothing ever does.”

His breathing picked up again, ragged and harsh, each inhale sounding like it was being ripped from his lungs.

“What did you bargain, Lou? Huh? What did you give up to come back? Because there’s always a cost. Always.”

Louis shook his head frantically, tears pouring down his face.

“Nothing! I didn’t bargain for anything! My mum, she’s the one who arranged it. She pulled strings or called in favours or I don’t even know what. But I didn’t trade anything. I was just given this gift…”

“Gift?” Harry’s voice went up an octave. “You call this a gift? Giving us a year and then ripping you away again? That’s not a gift, that’s torture!”

“I know it’s not enough…”

“Not enough? Louis, it’s cruel! It’s…” Harry gasped, his whole body jerking. “Wait. Wait, there’s always balance. You said your mum arranged it. What did she trade?”

Louis went still.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know or you won’t tell me?”

“I don’t know! She didn’t say anything. She just said it was worth it. That I deserved this chance.”

Harry’s hands were shaking so violently he could barely point at Louis.

“There’s always balance in the universe, Louis. Always. Cause and effect. Push and pull. There’s no way it doesn’t take something back.” His words were coming faster, more frantic, his mind spinning. “What did it take? What did you…”

His face went pale, all the blood draining from it in seconds.

“Elias. Oh my god. Elias is gone, isn’t he? This has nothing to do with him, correct?”

Louis lunged forward, trying to grab Harry’s arms.

“Harry, listen to me. Elias is gone, ok, he is gone, sweetheart.”

“Is he?” Harry’s eyes were wild now, unfocussed. “Or did your mum make a sacrifice? Did she sacrifice something so you could come back?”

“No! Harry, she wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know that!” Harry stumbled backwards, clutching at his chest like something inside him was breaking apart. He couldn’t catch his breath. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t process anything except the fact that Louis was standing there telling him he was going to lose him all over again in twelve months.

“What else got taken?” Harry demanded, his words coming out in gasps. “ Who else had to pay for this?“

“I don’t know! I swear I don’t know!”

Louis grabbed his shoulders, trying to steady him, trying to ground him, but Harry shoved him off with more force than necessary, nearly tripping over his own feet as he backed away.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t… I can’t…”

He was pacing again, eyes unfocussed, one hand pressed to his chest like he was trying to hold his heart inside his body.

“This is my fault. This is all my fault. I did the ritual. I brought you back somehow. I thought I was saving you but I just, I just made everything worse. I fucked up somewhere along the lines.”

“Harry, that’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Harry spun on him, tears streaming down his face. “If I’d just let you go, if I’d just let you cross over like you were supposed to instead of loving you so stupidly, maybe you’d be at peace right now. You’d be with your family. But instead I dragged you back here for what? So we could have twelve months before I have to watch you die all over again and probably now have to pay a hefty price?”

“Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true, isn’t it?” Harry’s voice was getting higher, more panicked. “You are gonna die twice now. Fucking hell, I’m going to have to let you go and I don’t, I can’t…”

He broke off, pressing both hands to his mouth like he might be sick.

“No, no, no, no, no…”

The words spilled out of him like a mantra. Like a prayer. Like if he said it enough times the universe would rewind and none of this would be real.

“Harry…”

“Don’t!” Harry’s voice was sharp. “Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me. Don’t… I need to think. I need to…”

He turned and stormed back to the car, yanking the door open so hard the hinges screamed in protest. It slammed shut behind him with a sound that made Louis physically flinch.

Louis stood there frozen, completely useless, his hands still raised like he’d been reaching for something that was already gone. His legs felt like lead but somehow he managed to stumble to the passenger side and climb in.

Harry’s jaw was locked tight, teeth grinding so hard Louis could hear it. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles had gone bone white, the tendons standing out in sharp relief. Louis reached over slowly, carefully, trying to touch his arm.

“Harry, please. Please don’t drive like this. You’re not in the right headspace…”

“Didn’t have trouble saying that, did you?”

The words were sharp and final. A wall slamming down between them with such force it might as well have been concrete. The engine roared to life and Harry threw the car into gear, tyres screaming against gravel as they peeled out. The car fishtailed slightly before Harry corrected it, accelerating too fast down the narrow road.

Louis sat back, pressed into the seat by momentum and fear, completely helpless. The world outside blurred into streaks of colour and light as Harry drove recklessly, taking corners too sharply, accelerating too hard. The silence between them was suffocating. Louis wanted to say something, anything, but every word died in his throat before it could form. Because what could he possibly say that would make this better? What words existed in any language that could undo the fact that he’d just shattered both their worlds?

He’d known this moment would come eventually. He’d been dreading it since the day he came back. But knowing it was coming hadn’t prepared him for how much it would completely destroy them both.

So he said nothing.

And Harry kept driving, faster and faster, like he could outrun the truth if he just went fast enough. And the space between them grew wider with every mile, an invisible chasm opening up that Louis didn’t know how to cross.

The car screeched to a halt outside the house. Harry was out before the engine fully died, slamming the door so hard the whole car shook. He didn’t wait, didn’t look back, just stormed up the path and into the house like he was trying to outrun his own skin. Louis sat in the passenger seat for a moment, hands trembling in his lap, before forcing himself to follow. Inside, Harry was everywhere and nowhere all at once. Louis heard him in the kitchen first, cupboards opening and slamming shut with enough force to rattle the dishes. Then footsteps pounding up the stairs, each one a sharp punctuation mark of fury and hurt. Louis closed the front door quietly behind him and stood in the hallway, listening. A door upstairs slammed. Then another. The bathroom tap ran violently, then silence.

He climbed the stairs slowly. When he reached the landing, he could see Harry through the open bathroom door. He was brushing his teeth with such aggressive intensity that Louis worried he’d hurt himself. His jaw was set, his movements jerky and harsh, scrubbing like he could clean away everything Louis had just told him. His curls were a mess from running his hands through them, sticking up at odd angles, and there was toothpaste foam at the corner of his mouth.

Even now, even in the middle of this nightmare, Louis felt something tug in his chest. Something stupidly fond. Harry looked ridiculous when he was angry, all flushed cheeks and aggressive dental hygiene, and the fact that Louis even got to witness it, got to fight with someone again, got to have someone care enough to be furious with him… it was a feeling he hadn’t experienced in many many years. He’d forgotten what it was like to matter enough to hurt someone.

“Harry,” Louis tried softly from the doorway.

Harry spat into the sink and rinsed his mouth without acknowledging him. He shoved past Louis into the bedroom, his shoulder knocking into Louis’ deliberately.

Louis followed.

“Can we just…”

Harry yanked open a drawer, pulled out sleep clothes, turned his body away from him and started changing. The line of his shoulders was rigid, every movement sharp with restrained anger.

“I know you’re upset…”

Harry threw his shirt at the hamper. It missed, landing on the floor. He didn’t pick it up.

“Please, just talk to me…”

Harry threw back the covers with more force than necessary. He climbed in and immediately turned his back to Louis’ side, curling away towards the wall.

Louis stood there uselessly, watching the rigid line of Harry’s spine. Every part of Harry was tense, wound so tight he looked like he might snap. Louis changed slowly, buying time, hoping Harry would crack first.

He didn’t.

When Louis finally slid into bed, the space between them felt like miles. He could feel the heat radiating off Harry’s body, so close and yet completely untouchable. Every night since Louis had come back, they’d fallen asleep tangled together, legs intertwined, Harry’s face pressed into Louis’ neck, hands clasped between them like they were afraid of losing each other in the dark.

Tonight, Harry might as well have been on another continent.

The silence stretched. Louis stared at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore.

“You really wanna spend the only time we have left giving me the silent treatment?” His attempt at levity fell flat even to his own ears. “I mean, ’cos in a few months time silence is all you’ll have.”

He tried to laugh, to make a joke of it, to smooth it over somehow because in reality he didn’t know what to say or do. Elias had always been the one in control, the one who made decisions, who dictated how things went. But with Harry… Harry made him feel bigger, better, stronger. Harry made him feel like he could be the one to fix things.

The words were wrong the moment they left his mouth. He knew it immediately, felt them land like stones.

Harry went even more still, if that was possible.

Then, quietly, barely audible:

“Wow.”

Just that. One word. Loaded with so much hurt and disbelief that Louis felt his stomach drop through the mattress.

“Harry, I didn’t mean…”

“No, no, that’s perfect actually.” Harry’s words were measured, controlled in a way that was somehow worse than shouting. “Make jokes about it. That’ll definitely help.”

“I wasn’t…”

“You weren’t what? Weren’t trying to make light of the fact that you’re going to die? Again?” Harry still hadn’t turned around. “Or weren’t trying to make me feel guilty for being upset that the person I love just told me he’s got an expiration date?”

“That’s not what I…”

“Then what, Louis?” Harry finally rolled over, and the look on his face made Louis’ breath catch. His eyes were red and swollen, fresh tear tracks still visible on his cheeks.

“What were you trying to do? Because from where I’m standing, it sounds like you’re trying to make me feel bad for being angry with you.”

“I’m not…”

“You are!”

Harry sat up now, and Louis instinctively shifted back.

“You just told me we have twelve months and then you’re gone, and now you’re making jokes about me wasting time being mad at you? Like I’m the problem here?”

“That’s not…”

Louis tried to sit up too, but Harry held up a hand.

“Don’t. Just… don’t.”

Louis watched helplessly as Harry’s shoulders shook with the effort of holding back sobs.

“I love you,” Louis whispered desperately. “You have to know that. Everything I’ve done.”

“Everything you’ve done has been a lie.”

Harry’s face was completely wrecked.

“Three months, Louis. Three whole months of playing house and pretending we had forever when you knew the whole time we didn’t.”

“I wasn’t pretending…”

“Yes you were! Every time I talked about the future, every time I made plans, every time I said ‘when we’re old’ or ‘in twenty years’, you just smiled and nodded and let me believe it was real.”

“It was real to me…”

“But it wasn’t true!” Harry’s voice cracked on the last word. “None of it was true. We don’t get twenty years. We don’t get old together. We get twelve months and then I have to bury you all over again.” He laughed, bitter and broken. “Except I can’t even do that, can I? Because you’ll just… what? Evaporate? Disappear? How does it even work, Louis? Do you just fade away one day or do I have to watch you die? Do I get a countdown? A warning bell?”

Louis felt tears streaming down his own face now.

“I don’t know. I don’t know how it works.”

“Of course you don’t. Because you didn’t ask. You didn’t think to get the details before agreeing to come back and ruin my life twice.”

Ouch..

“You don’t mean that,” Louis said quietly.

Harry looked at him for a long moment, and something in his expression softened slightly.

“No. I don’t.”

He sank back down onto the bed, curling onto his side again.

“But I wish I did. I wish I could hate you for this. It would be so much easier.”

“Harry…”

“I’m tired, Louis. I’m so tired. And I can’t… I can’t do this right now. I can’t look at you and not think about losing you. So just… leave me alone. Please.”

Louis wanted to argue. Wanted to reach out and pull Harry into his arms and make him understand. But the defeated slump of Harry’s shoulders, the tremor in his last word, stopped him.

“Okay,” Louis whispered. “Okay.”

He laid back down, leaving the vast space between them untouched. The darkness pressed in from all sides, and somewhere in the house a floorboard creaked as it settled.

Louis stared at Harry’s back, at the way his shoulder blades shifted with each breath, at the vulnerable curve of his neck. He memorized it all, cataloguing every detail like he might need to recall it later when this was all he had left.

“I love you,” he said again, so quietly he wasn’t sure Harry heard.

Harry didn’t respond.

The silence that followed was the worst kind, not peaceful, not comfortable, just empty. Louis had spent so long in silence, trapped and alone, and somehow this felt worse. Because Harry was right there, close enough to touch, and it might as well have been an ocean between them.

Louis closed his eyes and tried to pretend the wetness on his pillow was anything other than tears.

👻

It was no surprise to find the bed empty when Louis woke. He’d felt Harry toss and turn all night, the mattress shifting with every restless movement. Louis had counted each time Harry got up, twice for water, once for the bathroom, once to just stand by the window for ten minutes staring out at nothing. Each time he’d climbed back into bed, he’d stayed on his side, curled away, the distance between them feeling wider than it had any right to be.

Louis felt exhausted. Not the kind of tiredness that came from lack of sleep, but the bone deep weariness that came from knowing you’d broken something precious and not knowing how to fix it.

He dragged himself out of bed and down the stairs, following the smell of cooking. When he reached the kitchen doorway, he stopped. Harry was at the sink, wiping down the counter as if he was half out of it. The table was set with two plates, each loaded with eggs, bacon, toast, grilled tomatoes, and a couple of sausages. Steam still rose from the food, and the scent was incredible, rich and savoury and so domestic it made Louis’ chest ache more. His stomach rumbled so loudly it echoed through the kitchen.

Harry turned around at the sound, and Louis couldn’t help the smile that crept onto his face. It was funny, absurdly so given everything, and for half a second he thought maybe things were back to normal. But Harry’s face remained flat. He looked at Louis for a beat, something tired and defeated passing across his features, then sighed silently and turned back to the sink.

Louis stood frozen in the doorway, torn completely in half. Part of him wanted to sit at the table and stay quiet, give Harry space, let him come around in his own time. But the other part, the desperate, aching part, wanted to go to him, wrap himself around Harry and hold on until Harry remembered why they were worth fighting for.

He chose the latter.

Louis crossed the kitchen slowly, his bare feet quiet on the tile. When he reached Harry, he didn’t say anything. He just slipped his arms around Harry’s waist from behind, pressing himself against Harry’s back, and laid his cheek against the space between his shoulder blades.

Harry went rigid.

Louis felt it, every muscle locking up. The dish towel in Harry’s hands stilled.

For a long moment, neither of them moved.

Then, slowly, incrementally, Harry softened. His shoulders dropped. His head tilted back slightly. And then he was leaning into Louis, his weight pressing back, letting Louis take it. Louis tightened his hold, squeezing Harry closer, and felt Harry’s hands come up to rest over his forearms. They stayed like that, neither speaking, just breathing together. Louis could feel Harry’s heartbeat through his back, could feel the slight tremor running through him that said he was holding back tears.

Eventually, Harry turned around in Louis’ arms. The movement was careful, and when they were face to face, Louis saw everything written across Harry’s features, the hurt, the fear, the love that was still there despite everything. They stared at each other. Harry’s eyes were already glassy, tears threatening to spill. Louis knew he probably looked the same. All he could think about was what they were going to lose. All the mornings like this that would never happen. All the breakfasts Harry would cook alone. All the embraces that would go ungiven.

Harry leaned forward, and pressed his lips to Louis’.

It was soft. Devastatingly soft. The kind of kiss that wasn’t about passion or heat but about memory. About recording every sensation, the warmth, the pressure, the taste, the feeling of Harry’s breath ghosting across his skin. They were both trying to burn it into their minds for the day when they’d forget. For the day when Louis would be gone and Harry would be left trying to remember what this had felt like.

When they pulled apart, Harry rested his forehead against Louis’ for a moment, his eyes still closed, before finally stepping back. He nodded towards the table without a word. They sat. Louis picked up his fork and started eating, but he couldn’t stop watching Harry. Harry cut his food into smaller pieces than necessary, moving things around his plate more than actually eating them. Every thirty seconds or so, his eyes would flick to the clock on the wall, then away, then back again.

Louis set down his fork.

“This is why I couldn’t tell you,” he said quietly, no harshness in it, just guilt eating him alive. “I knew this would happen. I knew that the second you found out, every moment we had left would be overshadowed by counting down to the end. I didn’t want you watching the clock, Harry. I wanted you to just… be here. With me. Without the weight of it crushing everything.”

Harry stopped moving his food around. He stared at his plate for a long moment, then took a small bite. Chewed. Swallowed, and took another. Then he set his fork down too.

“What’s the cutoff date, Lou?” His words were measured. “Is it twelve months from the day you showed up at the café? Or is it twelve months from the day of the ritual? When is our last day?”

Louis felt his face crumple before he could stop it. He looked down at his own plate, at the food he couldn’t finish now, and shrugged helplessly.

“I don’t know.”

The silence that followed was crushing.

“Great,” Harry said flatly. He stood up, grabbing his plate even though he’d barely touched the food, and headed towards the sink.

Louis caught his arm as he passed, stopping him. He stood too, taking the plate from Harry’s hands and setting it carefully on the counter. Then he turned back to Harry, holding both his hands.

“‘The bad news is time flies,’” Louis said softly, looking directly into Harry’s eyes. “‘The good news is you’re the pilot.’ We can’t control how much time we get, but we can control what we do with it. Please, Harry. Don’t let this steal what we have left.”

Harry’s eyes filled with fresh tears, but he nodded because Louis was right.

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered. “I’m so sorry. I know I’m ruining it already…”

“You’re not. You’re not ruining anything.”

They kissed again, slower this time, much sweeter than usual. A promise sealed between them, to make the most of whatever time remained, to not waste a single second on fear or anger or anything that kept them apart.

When they separated, Harry wiped at his eyes.

“I’m gonna go and water the garden,” he said, his attempt at normalcy falling just slightly short. “The roses looked a bit sad yesterday.”

“Okay,” Louis said, even though everything in him wanted to keep Harry right there, within reach.

Harry grabbed the watering can from under the sink and headed for the back door. Louis watched him go, watched the way his shoulders hunched slightly, the way his steps were just a bit too heavy. And even though Harry had just accepted his apology, even though they’d just promised each other to make the most of their time together, Louis could see it. He could feel it.

Harry was already grieving.

He was walking around trying to act normal, trying to be present, trying to keep his promise. But underneath it all, he was breaking. Every glance at the clock was him calculating how many hours they had left. Every touch was him trying to memorise what Louis felt like. Every kiss was him practicing for the day when there would be no more.

Louis sank back into his chair, staring at the plates of their half eaten breakfast, at the careful domestic scene Harry had created this morning despite everything. And he realised with horrible clarity that telling Harry might have been the right thing to do, but it hadn’t made anything better.

It had just given them both the months they had left to watch each other fall apart.

👻

For the next couple of months, Harry and Louis kept their promise.

They lived.

Not in the shadow of what was coming, but in spite of it. Harry had shoved a notebook at Louis one morning over coffee and told him to make a list, everything he wanted to do, everything he’d missed, everything he wished he’d gotten to experience the first time around.

Louis had stared at the blank page for a long time before finally picking up the pen.

The list grew over several days. Some things were small: eat fish and chips on the beach , listen to live music, dance in the rain . Others were bigger: watch the sunrise from somewhere really high, learn what the hell a podcast is . Go on a plane . Harry had laughed at the podcast comment, then immediately queued up three different podcasts for them to listen to on their first road trip.

They couldn’t go far, Louis had no passport, no official identification, no legal existence in this century at all. So they stayed close, exploring the corners of the country Louis had never seen, revisiting places he remembered but had changed beyond recognition.

Their first trip was to the Lake District. Harry had packed the car with more supplies than they could possibly need, blankets, snacks, a cooler full of drinks, his camera equipment, a portable speaker, even a first aid kit like Louis might spontaneously combust if they didn’t have plasters on hand.

“You know I’m not actually fragile, yeah?” Louis had teased, watching Harry triple check the boot.

“Shut up and get in the car.”

They’d driven with the windows down, wind whipping through their hair, music blasting from the speakers. Louis had his arm hanging out the window, fingers dancing through the rushing wind, and Harry kept stealing glances at him, at the pure joy on his face, at the way the sunlight caught in his eyes.

When they reached the lakes, Louis had gone quiet. He’d stood at the water’s edge for a long time, just staring out at the glassy surface reflecting the sky, the mountains rising up around them like ancient guardians.

“Last time I was here, I was seventeen,” he’d said eventually. “Mum brought us here for a holiday. We stayed in a little cottage and spent a week doing nothing but walking and eating and laughing.” He’d smiled, but it was bittersweet. “I forgot how beautiful it was.”

Harry had slipped his hand into Louis’ and squeezed.

They’d hiked every trail they could find. Louis had been surprised by how much his body remembered, the burn in his legs on steep inclines, the satisfaction of reaching a summit, the specific ache in his feet after hours of walking. Things he hadn’t felt in several years.

Harry had insisted on stopping every few minutes to take photos. Louis on a rocky outcrop with the valley spread below him. Louis crouched by a stream, fingers trailing through the water. Louis laughing at something stupid Harry had said, his head thrown back, completely unguarded.

“You’re going to fill up your phone,” Louis had complained after Harry took his twentieth photo of the day.

“Then I’ll get another phone. And another after that.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“And you’re gorgeous. Now shut up and smile.”

Louis had flipped him off instead, and Harry had captured that too, laughing as he checked the photo.

They’d had a picnic by Windermere, proper sandwiches Harry had made that morning, crisps, fruit, chocolate bars that melted in the sun. They’d laid on the blanket afterwards, side by side, watching clouds drift overhead and making up stories about their shapes.

“That one looks like a dragon,” Harry had said, pointing.

“That’s clearly a teapot.”

“You have no imagination.”

“I have plenty of imagination. That’s why I can see it’s a teapot and you can’t.”

Harry had rolled over and kissed him to shut him up, and they’d stayed there until the sun started to sink and the temperature dropped.

Another weekend, they’d driven to the coast. Louis had been practically vibrating with excitement the moment he could smell the salt in the breeze. When they’d finally parked and made their way down to the beach, Louis had kicked off his shoes immediately and run towards the water like a kid, laughing as the cold waves crashed over his feet.

Harry had filmed it, Louis spinning in circles with his arms spread wide, his jeans rolled up to his knees, his face split into the most genuine smile Harry had ever seen. They’d walked for miles along the shore, collecting shells and sea glass, arguing about which pieces were worth keeping. Harry had insisted on pocketing everything Louis showed him, until his jacket was weighing him down with the treasures Louis had found.

“You can’t keep all of these,” Louis had protested.

“Watch me.”

That night they’d gotten fish and chips from a shop in town and eaten them right there on the beach, sitting on the sand with their backs against a weathered breakwater. The chips were too salty and the fish was too greasy and it was absolutely perfect.

Louis had tipped his head back against the wood, eyes closed, and said,

“This. This is what I wanted.”

Harry had set down his food and pulled out his camera again. The photo he’d taken, Louis in profile, the last of the daylight painting him gold, completely at peace, became his phone background that same night.

They’d gone to concerts. Well, not proper concerts, Louis didn’t do well in huge crowds, too many people pressing in, too much noise, too much everything. But they’d found small pub gigs, local bands playing in cramped spaces where you could feel the music vibrating through your chest.

Louis had been fascinated by it all. The technology, the sound quality, the way music had evolved. He’d pulled Harry into the small crowd and they’d danced, stupid and uncoordinated and not caring at all. Harry had recorded bits of it, shaky footage of Louis singing along to songs he didn’t know, making up his own words, laughing when he got them wrong.

They’d gone to the cinema, which had absolutely blown Louis’ mind. The size of the screen, the surround sound, the fact that you could buy popcorn in buckets large enough to feed a family. They’d seen an action film that made Louis grip Harry’s arm during the chase scenes, and a comedy that had them both crying with laughter.

Afterwards, Harry had asked what he thought.

“Mental,” Louis had said, eyes still wide. “Completely mental. How is that even real?”

“Special effects.”

“Yeah, but how ?”

Harry had tried to explain CGI and green screens and rendering, but Louis had just shaken his head in wonder.

They’d had a massive row one afternoon about something completely stupid, Louis had reorganised the kitchen and Harry couldn’t find anything, and somehow that had escalated into Louis accusing Harry of being controlling and Harry shouting that Louis was deliberately trying to wind him up.

They’d both stormed off to separate rooms, and the house had been silent for an hour.

Then Louis had appeared in the doorway of Harry’s study with two mugs of tea and said, “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Harry had replied. “I’m just… I like knowing where things are.”

“I know. I should’ve asked first.”

They’d made up over tea and a quick fuck, and later that night Louis had whispered, “I’m glad we fought.”

Harry had pulled back to look at him.

“What?”

“I’m glad we fought,” Louis repeated. “Because it means we’re normal. We’re not just counting down and being careful with each other. We’re living. Even the messy bits.”

Harry had kissed him then, slow and deep, and agreed.

The photos and videos had become Harry’s obsession. He documented everything, meals they cooked together, lazy mornings in bed, Louis reading in the garden, the two of them dancing in the kitchen to music from Louis’ era, trips to the market where Louis marveled at the variety of produce available all year round.

“You know people are going to think you’re insane,” Louis had said one evening, watching Harry scroll through hundreds of photos on his laptop. “Taking this many pictures of the same person.”

“I don’t care what people think.”

“Harry, there are at least fifty photos here just of me sleeping.”

“You’re cute when you sleep.”

“I’m unconscious when I sleep.”

“Cute and unconscious.”

Louis had tackled him onto the sofa, and the laptop had gone tumbling onto the cushions, laughing away as they’d wrestled .

One night they’d stayed up until three in the morning because Louis had wanted to understand how streaming worked, how you could watch anything you wanted whenever you wanted. They’d fallen down a rabbit hole of nature documentaries, Louis absolutely captivated by the footage of animals he’d only ever read about in books.

“We could just go to sleep,” Harry had suggested around midnight, stifling a yawn.

“In a minute. I just want to see, oh my God, did that penguin just…”

They’d made it through four full documentaries before finally passing out on the sofa, tangled together, the laptop still playing softly to an empty room.

There had been moments of darkness too. Mornings when Harry would wake and immediately reach for his phone to check the date, calculating in his head how much time they had left. Evenings when Louis would go quiet, staring at nothing, and Harry knew he was thinking about what came next.

But they’d made a pact to pull each other back from those edges. When Harry spiralled, Louis would kiss his temple and drag him into some ridiculous activity, teaching him dances from his era, making him try to guess songs from the first three notes, challenging him to see who could make the better paper aeroplane.

When Louis disappeared into his own head, Harry would put on one of the playlists he’d made, pull Louis into his arms, and just hold him until the weight lifted enough for Louis to breathe again.

They were making it work. Making the most of it. Building a lifetime’s worth of memories in whatever time they had left.

One evening, after they’d spent the day at a botanical garden, Louis had been entranced by the tropical greenhouse, the humidity and exotic plants making him feel like he’d travelled somewhere far away, they’d come home exhausted and happy.

Harry had collapsed onto the sofa, and Louis had followed, sprawling on top of him with a contented sigh.

“Good day?” Harry had asked, fingers automatically moving to Louis’ hair.

“Best day,” Louis had murmured against Harry’s chest. “Every day with you is the best day.”

“Sap.”

“ I have no idea what that means but you’re a sap.“

Harry had laughed, and Louis had shifted up to kiss him. It had started soft, lazy, just the comfortable affection of two people who knew each other inside and out.

But then Louis had deepened it, his tongue sliding against Harry’s, and Harry’s hands had moved from Louis’ hair to his waist, pulling him closer.

Louis had made a soft sound into Harry’s mouth, grinding down slightly, and Harry had groaned.

“We should…” Harry had started, but Louis had cut him off with another kiss.

“We should stay right here,” Louis had finished for him, his hands already working at the buttons of Harry’s shirt.

And they had. Right there on the sofa, taking their time, relearning every inch of each other like they hadn’t done this a hundred times before. Louis had kissed his way down Harry’s chest, his stomach, lower, until Harry was gasping. When Louis had crawled back up Harry’s body, his eyes were dark and hungry, and Harry had flipped them, pressing Louis into the cushions and swallowing his surprised laugh with a kiss. They’d come together slowly, Harry mouthing along Louis’ jaw, his neck, whispering how much he loved him, how perfect he was, how Harry never wanted this to end. Louis had gripped Harry’s shoulders hard enough to leave marks, his head tipping back as he moaned, and when they’d finally tumbled over the edge together, it had felt less like falling and more like flying. Afterwards, they’d stayed there, sweaty and boneless and completely content. Louis had traced patterns on Harry’s back while Harry pressed lazy kisses to his collarbone.

“I love you,” Louis had whispered into the quiet room. “I love you so much it terrifies me.”

Harry had lifted his head to look at him, seeing the truth of it written across Louis’ face.

“I love you too,” Harry had whispered back. “More than I’ve ever loved anything.”

Harry had kept Louis to himself, and he wasn’t sorry about it.

He and Gemma had decided early on not to tell their mother. After Harry had explained everything to her, the ritual, the return, the countdown, Gemma had agreed it was too much. Their mum would want to see Louis, would want answers Harry couldn’t give, would spiral into her own grief and fear and make everything harder than it already was. So they’d kept quiet, spinning vague excuses about Harry being busy with work, needing time alone to process the trauma of what had happened with the mirror.

It was easier this way. Selfish maybe, but easier.

And in the months that followed, Harry had finally stopped watching the clock every ten minutes. The obsessive counting had faded, replaced by an awareness that time was precious without letting it consume every moment. He’d learned to be present, to exist in the now rather than constantly calculating the future.

Louis could have told you the exact morning it changed. He’d woken to find Harry already awake beside him, propped up on one elbow, just watching him with this expression that Louis couldn’t quite name. Not sad. Not afraid. Just… full. Like Harry was so filled up with love and gratitude and connection that it had nowhere else to go except out through his eyes.

“What?” Louis had mumbled, still half asleep.

“Nothing,” Harry had whispered back, smiling. “Just looking at you.”

“Creep.”

“You’re a creep.”

“Great comeback.”

And Louis had pulled him down into a kiss that tasted like everything good they’d managed to carve out of impossible circumstances.

That particular day had started like any other. They’d had breakfast, Louis had attempted pancakes and burned half of them, which Harry had eaten anyway, claiming they were “rustic.” They’d planned to drive out to a farm Louis had read about, one that let you pick your own fruit and had alpacas you could feed.

Louis had just finished loading the car and had returned back inside when he heard the knock at the door.

Harry was upstairs changing, so Louis backtracked to answer it. He wasn’t expecting anyone. They never got visitors, by design, because how would they explain Louis’ existence to anyone who’d known the house’s history?

He opened the door.

The woman standing on the porch was in her late sixties, maybe early seventies, but carried herself with the kind of elegance that made age irrelevant. Her hair was styled perfectly, and pinned back, and she wore a floral dress that looked expensive. There was something familiar about her face, the shape of her eyes, the set of her mouth, but Louis couldn’t place it.

She looked at him, and her entire body went still.

Her hand came up to her mouth slowly, fingers trembling. Her eyes filled instantly, tears gathering so fast they were already spilling over.

“Uncle Louis.” she said.

Her words came out calm, almost serene, like she’d been searching for him her entire life and had finally, finally found what she’d been looking for. Tears tracked down her cheeks, but she was smiling through them, this beautiful, broken expression of recognition and relief and overwhelming joy.

Louis felt his world tilt.

“I’m sorry, I…” he started, his mind racing to place her, to understand how she knew him.

“It’s Flossie,” she said softly. “Lottie’s daughter. Your niece.”

Louis stopped breathing.

Lottie’s daughter. His baby sister’s baby. Except Lottie’s baby was old now, and Louis had missed all of it, her entire life, from start to finish.

“Flossie,” he repeated, the name catching in his throat.

She stepped forward, and Louis met her halfway. They embraced on the porch, Louis’ arms coming around her carefully, like she might break. She was so small, so fragile compared to how he remembered her mother, but when she hugged him back she held on with surprising strength.

Louis felt his own tears start, hot and fast, because this was Lottie’s daughter. This was family. Real, tangible family that he’d thought he’d never see again. When they finally pulled apart, Flossie was openly crying, not bothering to wipe her face.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” she whispered. “I can’t believe you’re actually here. Really here. Solid and breathing and…” Her words broke off as she reached up to touch his face, her fingers gentle against his cheek like she needed the physical confirmation.

“Harry!” Louis called back into the house, his eyes never leaving Flossie’s face. “Harry, you need to come down here!”

Footsteps thundered on the stairs, and then Harry appeared, looking panicked until he saw Louis was fine. Then his eyes landed on Flossie, and his entire expression transformed.

“Flossie,” he breathed, rushing forward. “Oh my God, Flossie.”

She turned to him with that same tearful smile and opened her arms. Harry went straight into them, and they held each other for a long moment.

“You did it,” she whispered into his shoulder. “You actually did it. I wasn’t sure anything would work, I had hoped, but I didn’t know if…”

“He’s here,” Harry said, pulling back to look at her. “He’s really here.”

Flossie looked between them, her hand coming up to wipe at her cheeks.

“Come in,” Louis said, stepping back. “Please.”

They settled in the front room, Louis and Harry on the sofa, Flossie in the armchair across from them, her eyes staying focussed on the uncle she never thought she would meet.

“I had to see for myself,” she said eventually. “When you called and told me what happened, Harry, I knew it was possible, but seeing you…” She pointed and looked at Louis, fresh tears welling. “Seeing you like this. Alive . It’s a miracle.”

“I still don’t really understand how it happened,” Louis admitted. “It’s all been so…”

“What happened to Elias?” Flossie interrupted gently. “The ritual worked?”

Harry nodded in agreement.

“He’s gone. Louis saw him cross over before he came back.”

Flossie let out a long breath, her shoulders sagging with relief.

“Good. That’s good to hear. And the ritual itself? The one I taught you? It went exactly as I described, no problems? Do I need to alter anything?”

“Everything went perfectly,” Harry said. “Every step, every word went exactly as planned. It was terrifying and horrible and I thought I was going to die, but it worked and here we are.”

“You nearly did die,” Louis said quietly, his hand finding Harry’s. “You were willing to give up so much…”

“And I’d do it again,” Harry cut in firmly.

Flossie watched them with something soft and knowing in her eyes.

“But he came back. That’s the part I couldn’t have predicted. The ritual was meant to free him, to let him cross over. The fact that he’s here, human again…” She shook her head slowly. “That’s not something that happens, boys. That’s a gift. A very rare, very precious gift.”

“His mum,” Harry said quietly. “Louis saw her before he came back. She arranged it somehow.”

Flossie blinked.

For a second she just stared at them, like she’d misheard.

“She what?”

“She made it happen,” Harry repeated, slower this time, as if saying it clearly would make it sound less impossible.

Flossie let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh.

“You’re telling me his mother just… fixed this?”

Louis didn’t smile.

“She pulled strings,” Harry said. “Called in favours. We don’t really know.”

Flossie’s eyes moved to Louis properly then, really looking at him.

“Wait. Back as in… back back?” Her voice dropped.

Louis shifted under the weight of it.

“Don’t make it bigger than it is.”

“How can I not?” she shot back, still staring at him like he might disappear mid sentence. “We are family, I am worried and you were…”

“I know what I was.”

Silence fell thick between them.

Flossie swallowed, processing, recalibrating. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Okay. So she arranged it. Fine, miracles apparently run in the family.” Her voice softened just slightly. “What’s the catch?”

Louis’ jaw tightened. Here we go again.

Harry answered this time, because Louis didn’t. “It’s not permanent.”

Flossie’s brows pulled together.

“How long?”

Louis looked at the floor, then back at her. “A year,” he said flatly. “That’s all I get.”

You could see the moment her heart broke.

“A year,” she repeated, quieter now.

Not disbelief this time, but understanding. And then, underneath that, something else entirely, curiosity.

Flossie’s face crumpled slightly, but she composed herself quickly.

“Then it’s exactly what I thought. This is borrowed time. Time you wouldn’t have had otherwise.” She leaned forward. “Don’t waste it being angry or sad about what comes later. You’ve been given something incredible here.”

“I know,” Louis said, his words rough. “I know we have. It’s just…”

“It’s not enough,” Flossie finished for him. “It never would be. But Uncle Louis, you need to understand something.” She paused, making sure he was really listening. “Most people go their entire lives without finding what you two have. Most souls never find their match at all. You found each other across decades, across death itself. You fought for each other. The universe doesn’t just hand that back to people. This year you’ve been given, it’s because what you have is worth breaking the rules for.”

Louis felt his throat close up, while Harry’s fingers tightened around his.

“Mum told me about you constantly,” Flossie continued. “Every story, every memory. She said you had the biggest heart of anyone she’d ever known. That you’d give someone your last pound if they needed it more than you did.” She smiled through her tears. “She also told me about soulmates. About how some people are meant to find each other, how the universe works to bring them together even when everything says it’s impossible. She believed that’s what happened to you, that you were taken before you could find your person. And she said that if there was any justice, you’d get another chance.”

Louis was crying openly now, not even trying to hide it.

“This is that chance, Uncle Louis,” Flossie said. “This year. Spend it living exactly the way Mum always said you deserved to live, fully, and completely with your whole heart.”

She stood then, and Louis and Harry both rose to meet her. She hugged Louis again, longer this time, and when she pulled back she cupped his face in her hands.

“I won’t take up any more of your time,” she said firmly. “Time is too precious. But I needed to see you. Needed to know it was real.” She looked at Harry. “Take care of each other. Every single day.”

“We will,” Harry promised.

Flossie headed for the door, and they followed. She paused on the threshold, looking back one more time.

“Mum used to say something when she talked about you and about love in general,” Flossie said, her eyes bright. “She’d say that the tragedy isn’t how short life is, but how long we wait to really live it. You’ve been given a chance to stop waiting, Uncle Louis. Make every moment count. I am really glad I got to meet you. I wish you both the very best.”

And then she was gone, walking down the path to her car, leaving Louis and Harry standing in the doorway watching her go.

When her car disappeared down the drive, Louis turned abruptly. His face was wet with tears, but he was smiling, this broken, beautiful smile that made Harry’s heart crack and heal simultaneously.

“I’m done waiting,” Louis said quietly.

Harry pulled him close, and they stood there in the doorway as the sun filtered through the trees, holding each other like they could anchor themselves to this moment forever.

Because Flossie was right. They’d been given something incredible. Something impossible. And they weren’t going to waste a single second of it.

Louis turned to Harry, his face splitting into this enormous smile, the kind that made his eyes crinkle at the corners and showed all his teeth, completely unguarded and radiant.

“Marry me.”

Harry laughed, the sound surprised and breathless. “I’m sorry, what?”

He thought Louis was joking, he had to be. Because they couldn’t get married. Louis had no documents, no birth certificate, no identification, nothing that proved he existed in any legal sense. They had no way to make it official, no witnesses, no money set aside for something like this, no… time .

But Louis’ smile only grew wider, more determined, his eyes bright with tears and joy and absolute certainty.

“Come,” he said, grabbing Harry’s hand and tugging him forward.

Harry stumbled after him, laughing as Louis pulled him through the house and out the back door into the garden. They were nearly running, Louis moving with purpose, as Harry giggled behind him like a young child.

“What are you doing?” Harry asked, still laughing, still confused, still completely charmed.

Louis didn’t answer. He dropped Harry’s hand and walked straight to the flower beds they’d planted together months ago. He crouched down, selecting blooms with care, a pink rose, two white daisies, some lavender, a bright yellow sunflower that was almost too big to hold properly. He gathered them into a messy bouquet, the stems uneven, the petals already dropping.

Completely imperfect but absolutely perfect.

Louis walked back over and shoved the flowers into Harry’s hands.

Harry blinked, caught off guard, adjusting his grip on the stems.

“What are you…”

Louis didn’t let him finish. He stepped back. And then he dropped, one knee hitting the grass like he’d made the decision ten seconds ago and wasn’t backing out of it.

Harry stared at him. The colour drained from his face so fast it was almost funny. Almost.

“Don’t,” he breathed, and it wasn’t even clear what he meant by it.

His fingers tightened around the flowers, but they shook anyway.

“Harry,” Louis said.

That was it. Just his name.

But it didn’t sound like it usually did. It wasn’t light or teasing. It dragged on the way out of him, like it hurt to push it past his teeth.

He cleared his throat, and tried again.

“Harry…”

His voice wavered this time, unsteady in a way that made it obvious he was holding something back. His eyes were glassy, bright under the sun, and he blinked hard like that alone might fix it.

It didn’t. He swallowed.

“Don’t laugh,” he muttered, almost under his breath, and that was when Harry realised.

Louis wasn’t about to cry.

He already was.

“I don’t have a ring. I don’t have money or papers or any of the things people are supposed to have when they do this. I don’t even have time, not the way we deserve, not the way I wish I could give you.”

Harry’s eyes were filling now too.

“But what I do have,” Louis continued, his words coming faster, “is you. And that’s everything I need. You saved me, Harry. You literally dragged me back from death because you believed, you believed that we were meant to find each other. You believed in soulmates before you even knew what that meant for us.”

A tear escaped down Louis’ cheek, and he didn’t wipe it away.

“I’ve loved before,” Louis said, his words breaking slightly. “But I’ve never been in love like this. I’ve never felt like someone saw every broken, damaged, selfish part of me and decided I was worth fighting for anyway. You make me want to be better. You make me feel like I’m enough, exactly as I am. You make me believe that maybe the universe isn’t cruel, maybe it’s just been waiting to give us this moment right here.”

Harry let out a sob, his free hand coming up to cover his mouth.

“I know I can’t give you a lifetime,”

Now he was fully crying, tears streaming down his face.

“I know all I can offer you is a few more months, maybe less. I know that’s not fair and it’s not enough and you deserve so much more than what I can give you. But Harry, if you’ll have me, if you’ll take these months and make them ours, I swear to god I will love you with everything I have until my very last breath. And probably even after that, knowing us.”

Harry was openly weeping, clutching the flowers so hard that some of the stems were probably breaking through his skin.

“So will you?” Louis asked. “Will you marry me? Right here, right now, no papers or witnesses or anything official? Will you let me be yours for whatever time we have left?”

Harry couldn’t speak. Couldn’t form words. He just nodded frantically, dropping to his knees in front of Louis, the flowers falling to the grass as he threw his arms around Louis’ neck.

They held each other, both of them crying, both shaking with the magnitude of what they’d just promised each other. When they finally pulled apart, Louis was grinning through his tears. He stood up, pulling Harry with him, and then he was leading them deeper into the garden.

“Where are we going?” Harry asked, wiping at his face with the back of his hand, laughing even as he cried.

“You’ll see.”

Louis led him past the vegetable patch, past the small pond they’d filled with goldfish last month, all the way to the back corner where the garden arch stood. They’d installed it together a few weeks ago, a simple wooden structure that Louis had wanted for climbing roses. But the roses hadn’t taken hold yet, so instead Harry had planted sunflowers around its base, dozens of them, and they’d grown tall and wild, their faces turned towards the afternoon sun.

Louis stopped under the arch, pulling Harry to stand in front of him. The sunflowers towered around them, creating this little golden alcove, as petals rustled in the breeze.

“Here,” Louis said, looking around with satisfaction. “This is perfect.”

Harry laughed, the sound watery but genuine.

“Are we really doing this?”

“We really are,” Louis confirmed.

He took both of Harry’s hands in his, squeezing them.

“Unless you’ve changed your mind in the last thirty seconds?”

“Never,” Harry said immediately. “Never ever.”

“Good.” Louis took a shaky breath. “Right, so. Vows. I should probably say something proper.”

“You already did,” Harry said softly. “That was the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Well, yeah, but that was just the proposal. Now I need to do the actual wedding bit.” Louis paused, thinking. “Do you want to go first or should I?”

“You,” Harry said. “Definitely you. I don’t trust myself to form sentences right now.”

Louis laughed, then composed himself, his thumbs rubbing circles on the backs of Harry’s hands.

“Okay. Right. Harry Styles,” he started, then stopped. “Wait, is Styles your actual last name or is that just what everyone calls you?”

Harry giggled despite himself.

“It’s actually Styles, you idiot.”

“Just checking. Don’t want to marry the wrong person.” Louis grinned, then his expression softened. “Harry Styles. I promise to love you with everything I am. I promise to make you laugh even when you want to stay mad at me. I promise to dance with you in the kitchen and take a stupid amount of photos and let you reorganise my sock drawer even though your system makes no sense.”

Harry let out a wet laugh.

“I promise to tell you you’re beautiful every single day, even when you’re angry brushing your teeth because you’re too stubborn to actually fight with me properly.” Louis’ smile turned bittersweet. “I promise to make every day count. To not waste a single moment we have together. And I promise that when I have to go, when our time is up, I won’t make it harder than it has to be. I’ll tell you I love you one more time, and I’ll go peacefully, knowing I got to be yours for however long we had.”

Harry’s face crumpled, more tears falling.

“And hey,” Louis added, his tone lightening slightly, “at least we can skip the ‘til death do us part’ bit. I already did that. Twice , technically. So this time we can just do ‘til death gently escorts me to the afterlife while you continue being devastatingly gorgeous without me.’”

Harry choked out a laugh through his tears.

“That’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“It’s not.”

“You’re laughing though.”

“No I’m not! I’m crying, you absolute menace.”

“You can do both. I believe in you.”

Harry shook his head, but he was smiling now, even as tears continued. He squeezed Louis’ hands tighter.

“My turn?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s your turn. Go ahead.”

Harry took a shuddering breath.

“Louis Tomlinson. I promise to love you for as long as I live, which will hopefully be much longer than you because someone needs to tell embarrassing stories about you to anyone who’ll listen.”

Louis snorted.

“I promise to let you burn pancakes and pretend they’re good.”

Harry shook his head once, like he couldn’t believe he was about to say this.

“I promise I won’t waste a single day pretending this isn’t happening.”

His throat worked around the words.

“I won’t hold back anymore because I’m scared of the clock. I won’t love you quietly just to make it hurt less later.”

He let out a shaky breath.

“I promise I won’t count down the days in front of you. I won’t make you feel like you’re already leaving while you’re still here. I promise to make every day we have together count, to fill it with joy, love and laughter, with happy memories we can both cherish in our futures…wherever that may be. You get to exist in every moment like it’s ours. Not borrowed…ours.”

His fingers twitched at his sides.

“I promise I’ll kiss you like I mean it. I’ll say what I’m thinking instead of swallowing it. I’ll tell you when you look at me in that way that makes my knees go weak. I won’t pretend to be braver than I am, but I won’t run either.”

His voice dropped.

“And when time draws closer… when loving you feels deeper and more consuming than ever, I promise I won’t turn cold. I won’t pull away. I’ll stay, and I’ll keep choosing you, fully, openly, because loving you the right way will always be worth it. If it becomes painful, so be it. If it’s going to break me, then let it break me, especially if it means I get to love you properly. I’ll be there through it all Louis, loving you to the very end, until your last earthly breath.”

His eyes were bright now, but he didn’t look away.

“One year isn’t small, Louis. It’s 365 mornings. 365 nights. That’s a whole life if we decide it is.”

He took a breath.

“I promise that when you have to go, I’ll tell you it’s okay. I’ll hold your hand and I’ll let you go because that’s what you do when you love someone, you give them what they need, even when it destroys you.”

Louis was crying again too, his face wet and blotchy and yet somehow still so beautiful.

“And I promise,” Harry finished, his words breaking completely, “that I will never, ever regret bringing you back. Not for a single second. Even knowing how this ends, I’d do it again. I’d do it a thousand times, because having you for a year is worth a lifetime of missing you.”

They stood there under the arch, surrounded by sunflowers, both of them crying, both of them smiling, both of them holding onto each other like they could make time stop through sheer force of will.

“I will never stop loving you.”

“I love you too, always.”

“So,” Louis said eventually, wiping at his face with one hand while keeping the other firmly in Harry’s grip.

“Are we married now? Is that how this works?”

“I think so?” Harry laughed. “I don’t actually know. There’s usually an officiant and someone says ‘I now pronounce you’ and all that stuff.”

“Right.” Louis straightened up, trying to look official. “Then I now pronounce us married. By the power invested in me by absolutely no one and nothing, I declare us husbands. You may kiss me. Please kiss me. I need you to kiss me right now before I completely fall apart.”

Harry pulled him in, and their mouths met in a kiss that tasted like tears and laughter and every promise they’d just made. It was messy and wet and perfect, their hands clutching at each other, neither wanting to let go.

When they finally broke apart, foreheads pressed together, both breathing hard, Louis whispered,

“Hi, husband.”

Harry let out a sound between a laugh and a sob.

“Hi, husband.”

They stood there for a long time, wrapped around each other under the arch, sunflowers swaying around them in the breeze. The afternoon sun was warm and bright, and for this one perfect moment, time felt irrelevant.

They were united in an unofficial, perfectly imperfect, improbable marriage. And yet, nothing had ever felt more appropriate, with the exception of that fast ticking relentless fucking clock.

The seasons had changed, and so had they.

No matter how hard they tried to pretend otherwise, no matter how many times they’d promised each other to stay present and not count down, time had caught up with them. Autumn had bled into winter, and now spring was trying to push through, new growth appearing in the garden, birds returning to build nests in the eaves, the world renewing itself while Louis felt himself fading.

They both felt it, but neither said anything, but they both knew.

Hugs lasted longer now. Louis would hold Harry in the kitchen while waiting for the kettle to boil, his arms wrapped tight, his face pressed into Harry’s shoulder like he was trying to memorise the shape of him. Harry would wake in the middle of the night and find Louis already awake, just watching him in the darkness, and they’d stare at each other without speaking until one of them couldn’t take it anymore and pulled the other close.

The light in their eyes had started to dim. The easy laughter that had filled the house for months came less frequently now, replaced by smiles that didn’t quite reach their eyes. Every joke felt weighted. Every kiss tasted like goodbye.

One week left.

Louis knew it with a certainty he couldn’t explain. Not because anyone had told him, not because he’d felt any dramatic shift, but because something deep in his bones was telling him his time was almost up. He could feel himself becoming less solid somehow, like his grip on this world was loosening whether he wanted it to or not.

He was sitting in the front room, staring at nothing, when the weight of it became too much. He stood abruptly, needing to move, needing to be anywhere but inside his own head. Harry looked up from where he was reading on the sofa, concern immediately crossing his features.

“I just need…” Louis started, but couldn’t finish. “I’ll be back.”

Harry nodded slowly. He didn’t ask where Louis was going. Didn’t offer to come with him. Something unspoken passed between them, and Harry understood that Louis needed this time alone. Louis grabbed his jacket and headed out the back door.

The world felt quiet. It always was this time of day, the afternoon stretching long and lazy, the sun doing its best to warm the cold earth. Louis walked the familiar path around the house, his feet finding the way without conscious thought.

Lottie’s grave was well maintained now. Fresh flowers sat in the vase, and the headstone was clean, free of moss and debris.

Tomlinson

Louis sank down onto the grass in front of it, his legs folding underneath him. He reached out and traced the letters of her name with his fingertips.

“Hi, Lotts,” he said quietly. “Been a while.”

The wind rustled through the trees overhead, and Louis took it as acknowledgment.

“I met Flossie,” he continued, his words soft. “Your daughter. She’s… she’s incredible, Lottie. She’s kind and elegant and so smart. She has your eyes, did you know that? And the way she smiles, it’s exactly like yours. It took my breath away when I first saw it.”

He paused, swallowing around the lump forming in his throat.

“She told me stories about you. About your life, your husband, your kids. You were a teacher. Of course you were. You always loved books, loved learning. I’m so proud of you, baby sister. So proud of the life you built, the person you became.”

Tears were sliding down his face now, slow and steady.

“She said you talked about me. That you kept my memory alive for your family. I don’t…” His words broke. “I don’t deserve that. I wasn’t there. I couldn’t be there for any of it. But knowing you didn’t forget me, knowing I mattered to you even after all that time… it means everything.”

He sat in silence for a moment, just breathing, just existing in this space where his sister rested.

“I’m married now,” he said eventually, a watery smile crossing his face. “Not officially, but it counts. His name is Harry, and he’s… he’s it, Lottie. He’s my person. The one I didn’t think I’d ever find. He brought me back from the dead, literally, because he believed we were meant to be together. How mad is that?”

The wind picked up slightly, swirling leaves around the headstone.

“I wish you could’ve met him properly. Wish you could’ve been at our wedding, even though it was just us in the garden acting like idiots.” Louis laughed softly. “You would’ve loved him. He’s ridiculous and stubborn and takes too many photos and has the worst taste in music. And yet, he loves me. Somehow, against all logic, he loves me.”

His smile faded as the reality of why he was here settled back over him.

“I have to go soon,” Louis whispered. “A week, maybe less. I can feel it coming, and I’m terrified, Lotts. Not of dying, I’ve already done that. But of leaving him, and breaking his heart. Of not being there for all the things we planned.”

He wiped at his face roughly with the back of his hand.

“But I got this year. This perfect, impossible year. And that’s more than most people get. More than I ever thought I’d have. So I can’t complain, can I? I got my miracle. I got my person. I got to be happy.”

Louis looked up at the sky. Clouds were drifting past, slow and aimless.

“Take care of him for me?”

He threw it out to the universe, the sky, his sister, anyone who might be listening.

“When I’m gone. Make sure he’s okay. Make sure he remembers that this was real, that we were real, that it mattered.”

He sat there for a few more minutes, letting the quiet settle in.

“I’ll see you soon, Lotts,” he said finally, pushing himself to his feet. “Tell Mum I’m coming.”

He pressed his fingers to his lips, then to the headstone, and turned to walk back to the house.

Harry heard the back door open and close. Louis’ footsteps donned the stairs, the creak of the floorboards overhead as he moved around their bedroom. Harry stayed on the sofa, his book abandoned on his lap. Tears were forming without him even realising it anymore. They just silently appeared, and half the time he didn’t notice until they dripped off his jaw. When he did notice, he wiped them away quickly, not wanting Louis to see how badly he was starting to fracture.

He wasn’t sleeping anymore. Not really. He’d lie in bed and watch Louis breathe, counting each inhale and exhale like they were precious commodities running out. Which they were. Everything was running out, time, smiles, breaths, heartbeats, words, laughter, all of it.

Harry couldn’t stop thinking about what the future entails, what his life would look like when Louis was gone again. Would he stay in this house? How could he, when every room held memories of them? The kitchen where they’d cooked together, the garden where they’d gotten married, the bedroom where they’d made love. But how could he leave? This was Louis’ house just as much as his own. This was where Louis existed, where his presence was woven into every corner. Leaving would feel like abandoning him.

His heart physically hurt. That wasn’t just an expression anymore, there was an actual ache in his chest that wouldn’t go away, a constant pressure that made breathing feel like too much work. He heard Louis coming back down the stairs. He quickly wiped at his face as he straightened up trying to look normal.

Louis appeared in the doorway, and something in his expression made Harry’s heart crack further. He looked… resigned. Peaceful in a heartbreaking way, like he’d made peace with something Harry wasn’t ready to accept. Harry stood up and crossed the room, pulling Louis into his arms without a word. He held him tight, one hand cradling the back of Louis’ head, the other wrapped around his waist. Louis melted into him as they stood there swaying.

“Let’s go out tonight,” Louis said after a while. “Somewhere decent, somewhere with proper tablecloths, and a menu you have to squint at.”

Harry looked at him properly then, a little surprised.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Like an actual date.” Louis shrugged, too casual for what he was really asking. “You wear something stupidly expensive that you’ll complain about wearing. I will pretend I understand the wine list. We’ll order things we can’t pronounce and we’ll act like we belong there.”

Harry huffed a quiet laugh.

“You hate places like that.”

“I know.”

“Last time we went somewhere fancy you made a face at the amuse-bouche.”

“It was the size of a coin,” Louis muttered. “That’s not food.”

Harry’s mouth twitched, but it didn’t last.

Louis didn’t look away.

“I want one night that feels… memorable,” he said. “Not takeaway cartons. Not eating off your lap. I want to pull your chair out. I want to argue over dessert. I want to pretend we’ve got years to do it again.”

And there it was. Harry knew what he meant without him saying it.

“Okay,” he said, softer now.

Louis nodded once.

“Go book somewhere ridiculous, with those tiny candles and waiters who will judge you.”

“You’re definitely getting judged.”

“Shut up.”

Harry studied him, like he was trying to memorise the way he said things, the way he decided things.

“Why tonight?”

Louis hesitated. Not long, but just enough.

“Because we keep saying we will,” he answered. “And we’ve only got so many ’will’s left.”

That settled it.

“Okay,” Harry said again, firmer this time. “Tonight.”

Because how could he say no? How could he deny Louis anything at this point?

They got ready in comfortable silence. Harry wore the navy suit Louis loved, the one that made his shoulders look broader and his legs look longer. Louis dressed in black trousers and a cream coloured shirt, simple but elegant, and when Harry saw him he had to pause and just look because god, he was so beautiful.

👻

The restaurant was small and intimate, the kind of place with soft lighting and quiet conversations happening at nearby tables. They were seated in a corner booth, tucked away from everyone else, which suited them perfectly. Louis ordered wine without looking at the prices, gaining a raised eyebrow from Harry who didn’t comment. When the waiter left, they sat across from each other, hands linked on the table between them. Louis’ thumb traced circles on Harry’s knuckles, a movement that had become so habitual Harry sometimes felt phantom touches even when they were apart.

“You look stunning,” Louis said softly.

“So do you,” Harry replied, “You always do.”

The wine arrived, and they toasted to nothing in particular because what was there to celebrate? To the end? To borrowed time? To one last date before everything fell apart?

They talked about small things, the garden, what should be planted for spring, whether the goldfish in the pond had gotten bigger. Safe topics. Nothing too heavy. Nothing that acknowledged the countdown happening in both their heads. Their food came, and they ate slowly, savouring everything. Louis watched Harry across the table, memorizing the way candlelight played across his face, the way his curls fell over his forehead, the exact shade of green his eyes were in this lighting. Harry watched Louis right back, cataloguing every detail, terrified of the day when memory would be all he had left.

“This is perfect,” Louis said at one point, his words quiet but certain. “This moment. You. Us. It’s perfect.”

Harry’s eyes burned with tears he refused to let fall.

Not here. Not now.

“It is,” he agreed, but his throat was tight.

The waiter returned as they were finishing dessert, some chocolate thing they’d shared, feeding each other bites and trying to pretend this was just a normal date.

“Can I get you gentlemen anything else?” the waiter asked pleasantly. “Coffee? Another bottle of wine?”

“No, I think we’re good,” Louis said, smiling up at him. “Thank you.”

“Wonderful. Well, we hope to see you both again soon. Maybe next week for our spring menu launch?”

The smile dropped from Louis’ face so fast it was like watching a curtain fall. Harry felt his own expression freeze.

Next week.

Next week Louis wouldn’t be here.

Next week Harry would be alone.

“Maybe,” Louis managed, but the word came out strangled. “We’ll see.”

The waiter nodded, oblivious to the devastation he’d just caused, and walked away.

Harry and Louis sat in silence. Their hands were still linked, but now Louis’ grip was almost painful, like he was trying to hold on physically to something that was slipping away regardless.

“Lou…” Harry started.

“Don’t,” Louis interrupted softly. “Please. Not yet. Just… let’s pay and go home. I need to go home.”

Harry nodded, signaling for the check.

They drove back in silence. Louis stared out the window at the passing streetlights, each one illuminating his face briefly before plunging him back into darkness. Harry kept his eyes on the road, fighting against the tears that were determined to fall. When they pulled up to the house, neither moved to get out immediately. They just sat there in the car, the engine ticking as it cooled.

“I love you,” Louis said finally, not looking at him. “I need you to know that. No matter what happens. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything.”

“I know,” Harry whispered back. “I love you too. So much it’s killing me.”

Louis finally turned to look at him, and in the dim light from the porch, Harry could see tears tracking down his face.

“Come on,” Louis said, reaching for the door handle. “Let’s go inside.”

They walked into the house together, hands linked, both of them acutely aware that these moments were numbered now. That the countdown had reached its final days.

And there was nothing either of them could do to stop it.

Tick, tick, tick

👻

That night they didn’t sleep at all.

The room was dark except for the small amount of moonlight cutting through the gap in the curtains, painting half of Louis’ face silver.

They lay facing each other, close enough that neither of them had to reach far. Louis lifted his hand and ran his thumb along Harry’s jaw. Harry didn’t smile. He just watched him. His touch was feather light, barely there, but Harry felt it everywhere.

Harry’s hand came up to cup Louis’ cheek, his palm warm against his skin. He brushed his thumb across Louis’ cheekbone, down to the corner of his mouth, feeling the slight curve of his lips. Louis turned his head and kissed Harry’s palm. They stayed like that for what felt like hours. Just touching. Just breathing.

Louis’ fingers traced the shell of Harry’s ear, the curve of his neck, the hollow of his throat. Harry followed the small scar near Louis’ temple, the one he always forgot about until he saw it up close. Harry mapped the constellation of freckles on Louis’ shoulder, the small scar near his temple, the exact texture of his skin. When Louis’ fingertips brushed across Harry’s lips, Harry kissed them, one by one. Louis’ eyes filled with tears that didn’t fall.

Louis blinked hard, but didn’t look away.

Words felt too big, too permanent, too final. So they just touched instead. Louis’ hand slid into Harry’s hair, Harry’s fingers tracing down Louis’ spine. A kiss to the forehead. A brush of noses. Fingers intertwining between them, holding on.

This was goodbye in slow motion.

👻

The days that followed moved at a sickening speed.

One moment they were having breakfast, the next it was evening. Time kept skipping forward like a record with scratches, jumping and stuttering, refusing to slow down no matter how desperately they needed it to.

By Louis’ calculations, and he’d been calculating obsessively, counting and recounting until the numbers blurred, they were down to the wire. Twenty four hours. Maybe less.

He could feel it in his bones now, this wrongness, like his body was already preparing to let go of something it had been holding onto too tightly. His hands felt numb sometimes. His reflection in the mirror looked slightly off, like he wasn’t quite solid anymore.

Harry noticed everything.

He noticed the way Louis would zone out mid sentence, staring at nothing. He noticed how Louis kept touching things, the kitchen counter, the back of the sofa, the doorframe, like he was saying goodbye to the house itself. He noticed the tremble in Louis’ hands when he thought Harry wasn’t looking.

They were in the kitchen when Louis felt it, that final shift.

This was it.

Not long left.

He opened his mouth to tell Harry, to find some way to put it into words, but before he could speak, Harry’s eyes locked onto his face and something there must have given it away.

“We should reorganise the pantry,” Harry blurted out, his words too fast. “It’s been bothering me for weeks. Things are just thrown in there with no system, and I think if we just…”

“Harry…”

“And the gutters need cleaning. I meant to do it last month but we got distracted and now with spring coming there’s going to be more rain and if they’re blocked the whole…”

“Harry, please…”

“And we never finished painting the spare room, remember? We got halfway and then stopped and it’s been driving me mad, I should just…”

Harry was moving now, pacing towards the hallway like he had somewhere urgent to be, somewhere that wasn’t here facing this moment.

Louis just stood there. Watching. Unable to stop him. Unable to fix this. Because he was struggling too. His own chest was tight, his breathing shallow, every part of him screaming to run, to hide, to do anything except stand here and wait for the inevitable.

Harry disappeared into the hallway, and Louis could hear him opening the closet, pulling things out, making noise, filling the silence with activity because if he stopped moving he’d have to acknowledge what was happening.

Louis pressed his hand flat against his chest.

Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.

His heart. Beating.

Actually beating.

He closed his eyes and just felt it. The rhythm. The steady thump that meant he was alive. He tried to memorize the pattern, the feeling, the proof that for this moment he still existed in this body.

Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.

How many times had it beat since he’d come back? How many times would it beat before it stopped forever?

He inhaled sharply, his lungs expanding, filling with air that smelled like their home, coffee and Harry’s shampoo and the lavender from the garden. Harry walked by him fast, carrying cleaning supplies he absolutely didn’t need, heading towards the stairs.

Louis’ hand shot out and grabbed Harry’s arm. Harry stopped but didn’t turn around.

Louis wanted to scream. He wanted to shake him and tell him to stop, to slow down, to be here for these final moments instead of running from them. Wanted to beg him to just look at him, really look, one more time before it was too late. But the words wouldn’t come, because Louis was drowning too. Because Louis didn’t know how to make this better. Because no matter what he said, it wouldn’t change what was about to happen. So instead, he pulled. He yanked Harry backwards into his arms with enough force that Harry stumbled, the cleaning supplies clattering to the floor. Louis wrapped both arms around Harry and held on. Held on so tight it had to hurt.

Harry made a choked sound and then his arms came up around Louis, gripping just as hard, just as desperate. His face pressed into Louis’ neck and Louis felt the exact moment Harry started crying. The way his body shook, the wetness against Louis’ skin, the broken sounds he was trying to muffle. Louis held him tighter. So tight his arms were shaking with the effort. So tight he could feel Harry’s heartbeat against his own chest, both of them pounding out of sync, both of them fighting to stay in this moment forever.

“I would have loved you for a hundred years,” Louis whispered into Harry’s hair, his words cracking apart. “If they’d given me a hundred years, I would have spent every single one of them loving you. And it still wouldn’t have been enough.”

Harry’s knees buckled slightly and Louis held him up, taking his weight, keeping him standing.

“A million years even,” Louis continued, his own tears falling now, soaking into Harry’s curls. “I would have chosen you in every single lifetime. In every possible universe. You’re it for me, Harry. You’re everything. And I’m so sorry I can’t stay.”

Harry was sobbing now, his whole body shaking, his hands fisting in the back of Louis’ shirt hard enough that the fabric might rip.

“I’m so sorry,” Louis kept saying, over and over, because what else was there? “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

They sank slowly to the floor, neither able to stand anymore, ending up in a heap with Louis’ back against the wall and Harry curled in his lap, face still buried in Louis’ neck, arms still locked around him like if he just held on tight enough he could keep Louis here through sheer force of will. Louis pressed his lips to the top of Harry’s head and just breathed him in. Memorized the smell of him, the weight of him, the feeling of holding him. This was the last time. The very last time he’d get to hold Harry like this, and he needed to remember every second.

Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.

His heart was still beating.

But he could feel the rhythm starting to slow.

👻

The remaining twenty four hours passed in fragments.

The following morning Louis made breakfast. Scrambled eggs and toast, nothing fancy. Harry sat at the table and watched his hands move, watched the way he cracked eggs into the pan, the way he buttered the toast. Harry memorised it all.

Tonight.

They both knew it. Could feel it settling over them.

Tonight, Louis will leave.

The afternoon stretched out strange and surreal. They worked in the garden together, planting bulbs for spring flowers, ones that Louis would never see bloom. Harry’s hands were shaking as he dug holes in the soil. Louis steadied them with his own. When evening came, they didn’t talk about what to do. They just moved in sync, pulling together food from the kitchen. Louis grabbed the charcuterie board they’d gotten from the market weeks ago. Harry collected cheeses and grapes and crackers. They found the good wine, the bottle they’d been saving for something special. This certainly qualified.

They carried everything outside and laid a blanket under the oak tree close to where they’d gotten married. The stars were just beginning to appear, pinpricks of light against the deepening blue. They sat close, thighs pressed together, the board between them. Louis poured wine into two glasses and handed one to Harry. Their fingers touched during the exchange and held there for a moment longer than necessary. Harry took a sip and looked up. A satellite drifted across the sky, a steady point of light moving against the fixed stars.

“There,” he said quietly, pointing.

Louis followed his finger and watched the satellite track its path. Another one appeared minutes later, heading in the opposite direction.

“Mad, isn’t it?” Louis said. “All that technology. People floating around up there. Can’t wrap my head around it.”

Harry nodded but didn’t respond. He picked at a piece of cheese without eating it.

They fell quiet again. Ate in silence. Drank in silence. Watched the sky in silence.

When the bottle was empty and the food mostly untouched, they packed everything away and went inside.

The shower was Harry’s idea, though he didn’t suggest it with words. He just took Louis’ hand and led him upstairs to the bathroom. They undressed slowly, watching each other in the mirror. Louis’ eyes were sad and Harry’s were sadder. The water ran hot and they stepped under it together. Harry reached for the shampoo but Louis stopped him, taking the bottle from his hands.

“Let me,” Louis said.

Harry nodded and turned his back.

He squeezed shampoo into his palm and worked it into Harry’s curls. His fingers moved slowly through the wet strands, massaging Harry’s scalp carefully. He took his time, making sure every inch was covered, his fingertips tracing small circles that made Harry’s shoulders drop. Harry’s eyes had closed as his head tipped back slightly into Louis’ touch. Louis watched the soap slide down Harry’s neck, over his shoulders, down his back. He kept working the shampoo through Harry’s hair, longer than necessary, because this was something he could do. This was a way to care for Harry one last time. When he was done, he guided Harry’s head back under the spray and rinsed the soap away. His hands followed the water, making sure nothing was left behind, fingers combing through until Harry’s curls were clean. Harry turned around then, water streaming down his face, and looked at Louis with eyes so full of everything they’d never get to say that Louis had to look away.

They got out and dried off, going through all the mundane emotions.

Harry pulled on sleep clothes and Louis did the same. They stood in the bedroom, neither moving towards the bed yet.

“Do you want to watch something?” Louis asked, his words falling flat.

Harry shook his head. His eyes said what his mouth couldn’t.

I just want you. I just want to hold you. I just want these last hours to be us.

Louis understood. He always did.

Louis didn’t say anything. He just went to the bed, pulled the covers down, and got in like he was staking a claim. He rolled onto his side, stretched one arm out across the empty space and waited. Harry stood there for a second, watching him. Then he crossed the room and slid in without breaking eye contact, like this was something decided long before tonight. He didn’t ease into it. He went straight in, head against Louis’ chest, arm around his middle, leg hooked over both of Louis’. Louis grunted softly at the impact but didn’t complain. His arm came around Harry’s shoulders and tightened, firm and certain, palm flattening between his shoulder blades. Harry shifted closer anyway. Closer until there wasn’t a gap left.

They laid like that in the dim light from the lamp on the nightstand. Neither reached to turn it off. Neither wanted darkness yet. Harry’s fingers played with the hem of Louis’ shirt, rubbing the fabric between his fingertips over and over. A nervous habit. A way to ground himself in something physical. Louis’ hand moved up and down Harry’s back in long, slow strokes. The same rhythm. The same path. Over and over.

Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.

Louis could still feel his heartbeat. But it felt different now. Slower. Heavier. His body was winding down. Harry must have felt it too, because his grip tightened slightly. His face pressed harder into Louis’ chest.

“I can hear it,” Harry whispered finally. “Your heart.”

Louis’ hand stilled on Harry’s back for a moment before continuing its path.

“Is it…” Harry couldn’t finish the question.

“Yeah,” Louis answered anyway. “It’s slowing down.”

Harry made a sound that might have been a sob or might have been something else entirely. His whole body was tense.

“Harry,” Louis said softly.

“Don’t.” Harry’s word was muffled against Louis’ shirt. “Please don’t say goodbye. Not yet. I’m not ready.”

Louis didn’t know what to say to that. There were no right words. So he just kept stroking Harry’s back, kept holding him, kept being here for as long as he still could. Minutes passed, maybe hours, Louis had lost track of time completely. All he knew was Harry in his arms and the steady deceleration of his own pulse.

Ba-boom. Ba-boom.

Still beating…Still here…But fading.

Harry lifted his head from Louis’ chest and looked at him. Really looked at him. His eyes were red and swollen, his face blotchy from crying, but there was something else there too. Something that made Louis’ breath catch.

Need. Want. Love. Desperation.

All of it mixed together.

Harry shifted, moving up Louis’ body until they were face to face.

“I need you,” Harry whispered. “One more time. Please.”

Louis nodded, his own hand coming up to thread through Harry’s curls. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Harry leaned down and kissed him. Soft at first, barely a brush of lips.. Then deeper. His mouth opened against Louis’ and Louis responded, his tongue sliding against Harry’s, tasting wine and salt and everything they were about to lose.

Harry’s weight settled fully on top of him and Louis welcomed it, his hands moving down to grip Harry’s hips. The kiss grew more urgent but never rough, never hurried. They had time. Not much, but enough for this. Harry pulled back just enough to tug his shirt over his head, and Louis did the same. Skin against skin as they both exhaled shakily at the contact.

“God,” Harry breathed, “I love you so much. I’m gonna miss you so much.”

“I know,” Louis said, his hands sliding up Harry’s bare back. “I know, love.”

They moved together as one. Each press of lips feeling important. Harry sat back enough to work at Louis’ pants, instantly pulling them down. Louis lifted his hips to help, and then they were gone, tossed somewhere onto the floor. Harry’s followed seconds later. They were both already half hard just from proximity, from need, from the weight of what this meant.

Harry leaned down, his hand wrapping around both of them together, both moaning into each other’s mouths at the contact.

“Jesus,” Louis gasped, his hips jerking up involuntarily.

Harry worked them together, his hand moving in long, measured strokes. Not rushing. Louis’ hands gripped Harry’s shoulders, his back, anywhere he could reach. He kissed Harry’s temple, his cheek, repeating his name over and over. Harry was breathing hard, little gasps and whimpers escaping him with each stroke. His free hand braced beside Louis’ head, holding himself up, and Louis could see his arm shaking with the effort.

“Come here,” Louis said, pulling Harry down until they were chest to chest again, Harry’s weight fully on him. “Just stay here.”

Harry kept working them both, the angle awkward but neither of them caring. They just needed the closeness, the contact, the feeling of being connected. Louis felt it building, that familiar tightening low in his belly. His breathing quickened, matching Harry’s, and he knew Harry was close as well from the way his rhythm was faltering.

“Lou,” Harry whimpered against his neck. “I’m…”

“I know. Me too. Let go, love.”

Harry’s hand moved faster and Louis thrust up into it, chasing the feeling, and then Harry was crying out, his whole body going rigid as he came. The feeling of it, the heat of it between them, pushed Louis over the edge and he followed seconds later, gasping Harry’s name.

They stayed like that for long minutes, both of them trembling, both trying to catch their breath. Harry was still pressed fully against him, sticky and sweaty. Eventually Harry shifted enough to reach for the tissues on the nightstand. He cleaned them both up with gentle swipes, then dropped the tissues to the floor and settled back.

They could have made it bigger.

They could have tried to turn what had just happened into something worthy of being called their last time , something cinematic and unforgettable. But that wasn’t what it was.

They’d already spent the week burning through everything, urgency, laughter, desperation, bodies tangled like they could outrun what was coming. They’d taken and taken from the hours like thieves. Tonight felt different. Not because they wanted less. But because they understood there wasn’t enough left to waste pretending this could be ordinary. It wasn’t about going further. It was about staying. They both knew that this wasn’t about sex anymore. It was about proof. Proof that Louis had been here. That this had been real and not some fragile, beautiful accident. Sometimes, the last time you touch someone isn’t loud. It’s quiet. It’s hands holding on a little longer than necessary. It’s the understanding that this, this small, human, imperfect moment, is the one you’ll replay when everything else is gone.

Harry was crying again, and Louis felt his own eyes burning but he blinked the tears back. He needed to see Harry clearly. Needed these last moments to be sharp and real, not blurred by his own grief.

“I wish I could give you more,” Louis said eventually, his words cracking.

“You gave me everything,” Harry replied, his fingers squeezing Louis’. “This year. It was everything.”

Louis turned his head to press a kiss to Harry’s forehead.

“You were the best thing that ever happened to me. In either life. You know that, right?”

Harry nodded against his chest.

“Yeah. I know.”

They fell quiet again. Louis’ free hand resumed its slow path up and down Harry’s spine. Harry’s breathing eventually evened out, though Louis knew he wasn’t asleep.

Ba-booom

Louis focussed on his heartbeat again. It was definitely slower now. Each beat felt heavier, more laboured. His body was shutting down piece by piece.

He wondered how much longer he had. Minutes? Less?

Harry must have felt the change too, because his grip on Louis’ hand tightened almost painfully.

“Not yet,” Harry whispered. “Please. Not yet.”

“I’m still here,” Louis said, even though they both knew that wouldn’t be true much longer. I’m not going anywhere yet. I’m right here with you.“

And he was. For now. For these last precious moments, he was exactly where he needed to be.

With Harry.

Always with Harry.

Harry shifted suddenly, his body going tense.

“I need the loo,” he mumbled, already pulling away from Louis and climbing out of bed.

Louis watched him go, suspecting it wasn’t just about needing the bathroom. Harry was falling apart and trying to hide it.

“Don’t fall in,” Louis called after him, keeping his tone light. “I’d hate to have to fish you out. Very undignified way to spend my last night.”

Harry paused at the bathroom door and looked back. The joke was terrible, inappropriate, perfectly Louis. Despite everything, despite the tears still wet on his cheeks, Harry’s mouth curved into a small smile.

Then he disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door.

The second the lock clicked, Harry’s hand flew to his mouth, muffling the sob that ripped out of him. His whole body shook with the force of holding it in. He stumbled to the sink and gripped the edges, his knuckles going white. He looked up at his reflection. Red eyes stared back at him. Devastation written in every line of his swollen face.

“Why?” he whispered to his reflection, to the universe, to whatever god or force was doing this. “Why are you taking him from me?”

His reflection didn’t answer.

“Please,” Harry begged, his words getting louder, more desperate. “Please let him stay. I’ll do anything. Anything you ask. Just don’t take him. Please don’t take him.”

Silence.

No miracle. No divine intervention. No last minute reprieve.

Harry turned on the tap and splashed cold water on his face. Once. Twice. Three times. He grabbed a towel and dried off, then looked at himself again. He forced his mouth into a smile. It looked wrong, stretched too tight, not reaching his eyes. But it would have to do. Louis needed him to be strong. This wasn’t about Harry anymore. It was about making Louis’ last moments as bearable as possible. Harry could fall apart later.

He took a breath, squared his shoulders, and opened the door.

“Hey Lou, remember when we…”

He froze.

Louis was staring at his hands. Both of them held up in front of his face, fingers spread. And around them, through them, was light. Soft and ethereal, making his skin look translucent.

It was happening.

Panic flooded Harry’s chest, stealing his breath. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Just stood there staring.

“Harry,” Louis called, and there was fear in it now. Real fear.

“Harry, please.”

But Harry’s feet wouldn’t work. His whole body had locked up.

“HARRY!” Louis’ words were sharper now, more desperate. “Please!”

That broke through. Harry launched himself across the room and dove onto the bed, scrambling to Louis and bringing their faces together until their noses nearly touched.

Louis kissed him immediately. But it was different. Lighter. Like kissing fog. Nothing like minutes ago when they’d been solid and whole.

“Turn around,” Louis said when they broke apart.

Harry blinked.

“What?”

“I’m not gonna let you watch this, sweetheart. I don’t want those visions in your memory. Turn around. NOW! “

Harry flinched at the command but he couldn’t say no. Not to Louis. Not now.

He turned, presenting his back, and Louis immediately pulled him close, wrapping both arms around Harry’s chest from behind.

“Thank you for loving me,” Louis whispered against Harry’s shoulder. “For believing in me, Harry. Thank you for everything.”

Harry sobbed, his whole body shaking. His lips were wobbling so badly he could barely form words. “I’m gonna miss you so much.”

He squeezed his eyes shut but it didn’t help. He could still feel it. Louis’ arms around him, the grip getting looser. Weaker, like Louis was losing the ability to hold on. Harry opened his eyes and looked down. Louis’ arms were fading, actually fading. He could see through them to the sheets below.

“Lou,” Harry choked out.

“It’s okay, sweet. I’m going to be okay. I promise you that. Be strong, don’t stop living. I love you.”

Louis tried to grip tighter, tried to hold Harry one more time, but his hands wouldn’t cooperate. He couldn’t feel his fingers anymore. Couldn’t feel his arms. Couldn’t feel anything except the sensation of unraveling.

And then he felt it.

Ba-

Nothing.

No boom. No beat. No pulse.

His heart had stopped.

And Harry broke.

He shook violently, his whole body convulsing with sobs so harsh they hurt. The arms around him were gone. Completely gone. He spun around and there was nothing. Just empty sheets and the faint impression where Louis had been lying.

Louis was gone.

The man who’d smiled at him in that café. The man who’d haunted him, terrified him, made him laugh. The man who’d kissed him under a garden arch surrounded by sunflowers. The man who’d shown him what it meant to love someone so completely that losing them felt like he was dying too.

Gone.

Harry curled in on himself, hands clutching at the sheets where Louis had been, trying to find some trace of him. Some proof he’d been real. But there was nothing. Just cold cotton. The grief was physical. It ripped through Harry’s chest like something with claws, tearing him open from the inside. His lungs wouldn’t work properly. Each breath was a battle. Each sob felt like it might break his ribs.

He pressed his face into the pillow Louis had been using and screamed.

“LOUIS!”

The name ripped out of him, ragged and broken and full of every bit of agony he couldn’t contain anymore.

“LOUIS! LOUIS, PLEASE!”

But no one answered.

The house was silent.

Louis was gone.

And Harry was utterly alone again.

Harry laid there all night. He didn’t move. Didn’t shift positions. Didn’t even reach for the blanket when the cold seeped in through the open window. He just stayed exactly where he’d been when Louis disappeared, curled on his side, staring at the empty space beside him.

He didn’t cry either. The tears had run out somewhere along the line, leaving his face tight and crusty with dried salt. His eyes burned but nothing came. Just this hollow, scraped out feeling in his chest where his heart used to be. Shock had settled over him completely. His mind had shut down, unable to process what had happened. Unable to accept that Louis was gone. Permanently gone this time.

The sun rose. Light crept across the bedroom floor. Harry watched it move without really seeing it. Hours passed by, maybe days. Harry couldn’t tell anymore. He didn’t eat. Didn’t drink. Didn’t get up to use the bathroom until his body absolutely forced him to, and even then he moved on autopilot, shuffling to the toilet and back to bed without conscious thought.

The house was silent. No footsteps on the stairs. No humming from the kitchen. No Louis calling his name or making terrible jokes or just existing in the space beside him.

Nothing.

Harry stared at the wall and felt nothing.

Gemma had been calling. Harry’s phone buzzed on the nightstand over and over, the screen lighting up with her name. He looked at it once, registered what it was, and looked away. He couldn’t talk to her. Couldn’t talk to anyone. There were no words for this. After three days of unanswered calls, Gemma showed up. Harry heard her knocking. Heard her calling his name through the door. Heard the key in the lock that he’d given her months ago for emergencies. Her footsteps came up the stairs. The bedroom door opened.

“Harry?”

He didn’t turn to look at her. Just kept staring at the wall.

“Oh my god.” Her words came out choked. “Harry, what…”

She crossed the room quickly and knelt beside the bed. Her hand came to his forehead, checking for fever. He was cold and clammy.

“Harry, can you hear me? Can you look at me?”

He could. He just didn’t.

“Right. Okay. We’re going to the hospital.”

She tried to pull him up, but he was dead weight. Uncooperative. Not fighting her but not helping either.

“Harry, please. You need to see a doctor. You need help.”

He didn’t respond. Didn’t even blink.

Gemma tried for twenty minutes. Pleading, begging, demanding. Nothing worked. Harry wouldn’t move.

Eventually she gave up on that approach and went downstairs. Harry heard her moving around the kitchen. She came back with a glass of water and some toast.

“You need to eat something.”

She held the toast to his lips but he didn’t open his mouth. She was scared.

“Harry. Please, come on”

Still, nothing.

The toast sat on the nightstand. The water went untouched.

Gemma looked at her brother and felt her own tears starting. He looked awful. His skin was pale and waxy. His hair was greasy and matted. He smelled like sweat and grief and it hurt to witness.

“Okay,” she said, more to herself than to him. “Okay, I know you are hurting H, and my heart is breaking for you, but we’re going to get you cleaned up at least.”

She went to the bathroom and started the shower. She came back and tried again to get Harry up, and this time she was more forceful, physically pulling him into a sitting position. He let her move him like some ragdoll but remained out of it. After managing to get him to his feet, and one arm around his waist to keep him upright, she walked him to the bathroom, the shower already running with steam filling the small space.

“I’m going to help you, okay? I’ll keep my eyes closed as much as I can. We just need to get you clean.”

She helped him out of his clothes, averting her eyes as much as possible to give him dignity that he wasn’t capable of caring about right now. Under the spray, he stood there, water running over him. Gemma grabbed the soap and a cloth and washed him like he was a child. Arms, chest, back. She was crying now, silent tears mixing with the shower spray. This was her brother. Her strong, beautiful brother who’d fought death itself for love. And now he was… broken…and empty. Physically he was here, but he was gone in every single way possible.

She washed his hair, fingers gentle through the tangles. She rinsed him off, turned off the water and wrapped him in a towel.

When she got him dressed in clean clothes, they walked silently back to his bed. He laid down in the exact same position as before, resuming to stare at the wall. Gemma stripped the sheets and remade the bed with him still in it, working around him, moving him gently when she needed to. She opened all the windows to let fresh air in. After taking all the dirty laundry downstairs, she stayed and made herself a cup of tea. She checked on Harry every hour.

He never moved.

Two weeks went by like that.

To give Harry privacy to mourn, Gemma moved her pillow and a blanket down to the sofa without making a thing of it. She didn’t ask Harry if he wanted her there. She just stayed. The house felt different now, and she wasn’t about to leave him alone in it.

She went upstairs a few times a day and knocked. Sometimes she waited for an answer. Most times she didn’t get one.

“Harry,” she’d say through the door. “I’ve made breakfast.” Or, “Do you need anything?” Or just a simple, “I’m here.”

He didn’t come down.

Plates left outside his room went cold and untouched more often than not. Glasses of water stayed where she put them. The curtains in his room remained closed. She stopped trying to force conversation after the first few days. It felt wrong to drag words out of him when he was barely holding himself together.

There only came one break.

She heard the front door open and close and nearly dropped the mug she was holding. By the time she stepped into the hallway, he was already gone. He was out for half an hour. Maybe a little more. She didn’t call him or text. She just sat at the kitchen table and waited. When he came back, his face gave nothing away. He walked past her without speaking and went straight upstairs. She didn’t ask where he’d been. It was enough that he’d stepped outside at all.

On the evening of the third week, she sat on the edge of his bed and took his hand.

“He’s still in your heart, Harry,” she said quietly. “You’ll always have a piece of him.”

Harry’s eyes moved. Just slightly, shifting from the wall to her face. Tears formed immediately.

“There you are,” Gemma whispered, squeezing his hand. “Let it out.”

Harry’s face crumpled and he pushed himself up and into her arms. She caught him, held him, rocked him as he sobbed into her shoulder. These weren’t quiet tears. These were wrenching, full body sobs that shook them both. Gemma held on tight, one hand rubbing his back.

“I’ve got you.”

They stayed like that until Harry’s sobs quieted into hiccups, into shaky breaths, then into silence. He pulled back and looked at her. His eyes were red and swollen but there was something in them now. Something present. Something aware. But also something lost. Something fundamentally broken.

Without a word, Harry stood up from the bed and left the room.

Gemma waited, confused, yet more concerned than usual. She heard him moving around in another room. Heard a drawer open and close. Gemma was still sitting on the edge of the bed, hands clasped together, watching him when he re-emerged. There was something in his expression that made her sit up straighter. Not panic, but not exactly joy either.

He lowered himself beside her without speaking. For a moment he just stared at the floor. Then his hand slipped into his pocket. Gemma’s eyes followed the movement. The silence stretched between them. He didn’t look at her as he pulled his hand back out. He just turned his palm upwards and held it there, fingers curled around something.

“Harry,” she said quietly. “What is it?”

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he reached for her hand and pressed whatever he was holding into her open palm.

It was light. Plastic. She frowned slightly and looked down.

A pregnancy test.

Her breath stalled.

She turned it over in her hand, as if maybe she had read it wrong the first time. Her eyes locked on the tiny window.

Two pink lines.

Clear as day.

Positive.

Gemma’s mouth fell open. She looked up at her brother, then back at the test, then at him again as if he might suddenly laugh and tell her it was a joke.

He didn’t.

He just sat there, watching her with an expression that looked almost terrified.

Gemma swallowed. “Louis…?” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.

Harry nodded.

She couldn’t believe her eyes and Harry understood that, he too had initially had the same reaction.

“You were right, I know I will,” Harry said, his words rough from disuse and crying. “I will always have a piece of him.. Just a bigger piece than I imagined.”

“Harry,” Gemma breathed. “You’re…”

“Pregnant. Yeah.”

She didn’t ask any further questions. Just pulled him back into her arms and held him while fresh tears poured down both their faces.

“He won’t ever know, Gemma,” Harry said into her shoulder. “He’ll never see or hear them. He will have no knowledge of this baby’s existence whatsoever.”

His hand moved down to rest on his stomach, flat and unchanged but carrying the most precious thing either of them could ever imagine.

“He would have been the perfect dad, Harry,” Gemma said, pulling back to look at him properly.

Harry’s face crumpled again.

“I know. I know he would have. And now he’ll never get the chance.”

He looked down at his hand on his belly.

“How am I supposed to do this without him? How am I supposed to raise our baby alone?”

“You’re not alone,” Gemma said firmly.

“You’ve got me. You’ve got Mum. You’ve got people who love you.”

“But not Louis.”

“No,” she agreed softly. “Not Louis. But you’ll have his child. A piece of him that lives on. That’s not nothing, Harry.”

Harry nodded but the movement was mechanical. Like he was agreeing because he should, not because he believed it.

“When did you find out?” Gemma asked.

“This morning. I finally got up to use the bathroom and I just… I don’t know why but I took a test, brought it a few days ago, just had a feeling, I dunno, it was weird, an impulse maybe. We’d been careful but not always, and I knew I felt really off and…” He gestured vaguely at the positive test still in Gemma’s hand. “Surprise.”

“Does anyone else know?”

Harry shook his head.

“How far along do you think you are?”

“I don’t know. A few months maybe? I’d have to see a doctor to know for sure.”

“Then that’s what we’re doing. Tomorrow. I’m taking you to a doctor.”

“Gemma…”

“No arguments. You’re pregnant, Harry. You need proper care. For you and for the baby.”

Harry looked at her for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay.”

They sat in silence. Gemma kept one arm around Harry’s shoulders. Harry kept his hand on his stomach, protecting something so small that probably didn’t even have a heartbeat yet.

“He would have been so excited,” Harry said eventually. “If he’d known. He would have cried and laughed and probably fainted.”

Gemma smiled through her own tears.

“Yeah. He would have.”

“And now he’ll never know. I’ll never get to tell him. He’ll never get to feel them kick or hear their first cry or watch them grow up.”

His words were breaking apart again and Gemma pulled him closer.

“But they’ll know about him,” she said. “You’ll make sure of that. You’ll tell them every story. Show them every photo. Make sure they know exactly who their father was and how much he loved their other dad.”

Harry nodded against her shoulder. “Yeah. Yeah, I will.”

They stayed like that as darkness fell outside, as the house grew cold, as the reality of everything settled over them both.

Louis was gone.

But a piece of him remained, growing inside of Harry, the most bittersweet miracle either of them could have imagined.

👻

Harry’s pregnancy had felt endless.

The first month after he found out, the morning sickness hit. It was brutal. He spent most mornings hunched over the toilet, retching until there was nothing left. The smell of coffee made him gag, and don’t get him started on how the sight of eggs made him feel. He lost weight instead of gaining it, and the doctor had looked concerned at his 12 week checkup.

All he wanted to do was sleep. His savings were dwindling rapidly. Every time he checked his bank account, the number got smaller and the panic got bigger. He started worrying about how he was going to survive. How was he going to afford a baby that needed nappies, clothes and formula and all the things babies needed that cost money he didn’t have.

Gemma thought she was helping when she brought it up one afternoon, sitting at his kitchen table with tea neither of them were drinking.

“You could sell the house,” she’d said carefully. “Move back home with Mum. She’d love to have you. You wouldn’t have to worry about bills or being alone or any of it.”

Harry had gone very still.

“No.”

The answer came out quick and firm but Gemma had expected it.

“Harry, just think about it. This place is huge. The bills must be…”

“I said no.”

Gemma had looked at him knowing she was never going to win this battle.

“I can’t leave,” Harry had said, his words quiet but firm. “I know it’s hard. I know every room reminds me of him. I see him everywhere. In the kitchen, in the garden, in our bed, everywhere, but….”

His hand had moved to his stomach, still barely showing but sporting the smallest little bulge.

“But those memories are all I have. If I leave, if I go somewhere he never was, it feels like losing him again. And I can’t. I can’t do that Gem.”

Gemma had reached across and taken his hand.

“Okay. We’ll figure something else out.”

And they had. Harry took on a few jobs he could do from the desk in the spare room. Edits, and some video calls. Small things that didn’t require him to leave the house or explain himself. It wasn’t steady, but it kept his account from dipping too low, and that’s all that mattered. Gemma transferred money anyway. He never asked, just like he never mentioned it. It would just appear, and he’d stare at the notification for a long time before accepting it. Their mum did the same. Quiet deposits, with no questions attached. Just a message now and then asking if he was sleeping, and if he needed anything.

Anne still didn’t know. That part sat heavy.

Every day he didn’t tell her made it harder to imagine how he ever would. He’d stand in the kitchen sometimes, with his phone in his hand, thumb hovering over her name, and then he’d put it back down again.

He didn’t have a story that made sense. The truth felt impossible to say out loud. So he started building something easier. Something simple. A mistake. A night that meant nothing. A name he wouldn’t have to repeat.

A one night stand. It sounded thin, even in his own head.

But it was the only explanation that he could come up with.

By his seventh month, everything got harder.

His belly was enormous. He couldn’t see his feet anymore, or tie his shoes. He couldn’t get comfortable in any position, so sleep had become impossible. His back ached constantly, and there was never a day that went by where his ankles weren’t swollen.

Gemma had been travelling back and forth weekly, helping him with things he couldn’t do himself. Shopping, cleaning, reaching things on high shelves. Then one night in his seventh month, Harry woke to cramping. Sharp, regular pains that made him cry out. He stumbled to the bathroom and found blood. Not much. Just spotting. But enough to send him into a full panic. Gemma drove him to the hospital at two in the morning. They’d kept him for observation. False contractions, they’d said. Stress and dehydration the probable source. The baby was fine overall, the bloodwork and scans all looking positive, but Harry needed to take it easier.

That was when Harry finally agreed to move. He couldn’t do this alone anymore. Couldn’t risk something happening when he was by himself in that big house with no one around for miles. Gemma organised everything. Hired removalists. Packed up his things. Within two weeks, Harry was standing in the empty house, saying goodbye. Again.

He thought he’d cry. Thought he’d fall apart completely walking out that door for the last time.

But he didn’t.

He stood in the doorway and looked back at the empty rooms and smiled.

This house had given him everything. Terror at first, when he’d heard footsteps and voices and things moving on their own. Then Louis. Beautiful, broken, impossible Louis. Love he’d never expected. Joy he’d never imagined. And now a baby. The most precious gift of all.

He placed his hand on the doorframe one last time.

“Thank you,” he whispered to the empty house. To Louis’ memory. To whatever had brought them together.

Then he closed the door, and never looked back.

👻

His mum had found him a small flat in London. Two bedrooms, nothing fancy, but clean and safe and close to family. Anne and Gemma had it ready before Harry arrived, furniture assembled, nursery painted a soft yellow, everything he and the baby would need already in place. Harry had walked into the nursery and cried. Not sad tears, grateful ones, so blessed to have people in his life that loved him unconditionally.

His next appointment confirmed everything was moving as it should. The baby was healthy and growing. The bleeding had been a once off. Nothing more to worry about.

At that appointment, they’d also confirmed what Harry had suspected.

A boy.

They were having a son.

Harry had stared at the ultrasound screen, at the grainy image of his baby, and tears had poured down his face. Gemma had been with him. She’d squeezed his hand and leaned close and whispered, “The Tomlinson name lives on.”

Harry had sobbed then. Proper, heaving sobs. Because she was right. Louis was gone but his name would continue. His legacy would continue, through this baby.

September 28th arrived with no warning.

Harry had been watching television, his hand resting on his belly where the baby was kicking up a storm, when his water broke. He’d stared at the wet spot on the sofa for a full ten seconds before his brain caught up.

“Mum!” he’d shouted. “MUM!”

It was lucky she had been there that night, as Harry had gotten anxious about the upcoming delivery. Labor was long and painful. Harry had begged for every drug they’d offer. Had screamed and cried and swore he’d never do this again. Gemma had held one hand. His mum held the other. They talked him through every contraction, every push, every moment he thought he couldn’t do it.

And then, after nineteen hours, a cry.

Small and angry and perfect.

The midwife placed the baby on Harry’s chest and Harry looked down at him. At his son, at Louis’ son.

He was tiny, red and wrinkled and covered in vernix. His eyes were squeezed shut, his fists tightly clenched. His cry was the most beautiful sound Harry had ever heard.

“Hi,” Harry whispered, tears streaming down his face. “Hi, baby. I’ve been waiting to meet you.”

The baby went quiet after hearing his voice. His little face scrunched up. One eye was opened slightly, unfocussed and curious. Harry fell in love instantly. Completely and irrevocably.

This was their son, the product of everything they’d been through. The proof that what they’d had was real, and to which had created something beautiful.

“He’s perfect,” Anne said from beside him, crying too. “Harry, he’s absolutely perfect.”

Harry couldn’t speak, he could only nod and stare at the baby in his arms and marvel at the fact that he’d created this. That Louis had helped create this. That this tiny person existed because they’d loved each other.

The nurses took the baby to clean him up and check him over. Harry watched every second, unable to look away. They brought him back wrapped in a blue blanket and a tiny knit hat and placed him back in Harry’s arms.

“Six pounds, seven ounces,” the midwife said. “Healthy lungs. All his fingers and toes. You did brilliantly, Daddy.”

Daddy .

Harry was a parent.

The reality of it hit him all at once and he started crying again, holding his son close, pressing kisses to his tiny forehead.

Life had changed overnight.

Harry fell into the role of parenthood without hesitation. Like this was what he’d been meant to do all along. Like every curve ball life had thrown at him had been preparing him for this exact moment. He learned to change nappies at three in the morning half asleep. He learned to tell the difference between hungry cries, tired cries and uncomfortable cries. Learned how to cradle his son in one arm while making tea with the other. He learned how to survive on two hours of sleep and still somehow function.

His mum and Gemma helped constantly. They did night shifts when Harry was too exhausted. Made him food when he forgot to eat. Reminded him to shower and sleep and take care of himself too. Harry loved when they came to stay in order to help, far more than he would like to admit. But most of it was Harry. Just Harry and his son, figuring it out, together.

The baby was content, in a way that felt almost unfair. He slept more nights than he didn’t. He ate without protest, accepted bottles and mashed fruit with such curiosity for all foods, and rarely cried unless there was a real reason. He did not fight naps. He did not scream for hours. Most days, he seemed content simply to exist beside Harry, watching him with those steady, searching eyes.

More than once, Harry found himself standing over the crib in the dark, whispering a quiet thank you to whatever higher power might be listening. He was doing this, utterly grateful for a baby that didn’t give him too much grief. He didn’t know if he could have survived a baby who demanded more than he had left to give.

The weeks folded into months before he could fully register them. Clothes stopped fitting. Tiny socks were replaced with bigger ones. The newborn scrunch softened out of his son’s limbs. The boy began to track movement across the room, began to reach intentionally, began to laugh when Harry made funny faces. What had once been fragile and dependent slowly turned into something curious and aware.

He was no longer just a baby. He was becoming a little person. And the more he grew, the more he looked like Louis.

It was subtle at first. Just the shape of his eyes. The way his mouth stayed open when he slept. But by three months, it was undeniable.

He had Louis’ eyes. That same brilliant blue. Sapphire, almost too bright to be real. When he looked at Harry with those eyes, Harry’s breath caught every single time. It was like looking at Louis. Like Louis was staring right back at him through their son. His eyelashes were impossibly long. Dark and thick, resting on his cheeks when he slept. Harry would watch him nap and count those lashes, marveling at how perfect they were. His hair grew in darker than Harry’s. Brown with auburn tones when the light hit right. And as it got longer, curls started forming at the ends. Little ringlets that Harry couldn’t resist running his fingers through.

By six months, the resemblance was striking. Anyone who’d known Louis would recognise him in this baby instantly. Gemma had come over one afternoon and just stared.

“Harry,” she’d said, her voice thick. “That’s” she stopped and whispered. “ That is super fucking creepy, he looks exactly like him. How do you…you know, manage that?“

He knew what she meant and he didn’t take offence to any of it.

Harry had looked down at his son, at those blue eyes and that brown hair and that smile that was pure Louis.

“I know,” Harry had whispered. “Every time I look at him, I am reminded of him. It’s like having a piece of him… back.”

His son had giggled then, reaching up to grab Harry’s face with chubby hands. Harry had kissed his tiny palm and felt his heart swell so big it hurt.

Harry would spend the rest of his life making sure his son knew exactly who his other father was. Making sure he knew how loved he was. How wanted he was. How miraculous his very existence was, because technically this little baby should have never existed.

Because this baby wasn’t just Harry’s son.

He was Louis’ legacy.

And Harry would make sure that legacy lived on.

A year had passed.

Twelve full months of firsts. First cries in the middle of the night. The first smile that caught Harry off guard and made him sit down on the edge of the bed because his knees felt weak. The first time tiny fingers wrapped tight around his thumb and refused to let go. First words, first steps.

Today was another one.

Harry stood in the kitchen, barefoot, sleeves pushed up, staring at the small cake he had bought the day before. It was lopsided from the drive home and slightly smudged where his son had already tried to poke it earlier. He had fixed it as best he could.

The boy was in his high chair in the middle of the kitchen, legs kicking, palms smacking against the tray. His hair stuck up at the crown where it never quite lay flat. His cheeks were flushed with excitement, or maybe just from the effort of trying to launch himself towards the cake. Gemma and Anne were supposed to be here by now. They had been on holiday and their flight had been delayed, then delayed again. Unfortunately they would not make it until tomorrow now.

So it was just the two of them.

Harry placed the cake down carefully in front of his son who immediately leaned forward, fingers stretching, mouth open in a delighted squeal.

Harry laughed, catching both little wrists gently.

“Be patient, sweetheart.”

He protested with a dramatic huff, brows furrowing in concentration as he tried to reach around Harry’s hands. Harry stuck the single candle in the centre and fumbled with the lighter. It took him two tries to get the flame steady. He watched it flicker for a second before stepping back.

There should have been someone standing beside him. Someone slightly shorter, someone with messy hair and a grin he could picture so clearly it still hurt. Harry swallowed and forced his mouth into something that resembled a smile.

“Happy birthday to you…” he began, voice uneven.

The boy stilled, staring at the flame, completely captivated.

“Happy birthday to you…”

Halfway through the song, Harry’s chest tightened so hard he had to pause. His throat burned, but he kept going anyway.

“Happy birthday, dear Braxton…”

His son suddenly stopped looking at the candle.

Instead, Brax’s eyes shifted upwards and over Harry’s shoulder.

It was subtle at first. A pause. A focus that was no longer on the candle. Then his entire expression changed. His face broke open with recognition. Not curiosity. Not distraction. Recognition . His eyes widened, bright and locked onto something directly behind Harry. His mouth stretched into a grin so sudden and so certain it stole the breath from the room.

One small finger lifted and pointed.

“Dada.”

The word was clean. Firm. Shaped properly around the syllables.

Not a guess. And most certainly not a random sound.

Dada.

Harry did not move.

For a split second, his brain refused to process it. The air in his lungs seemed to vanish. His stomach dropped so violently he had to grip the edge of the counter to steady himself. He had waited months for that word. Had whispered it into Brax’s ear while showing him photographs. He had tapped Louis’ face in picture frames and said, “That’s Dada.” He had wondered if the first time it was spoken, whether it would break him a little. He did not expect this. Not aimed over his shoulder and not with that kind of certainty.

Harry’s pulse slammed against his ribs, fast and hard, like his body already understood something his mind was scrambling to deny. A cold prickle ran down his spine, as his throat tightened. He forced a breath in through his nose, shallow and uneven, and let out a strained, almost disbelieving laugh.

“No,” he murmured, more to himself than to the child. “You’re just…”

But his voice faltered. Because Brax was still smiling, still staring into space. Still seeing “something” or “someone”. He shook his head.

Cut it out Harry.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “That’s Dada on the fridge, remember?”

He always showed Brax the pictures. Every single day. Louis holding Harry in the garden. Louis sitting on the bonnet of the car. Louis grinning, eyes crinkled at the corners. Harry made sure their son knew his father’s face. Knew his name.

That was all this was. Recognition. Memory. Nothing else.

He reached forward to help Brax blow out the candle. Before he could lean in, Brax clapped his hands together and laughed.

“Dada. Dada. Dada.”

The joy in his voice made something crawl up Harry’s spine.

He instantly got goosebumps but he did not turn around. He couldn’t, or maybe his body just refused to. Instead, he stared at his son. Brax’s gaze had not moved, it was still fixated behind him, smiling so wide his eyes nearly disappeared.

No.

Harry’s pulse roared in his ears.

No. It cannot be.

Louis was gone.

Louis had been given his year. One year only, that was the rule. Louis had said goodbye. Louis had left this world the way he was meant to. Harry had felt it. He had felt the absence.

Then, from the kitchen bench behind him, a glass tipped.

It was not dramatic. Not a violent crash. Just the scrape of it shifting, the faint drag against the surface, and then gravity doing the rest. It fell. It hit the tile with a sharp crack that echoed far louder than it should have in the small kitchen. It did not shatter. It bounced once, rolled, and spun on its side in a slow, uneven circle.

Harry’s body reacted before his mind as every muscle in him went rigid.

He did not turn immediately. For a split second, he simply stayed still, heart hammering, eyes fixed ahead as if refusing to look might undo it. The glass continued to spin. A soft, hollow sound against the tile. Round and round. Slower. And then slower.

Harry forced himself to move. His head snapped around. The bench was empty. No hand brushing past it. No sleeve catching the edge. No explanation.

And there was nothing there.

Harry stared at the exact spot it had fallen from. He traced the space with his eyes, trying to calculate it. Was it too close to the edge? Had he left it there carelessly? Had the vibration from Brax kicking the high chair somehow carried through the floor?

His pulse pounded in his ears. He knew the difference between coincidence and presence. And that uncertainty, that tiny dangerous hesitation had unsettled him more than the sound itself. He looked back at Brax. The boy was still staring past him. Still smiling. Hands reaching, opening and closing in eager little grabs.

“Dada,” he insisted, voice bubbling with laughter.

Harry’s hands began to shake. He could not feel anything.

No shift. No presence. No lingering energy. No echo of something that did not belong.

Nothing!

And that terrified him more than anything. If something was here, he would know.

He always knew. He had spent his whole life knowing.

He stepped forward quickly and scooped Brax out of the high chair, pressing him tight against his chest.

“Okay,” Harry whispered, too fast. “Let’s go outside for a bit, yeah? We need fresh air.”

Brax twisted in his arms immediately, reaching over Harry’s shoulder towards the kitchen.

“Dada!” he cried, now clearly frustrated. Almost as if he was pleading. Harry’s heart lurched so violently it made him dizzy.

“Stop,” he murmured, though he was not sure if he meant it for the baby or himself.

He moved through the back door and into the garden, the grass brushing against his bare feet. He walked straight to the swing set Harry had brought months before Brax was born. He set the boy down carefully into the little seat and buckled him in with clumsy fingers. Brax began to cry. Not loudly, or hysterically. Just small sobs, as if confused, his hands still stretching towards the house.

Harry pushed the swing gently. Back and forth. Back and forth.

His mind raced in circles. He scanned the garden automatically. The fence, followed by the tree line, and finally the patio doors.

Nothing.

He reached out with that part of himself he usually kept quiet. The part that felt what others could not. There was no pull. No flicker. No shadow of something unseen. Just the ordinary weight of the afternoon. His stomach twisted. He looked back towards the kitchen window. It looked exactly the same as it had five minutes ago. Curtains still. Chairs still tucked in.

So why did his chest feel tight? Why did his palms feel slick? Why did he feel like he was being watched from inside his own home?

“No,” he muttered, shaking his head sharply. “No. You’re imagining it.”

Louis was gone.

Louis had been set free.

Louis was not trapped here. He was not wandering. He was not standing in that kitchen watching them.

Harry pushed the swing a little harder than before. Brax hiccupped through his tears.

“You saw a picture,” Harry whispered. “That’s all. You saw a picture.”

But Brax kept turning his head towards the house. His little eyes kept searching.

His gaze drifted back to the kitchen window. He replayed the sound of the glass hitting the tile. The certainty in Brax’s voice. Not babble nor any guesswork. It was recognition and joy, as if someone had stepped into the room the way they used to.

Harry’s breathing turned shallow. What if he had been wrong? What if he had accepted Louis’ goodbye because he needed to survive it? What if the universe had not finished with them yet?

What if, what if, what if?

His mind turned on itself, cruel and relentless. He had lived long enough to know life rarely delivered just one blow and walked away. Sometimes it stacked them, one after another. Sometimes it handed you something beautiful only to test how tightly you could hold it. And sometimes, just when you thought the worst had already happened, it twisted the knife again. But there were other times too. Times when something impossible slipped through the cracks. When what had been lost returned in a way no one could explain. The universe could be unkind. It could be merciless. But it could also surprise you when you least expected it.

Harry dragged a hand down his face and pressed his palm hard against his mouth, as if he could physically hold in the spiral threatening to break loose. His fingers trembled. He lowered his hand slowly and looked at them like they might betray him with some hidden truth.

Brax sniffled behind him in the swing, small hands still lifting towards the house in confused insistence. Harry turned back towards the window again.

He had stood in hospital corridors and felt the exact second a soul slipped from a body. He had walked into empty rooms and known they were not empty. He had felt grief cling to walls, felt anger linger long after arguments had ended. His instincts were not imaginary. They were not wishful thinking. So why did this feel different? Why did it feel like something was just out of reach?

His heart began to pound again, harder this time.

Hope was a dangerous thing. It crept in quietly and could ruin anything. It made you see what was not there. It made you hear what you needed to hear. Or maybe it was not hope at all. Maybe it was fear. Fear that he had misunderstood the rules. Fear that the year had not been the end of it. Fear that something had shifted without him noticing.

Harry dragged in a shaky breath and shook his head as if he could physically dislodge the thought.

No.

He had been there when Louis left. He had felt it. The stillness, and that finality. The way everything inside him had gone hollow at once. That was not something you just “mistake”.

He needs to let it go because Louis was gone, happy and set free.

That was the truth he had forced himself to live with. The truth he had repeated every night when the house felt too big. The truth he had clung to when he stood alone at Brax’s crib, whispering stories about a father his son would never truly know.

Louis was gone.

Harry had felt the release. He had felt the world shift when it happened. He had mourned him the way you mourn something final. But as he stood there now, staring at the kitchen window while his son reached for someone Harry could not see, doubt slid in and refused to leave.

You see, sometimes even the greatest of love has to end so that your destiny can begin. But every human has the power to change their fate, especially those that are brave enough to fight for what they desire more than anything else in the world.

But people forget something.

Life is not a straight line. It bends with every choice, every stubborn refusal to accept what the world says is final. The ones who change their ending are the ones who refuse to step aside when something they love is on the line. Soulmates don’t meet by accident. They inhabit a connection so strong that transcends space and time. So when two people who are meant to be together will often allow nothing to stand in their way. Their union will always be part of a bigger plan that will naturally unfold with perfect timing.

That thought hit Harry hard, and it was the only reason he allowed himself even the smallest bit of hope as his final thought settled in his mind.

Because if Louis was truly gone…

Then who had Brax been smiling at?

To be continued…

Part 2 coming late 2026