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He looked at the building before him and squinted in the faint light of the night, illuminated only by the moonlight. It had taken him several days and sleepless nights to find it, and now that he was in front of it, he was beginning to have second thoughts.He wasn't afraid, at least not anymore.A few years earlier, he would have literally wet his pants and gotten in the car, started it up and driven as far away as he could without ever looking back. A few years earlier, maybe he should have.A few years earlier, when he could have had a normal life, a possibility that was now just a vague memory and, sometimes, even a wish. Or a regret, although he preferred not to dwell on that thought too much.Louis hated his life, which consisted only of death and destruction. Despite the lives he had saved and continued to save, a part of him couldn't feel satisfied.He had been the one who gave up a normal life and although he knew what was to come, the loneliness had never left him in all these years, not even for a second. He felt it in his heart every time he approached a target, he felt it in the few minutes before falling asleep in his dingy car or while he allowed himself a few hours of sleep before setting off again, and he felt it every time he closed that door behind him.However, he had learned that fear was a weakness and that he couldn't let it consume him if he wanted to continue to fulfill his mission. Even today, when he crossed the threshold of a dark building, facing yet another terrible challenge alone, he felt his heart beat wildly, but no longer in fear.It was anger, frustration and despair. It was one side of the same coin, that damn regret mixed with guilt because he knew what he was doing was important. He knew that helping others was important and fulfilling, but sometimes he couldn't help but wonder who would help him when he reached his limit. Until that moment, he had learnt to help himself, to get up and mend his wounds - literally - without outside help, and to love himself just enough to survive.He didn't really love himself. Every time he looked in the mirror, he saw the memory of a man who no longer existed and perhaps had never existed, a man who preferred to repeat to himself that he had chosen this life, even if the reality was that over time he had learnt to hate it. And he felt guilty about it because, despite everything, he had saved so many lives that he could no longer keep count.A ring woke him from his thoughts and he shook his head to shake off anything that might distract him. He reached for his phone and unlocked it, cursing through clenched teeth because that text message was a distraction. Yet another message he'd received that he wasn’t going to reply to. Not that he didn't want to, but he couldn't.That was the second side of the coin, the desire to respond but the awareness that he couldn't, that he couldn't give in and give more, and that he couldn't - or wouldn't - drag anyone into his damn life.Lying was the hardest thing to do, even if he'd become an expert at it by now, but that didn't mean he didn't feel guilty. Or at least he felt guilty, but only when he was forced to lie to him.He sighed and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat, closing his eyes and letting his head sink against his own seat. He took a deep breath, suppressing feelings he couldn't allow himself to feel, before opening his eyes and taking his journal from the seat beside him.It wasn't really his, it was his father's, but he had left it to him in the hope that he would find guidance when he was forced to face something he had never experienced before, as he would that night.He ran his fingers over the dark leather of the cover and the dagger-shaped pendant attached to a thin strip of leather wrapped around the journal. He unrolled it and opened it, flipping through the pages until he found the right one. He read the contents again, even though he knew them by heart by now, but he was aware of the fact that there was never too much caution in his job.Job… As if anyone had ever paid him for what he did, but still.Closing the journal and wrapping the string around it, he got out of the car and opened the trunk. He smiled with amusement and a little bitterness, wondering how normal people would react if they saw the contents.He took a flashlight and turned it on, then clamped it between his teeth to free his hands. He opened the bag and rummaged in it for the silver dagger, grabbed it by the handle and took it out of the case. He held it up so that the light from the flashlight reflected on the shiny blade and wrinkled his nose when he saw a small bloodstain on the tip. Not because he was disgusted by it, but because he hadn't cleaned it thoroughly the last time he'd used it.After tucking it into the waistband of his worn jeans and closing the bag, he moved it to the side of the trunk. He looked at the weapons he owned and decided on a gun, because it was easier to handle and more effective for what he needed to do. He took out the magazine and counted the bullets to make sure it was full, put it back in and slid the slide back to load the gun, then engaged the hammer. He took a spare magazine and slipped it into the front pocket of his jeans, then quietly closed the trunk.Looking back up at the building, he sighed, already feeling the adrenaline coursing through his veins. Although he was no longer afraid, he wouldn't let his guard down, he never did.He wasn't naive enough to think he was invincible, on the contrary, he knew he was exactly the opposite and that most things he faced were clearly stronger than him. And evil, without mercy or remorse, especially towards people like him.He crossed the grassy area that surrounded the building, which was probably once a factory, and silently climbed the steps. He walked through the metal door, holding the gun in front of him while he held the flashlight in his other hand.The silence inside was deafening, eerie and almost unnatural, but Louis was sure that what he was looking for was here.When a colleague had called him two weeks earlier after the third mysterious disappearance, Louis had left his hometown and driven for hours to get to a town in the middle of Texas. He was used to it by now, spending more time behind the wheel of his car than in his hometown, Kansas City, where he had a home and where there was one of the few things that really mattered to Louis.He had spent days trying to understand what he was dealing with, and in the meantime several people had died, at least until the culprit had left a trace of themselves at the last crime scene. Only then did Louis understand what it was all about and he was finally able to look for a solution.He had managed to obtain video surveillance footage from the last crime scene and found out that the culprit he was looking for drove a car. He had managed to find out the license plate number and track the car's route to the building using GPS.Of course, he hadn't done all this legally, but that didn't matter. The only thing that mattered to Louis was getting rid of this bastard once and for all.He crossed the corridor, lowering the flashlight before turning every corner and checking every door, raising it again to light the way. He didn't particularly like staying in the dark, even for a few moments, and the first few times he did so he almost had a heart attack when he suddenly found something in front of him. In time, however, he understood that this was the best way to attract less attention with the light of the flashlight and also to catch what he was looking for by surprise.He turned the last corner, cursing when he realized it was a dead end, and was about to turn around to go back when he saw a closed door to his left.He glanced over his shoulder and then looked back at the door. He knew that what he was looking for absolutely had to be in that room, because the car he had tracked down was parked outside and that place was too remote to reach on foot. There was only one floor and he had already checked all the other rooms, so that was the last one left.Louis only hoped he had been quiet enough not to be heard and that he would be lucky enough to just open the door and shoot. Simple, quick and effective.Walking on in silence and putting a hand on the door, he slowly pushed it open and held his breath as it creaked on its hinges. He suppressed a retch as the unmistakable smell of rotting flesh hit him, and as soon as he crossed the threshold, he knew where it was coming from.There were several corpses piled up at the back of the room, some in an advanced state of decomposition, others recently dead. The closest was the body of a woman, and when he shone the flashlight on her face, he recognized the girl who had been reported missing a few days earlier. He let the light swipe over her face and then further down to her chest. Her ribs had been ripped out of her torso and bent outward, and her heart had been ripped out.Damn it, that sucks.After years of experience, Louis could pride himself on having extremely developed senses, which was why he held his breath when he heard a noise behind him. Not that what was there with him had been particularly quiet, but Louis stayed still and waited to understand where it was standing so he wouldn't miss the shot when he turned to face it.It was to his left, about ten feet away, slowly approaching him.Louis knew it must be pretty pissed. After all, he had just entered its nest, and it was probably hungry too. As if all the people it had already killed weren't enough.A guttural growl broke the silence, and Louis knew the moment had come.He whirled around and pointed the gun at the creature in front of him, finding it much closer than he had calculated, and he fired five shots in succession. The creature howled in pain, but didn't stop and lunged at him, causing him to lose his balance and his grip on the gun and flashlight.“Fuck!” Louis shouted, rolling onto his stomach and groping for the gun.When he found it, he rolled onto his back again, kicked the creature in the chest to make it back off, and fired again until the gun's slide clicked, signaling that the bullets had run out.It's not like Louis didn't have good aim but it was dark, he'd lost his damn flashlight, and the only way to kill a damn werewolf was to stab it or shoot a silver bullet in its heart.The creature fell to the ground with a thud and Louis gasped, dropping his head to the cold concrete and bursting out laughing.Laughter that stopped abruptly as another growl echoed through the room.He jerked his head up, noticing how the werewolf was lying motionless on the floor, and when he turned to the source of the sound, he knew he was fucked.He hadn't expected it and hadn't even considered it. Not that it was a problem, he was used to unexpected events at work by now, but he also knew he wasn't invincible. Besides, he had never heard of two werewolves acting as a duo. They were loners and very jealous of their prey, they didn't like to share at all.He unloaded the empty magazine from the gun and pulled the other one from his pocket, but he didn't even have time to insert it before the creature pounced on him. He covered his face with his hands to protect himself from the werewolf's sharp claws, crying out in pain as he felt the flesh of his arm tear.Perhaps he was a little afraid at that moment, after all.The werewolf grabbed his wrists, squeezing them in a painful grip and pressing them to either sides of his head, and for a moment Louis thought he was really screwed this time.It wasn't the first time he'd found himself in a similar situation and he knew that sooner or later he would die because of his job, but he also had the feeling that his time hadn't come yet.An experienced hunter like him certainly wasn't going to let a damn werewolf kill him.He squirmed in an attempt to free himself and flexed one leg, landing a knee to the creature's kidneys and then a headbutt, hitting it in the forehead. He groaned at the stinging pain caused by the impact and took advantage as the werewolf loosened its grip on his wrists, freeing them, so Louis pushed against its chest to make it lose its balance.The werewolf fell backwards and Louis jumped to his knees, pulling the knife from the back of his jeans and stabbing the creature's heart with lightning speed and precision, which let out a final strangled sigh.Louis gasped for air, his hand still gripping the hilt of the dagger, then burst out laughing.He had survived, once again. That was his life, if one could call it that. He didn't live, he survived day by day, not knowing when his time would come.He pulled the dagger from its chest and wiped it on the creature's dirty shirt, then stood up, picking up the gun, the empty magazine and all the shell casings from the floor.He left the building, thinking on the way to his car about how much he hated that part of his job. He grabbed a shovel from the trunk, walked to the back of the building and began digging a deep hole. When he was done, he went back inside and dragged the lifeless bodies of the two werewolves over, threw them in the hole and covered them with dirt, hoping the police wouldn't find them.Before leaving the room, he glanced over his shoulder one last time and looked at all the bodies.Maybe he loved his job after all, because although they were victims who would never see another dawn, they would also be the last to be killed at the hands of those two creatures.He returned to his car, his beloved '67 Chevrolet Impala, and opened the glove compartment. He searched through the fake IDs and documents and prepaid phones, taking out the one with the ‘tip’ sticker. He dialed the police station and gave the address of the building, then hung up.He dropped his head on the seat and closed his eyes, ignoring the loneliness that threatened to overwhelm him every time he solved a case. ⛥ He drove all night until dawn, stopping only at two rest stops for coffee. He could have spent the night in a motel, but he couldn't wait to get back to Kansas City. He wanted to take a damn shower and put on clean clothes, sleep in his bed, and maybe answer the dozens of texts and phone calls he'd ignored since leaving for Texas two weeks ago.Louis knew he'd been unfair, that he could have just answered and come up with some excuse - the most common being a business trip - but this time he hadn't managed to lie to him. He was tired of doing it, he felt like he was betraying his trust somehow, but what could Louis tell him? Not the truth, of course.He'd probably think Louis was crazy before slamming the door in his face, and Louis didn't want that to happen.Part of him knew it would be better for them both, because his life was dangerous and all messed up and unbalanced, but the other part of him screamed at him how much he needed what he felt every time they were together.And even when they weren't together, because he was a constant thought, always in his head, keeping him grounded in reality and giving him that sense of normalcy Louis craved but knew he couldn't have.Or rather, he could have it but to Louis, both his mission and saving lives were important. Even if he sometimes wondered - perhaps selfishly - if it was worth giving up those feelings and what he could have just to carry on what his father had started after his mother's death, that endless hunt for the deepest depravities and the most terrifying creatures.Sometimes Louis wondered if he really wanted to live that lonely life for the rest of his days, hunting the purest evil, or if perhaps the time had come to lay down his weapons and live a normal life. Maybe with him.Louis still hadn't found the answer, and in his heart he was convinced he never would.After all, Louis knew he was the only one of the two of them who dreamed of more, he knew he was the only one who had imagined a future together, because he had been clear, only sex and no feelings. And at first Louis had been okay with it, especially with the kind of life he led, but then his damn heart had decided to fuck it all up.He would never tell him though, because Louis was willing to hide those feelings in the deepest part of his heart rather than admit them and risk losing him. He would never tolerate that.When he finally parked the car in front of the building where he lived, Louis sighed and did so again as he closed the front door behind him. He looked around, noticing how everything was just as he had left it two weeks earlier when he had left for Texas, except for the dust that now covered the surfaces of the furniture.He took off his red plaid shirt - now worn and torn - and T-shirt, dropping them on the floor. Looking at the cut on his arm where the werewolf had scratched him, he was thankful that it wasn't so deep that it needed stitches. He'd stitched himself up several times before and although he had a pretty high pain threshold, he hated doing it.The hot water ran in the shower and when it reached his preferred temperature, he let it slide over himself to rinse away the blood and dirt. He soaped himself up and rinsed several times until he washed away all the dirt, then turned off the water and wrapped a towel around his waist.Returning to the kitchen, he opened a cupboard and cursed when he found it was empty, then opened another and another, slamming the door of the last cupboard when he realized they were all empty. He wasn't particularly hungry, but he needed a drink after the tiring night, even if it was only just dawn.As the phone rang, he winced and as much as he wanted to ignore it again, this time he couldn't.There were several messages, some from a week and a half ago and some from recently, so he started reading the oldest one.
‘Are you coming tonight?’, ‘Louis?’, ‘Why aren't you answering?’, ‘I guess you'll disappear as usual’
Nothing for a few days, then again.
‘Always the same asshole’, ‘Louis, answer me’, ‘Did something happen?’, ‘If I did something to you just tell me’, ‘Ofc I didn't do anything. You always act like this. I already know you're gonna show up again and ask me to fuck, you dickhead and you know what? Fuck you and find someone else’
The last message was from the night before.
‘Dont ffind aynonne else pls come I I mss u’
There were also several calls, including the last one from just a few hours ago.Louis felt like a real asshole for acting like that, but he hated lying to him when he was forced to leave town for an extended period of time, so he preferred to disappear even though he knew it wasn't right. And he also hated knowing that Harry had gotten drunk alone or, even worse, the idea that he had done it with someone else.He couldn't bear the idea of another man replacing him, even if part of him wanted Harry to do it because he deserved so much more than what Louis could offer him.Running a hand through his wet hair, he sighed and decided he really needed a drink. He bandaged his arm, dressed quickly and grabbed his house and car keys before leaving.He got into his car and drove off, heading for the nearest liquor store while the rational part of him kept telling him to forget it, to let Harry forget him and find someone who could make him really happy.The irrational part and the one that needed Harry - perhaps selfishly - the one that loved Harry, however, reminded him that he was the only thing that made sense in his life. The only thing that made him feel safe and protected in that shitty life. The only good thing he had, the one thing that made him feel loved and understood, even though Harry didn't know the truth.Perhaps that was what connected Louis to him the most. The fact that even though Harry didn't know about his real job, he was able to understand him and realize when he needed words of comfort, when Louis needed to let go and let someone have control over him, who always had to be in control of everything because of the life he led.The moments with Harry were the only times Louis allowed himself to let his guard down because he felt safe with him and he knew Harry would take the best care of him.He hated that Harry thought he was just that to him, just sex, even though that was exactly what their relationship had started out with.Louis thought back to the messages Harry had sent him. What did they mean? Why didn't Harry want him to see other people, almost as if he was jealous? Why did it almost seem like Harry didn't like the idea of just being a shag for Louis?Harry was the one who had been adamant about not wanting anything more than that. But Harry had also begged him not to look for someone else in his messages, he had asked Louis to come to him. He had written that he missed him.Louis cursed and slammed a hand on the steering wheel, telling the liquor store to fuck off. He turned the car and sped up, shaking his head as the little voice in his mind cheered, knowing all along that this was how it would end.He had always been the one to go to Harry, who had never been to his house. Louis feared that if he did so, his house would then be marked by Harry’s presence as well, constantly reminding him in his everyday life of what he wanted but couldn't have. Not that Harry wasn't already anchored in the deepest part of his heart and in every fiber of his body, but still.And by doing so, Louis also had the opportunity to leave every time.They had never slept together. After sex, Louis always got up, got dressed and closed the door behind him without giving Harry a second glance. And not because he didn't want to spend hours looking at his profile, holding him tightly in his arms while stroking his warm, flushed skin, but because it was easier that way.If Louis had looked at him, he would have given in, and Harry had always been fine with it anyway.The fact that Harry didn't want anything more than what they had was painful and disheartening, but also comforting because it kept Louis from giving in to temptation and sending to hell his shitty life.When he parked in front of Harry's house, he turned off the engine and stood there for a few seconds, staring indecisively at the building in front of him.He cursed through clenched teeth, because who the hell was he kidding? He couldn't wait to see him again, even though something inside him told him that probably wasn't the same for Harry.Harry had probably found someone else to spend the night with, or he would just slam the door in his face after insulting him for his behavior. Why did Harry care so much anyway? To him, it was just sex.Getting out of the car and hurring towards the building, he ignored his pounding heart as he climbed the stairs two steps at a time and even as he hesitated once more before knocking.What would he tell him? How would Harry react? Would Louis find him with someone? And if that was the case, how should he have behaved? And if-“So you're not dead,” Harry said simply as he opened the door, one eyebrow raised. He was definitely angry, perhaps even more so than all the other times Louis had disappeared.“Uh,” Louis mumbled, wringing his hands nervously.Here's another thing that freaked him out, the fact that Harry was the only living thing in the world that made him nervous. Not even the stupid vampire den he'd faced over a month ago had been able to make him this nervous.“Uh ? You disappeared and ignored me for two weeks and all you can say is ‘Uh’,” he said flatly, then frowned. “Why did you come, Louis?”Louis sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again, avoiding the other man's green eyes. “Can… can I come in?”Damn, if they had seen him at that moment, the terrifying creatures he had faced and killed mercilessly, they would have laughed at him for sure. Louis, one of the most prolific and strongest hunters, stammering and blushing like a little girl in front of Harry fucking Styles. Or maybe it was Louis who was fucked. Because of Harry, obviously.“Oh, sure, have a seat. You always do what you want anyway,” Harry retorted sarcastically, but he stepped aside to let him in.Actually, Louis didn't even know what to say, except that he was sorry. What else was he supposed to do? He knew he had acted like an arsehole, like all the other times, and he also knew that Harry would have enough of his behavior sooner or later. What he didn't understand was why Harry hadn't done it yet and why he opened the door every time.“Look, I'm sorry, okay? I know that-”“What do you know, Louis?” he interrupted abruptly. “You know that for two fucking years you've been disappearing into thin air for weeks and that I'm always the idiot running after you?”Louis’ eyes widened in surprise, because he hadn't thought Harry would admit that. He was convinced that he would pretend nothing had happened this time too, because Louis knew how humiliating it must be for Harry to do that every time.“Yes, I'm aware I do it, don't look at me like that. Do you think I'm so stupid that I don't know that I'm the idiot here for letting you treat me like this? I also know that it's wrong for me to do that, that I am the asshole who opens the door every fucking time and pretends nothing happened, and that I write you fucking messages that I never get a response to, to the point of humiliating myself!”In two years, Louis had never seen Harry lose his temper or heard him shout, they had never argued and they had never expressed their feelings the way Harry was doing at that moment.And what was Louis supposed to say to him? That he knew he was an asshole with a shitty job, that it wasn't even a job, and that he would gladly screw it all because he loved him?No, he couldn't say that, because he knew what would happen if he expressed his feelings for Harry, and he couldn't bear the thought of losing him. Even if a part of him shouted at him that he would lose him sooner or later anyway if he kept behaving like that.The only thing Louis could do, however, was to remind Harry of the true nature of their relationship, or at least what it had been in the beginning but which had changed for him over time. It was the only thing left Louis could do to not lose him, to remind Harry of what they were, and that therefore Harry's anger was completely unmotivated. Also because Louis really didn't understand why he was so angry.“Why are you acting like we're married, huh? It's always worked out like this between us. You were the one who set the boundaries from the beginning, so why are you making a tragedy out of it now? I'm acting the way I've always acted, Harry.”Harry parted his lips and if Louis hadn't really gotten to know him, he probably wouldn't have noticed, but by now he had memorized every single expression on Harry's face and noticed the glint that veiled his green eyes.“Like I'm a whore then,” Harry muttered, averting his gaze.Louis’ eyes widened and he bit his tongue to keep from shouting, because he would never want Harry to think that way about himself or for him to think that Louis saw him that way.“I never said that nor do I think of you as such, Harry. Don't even think about it, okay? I… I'm sorry if you felt that way because of my behavior, but I assure you that's not the way I see you,” Louis retorted, taking a step forward and ignoring the pain in his heart as Harry took a step back. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “We've always… worked this way, so why are you acting like this now?”Harry cracked a smile, though there was no trace of amusement on his face, and shook his head.“You know, Louis, I always thought you were a smart person, but apparently I was wrong,” he said and then sighed wearily. “Forget it, it's a lost cause anyway. If you're done, you might as well leave, you're not getting anything more from me today.”Louis frowned. “Do you think I've come just to get something?”“And what the hell am I supposed to think? You only ever come to fuck!” Harry shouted, throwing his arms up in the air as if he were exasperated. “Then why are you here?”Louis bit his lip and looked away. He didn't know what to say, but he knew Harry was right and that this was probably what he had deduced over the years, that Louis only came to him for sex. And that was partly true because Louis always ended up getting dressed and then leaving.What Harry didn't know was that it wasn't just sex for Louis and that the only reason he never deepened their relationship was because he knew Harry deserved more and something he couldn't give him. Or rather, Louis would have given it to him if only he'd been sure that Harry had feelings for him too, because then Louis wouldn't have hesitated for a second to send to hell that shitty life. Just for him.But Louis also knew that he couldn't lie to him and tell him that sex was the only reason he had come to him for, because then he would really make Harry believe that it was the only thing that mattered to him and he would really make him feel like a whore.It was for this reason that Louis decided to expose himself for the first time in two years, like Harry had done in those damn messages, because the alternative would have been to spew false words at him and make him suffer.“Because I missed you,” he mumbled, looking into the other's green and still shining eyes.Harry bit his lip but didn't take his eyes off him, sighing and whispering a curse before grabbing him by the collar of his t-shirt and pressing their lips together forcefully.It was a rough, angry, passionate kiss, and Louis didn't care. The only thing that mattered was that, in his imagination, Harry was kissing him like that to make him understand that Louis belonged to him and that he missed him too.Harry had written it in one of his texts, but he was drunk and probably hadn't meant it, and Louis liked to fool himself that they were both on the same page, even if that wasn't true.Louis wrapped his arms around Harry's shoulders, burying his fingers in his thick, curly hair to pull him closer, moaning into his lips as Harry pushed him back against the wall behind him.“Why?” Harry murmured against his lips, out of breath.Why, what? Why had he missed Harry? Because I love you. “I don't know,” Louis lied instead, getting a soft grunt in response and Harry's lips on his again.He felt Harry's warm hands slide under his shirt and squeeze his hips, pushing him against his body and pressing their groins together. Louis gasped at the sensation as he felt Harry's arousal rubbing against his own, but he wouldn't do anything because this time he wanted Harry to decide what to do.Squeezing his hips tighter, Harry sank his tongue between his lips and let their cocks collide again, then pulled away just enough to remove his shirt.“I thought I wasn't going to get anything from you today,” Louis whispered with a smirk against his lips, though he wasn't amused at all.“Shut the fuck up,” Harry grumbled before kissing him again, sliding his hands behind Louis’ thighs to lift him up effortlessly.He looked almost hungry, as if it wasn't enough, but Louis didn't care.Louis wrapped his legs around his waist and tugged at his hair, eliciting a moan and leaving lewd, wet kisses on his neck as Harry walked towards the bedroom.Harry kicked the door open and made Louis fall unceremoniously onto the bed, then settled between his legs to kiss him even more passionately than before.Louis wrapped his legs around his waist and let his hands roam over his chest, still covered by the sweatshirt Harry was wearing, until they reached the waistband of his jeans. He winced as Harry gripped his wrists tightly, breaking the kiss and giving him an indecisive, frowning look.Louis was prepared to be told that nothing would happen that day, as Harry had already said, and he would be fine with that. He would have been fine to just lie next to Harry in the silence of the room, even if they had never done that.Harry moistened his lips, then sighed. “Tell me what you want, Louis, or you're really not going to get anything today.”And… fuck. Louis should have gotten used to the dynamic that had developed between them by now, because Harry had understood what he needed from the very first moment, and yet a part of him was taken aback. Perhaps because after the argument and what Harry had said, Louis had expected nothing less than to be rejected. But once again, Harry proved to be willing to give him what he needed. Why?Fuck, Louis was too aroused to think about it, but not so much that he forgot Harry's words and his own guilt over the way he kept treating him.“I want… I just want what you want,” he murmured, wanting Harry to understand that anything would be enough for him and that the only thing that mattered to him was that Harry was all right.“And how do you know what I want?”God, Harry was so stupid. Didn't he understand that that was the point? The fact that Louis didn't know, but that anything would be fine anyway?“Indeed. Anything you want is fine. After all, I've… I've been an asshole,” Louis murmured, averting his eyes, embarrassed at his own admission. Not that it had cost him anything, but he knew full well that he had been an asshole. He always has been.When he met Harry's eyes again, he noticed that he was staring at him silently before straightening up and giving him a half-smile that Louis knew all too well by now. Fuck, yes.“What I want now is for you to stand up and undress. Slowly,” Harry said, or rather, ordered in his damn hoarse voice.Louis parted his lips and bit back a curse before he hurriedly scrambled out of bed. He hesitated for a moment, watching as Harry leaned back and rested his head on the pillow, putting an arm under it to keep his head up and get a full view.Louis bit his lip, ignoring the blush on his cheeks caused by the way Harry's eyes wandered over his body until they stopped at Louis' hands, which were busy undoing the belt of his jeans. He undid the buckle and button, slowly lowering his jeans down until they slipped off, leaving him only with his boxers on. He felt exposed and embarrassed as he stood in front of Harry, who stared at him almost impassively, and he wrung his hands nervously.“I said undress,” Harry said dryly.Louis bit his lip again and inhaled. Why was he so nervous? They'd done it a thousand times before.Hooking his fingers into the edge of his underwear, he slowly pulled them off too. He stifled a moan when Harry's hand slid to the crotch of his jeans and squeezed his cock before undoing his belt and sliding a hand under his underwear.Harry closed his eyes for a moment, leaning his head back and sighing as if relieved by the touch, then opened them again and looked into Louis' eyes once more.Louis watched him enraptured, unable to take his eyes off Harry's hand, which was slowly moving under his jeans while he wished his own hand was there instead.“You know, Louis,” Harry murmured, and though his tone was almost impassive, Louis realized how he was trying to force himself to keep it that way. “What I want is for you to understand once and for all what it feels like to have to look helplessly at something you want but can't have.”Louis frowned in confusion. What the hell had he meant? What was the one thing Harry wanted but couldn't have? More sex? For Louis to be around more so they could see each other more often? So who was the whore now?Louis opened his mouth, not really knowing what to say, but closed it again when Harry gave him a warning look.“Get on your knees in front of me,” he ordered. Louis didn't need to be told twice and knelt in front of him on the bed. “Turn around,” he added, raising an eyebrow when Louis hesitated.“Why?” Louis asked in a low voice. He wanted to look at him.“Because that's what I want,” Harry replied defiantly.Louis wouldn't challenge him and he trusted him, because either way, Harry had always known exactly what they both needed. He knew that no matter how angry Harry was, he would take care of him. As he always did.He turned around, kneeling with his back to Harry and suppressing the urge to turn when he heard the bedside drawer open.His body shivered when he saw the bottle of lube fall between his legs, and again when he felt Harry's hot breath on his neck as his lips rested on his sensitive spot under his ear.“Now I want you to finger yourself in front of me while I watch.”Another shiver ran through him as Harry's words hit him, seeping into every fiber of his body, making what Harry'd said before take on meaning.
To have to look helplessly at something you want but can't have.
Louis could only look at the wall in front of him, knowing that Harry would be behind him, watching him, while Louis helplessly gave him what he wanted.Louis felt the mattress sink under Harry's weight as he lay back down behind him, and reached for the lube. With trembling hands, he opened the bottle and wet his fingers, then rubbed them together to warm the liquid. He inhaled deeply before reaching around and slipping a finger inside himself.Closing his eyes, he tilted his head back, even though what he was feeling was far from what he wanted to feel.He added another finger and another, biting his lip and not to hold back moans. He wasn't aroused and he wasn't feeling pleasure, but only loneliness and the emptiness that always accompanied him, but which usually fell silent when he was with Harry.Now, however, it was deafening and it was even more painful because Harry had always understood what he needed without Louis asking him, he had always understood how to make him feel good and when Louis just needed someone to take care of him.Louis had never been able to ask, because that would have meant openly showing his vulnerability and his feelings, which he had tried his hardest to hide for years.Now, for the first time, he didn't feel understood and he felt really helpless, because Harry hadn't understood what he needed but Louis, as always, wouldn't tell him.He squinted hard to suppress the tears, because he never cried, as he increased the speed of the movements of his own fingers inside himself.“Louis,” Harry's voice called behind him.He ignored it, because he wasn't ready to receive another order and to look helplessly at what he couldn't have, just as he wasn't ready to admit that he was indeed helpless.Louis arched his back and pushed his hips back so that at least Harry could feel the pleasure he wasn't feeling.As he felt a hand squeeze his hip, he winced but didn't slow his movements, instead increasing his pace and panting, hoping Harry wouldn't notice his state of mind.Louis was used to pretending, what difference would it make to do it again? He'd never had to do it with Harry before though, at least not in an intimate setting, but the alternative would have been to show himself too vulnerable.“Lou,” he called out softly once more, tightening his grip. “Stop.”“No,” he murmured, ignoring the request.“Louis, stop,” he said in a more authoritative tone, grabbing his wrist and forcing his fingers out of his body.Louis stood still, his breath short and his lip clamped between his teeth to stifle the tears, and for a moment he thought about fighting back as Harry forced him to turn. When he did, he looked away, though out of the corner of his eye he noticed the frown on Harry's face and the worried green eyes.“Louis, what's wrong?”Louis shook his head, taking a deep breath to regain control of his body and mind. He took on a more determined expression and met Harry's gaze, then pushed him onto the bed until Harry fell onto his back, straddling him.“Nothing, shut up,” Louis murmured, pressing his lips firmly to Harry's.He frowned and pulled back just enough to look Harry in the eye when he noticed that he wasn't returning the kiss but pressing his lips together.“What is it?” he asked, confused, although deep down he knew exactly what was wrong.Harry sighed and reversed their positions, settling between Louis’ legs and looking at him with concern.“Don't say 'nothing', I'm not stupid,” Harry said, then frowned and his expression changed, almost as if he was scared. “Is that because- because of what I asked you to do? You do know you don't have to do anything you don't want to, right? If it's my fault I-”Louis shook his head vigorously. Everything was a problem, except Harry. Everything in his head was screaming at him to tell him what he needed, which wasn’t to feel helpless, but to... Make love. That was what Louis needed that day, just that, but he couldn't say it.Louis sighed and looked down, feeling his cheeks blush. “I… I just want to look at you,” he murmured, which was the closest thing to what he actually wanted to say. It was still exposing the side he was trying so hard to hide, but still better than the truth.Harry parted his lips and widened his eyes slightly, and it was clear that he was surprised by his words. And for the first time in two bloody years, Louis could have sworn he saw a slight blush on his cheeks.Harry didn't say anything though, he just nodded and smiled softly before slowly bringing his face closer, as if to give him a chance to pull away if Louis wanted to.Louis lifted his head from the pillow and pressed his lips to the other's fleshy ones, moaning for real this time as he felt Harry's wet and warm tongue slide into his mouth. He wrapped his legs around Harry's waist and buried his fingers in his curly hair to pull him closer, then lifted his hips and groaned again as their cocks came into contact.When he heard Harry reach into the bedside drawer for a condom, he broke off the kiss as his heart stopped in his chest.They'd only used it the first couple of times. Harry had regular check-ups, as did Louis, who was often injured due to his work and therefore had regular full check-ups.Louis had never slept with anyone else since he'd met Harry, but he'd never had the courage to ask Harry if he had, partly because that would have meant setting boundaries on their non-relationship, and they weren't together.The fact that Harry wanted to use a condom meant that he'd probably been with someone else during those two weeks without using protection, and as much as Louis hated to even think about it, he knew that Harry wasn't his and that he couldn't stop him from seeing other people.And thank goodness Harry had messaged him asking him not to look for anyone else. How hypocritical.“Do you think it's necessary?” Louis asked in a low voice, the only way he could get an answer without asking the question directly.Harry hesitated for a moment and then frowned. “Do you think it's necessary?”What the fuck was that question? Not that Louis had ever explicitly told him that he was the only one for him but at this point, it was probably Harry who thought Louis had been with someone else.Louis sighed and cracked a smile. “No, I don't.”Harry looked at him for a few moments before throwing the condom behind him and lunging at his lips.Louis felt the lube cap pop open and gasped, breaking off the kiss and leaning his head back as Harry's fingers slowly slid into his body. He tilted his head to the side to allow him access, letting Harry bite and suck into the skin of his neck, moving his hips to meet Harry's fingers as they moved frantically inside him.“Stop,” he gasped as he felt himself on the verge of pleasure.Louis parted his lips in anticipation and met Harry's gaze, his green eyes now engulfed by the black of lust, as he felt his cock press against his hole and slowly slide inside him.“Yes,” Louis moaned, wrapping his thighs around Harry’s waist and digging his nails into his shoulders.Harry began to thrust inside him, establishing a rhythm and regaining possession of his lips. He grabbed firmly one arse cheek and tangled the fingers of his other hand in Louis’ hair as he sank his tongue into Louis' mouth in rhythm with his slow, deep thrusts. This was what Louis needed and Harry, once again, understood it.Unlike their other times, where they whispered dirty and incoherent words to each other, this one the silence was broken only by their panting and the sound of their skin and bodies coming into contact. That was exactly what Louis needed: Harry and the silence filled only with the sound of the love Louis felt for him.As the thrusts became more frantic, he understood that Harry had reached the limit and as soon as he buried his face in the crook of Louis' neck and gasped his name, Louis reached the edge of pleasure too, overwhelmed by feelings he could no longer hold back.Harry collapsed onto his body, panting, and Louis thought he was going to die when he pressed a kiss to his neck.It's not like they'd never had sex this way before, in the last two years they'd done it other times in a slower and almost intimate way, but that kiss was new. Why? Why was Harry torturing him like that? Or maybe it was Louis, under the illusion that a stupid kiss on the neck after what was a usual shag for Harry meant something.Harry slid out of his body and lay next to him, and Louis knew the moment he hated the most had arrived.He stifled a sigh and stood up, ignoring the way Harry's gaze bored into him. He dressed hastily and only met Harry's eyes when he heard him sigh, and frowned.“What is it?”Harry shook his head and sighed again, looking away and covering his face with his arm. "Nothing. Thanks for coming, I guess.”Louis opened his mouth to say something back and then closed it again. He didn't know what to say, but he was aware that for whatever reason Harry had been so angry when he'd turned up at his place, it'd been locked away in a remote place and they wouldn't talk about it. As well as all their nonexistent conversations and unsaid things, for that matter.He put on his jacket and took one last look at Harry, who was still lying in the same position, suppressing the desire to send to hell everything once and for all, to undress and snuggle against Harry's body.“See you,” Louis said with the most deadpan tone he could muster before closing the door, but not his bloody heart, behind him. ⛥ “You're an idiot,” was Zayn's comment after Louis told him what had happened.Zayn was the only true friend he'd ever had, and although Louis had never spoken out loud about his feelings for Harry or other feelings in general, Zayn always seemed to understand everything. Maybe it was because the few times they managed to see each other once in a month, Louis always managed to work Harry into every conversation in one way or another. Anyway, Zayn had figured it all out months before and so Louis could finally vent to the only person he could.“What do you suggest? Let the expert have his say,” Louis muttered before downing half the beer left in the bottle and raising his hand to order another round.“Do you really want to know what I think, or do you want to be comforted?”“Well, you're the only friend I have, so I'd say the first option.”Zayn sighed and rubbed his forehead, then met his eyes again. He looked unsure.“C’mon, Zay, I'm not the type to take offense,” he added, trying to reassure him.“Well, it's none of my business and what I think might be a little too… intrusive, that's all.”Louis rolled his eyes and snorted. “Speak.”Zayn was silent for a few more seconds, then he moistened his lips and sighed again.“Okay, I'll say it. Why the fuck do you wanna live this life, huh? You have a chance to lead a normal life with the man you love, but instead you decide to give it up, and for what?” he asked, shrugging as if he really didn't understand, then hesitated before shrugging again. “Is it for your father? You need to do this job to get his approval or to avoid disappointing him?”Louis' eyes widened, completely taken aback by the question. “I…”Zayn ignored him and continued speaking, as if he was expressing thoughts that had been building up for too long.“He only texts to give you new cases and you haven't seen him in ten years. He never calls you to see how you're doing, and he doesn't care about you either. He only cares about this damn job. He dragged you into this shitty life after your mother… You were just a kid, Louis. Do you understand that this relationship is toxic and that you're doing this job for the wrong reasons? He doesn't give a shit about you, whether you're okay or what you do. He just wants you to carry out his mission because he'd never accepted your mother's death, and as cool as it is to save lives, it doesn't make sense if we have to die to do it, and I don't mean that literally.”Louis fell silent, waiting for Zayn to finish his monologue as his words slipped into places in his mind, and heart, that he would rather not think about. He wasn't surprised, though, because even if he preferred not to think about it, he knew Zayn was right.Louis was four years old when his mother was killed and twenty-four years later, he still remembered that night.He had gotten up to go to the bathroom and when he returned to his bedroom, he had crawled back under the covers. He had almost fallen asleep again, but an intermittent ticking noise disturbed him and when he opened his eyes, he had realized it was coming from something dripping on the floor. When he had slowly looked up, he curled up under the covers and screamed with all the strength he had.Lying on the ceiling was his mother Mary, her eyes and mouth wide open as if to say something, her white nightgown stained red on her stomach.Louis had heard his father John scream, though he didn't remember what he had said, then flames had begun to shoot up from the ceiling and quickly engulfed the room. John had picked him up in his arms, hugging him to his chest to protect him from the flames, and they had ran out of the house.Although Louis was still very young, he remembered how much his father had changed since that day, and the desire to find out what had happened to his mother and how she had died had slowly become an obsession.Part of the answer came about a year later, when John discovered the existence of a reality he had never known before. Monsters, that’s how he called them, and Mary's death had been the fault of one of them.After another two years, John still hadn't been able to find out who had killed her, and by then Louis was already seven years old. He was convinced that sooner or later his father would finally find peace and devote himself to him, who felt alone and constantly ignored. But that wasn't the case.For his father, it had become an obsession to find the thing that had killed Louis’ mother, and in order to achieve that, he had to kill every evil thing he found.At eight years old Louis had held his first gun and at nine his first rifle. He used to spend his days reading school books and books about monsters, while his father spent hours describing all those creatures and ways to kill them in great detail.At ten years old, they had begun to move frequently, never staying in the same town for more than a month, following the creatures his father decided to hunt.At eleven, he had killed his first monster, a shapeshifter, with a silver dagger. Louis would never forget the fear and disgust, anger and hatred he had begun to feel towards John.Later, Louis had decided to continue his studies at ‘home’, because he wanted to at least graduate. It had happened when he was eighteen, and that important milestone was also the last time he had watched his father as he closed the door of yet another motel behind him and never came back.From that moment on, the hatred Louis had always felt for John had only increased, adding to the feeling of loneliness that was already consuming him. He had no one else and the only people he knew were other hunters.Louis only knew one way to live, and he had grown up thinking that monster hunting was the only important thing in life that he had no other choice. He had to learn to manage on his own and put into practice the things that John had taken care of until then. He didn't have a job but he needed a place to live and money to eat, so he started faking credit cards, as his father had taught him.The loneliness had then turned into despair, and the hatred he had felt towards his father had evolved into a need for the affection he had never received.For all these reasons, when the man had sent him a text with a simple address and some newspaper articles more than a year after his departure, Louis had agreed to work on the case, and from that moment on he hadn't stopped. And he would regret that decision for years to come.He had taken some time to organize himself and ask other hunters for advice on how to carry out the job. In addition to credit cards, he also had fake police or FBI badges, which he used to obtain information on various cases that his father sent him by text messages.At least the man had left him his car, the '67 Chevy Impala, and everything in it, including all sorts of weapons and the journal in which John had written down everything he had found out about the various creatures he had hunted over the years.The only thing Louis was proud of in that shitty life was the house he was able to rent in Kansas City - his hometown but not the one he had grown up in for the first four years of his life - and which he considered a kind of personal refuge. And he was proud of Harry too, even if the situation wasn't the best.Anyway, he had met Zayn about a year ago on a case he was working on, and he was the only hunter as young as him that he had ever met. And also literally the only person in the world who knew the whole story about him and about Harry. Not that Louis had ever talked about how he felt about him or his feelings, but apparently Zayn had figured it all out on his own. Or Louis didn't realize how fucked he really was.They finished their beers in silence and then parted, knowing that they wouldn't see each other again for at least a month.Louis returned to his house and fell into bed without even undressing. He closed his eyes, hoping to fall asleep immediately, although he was tormented by the argument with Harry and the look on his face when Louis left.The way Harry had sighed like he was tired and the way he'd looked at him like he was… sad?Even though they had never talked about their problems, Louis knew his every facial expression and emotion by now, and he was sure it was sadness.He didn't understand why though, and that made it all the more frustrating, just like he didn't understand why Harry was so angry that he had disappeared for two weeks. Louis had always done it, so why was Harry making him feel bad about it now?Anyway, Louis would be left with yet another unanswered question, because he already knew they would never talk about it.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Louis spent a week that wasn't at all relaxing, even though he stayed in his house, only getting up to eat and shower. He reflected on the fact that he had never worked on a case voluntarily, but that it had always been his father who had entrusted him with new cases through messages.
Every time he closed a case and then returned home, Louis spent the time between messages in a constant state of anxiety, hoping that it was the last one and that his father wouldn't send him any more. It never happened and meant that he couldn't really rest because he didn't know when the next message would come.
So not only had Louis spent the week anxiously waiting for the message he knew would come, but also because Harry had disappeared. He hadn't written or called since the last time they had seen each other.
On the one hand, Louis was relieved because he had always hoped that Harry would get tired and put a definitive end to their non-relationship, an end that he didn't have the courage to put but which he knew would be the best thing for Harry. On the other hand, however, Louis couldn't help but think about him, how much he missed him and how much he wanted to see him again.
In a moment of utter despair, he had made the mistake of opening the chat with the messages they had exchanged. He had gone back to the first message from two years ago,
obviously
he hadn't deleted them even though there wasn't much written in them. As he read them, he realized that it had always been Harry who had texted first.
Louis remembered that for the first few months they always met on the same days, at least twice a week, because Louis didn't have many cases to work on during that time. As time went on, they saw each other less and less often, but it was always Harry who wrote first and asked for a meeting, even when Louis disappeared for weeks at a time.
Maybe that's why Harry was so angry? Was he tired of always being the one to make the first move? Why hadn't Harry looked for someone else if he needed sex so badly? Why didn't he take the initiative that Louis couldn't and end that torture that was their non-relationship for Louis?
And why the hell was Louis always so torn between what he wanted for Harry and what he hoped would never happen?
He shook his head vigorously, because the very idea of Harry being with another man made him feel disgusted and uncomfortable.
While he was putting a pre-cooked lasagna in the microwave, the phone vibrated. He winced in surprise as he was deep in thought and unanswered questions, and for a moment he hoped it was Harry. It would definitely be better to see him again after the argument and the way Louis had left than another case he didn't want to work on.
Obviously luck wasn't on his side, as always.
Les Mondes Motel, Lawrence, Kansas.
The message said just that and attached was a link to a website. He clicked on it as he took the lasagna out of the microwave, then sat on the couch and waited for the page to load.
Taking the first bite, he groaned with satisfaction, crossing his legs and snuggling under the blanket to enjoy his first decent meal after days of eating nothing but junk food because he hadn't had the energy to cook. Not that he'd cooked the lasagna, but it was still better than hamburgers and fries.
He frowned as he began to read what his father had sent him, an article from a blog called 'The Slyest Writer' from a few days ago.
The article was well written, although it was obvious that the writer wasn't as impartial as a journalist should be, but still, it was just a personal blog. It was clear that they were angry, and if the things they wrote were true, Louis couldn't blame them.
Several people had been missing in Lawrence for about three weeks. Many of them were from other cities or even states and because of this, their disappearances weren't immediately reported.
As they were people with different characteristics in terms of social status, physical condition and age, the police hadn't taken the case seriously and processed the disappearances as if they were separate cases.
The author of the article was convinced that all the cases were connected and explained their theory by adding various pieces of information. They had investigated on their own and found out that all the victims had last been seen at Les Mondes Motel on Highway 59 on the outskirts of town. Although the author had contacted the police several times, the department ignored their request to investigate the motel because, in their opinion, there was no connection.
In three weeks, seven people had disappeared and none of them had been found.
Three of the cases had already been closed for lack of evidence, two others had been classified as
voluntary departure
and no one was talking about the problem, not even the newspapers.
Louis wasn't surprised, as the police often closed cases or refused to investigate further, whether out of laziness or lack of time, but he agreed with the author of the article. Seven people couldn't just vanish into thin air and maybe the cases were connected if what they wrote about the motel was true.
He would investigate using resources the author of the article probably didn't have, and he would find out why his father wanted him to work on that case that seemed unrealistic to him.
John usually sent him newspaper articles, so why had he sent him a stupid blog this time? Was it reliable and did it contain real facts or was it written by the usual lunatic who saw conspiracies everywhere?
John had never given him a case that turned out to be a failure though, at least Louis had to admit that, so if he had, there was definitely something he could work on.
He went back to the message and read it again. Only then did he realize what was written, and felt a shiver run down his spine.
Lawrence, Kansas
It wasn't that far from his house, maybe less than an hour's drive, but what shocked him was the fact that it was also the place where he had spent the first years of his life and where he had watched his mother die.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered through clenched teeth.
Of all the things his father had done that had led Louis to hate him, this one definitely topped them all.
With what courage had he trusted him with a case in the town he'd avoided for more than twenty years? Why the hell hadn't he gone? Too many bad memories, perhaps? Of course,
let's send Louis in his place
, because he absolutely couldn't remember his mother torn alive on the ceiling and suddenly catching fire while she stared at him with her eyes wide with fear.
Sighing and shaking his head, he suddenly was no longer hungry. He decided to get to work immediately, as he was sure that this case would be more difficult than the others,
but
for a moment he also considered pretending that nothing had happened and not going.
It only lasted a few seconds, because who was he kidding? The part of him that he hated the most reminded him that he would have gone there anyway, as he had always done with every case his father had entrusted to him.
Louis couldn't help it, and again he thought of Zayn's words and how right he was. He was just looking for John's approval and the hope that maybe one day he would come back to him, even if Louis wasn't sure how he would react. He probably would just slam the door in his face after thanking him for ruining his life.
He didn't know exactly what to do with this case, so close to his house. Could he have at least gone home to sleep, or might it have been better to stay in Lawrence?
Maybe he could stay at the motel where all the victims seemed to have gone and pretend to be a customer, even if he didn't particularly like the idea. He didn't know what to expect, what he was getting himself into, or what the damn motel was hiding, but he knew it definitely had something to do with the supernatural or his father wouldn't have trusted him with the case.
As he filled a duffle bag with clean clothes, he sighed and decided to stay at a motel nearby because it was the most logical and least complicated choice.
After grabbing his bag, he opened the front door and took one last look inside before closing it behind him. He didn't really believe in the sixth sense and all that nonsense, but he had a strange feeling, even if he couldn't understand why.
He got into the car, set the address on the navigation device of a motel he had found, and turned on the radio before starting the car and driving off. He hummed one of his favorite songs, Eye of the Tiger by Survivor, while tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the song. That was his absolute favorite part, driving his precious Impala while a song played in the background.
To delay his arrival as much as possible, he drove slower than usual and as he passed the edge of town, he sighed in relief because unlike
what
he had thought, he recognized nothing about that place and nothing looked familiar. After all, he had been just a child when they had left Lawrence.
Louis was sure it probably wouldn't be the same for his father, but that didn't justify his decision to sacrifice his son once more for fear of facing that return at home himself.
Parking the car in front of the motel he had chosen, not too far from the one where the victims had last been seen, he turned off the engine. He picked up the phone and made the call as he entered the building, smiling at the receptionist behind the counter.
“Hello?”
“I need a favor,” Louis whispered as he grabbed the key to his room and stepped into the elevator. “I need you to send me anything you can find about seven missing victims in Lawrence, Kansas. I also need to know what the police know and if they have any leads or clues to follow up on.”
“Lawrence? You mean the town where-”
“Zayn, please, I'm already pissed off enough, so don't twist the knife.”
Zayn sighed on the other end of the phone. “Okay, I'll let Liam work his nerd magic and send everything to you within two hours.”
Louis thanked him, hung up and went to his room, throwing himself on the bed and sighing tiredly. He remembered how his father had pretended for years to be an FBI agent or some such nonsense. Louis avoided doing that as much as possible though, because there were CCTV cameras everywhere now, he couldn't just walk into a police station and flash a badge to see the evidence. What if the real FBI showed up and they found out he wasn't who he said he was? With the damn cameras, they would have arrested him in less than the blink of an eye, so almost no one used that technique anymore.
The most widely used method was the dear and precious hacking of police systems. It was still illegal, of course, but it was safer, especially when done by a smart guy like Liam. He wasn't a hunter but he helped many of them gathering information that would be useful in the cases.
While he waited for an update from him, Louis decided to order some food since he hadn't been able to finish his beloved lasagna, and when he received the delivery, he settled into bed and turned on his laptop. Biting into the sandwich, he wrinkled his nose because as good as it was, he was tired of eating takeaway.
He opened a website and did some research on his own, finding very little information.
Apparently Lawrence was a quiet town where nothing ever happens and the crime rate was very low, despite being the sixth largest city in the state. There had never been a case of disappearance and the most common crimes were limited to robberies or drug dealing.
He found a local newspaper, the Lawrence National Post, but there was no mention of the seven missing people there either. The blog he had read seemed to be the only one that had mentioned them, and Louis found that quite unusual.
Why has no one spoken about the issue? That a criminal organization was behind it, perhaps a supernatural one, and that was the reason behind the silence? But if that was the case, why had they only now started kidnapping and probably killing people?
He went to the Lawrence police website and found nothing there either.
The city was silent about the events and Louis felt that strange feeling in the pit of his stomach again. It all seemed so unnatural to him, and once again he thought that his father would never have given him a case if he wasn't sure that something was strange.
What puzzled him, however, wasn’t only the fact that no one had spoken about the disappearances, but also that nothing had ever seemed to happen in the town. Louis knew that a low crime rate wasn't unusual, but something was decidedly anomalous.
Even articles that talked about minor crimes like robberies or drug dealing were written in an unusual way, as if they weren't a real problem.
In one of them, there was the testimony of a woman who was woken up in the middle of the night by a person who had broken into her house, and her testimony was: ‘He probably just needed money or a place to sleep, and I would’ve gladly offered it to him.’
A few articles reported on the victims' statements and all were similar to the woman's, as if a robbery was a normal and justifiable thing.
Another article published a statement from the father of a fifteen-year-old who had been caught dealing drugs in his high school, and the man had dismissed the issue with a simple ‘That's kid stuff, I'm sure he had his reasons.’
Needless to say, neither the boy nor the perpetrator of the robbery had been brought to trial and arrested. Every single case had been dismissed as if it was just a bona fide stunt. Perhaps the city simply wanted to maintain a positive facade to outsiders, but why? Lawrence was certainly not a tourist destination, just a passing place.
Browsing the Lawrence National Post's website, he found a sort of archive of all the crime articles from 1990, the year the paper was founded, and thought that might help him understand when crime in the city and the attitude toward it had become so unusual.
From that year to 1999, it had reported on all sorts of heinous crimes, including child abductions, serial killers and bloody murders, and Louis found one particular article that dated back to November 3, 1999, he felt his blood run cold.
It was about a fire in a house whose address wasn't given, which had occurred the previous night and had probably been caused by a short circuit, although not even the coroners had been able to determine the cause with certainty, and in which a woman called Mary Tomlinson had died. She was his mother, the article talked about her death.
The case wasn't ruled an accidental death only because after the autopsy of what was left of the body, a deep cut was discovered on the abdomen, but the case was closed for lack of evidence.
However, the article didn't say much, so Louis closed it and continued scrolling through the archive and what he found, or rather what he didn't find, made everything even more disturbing. From that moment on, no more articles about major crimes had been published, it seemed as if there had been no more violent crimes after his mother's death.
How on earth was that possible and why was his mother's death the last murder to be talked about publicly, even if it hadn't been classified as a crime?
His phone rang, interrupting his thoughts and dozens of unanswered questions.
“Hello?”
“Louis, it's me, Liam,” the man on the other end answered.
Louis frowned. “Why are you calling me?”
He had only spoken to Liam twice since he had begun helping him with the cases he worked on, three years ago. Otherwise, they had always communicated by email, Liam sent him the requested documents and that was it.
“Because I don't even know how to explain this to you. Everything's so…”
“Unusual? Strange? Crazy?”
“Well, yes, long story short.”
Louis sighed and settled further down on the bed. “I'm all ears.”
“So, I'll start by telling you that I've found next to nothing on the seven missing persons. I was able to find their names in the Lawrence police files, but there isn't much in there,” Liam explained.
“At least you found them. No one talked about the missing people. The only one who did was the author of a blog, and they wrote that the police's refusing to investigate."
“The Slyest Writer? Yes, I've read it and it's very unusual,” Liam replied. “Not much is known about the missing persons, though. Two of them were from Kansas and passed through Lawrence almost every day on their way to work; two others were a couple making some sort of round trip through the states; one was from Colorado and was in Lawrence on a business trip; the last two were tourists passing through, one from Texas and the other from Illinois.”
“They all seem to be random victims.”
“That's not all, and this is where the really disturbing part begins. I found the social media profiles of the victims and their family members, and there's absolutely nothing there. Or rather, some of them have written something about the disappearance but pretty... weird stuff, that is.”
Louis opened the file Liam had forwarded him, which listed several social media accounts.
“The first is the mother of the second victim, whose case was closed for lack of evidence. She wrote a post a few days ago with a photo of her daughter and the words ‘I know you're in a better place, wherever you are’. The girlfriend of the fifth victim, whose case was filed as a voluntary departure, wrote two weeks ago ‘I won't look for you because I know you are in a better place’. The last victim's daughter wrote ‘Have a safe trip, the place you are in now is certainly better than this’.”
“What the fuck…” Louis muttered, scrolling through the various published posts. “They all talk about a better place.”
“I'd rather say they all talk like they know they're dead. I mean… That's not normal, is it? No one complains that the police don't want to investigate. It seems like they just accepted everything, even though they don't know what happened.”
Louis was silent for a few seconds, thinking.
“Liam, can you do a more extensive search? I think I already have the answer, I've done some research myself, but I want to be sure.”
“Sure, what do you want me to look for?”
“This town has looked spotless for too many years, aside from a few minor crimes here and there. Do you think you can find out when the last suspicious death was, the last major crime or anything else that was investigated in the normal way?”
“Hmm, yeah, give me a few minutes,” Liam replied.
Louis remained silent while he waited for the result, even though he already knew the answer. He wasn't a computer scientist though, so it was possible he was wrong, and Liam had access to a lot more information than the ones he'd found by simply surfing the internet.
“Okay, found it,” Liam said after minutes of silence. “Uh, this is really weird.”
“What?”
“Well, according to the autopsy report, it looks like a homicide, but the case had been closed after only one day for lack of evidence, and it's also the last violent crime that ever took place in the city. The woman's name was Mary… Tomlinson.”
Louis sighed and cursed under his breath. “She was my mother and it's the same thing I found. It seems like there were no other major crimes after that event twenty-four years ago or, if there were, no one talked about them nor did the police ever investigate."
“Do you think there's a connection? I mean, I don't believe there's never been a case of murder or anything like that in more than twenty years.”
“The only crimes mentioned in the articles after my mother's death are robberies or drug dealing. It seems that nothing serious has happened since then.”
“Do you have any idea?”
Louis sighed. “The only thing I can think of is that they want to keep up a peaceful appearance in this shitty place.”
“Louis.”
“But I don't understand why. I mean, who cares?”
“Louis.”
“I would expect something like this from a small town. Is it possible that no one, not even the victims’ families, are asking questions? How the hell-”
“Louis!”
“What!?” Louis exclaimed, annoyed at the interruption to his monologue.
“Do you know the exact date your mother died?”
“Uh, November 2, 1999. Why?” he asked, frowning.
“The first recently missing victim… The last movement on his credit card shows a transaction at the Les Mondes Motel on November 2nd.”
Louis sat up in bed, his eyes widening in surprise. “What? Are you sure?”
“Quite sure,” Liam replied. “I think… I think we can safely say that things are somehow connected.”
Louis was silent for a few seconds and then shook his head. “I gotta go. Thanks for your help,” he said before hanging up.
What the hell did that mean? His father had never talked about what had happened that night or who, or what, had killed his mother. Louis knew that John had been obsessed with finding the killer after his mother's death, but he had never told him if he had found it. What if whatever it was, was still in town? What if it had always been there? And why hadn't his father killed it?
Maybe he had never found the creature. After all, the seven missing victims seemed to be the only ones since his mother had died twenty-four years ago.
Louis knew two things for sure at this point. The first was that he couldn't trust anyone, because whatever was happening, it was probably affecting the whole town. The second was that he couldn't ask anyone any questions, so he had no choice but to go to the source of the mystery: the motel.
He snorted in annoyance, as he had hoped to get at least one night's rest before starting work, but apparently that was out of the question, as always. He put on his jacket and packed his laptop into his bag before closing the bedroom door behind him.
He had decided not to spend the night at Les Mondes because he didn't know what was hiding there or what kind of creature was involved, but now he had no choice. He would have to enter the wolf's den and hope not to be eaten before he even set foot inside.
Les Mondes wasn't far from the motel he was supposed to stay at, and as he parked the car in front of the building, he stood watching it for a few minutes.
It was quite secluded, overlooking Highway 59, which ran through the city from side to side, and it seemed a quite ordinary place. White-painted exterior walls, peeling in some places, and numerous windows overlooking a large parking lot. There were only three other cars apart from his, and Louis thought that was a good sign.
After getting out of the car, he opened the trunk and thought about what he could take with him. He didn't know what creature it was, so he remained vague: dagger and silver bullets because they killed a variety of creatures; a rifle and a box of cartridges and bullets filled with salt and iron in case it was some ghosts; alcohol and matches to set fire to any corps.
He put everything in the bag and closed the trunk, feeling nervous and anxious in a way he rarely did. He didn't know if it was the unknown he was heading towards, the city in general, or the unsettling connections to his mother's murder.
Once again he wondered if his father had done those connections too and if that was why he had given him the case, and Louis couldn't help but hate him even more for it than he already did.
He walked towards the entrance with the duffle bag on his shoulder, but stopped in the middle of the parking lot, which was only lit by one streetlight. Squinting to focus on what he saw, he felt his breath catch as he recognized one of the parked cars.
“What the fuck…” he muttered, looking around before approaching the car.
Placing a hand on the hood, he noticed it was still warm and then stepped back to read the license plate.
“Shit.”
Louis hurried to the building and entered without hesitation, holding his breath as he watched his last hope of being wrong go up in smoke right before his eyes.
He was there, standing at the reception desk with his back to him as he chatted happily with the girl behind the counter. More than anything, he seemed to be flirting, twirling a lock of his short curly hair between his fingers and speaking in that damn husky voice that Louis knew well, even if he had heard it in completely different circumstances.
Louis wasn't jealous
at all
and in
no way
did it cross his mind that he might be there to meet someone. He was just worried, that's all.
“Well, I know several people have disappeared and the last place they showed up is this place. I mean, a girl like you who's so… friendly must know something, right?”
Louis didn't know whether to scream given the fact that Harry was asking questions he shouldn't be asking, given the fact that he seemed to be working on the disappearance case, or given the fact that his attempt to flirt with a woman was absolutely ridiculous and pathetic. As if he'd even seen one up close since he was born.
Louis cleared his throat to draw attention to himself, and when Harry turned around, he clearly had the look on his face of someone on the verge of a heart attack.
“What are you doing here?”
“What are
you
doing here?” Louis retorted, clenching his jaw.
“I asked first,” Harry muttered, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
Louis glanced at the woman and noticed that she was no longer smiling but had tilted her head and was looking at him curiously. He took a few steps forward and grabbed Harry forcefully by the arm, dragging him into a corner of the hall and ignoring his protests.
“Let go of me,” Harry hissed, yanking his arm and freeing himself from his grip. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Louis sighed, running a hand over his face to calm himself. “Harry, I'm serious. Why are you here?”
“I'm working.”
“You're working,” Louis repeated, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, Louis, I'm working. Is that so weird?”
“Why the hell do you go around asking questions like that?”
“Because I'm a journalist and asking questions is my job?” Harry replied as if it were obvious.
Louis looked around and lowered his voice. “Harry, do you know that people have been disappearing in this fucking motel? You can't just go around asking questions if you don't know who the fuck you're dealing with.”
“Did you take me for a fool?” Harry snapped indignantly. “I'm very good at defending myself, thank you very much,” he added, lifting his jacket.
Louis' eyes widened when he saw a gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans. He didn't know whether to jump on Harry and get fucked at that moment because it was a totally illegal image or pull his hair out because Harry, the one with the dimples and little curls who talked about stray kittens and endangered giraffes, had a gun that wouldn't hurt
anything
that was probably hiding in the motel.
“Where the fuck did you get that?” Louis exclaimed, still in shock, looking into the other man's green eyes again.
“That's none of your business. Anyway, if you're done playing the hysterical pussy, I've got work to do,” Harry retorted, lifting his chin and straightening his shoulders before turning around and walking back to the front desk.
“Shit,” Louis muttered, then sighed and followed him.
The woman gave Harry a smile before shifting her gaze on Louis and tilting her head, giving him a curious look again. Louis didn't know why, but he felt a shiver run down his spine.
“So, Mr...”
Damn it, Louis hadn't thought of that. He would never give his real name, but he couldn't let Harry wander around the motel alone. He'd find an explanation later.
“Dean Winchester,” he said, watching out of the corner of his eye as Harry's eyes widened and his jaw dropped in a completely unsuspicious manner.
Louis suppressed an exasperated sigh, gave the woman a forced smile and stepped on Harry's foot, who immediately closed his mouth and cleared his throat.
“How many rooms?” the woman asked.
“Two.”
“One.”
Louis glared at him and Harry snorted and rolled his eyes, but didn't argue.
“Single beds or double?”
“Single.”
“Double.”
“I don't want a bloody double bed, Lo-”
“I pay, I decide,” Louis interrupted him before he could blow his cover only five minutes after he entered.
“I didn't ask you to pay for me,” Harry objected, clenching his jaw and crossing his arms in front of his chest.
Louis ignored him, forcing a smile at the woman and placing his credit card on the counter. “A double room for a week.”
She hesitated for a moment, then took the card and paid. “Then I hope you have a pleasant stay, gentlemen,” she said, handing him the key to the room and smiling.
Louis felt another shiver run down his spine at the way she was looking at him and again when he touched her hand as he reached for the key, feeling that it was
freezing
.
He mumbled a thank you and turned, grabbing Harry by the arm and walking briskly to the elevator. Harry didn't say a word, and this time at least he had the decency to wait until they were alone before he started ranting again.
“What the fuck is this story about? Who’s Dean Winchester? And why the hell do you want to be in a room with me?” he shouted, gesticulating with his hands, his face red with rage.
“Will you keep your voice down? Fucking hell,” Louis hissed, falling silent as the elevator doors opened on their floor.
The motel was pretty neat for the bargain price they were offering. A long red carpet with gold embroidery stretched across the corridor and the walls were covered with wallpaper in the same color, on which gold wall lamps were fixed.
Louis walked down the corridor, ignoring Harry muttering behind him, and stopped when he found the room they had been assigned. He put the key in the lock but then stopped, looking at the key tag with the room number and letting his eyes wander to the tag attached to the door.
Room number twenty-four.
“What the fuck…”
His mother had died exactly twenty-four years before the disappearances began, in the same town and on the same date, and since her death the city seemed to be covered in a pristine patina and an unsettling silence in the face of crime.
Louis shook his head and almost laughed at himself, because it had to be just a stupid coincidence.
He quickly opened the door, turned on the light and checked the room and bathroom as Harry entered, then closed the door and let the lock click into place.
“Louis… Dean… Who the hell are you?” Harry started yelling again.
“Louis. I'm Louis, okay? That's all you need to know.”
“That's all- Oh no, don't even fucking try! We've been sleeping together for two years but now I find out you have a different name, and you think I wanna be in the same room with you?”
And… Well, he wasn't entirely wrong, but the idea that Harry was scared and didn't trust him still broke his heart.
He sighed, hunching his shoulders wearily. “Harry, please, calm down,” he said, sitting down on the bed. “My real name is Louis Tomlinson, I swear. It's always me.”
"Well, not that I know the real you anyway,” Harry retorted dryly.
That was definitely a stab in the heart, deserved and understandable, but no less painful.
Louis tried not to show how much that sentence had hurt him, but once again Harry proved that he knew him better than Louis thought, because it was clear from the look on his face that he understood that he had said something he shouldn't have.
“I'm sorry, I… I'm just confused,” Harry said, sitting down next to him in bed and falling silent, then meeting his gaze. “Do you promise that's your real name?”
“I swear,” Louis replied without hesitation.
Harry looked at him for a few moments and then sighed. “Okay. And can you also tell me why you're here?”
Louis couldn't tell him the truth because he didn't want to put him in danger, and because he didn't have the courage, but he knew he had to say something at this point and decided that a half-truth would be the lesser of two evils.
“I'm here for work.”
“And doesn't your company have something better to offer you than a seedy motel?”
And well, fuck.
When they'd first met and talked, Louis had told him that he worked for a construction company, and when they started seeing each other more often, he'd told Harry that he often traveled for work to justify the many times he'd disappeared for days or weeks at a time. Louis didn't think their relationship would last this long, the first time they had sex he didn't even think they would see each other again. And now here he was, betrayed by his own lies and stuck in a situation he never thought he'd experience.
“Uh,” he muttered, averting his eyes and not having the slightest idea what to say.
Harry sighed. “Louis, please, I'm not an idiot. I know very well that you don't work for a construction company.”
Louis' head jerked up and he met his gaze, frowning. “How do you know that?”
Harry suppressed a laugh and shook his head. “Well, I didn't actually know and you just told me. What a genius, wow.”
“Fuck it,” Louis muttered, running a hand through his hair, hating that Harry's mere presence prevented him from even the simplest of reasoning.
“How do you know people have been disappearing from this motel?”
“Uh, well-”
“You said it at the reception, so don't make up any bullshit, Louis,” Harry interrupted with an impassive expression, then his eyes widened and his jaw dropped as if he was surprised. “You're not… Don't tell me you're an undercover agent. No, wait, if you are, then you can't say that, right?”
Louis bit back a laugh and shook his head. He got up from the bed and walked around the room, thinking about how absurd this whole situation was. However, he had the weapons in his bag and there was no way he could justify them, so he figured that Harry had given him a good idea after all. Among other things, he had enough information about the case but Harry, as a journalist, surely had more.
“Well, yeah, let's say I am. But you can't tell anyone, okay? I'm serious.”
“Louis, for fuck's sake! We've been sleeping together for two fucking years and you told me you work for a construction company. Why lie? Oh no, are you CIA or Intelligence? I don't think they can say they're agents, but if you were an FBI agent you wouldn't have to lie. Are you here for the seven missing people last seen at the motel? So is it as bad as I thought? Is that why they called you in and the police didn't want to give me any information? And why-”
“Harry,” Louis interrupted him, raising his voice, and the other fell silent, looking at him with his big green and frightened eyes. Louis would rather have died than see that look on his face. “I don't work for the CIA or any of that shit. I'm a private investigator, and I've been working on the case only for a few days.”
Harry let out a long sigh as if he'd been holding his breath, and ran a hand over his face. “Okay, yeah, but… but things are bad, Lou.”
Lou.
Harry never called him that, only when he was on the verge of an orgasm, partly because they'd never really spoken. What they were having now was probably the longest conversation they'd had in two years.
“I know, and I want you to promise me something, okay?” Louis sat down next to him on the bed and took Harry's hands in his, ignoring the way Harry squeezed them. “I want you to
never
leave this room alone and
never
ask anyone any questions, do you understand? I'm serious, Harry. We don't know what’s going on here.”
“Why?” Harry asked in a whisper, his eyes widening in fear again.
“Because… because there's something weird going on in this town, it's not just the motel, and we don't know who to trust,” he replied, squeezing his hands tighter. “You still have time to leave. You can do it anytime.”
Harry frowned. “And you think I'd leave you here alone? Christ, you're such a fool, Louis."
Louis sighed and decided not to insist, knowing he would never convince him.
“Okay. I need to get some rest and we'll look into this story in the morning,” he said,
squeezing
Harry's hands one last time before getting up and opening his bag.
He pulled out his gun and made sure the bullet was in the barrel before securing it. He placed it under the pillow, ignoring Harry's stare.
“Well, I'm not the only one who knows how to protect myself.”
Louis rolled his eyes. “I'm an investigator, Harry.”
“Right.”
As he took the t-shirt and sweatpants he used as pajamas out of his bag, Louis turned them over in his hands, his eyes widening as he realized for the first time what was about to happen.
They were going to sleep together. For the first time in two years, they would be sleeping together, close to each other, in the same bed. Louis would sleep next to Harry and Harry would sleep next to Louis.
Maybe during his sleep, in an absolutely unconscious way, Louis would caress him. It was something he had longed for for years, a gesture so simple and yet so complex in their relationship, to touch Harry's skin with his fingertips and leave a kiss right where Louis wanted to be, in his heart.
“I can sleep on the floor if you want,” Harry said from behind him, as if he'd guessed his thoughts.
Louis whirled around, perhaps a little too quickly. “Don't be silly. I mean, we've been sleeping together for years, it won't be that different, right?”
Yes, it would have been exactly the same thing.
Harry was silent for a moment and then looked away. “Yeah, you're right.”
Louis frowned, confused at his attitude. Harry seemed almost uncomfortable or nervous, though the nervous one in the room was definitely himself, and Harry would never understand what it meant for him that they would sleep together.
Again, that should have been something almost normal, two adults sharing the same bed, but that wasn't the case. Louis had always decided to leave after sex, because sleeping together would be too intimate and would only make the parting more painful. However, the masochistic and in love part of him couldn't wait to do it.
After locking himself in the bathroom, he quickly changed his clothes and then splashed his face with cold water in a pathetic and futile attempt to calm himself down. As he looked at himself in the mirror, he wondered what the hell Harry was doing in that room - and in his life in general - with someone like him, who saw in his reflection only an empty shell with no hope of a normal life.
He sighed, wiped his face and returned to the room, where he found Harry already under the covers. He turned off the light and took a deep breath before walking over to his side of the bed and lifting the covers, lying down next to Harry.
Louis stood there staring at the ceiling, afraid to say or do anything because not only had they never slept together before, but they had never been in the same bed except to have sex.
“Good night,” Harry whispered, breaking the stifling silence that had fallen.
“Good night,” Louis replied, even though he already knew he wouldn't get a wink of sleep because Harry was right next to him and because he had no intention of letting his guard down in that damn motel.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Louis squinted, groaning in annoyance as a noise disturbed his sleep.Noise… Sleep…Why the hell had he fallen asleep and how could he have been so careless?His eyes snapped open and he cursed himself in his mind as he pulled the gun from under the pillow, sitting up quickly and pointing it in the direction of the noise.“Louis, it's me!” Harry exclaimed, backing away with wide eyes and a frightened expression on his face.It took Louis a few seconds to understand what was happening, and when he realized he was pointing the gun at Harry, he lowered it abruptly.“Fuck! Oh my God, Harry, I'm so sorry,” he said quickly, rubbing a hand over his face. “Why didn't you wake me up?”Harry sighed and closed his eyes as if to calm himself down, still visibly scared at Louis' reaction, who just wanted to bang his head against the wall at that moment.“Uh, why would I?” Harry asked, confused.“Because we're in a motel where people are disappearing and we don't know how or when? They could've come in while we were sleeping and… and hurt you and-”“Louis,” he interrupted. “Relax, okay? You clearly needed to rest and, uh… Well, you were sound asleep and I didn't want to wake you, that is,” he mumbled, blushing on his cheeks and looking away.Louis frowned at that reaction and wondered what had embarrassed Harry so much.Fuck, Louis had probably hugged him in his sleep or something. He just hoped he hadn't talked and said something embarrassing. Not that he knew if he talked in his sleep, since he'd never slept with anyone before.An awkward silence fell in the room. Harry avoided his gaze, his face still flushed, and Louis felt like an idiot sitting on the bed with the gun still in his hand while he desperately wanted to know what had made Harry blush so much. Thoughts that were swept away the moment his eyes fell on the two cups and the small paper bag Harry was holding.“Where the hell have you been?” Louis yelled, tugging at the covers and standing up hastily.“Uh, I went to get coffee and something to eat. You know, I still have needs, although…”“I told you not to wander around alone! Damn it, Harry,” he shouted beside himself and then sighed, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “Do you understand that this is a serious situation or do you want me to draw you a picture? Fucking hell.”Harry bit his lip and looked down, shifting on his feet nervously, and even though Louis knew he was right, he felt like a real asshole anyway.“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to raise my voice but… Please, Harry, don't do that again.”Harry jerked his head up and pursed his lips, lifting his chin. “I can take care of myself, thank you very much. I already told you I have a gun and-”Louis sighed dryly, wondering for a moment if he should tell him everything, if he should explain to him what was really hiding out there and that a stupid gun wouldn't do anything to the thing the motel was probably hiding.“Harry, just humor me, okay?” he said instead, hoping that he wouldn't have to bring the subject up again and that Harry would listen to him, or Louis would really give up sleeping every damn night and tie him to the bed if necessary to keep him from going out.He shook his head as the image of the last thought came to his mind.Harry looked at him for a few moments and then sighed, hunching his shoulders and giving up. “Okay,” he muttered, not at all happy about the decision.“Thanks for the coffee, by the way,” Louis said, forcing himself to smile in the hope of easing the tension that had built up.It seemed to work because Harry smiled back, handed him the cup and then settled into a chair next to the bed while Louis sat back down on the bed.“So… Have you thought about what to do?” Harry asked after sipping his coffee.“Uh, not really. I mean, I don't know where to start, mainly because I don't trust anyone and so we can't ask any questions,” he said, giving him a dirty look.“So you wanna wait until someone kidnaps us and, I don't know, cuts us to pieces?”Louis shrugged, thinking Harry had a point. In reality, he was waiting for something unusual to happen and that would give him a clue as to the creature responsible for the disappearances, but he couldn't say it.“How did you find out that all the victims had been in this motel?” Louis asked, trying to divert the conversation.It worked, because Harry gave him a bright smile and finished his coffee in one gulp before standing up and opening his bag. He pulled out a laptop and handed him the small paper bag still in his hands, sitting down next to him.Louis opened it and bit his lip to suppress a smile as he pulled two chocolate muffins out of the bag and handed one to Harry.“I didn't do it all by myself, but I have a… source, sort of. He did some research on the latest credit card movements and that's how he found out that everyone had been here,” he explained as he switched on the laptop.“By ‘source’ do you mean a mole in the police?” Louis asked, smiling amusedly.Harry glared at him. “A journalist never reveals their sources, but since it's you, I'll tell you.”
Since it's you.
What did he mean by that? That he trusted Louis enough to tell him or that he had no choice but to do so since they were working on a solution together?“His name is Niall. He works at the station in Kansas City, so he's not in charge here, but at least he gave me some information.”“Okay, but how did you find out about the disappearances if no one talked about them?”Harry bit his lip and blushed slightly. “Uh, well, as a crime reporter, it's my job to look for cases like this, that is,” he mumbled, looking down.Louis frowned, confused at his reaction and not understanding why he looked so embarrassed. He'd read all of Harry's articles for the Kansas City Times, of course, but he'd always covered local events and well-known cases, so he didn't understand why Harry had decided to investigate a case that was outside his area of expertise.“Anyway, that's how I got the information, but I couldn't find out anything else. This fucking city seems to be spotless, except for a few minor crimes here and there.”Louis licked his lips, thinking about what to say and how much to reveal, then came to the conclusion that they were in that situation together and therefore there was no point in hiding the information he had found. Besides, Harry was certainly the more intelligent of the two and so he might help him to see some connections that Louis had missed.“I did some research too. I found out that there haven't been any major crimes in the last twenty years or so. The last... violent crime happened in November '99 and nothing seems to have happened in the city since then," Louis explained. “Not even the family members of the seven missing people seem concerned, on the contrary, they have all posted on social media saying that they know they’re in a better place. The worrying thing is that they’ve all written about this ‘better place’ as if they already knew they were dead.”“A better place… What do you think that means?”Louis shrugged. “Do you think it means something? I mean, I think they're referring to heaven or some nonsense like that.”Harry pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Or the motel.”“Wait, you think the better place is meant literally and not figuratively?” Louis asked, tilting his head as he pondered the theory. “Interesting, I hadn't thought of that. But what does that mean?”“I don't know,” Harry said, shrugging and looking at the computer screen again. “Anyway… You said the last violent crime was in November '99,” he muttered thoughtfully and began typing into the search engine.Louis knew where that would lead, it was inevitable that Harry would find out eventually, and there was no point in hiding it, partly because he had no reason to. Or rather, it wasn't his mother's death he wanted to hide, but what it had caused and everything that had happened as a result.Harry went to the archives of the Lawrence National Post and found the same articles Louis had found the day before, frowning as he began to read.“I think you're right, nothing seems to have happened since November '99.”“Harry,” Louis whispered, already knowing what he was going to find.Harry ignored him and continued typing on the keyboard, then slid his finger across the trackpad and clicked on an article.“Well, I don't know how it could be related, but on November 2, '99, a woman died in her house. Theoretically, the case was ruled as a homicide and dropped… the next day!?”“Harry,” he tried again.“Why the fuck did they drop the case after just one day? Let's see..." Harry continued to ignore him and read the article. “She died due to a short circuit, although the autopsy revealed a deep wound to her abdomen. Her name was Mary-”Harry paused and parted his lips, then slowly looked up from the screen and met his eyes.“Do you… do you know who she was?”Louis sighed, looking down and nervously playing with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.He had never told anyone that story, only Zayn, and Liam had found out because he had helped him. In any case, he had never shown anyone how much he had suffered from what had happened and what that one event had triggered and caused in his life.He had never shown himself to be weak, because his father had raised him in the belief that feelings were just a distraction. Even though Louis had never shared that thought, he tried never to reveal anything, not because he was afraid of showing weakness, but because he was afraid of what that would entail. Especially with Harry.Louis knew that if he showed Harry the real him, not just what he did in life but also on an emotional level, it would cause a definitive break in their relationship because Harry had only ever seen one part of him, the cheeky and uncaring and never afraid one, and that was the part he was interested in. Harry certainly wouldn't have been interested in the other part of him, the fragile and flawed one.At that moment, however, Louis couldn't help but show himself for what he was, because from the moment he'd booked that fucking room for two, he'd decided to include Harry. He wouldn't have wanted to, of course, he would have preferred him to be safe in his house, but Harry had been adamant and Louis knew he could never have convinced him to leave.He had decided to let Harry be a part of it, and one thing he had learned from his father was that one always had to be honest in teamwork because honesty was the foundation of a relationship. Funny coming from him, but still.Louis would have to tell the truth as much as he could, because otherwise he would put them both in danger, but he knew he couldn't do that without showing the part of himself that he had tried to hide from Harry's eyes so many times.“She was my mother. She... she died when I was four years old,” he whispered, hiding his hands under his sleeves as if that gesture could somehow protect him.“Lou… I'm so sorry.”Louis shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”“And you… were you there when it happened?”Louis nodded and took a deep breath. “I was in my bed. The fire…”He squinted at the memory, trying to blink away the tears, and when he opened his eyes again, he saw Harry's hand lift the sleeve of his sweatshirt and intertwine their fingers. He exhaled shakily and inhaled again, feeling a little stronger than before.“It was nighttime and I got up to go to the bathroom, then I went back to my bed. I tried to go back to sleep but- but I couldn't because I kept hearing a noise... When I opened my eyes, I realized it was something dripping on the floor and…” He bit his lip, but this time he couldn't stifle the sobs that escaped.“When I looked up, I saw… I saw my mother on the ceiling. She had a deep wound on her stomach, but… but she was still alive,” he whispered the last sentence, closing his eyes tightly at the memory of his mother staring at him, her eyes wide with fear. “She caught fire out of nowhere. Her... her body went up in flames. Then I remember my dad picking me up and us running out of the house.”Maybe Louis had never seen that part of himself or had to face it either. He had kept it all to himself because he had no one to share his pain with, except his reflection in the mirror.At this point, he couldn't even remember the last time he had cried because of the life he was forced to lead and because of the loneliness. He didn't think it was out of habit, he had always found a way not to get used to that life because it wasn't what he wanted, and because he knew inside himself that if he ever found a reason to, he would put an end to what was hell for him.What was different this time, however, was the fact that he wasn't alone. He never felt alone next to Harry, even though he knew almost nothing about him. And probably for that reason, he decided that for once he too had the right to let himself go in front of the only person he felt comfortable enough to show his pain.At this point, he didn't even care what Harry would think or if, once the case was solved, he wanted nothing more to do with him because the real Louis wasn't what Harry wanted and wasn't what he had always shown himself to be in Harry's eyes.He didn't care anymore, because by now the suffering had become so overwhelming that everything else was irrelevant.Tear after tear run down his face, and he pressed a hand over his mouth to stifle his sobs. And when he felt Harry's arms wrap around his shoulders and hug him to his chest, the dam he had built around himself broke, releasing the flood of emotions he had tried to contain for too long.“Shh, it's okay, let go,” Harry murmured against his ear, squeezing him tighter. “I'm here.”Harry was there, he had always been there. The idea of seeing him again and surrendering in his arms, of allowing Harry to heal his wounds, not the external ones but the deep ones that lay dormant in the darkest corners of his soul, was what had always motivated Louis and given him the drive to carry on, to survive.He clung to Harry's sweatshirt as if it was the only thing that kept him upright, that allowed him to stay grounded in reality and that somehow always managed to bring him home. It was as if Harry was an anchor, a lighthouse, a ship, or maybe all three.And what was Louis then? He wanted to be the rope that wrapped around Harry, trying to support and protect him, even though he knew he was far from being that, because Harry didn't see him that way.However, his life couldn't be further from normal. For the first time in years, he was crying not just because of that same life but also because of his broken heart, and in the arms of the one person who really could change everything but who, instead, only saw him as nothing more than a pastime.Louis forced himself to stifle his sobs and took a deep breath to calm himself down, feeling terribly stupid and pathetic, regretting that he had shown himself like that and ruined the only hope he had of at least appearing normal in Harry's eyes. He cleared his throat, rubbing his face with the sleeve of his sweatshirt to dry the tears. “I'm sorry. I… I don't know what came over me.”“Hey,” Harry said softly, lifting his chin and meeting his gaze. “You don't have to apologize, okay? With me, you can just be… Uh, you can blow off steam whenever you want, that is.” You can just be, what? What did Harry mean by that and why didn't he finish the sentence? God, sometimes Louis really wanted to get inside his head to know what he was thinking. Or maybe it was better not to, one broken heart was enough.But Harry's gaze was so sincere and reassuring, and the way he was looking at him seemed so apprehensive and worried, that Louis just wanted to send everything to hell and kiss him like maybe he never had before.He was about to do so when he saw Harry's gaze fall on his lips, and he wondered if he might want to kiss him too, but more importantly why . Why would Harry want to kiss him after the way he had shown himself and with a face still covered in tears? Probably, knowing the way Harry managed to take care of him, he only wanted to do it because he felt sorry for him.Louis averted his eyes before he did something he would regret and cleared his throat, settling on the bed and reaching for the computer.“So… The last serious crime was the murder of my mother and I found out that the first victim disappeared on November 2nd, the same day she died,” he said, pretending to read the article to get back to the original speech.He heard Harry sigh and saw him shake his head out of the corner of his eye.“Uh… Yeah, so…” Harry murmured, clearing his throat. “What does your mother's death have to do with any of this? I mean, on the one hand, I don't think it has anything to do with the disappearances, but on the other... Since her death, no one talks about violent crimes, the first victim disappeared the same day your mother died, and the police don't want to investigate. I've tried to talk to them several times, but they refuse to answer any questions. They’ve only told me that the first five cases are already closed.”“Have you spoken to the police directly?”“Well... yes. I'm a journalist, remember?”“And are you here officially or…”“Uh, well, not really,” Harry muttered, averting his eyes, and then squared his shoulders. “Anyway, I'm a crime journalist, so I know how to approach the police and I have permission to do so, but this... I've never dealt with such uncooperative police officers before.”“Wait… I found something in my research that might help us.”Louis pulled out his phone, opened the message his father had sent him with the link to the blog and handed it to Harry.“The author of the blog has spoken to the police too, or at least they've tried to. Maybe we can find this person and talk to them, maybe they've found out something in the meantime.”Harry picked up the phone and as he looked at the screen, his eyes widened and he blushed visibly.“What is it?”“Uh,” he murmured, continuing to stare at the phone, then squinted.“Harry, tell me.”“Well, um, I… I'm the author of the blog.”Louis opened his mouth in surprise. Of all the damn articles he could have sent him, his father had decided to send him Harry's blog? Well, after all, there were no other articles dealing about the subject.“You're The Slyest Writer? And what the fuck's that name?”“Slyest… Styles. It's an anagram.”“Oh my God,” Louis sighed, running a hand over his face.“What? I like it,” Harry blurted out indignantly.Louis certainly wasn't shocked by the fact that Harry had a blog nor by the name, but rather by the fact that the world was so small that they ended up finding themselves in the same place at the same moment, one way or another.“Who gave you the link, anyway?”Louis sighed, flopping down on the pillows and covering his face with his arm. “My father. He… he sometimes sends me cases to work on and articles.”“Perfect,” Harry muttered.Louis lifted his arm when he felt Harry lay down next to him and then covered his eyes again.“You haven't, like, read anything on the blog, have you?”“Please, tell me you don't talk about our sex life.”Harry burst out laughing and nudged him, making him laugh as well. “No, idiot. It's just that some things might seem… weird to you.”Louis suppressed a laugh. If only Harry had known what weird things Louis had seen in the last twenty years and was still seeing...Harry sighed and cleared his throat. “Anyway, don't read it, okay? It's embarrassing,” he muttered.Louis decided that he would definitely find a spare moment to read it, because now curiosity was killing him.“So what do we do now? I mean, we’ve all this information, and then what?” Harry asked after a few minutes of silence.Louis thought about it for a few moments. If he had been alone, he would have investigated quietly and discreetly, but he wasn't. As much as solving the case should have been his priority, right now it was all about protecting Harry, even though he knew he couldn't rule him out now that they were in this together.In any case, they couldn't stay locked in the room, so he didn't have much of a choice after all.“They have a dining room on the first floor, I saw it from the front desk. We could eat there and have a look around,” he suggested, sitting down cross-legged and turning to Harry.“I'm in.”Louis narrowed his gaze menacingly. “Two rules. One, don't ask suspicious questions and try to be discreet. Secondly, don't call me Louis."“I am discreet, Dean,” Harry snapped, pulling himself up and mimicking his position.Louis rolled his eyes. “You asked the receptionist if she knew anything about the missing persons, Harry. I wouldn't call that being discreet. I know it's your job to ask questions, but this is a very different situation.”Harry sighed and curled his lips into a pout. “Okay. You're the expert here, detective.”“Private investigator,” Louis corrected, averting his gaze from the adorable expression on Harry's face before he'd throw the lunch to hell and pounce on his lips once and for all.“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Harry muttered with a wave of his hand. “Wait. What if they poisoned the food?”Louis frowned and tilted his head, turning over the paper bag of muffins and glancing at the now empty coffee cups, then sighed as he read the name of the motel on them.“Maybe you should've thought of that before you bought breakfast at the motel.”Harry's eyes widened and he blushed. “Uh… I hadn't thought of that.”Louis stifled a laugh, shaking his head and giving him a smirk. “The Slyest Writer, eh? You don't seem so sly to me after all.”Harry punched him in the arm, knocking him off balance and causing him to fall back onto the bed, making him laugh before bursting out laughing himself.For a moment, Louis forgot why they were actually there.“C'mon, get dressed. I'm hungry,” Harry mumbled before getting up, grabbing some clothes from his bag and then locking himself in the bathroom.Louis groaned and covered his face with his arm as he thought about how those were going to be the longest days of his entire shitty life. ⛥ The dining room was small and cozy, the square tables were neatly set and there was a fireplace on one side of the room.Louis looked around and studied the room as he usually did.There were only three people besides them: a man and a woman sitting at a table in one corner of the room, and a lone man at another not far away.In front of them, next to the fireplace, on one side was a large window with thick white lace curtains and a swinging door on the other side, which probably led to the kitchen. The reception desk was right behind them, a few meters from the entrance to the room, and behind the counter was the same girl who had greeted them when they arrived.Louis chose the table closest to the entrance and to one side of the room, sitting so that the wall was behind him and he could observe everything.The couple sitting at the table looked at them for a moment and the woman smiled sweetly before turning back to the man in front of her, continuing their conversation. The other lone man ignored them, focused on reading a book and occasionally scribbling something in it.“Looks nice,” Harry commented, taking a seat across from him.Louis was pulled out of his thoughts and blushed as he realized that they were once again doing something they had never done before. God, why did he have to be so fucked up?Harry gave him a smirk, probably noticing the blush on his cheeks, and Louis cursed himself again because there was no way he could be embarrassed for so little. For all he knew, the creature responsible for the disappearances could be in the room with them, so he couldn't afford to be distracted.Fortunately for him and his sanity, a young man came to their table and handed them the menus with a cheerful smile.“Good morning, gentlemen. Would you like something to drink?”“Water,” Louis replied, reaching for the menu and reading it quickly before closing it.Harry glared at him. “For me too, please.”Louis rolled his eyes. “I'll have a hamburger and fries and a cherry pie, thank you.”The waiter looked at him for a moment, a little too intently for Louis' liking, then smiled and wrote down what he'd said in a notebook before turning to Harry.“Uh, for me, a Caesar salad with croutons on the side, roasted potatoes and apple pie, thanks.”“Perfect, thank you,” the waiter said, taking the menus and walking away from the table.“A salad,” Louis said, stifling a laugh.“At least I asked it nicely,” Harry snapped, crossing his arms in front of his chest.“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Louis dismissed him with a wave of his hand and then leaned over the table. “Anyway… It seems calm, doesn't it?”“Yeah, I'm confused. Do you really think someone who works here is responsible for this? Maybe it's an outside person, a guest using the motel as a place to kidnap their victims.”Louis thought about it for a few seconds and then shrugged. “Could be. Fact is, the dynamics of the city in general are weird.”“What if it's too big for us? How do you think we can get to the bottom of this story?” Harry sighed and pursed his lips in thought. “Maybe… maybe we should contact the FBI or something.”“The FBI,” Louis repeated deadpan.Harry shrugged. "Well... yeah. If even the police won't cooperate, what do you think we can do? I mean, we know the whole city is involved in some way, although I don't see how that's possible considering that even the victims' relatives are acting strangely, even though they're not from Kansas. It's almost as if… as if they're all under the effect of a spell.”Louis jerked his head up and met his gaze, parting his lips in surprise. “What did you say?”Harry's eyes widened almost imperceptibly, although the blush spreading across his cheeks was obvious. “Uh, just saying,” he mumbled, shrugging.Louis didn't reply, but he began to think seriously about what he had said. He had never dealt with a witch before but he knew they existed, rare as they were, because his father had written about them in his journal.Some information was clear and told of the destructive powers they possessed, such as the ability to create any kind of spell, especially through the use of Latin. Some of them were noted on the pages, along with the appropriate translations. Louis remembered one that was specifically about summoning a witch, while others lacked the translation and so he didn't know their meaning.These creatures had always baffled and confused him because on the last page of the journal there was a spell in Latin that Louis had never bothered to translate, because he had always thought it was irrelevant. It was the last thing his father had written in the journal before he closed the door behind him many years ago and never came back.Now, however, after Harry's statement, he began to wonder if that was the problem. Perhaps the creature responsible for everything was a witch who, for some reason, had enchanted the entire city to operate undisturbed. Maybe the witch wanted to make it their lair, although Louis didn't understand why a witch would make so many people disappear and what they were doing with them.He didn't know much about witches, but he knew that anyone could cast a spell with the right ingredients, even a human, so maybe the goal was to create an army of sorts, but to what end?Louis wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, and he wasn't even sure he had the right resources to deal with a creature of that magnitude.He would have to read the journal again. He was sure he remembered that his father had written how to kill a witch.“Dean,” he heard Harry's voice and he jumped up, meeting his gaze and blushing as he saw the waiter set the plates down in front of them, realizing he'd been lost in thoughts for who knew how long.“Are you all right?” he then asked when the man walked away.“I'm fine,” Louis replied a little too sarcastically.He wasn't all right at all and was very worried about the way the situation was developing. The only thing he wanted to do at that moment was to go back to their room and read what his father had written about it.They ate in silence, although Louis barely touched the food on his plate, consumed by anxiety as he became aware of the fact that he was more alert than usual, looking around furtively and watching the people in the dining room persistently.They all seemed quiet and no one was paying much attention to the two of them, but even so, Louis noticed that the woman sitting at the table with the man glanced at him from time to time and, when she realized she had been seen, she smiled sweetly. Or maybe Louis was just getting incredibly paranoid.When they finished eating, they decided to go back to their room. Harry sat on the bed and turned on his laptop, probably to do some research. Louis waited until Harry was focused on what he was doing before he opened his duffle bag and took out his father's journal, sitting down on the chair in the corner of the room and flicking through it quickly.He didn't know how long he sat in the same position, reading the same information over and over again.All John had written about it was that witches were dangerous and untrustworthy creatures, selfish and with the sole aim of satisfying themselves, often through the use of magic. The only way to kill them was with a silver bullet in the middle of the forehead, which Louis didn't find particularly difficult and he was grateful that he had the right bullets in his gun.On the third page there were a few spells scrawled in Latin with the translation underneath, including one to summon a witch and one to temporarily block their powers.Louis considered using the first one for a moment, though he wouldn't have known how to do it in Harry's presence, but then changed his mind when he read about the disgusting and some unknown ingredients he’d have had to use to complete the summoning spell.However, he decided to memorize the second one, the one that would temporarily block their powers, even though he was sure he would make a mess with the words since he hadn't understood even one of them and his pronunciation would surely be wrong.Turning the page, he found the last one written by his father, a long spell in Latin, but with no translation or explanation of what it would do. The only thing scrawled at the bottom of the page was a pentacle and the word ‘salt’ underlined several times. Perhaps it was useful for preventing a witch from crossing a threshold or keeping them trapped in a circle, as one did with ghosts.“Are you gonna help me or do you wanna stay there and keep minding your own business?”Harry's voice startled him and he instinctively closed the journal, clutching it in his hands.“What's that?” he asked, frowning.“Uh, nothing,” Louis mumbled, stuffing the journal into his duffel bag and then sitting down on the bed next to Harry. “Did you find anything?” he asked, trying to distract him and change the subject.Harry sighed and rolled his eyes, then turned the laptop screen towards him. “Yes, actually. I was wondering if it's really possible that nothing has happened for more than twenty years and why seven people have disappeared just now. The disappearances seem to be methodical and serial, not for beginners, so I thought maybe it's not the first time it's happened.”“Okay, so?”“So I went back five years, I couldn't find any older news. I found at least ten other missing people and to top it off, they were last spotted in Lawrence.”Louis pursed his lips thoughtfully. “If it's serial and they're all connected, do you think there are many more? Maybe from '99 onwards.”Harry shrugged. “Probably, but I don't have the resources to find that information and my source at the Kansas City PD would take too long.”“I know someone who might be faster,” Louis muttered, pulling his phone out of his pocket and texting Liam a quick message.“Someone, huh?” Harry mumbled.Louis jerked his head up and noticed Harry's raised eyebrow, his expression looking almost... annoyed?“A private investigator never reveals their sources,” Louis said, repeating the same words Harry had said to him when Louis had asked him who his source was. Harry had added, however, that he would tell Louis since it was him, but still.“Yeah,” Harry replied in the same tone of voice and with an annoyed look on his face before getting out of bed and locking himself in the bathroom without another word.What the hell was wrong with him? Louis was sure that Harry would drive him crazy sooner or later.Liam replied to the message shortly afterwards, and the rest of the evening passed rather slowly. They only left the room to visit the motel but again, everything seemed relatively normal and the few people they passed in the corridors smiled in a friendly manner. When it was time for dinner, they sat down at the same table where they had eaten lunch and ate in silence.Harry looked strange, almost annoyed or angry, and all evening he had only spoken to him to ask if he was hungry before lapsing back into a stifling silence. Louis wondered if he had said or done something wrong but couldn't find an answer, so on top of worrying about the case, he was also worried about the situation that had arisen with Harry.They went upstairs to their room and undressed. The silence was so deafening that Louis was on the verge of screaming in frustration several times. As they settled under the covers, Harry turned onto his side, his back to him, and Louis could do nothing but blame himself for whatever he had done. He was used to it by now, having constantly blamed himself for everything he did to Harry for the past two years.Harry's breathing became regular after an interminably long time and when he lay down on his back, Louis was sure he was asleep. He didn't understand how he could fall asleep last night, knowing that Harry was lying right next to him.He clenched his fists tightly against his chest to stop himself from rolling over and watching him sleep, but as he stared at the ceiling, Louis thought that maybe he would get the chance after all.Harry would never find out, and Louis probably wouldn't have another chance once the case was over.He just turned his head to make sure Harry was actually asleep, and when he saw that his eyes were closed and his expression was relaxed, he took a deep breath before rolling onto his side.Suppressing the urge to stroke the curl that had fallen on his forehead, he let his gaze wander over those perfect features, the defined line of Harry's jaw and the delicate profile of his nose. The eyes of a color he knew too well, now closed and surrounded by long and thin lashes, the soft and smooth skin that Louis would have loved to run his fingers over, to caress and adore as only Harry deserved.Hesitantly, he lifted a hand and let his fingers hover over his cheek, just wanting to feel the warmth of his skin, but just as he was about to give in to temptation, his phone rang.He groaned in annoyance and picked it up blindly from the bedside table. So as not to wake Harry, he answered the call immediately.“Hello?” he whispered.“Why are you whispering?” Liam's voice asked on the other end of the phone.Louis sighed dryly and decided to get up, because if Liam was calling him in the middle of the night, then it was definitely important and something Harry shouldn't hear. He was asleep, but one can never be too careful, so he slowly pulled back the covers and stood up, tiptoeing to the door. He glanced over his shoulder one last time, noticing that Harry hadn't moved, before opening the door and stepping out into the deserted corridor, dimly lit by the lamps fixed to the wall.“It's a long story,” Louis cut in. “What happened?”“Uh, well, since my life is pretty boring and Zayn isn't around, I have a lot of free time to-”“Liam,” he interrupted, sighing. “Get to the point.”“Yeah, sorry,” he mumbled before clearing his throat. “I did the research you asked for and you were right.”“Go on.”“Well, you're not interested in how I did it, but I managed to find some things that are quite... disturbing. From the beginning of '99 to now, about a hundred people have disappeared and the last sighting was in Lawrence. None of them have ever been found, alive or dead, and obviously there’s no official news of their disappearance. The only public information I’ve found comes from family members, posts on social media or blogs they’ve created themselves, but it seems the police haven't investigated any of these cases and they’ve all been filed as cold cases.”Louis' eyes widened. “One hundred? How the hell do all these people vanish into thin air?”“Well, the question is why no one is investigating and where they are now.”“Damn it. I think it's worse than I thought.” Louis sighed, rubbing his temples and running a hand through his hair. “Okay, can you please send me any information you have found on these people, please?”“Just done,” Liam replied. “What do you think is going on there? I don't like this story, Louis.”Louis opened his mouth to reply but closed it again, frowning when the light from one of the lamps a few meters away from him began to flicker. He'd been doing that job for years, so he knew that there were coincidences and that not everything could be attributed to the supernatural, but he wasn't about to take anything for granted.“I gotta go,” he muttered before ending the call and putting the phone in his pocket.He slowly approached the lamp, tilted his head and tapped his finger on the glass of the lampshade. The flicker stopped and Louis stifled a laugh, shaking his head and turning to go back into the room. He was about to put his hand on the doorknob when another light flickered, this time making a sizzling sound as it repeatedly switched off and on again.He winced as the next lamp did the same, and then the next and the one after that, until all the lamps along the corridor began to flicker and sizzle intermittently.“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to himself.He should've known immediately that the motel, or probably the whole town, was hiding that, even if the witch theory seemed more plausible to him. However, he wouldn't take either possibility for granted.In any case, he now knew what kind of creature it might be, but he didn't know how many there were, and he had no idea how he was going to track them all down if there really was more than one.He turned suddenly and hurried to the elevator, pressing the button several times and then thinking again. If there had been a power surge while he was in the elevator, he would've risked being trapped inside.Looking around, he saw the exit that led to the fire escape, so he quickly went down to the first floor and opened the door. He made sure no one was there before stepping out and finding himself in the reception area.The silence that reigned in the motel was unsettling, even though it should be normal since it was the middle of the night, but Louis could feel his body shivering. He knew it was normal, the cold was one of the signs, although in reality he realized that until that moment he had never been cold since he had arrived at the motel. When he thought about it, he realized that the chill he was feeling was from the adrenaline and excitement coursing through his veins.He frowned when he saw that the reception desk was also deserted and no one was sitting behind the counter. There probably weren't many customers and that was why no one was working at night.When he reached the entrance and opened the door, he sighed with relief that it wasn't locked. He hurried to his car, broke open the trunk lock and rummaged through the items until he found the object he was looking for. For a moment he thought about taking the box of salt and putting a line of it in front of their bedroom door, but how was he going to explain that to Harry? Fuck it.He closed the trunk and looked around, noticing that his car and Harry's were the only ones parked.Perfect. At that point, he didn't know whether he should be glad that they were alone, because that meant fewer potential victims, or whether he should be afraid. If not for himself, then at least for Harry.He shook his head and focused on the object, pressing the button to turn it on and extending the antenna. He frowned when it made no sound and the lights didn't turn on.The last time he had used it was a few weeks ago and it had worked perfectly. It was one of the things his father had left him, an EMF detector to track power surges caused by ghosts or poltergeists.“C'mon, fuck,” he muttered, slamming it on his hand and cursing through clenched teeth.Maybe he should have entered the motel, maybe the problem was inside.He ran to the entrance and opened the door, looking around as a precaution. However, when he looked back down at the device, he saw that it was still showing no signs of life.At that point, he thought there were two possibilities: it was broken and he was incredibly unlucky, or it wasn't a ghost and the witch theory was true.However, he was almost certain that it was a ghost. He didn't know of any other creatures that were capable of causing power surges, as had happened with the lamps, although the device he was using had been specifically designed to detect them.He decided to head back upstairs, thinking that perhaps the problem was centered on that floor, and cursed himself as he walked up the stairs for leaving Harry alone. When he got to the floor, he cursed again because the device wasn't making any sound again, but he noticed that the lamps were no longer flickering.Maybe he was wrong, also because the second sign of the presence of a ghost was the cold, but there was none in the motel. So the only answer was that if it wasn't that, he was left with the witch option. Or witches, for all he knew.He huffed, walking towards his room, and opened the door silently. His heart skipped a beat when he noticed the light next to the bed was on, and as he closed the door behind him, he bit back a curse at the thought of Harry waking up.“Oh God,” he heard Harry's voice whisper behind him.Louis didn't even have time to turn around before he felt two hands grab him forcefully and turn him around sharply. He gasped as two arms wrapped around him and squeezed him hard.“Where… where have you been? I woke up and you weren't there and I was so worried and-” Harry mumbled in his ear, then paused and jerked away. “Where the hell have you been? You made me promise not to go out alone, but I wake up in the middle of the night and you're not there. I call you, but like every fucking time you don't answer. What's your fucking problem, huh? Fuck, Louis.”Louis opened his mouth and then closed it again because he didn't know what to say. It's not like Harry wasn't right and after all, Louis had been the first one to ask him not to go out alone, but Louis was able to protect himself even if he wasn't sure what was hidden in the motel. He understood, however, that Harry couldn't know since he wasn't aware of that part of his life, so he was right and Louis had been an asshole. Once again.In any case, he couldn't stop his heart from going crazy at the way Harry had held him so tight and at the way his face was contorted with worry.“I'm sorry, I-”“You're sorry? Do you understand that- that we could... die? What if- if you hadn't come back and something had happened to you, what the fuck would I have done?”“Harry, you're overreacting,” Louis muttered, averting his eyes and blushing at Harry's scolding.Louis knew he wasn't overreacting, not from Harry's point of view. Well, not from any actually, because he hadn't thought about what would happen to Harry if something happened to him. Who would protect him at that point?Fuck, Louis was such an asshole, but he wasn't used to working as a couple anymore.“I'm overreacting?” he shouted, clearly beside himself.The only and last time Louis had seen him this angry was a few days earlier, when they'd argued at his house.“And where the fuck did you get that from?” Harry added in a shrill voice and his eyes widened, fixated on the EMF detector Louis was still holding in his hands.“Uh, never mind,” he said quickly as he stuffed it into his duffle bag, then sighed. “Look, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't think you'd wake up and-”“Oh, perfect. So you're not sorry for being a dick, as usual, but you're just sorry because you got caught doing it?” Harry snapped indignantly, gesturing nervously with his hands.
As usual.
Not that Louis didn't know he was, but hearing Harry say it was yet another stab at his heart, and he felt… What had Harry called him? Helpless. Louis felt exactly that.“No! I mean, yeah, but- I'm sorry, okay? I… I didn't mean to upset you and- Fuck it.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair and tugging at a few strands out of frustration. “I'm sorry, okay? I know I'm an asshole and I don't want to be and- Fuck, it's so hard and you're right and I know that-”He gasped painfully as Harry pounced on him, pressing their lips together and squeezing his face painfully in his hands.Louis moaned into his mouth, clutching his shoulders and digging his nails into his flesh, hoping to hold him close while he thought it wasn't enough anyway.Harry was never enough. He was like a drug, he was like lungs contracting painfully when one came back up out of the water because the air one was breathing in wasn't enough, or like the relentless thirst in summer.“You gotta shut the fuck up,” Harry muttered against his lips, panting, before kissing him again.Harry pushed him backwards until Louis' knees touched the mattress and he fell onto it, moving away just long enough to undress faster than ever before.Louis did the same, scrambling back onto the bed and spreading his legs to let Harry kneel between them before grabbing him by the back of his neck and kissing him fiercely again.He panted against his lips as he felt Harry's hand caressing his thigh before lifting Louis' leg and letting it wrap around his hip, then he continued to touch Louis' body, slowly traveling up his chest and neck until he cupped his face in his hands.It was so different, so tender the way Harry was touching him compared to what he usually did, and in stark contrast to the frenzy of the kiss.Louis moaned loudly as he felt Harry's cock against his own and arched his back, lifting his hips so they would rub together and tilting his head, unable to hold back another moan when he heard the one that escaped Harry's lips.“Look at me,” Harry murmured, grabbing his chin to force him to meet his gaze.Louis was sure that just the way Harry was looking at him would probably give him an orgasm, with his lips parted and his wild eyes so green and bright as they looked at him with what Louis liked to think was adoration.Harry stopped, causing him to groan disapprovingly, but Louis fell silent as he noticed the silence that had fallen in the room and how Harry continued to watch him intently. Louis opened his mouth to ask him why he was staring at him like that, but he was interrupted by Harry's lips on his, the wet, warm tongue sliding into his mouth and stifling another moan.“Don't you ever do that again, do you understand?” Harry whispered as he drew back breathlessly, and before Louis could reply, he slipped two fingers between his lips. “Suck, I don't have lube.”Louis groaned and closed his eyes only briefly before opening them again and meeting Harry's eyes once more. He lifted his hips to bring their cocks back into contact, seeking relief as he hollowed his cheeks and sucked greedily on the fingers between his lips.He thrust his head back and forth, mimicking what he would have liked to do to Harry's cock if only he'd let him, but he was content to watch as Harry clamped his lip between his teeth and to listen to his soft curses.“You're such a dirty slut,” Harry muttered, pulling his fingers out, grabbing him by the arm and turning him onto his stomach. “Is that all right?”Louis wanted to die. Harry was probably referring to the last time they'd had sex and Louis had almost burst into tears in front of him because he just wanted to look at him.Louis nodded, unable to speak, sat down on his knees and crossed his arms. He rested his head on them and when Harry didn't move, he thrust his hips back as a clear invitation to do something.As the burning sensation and the sound of the slap rippled through his body, he cried out in surprise and then arched his back further, gasping.“It's supposed to be a punishment, but I know it's not for you,” Harry hissed behind him, squeezing his arsecheek tightly.“As if you don't like it too,” Louis retorted, moving his hips to prompt him to give him more.He heard Harry stifle a laugh. “If you only knew what I like, Louis…”Louis lifted his head to ask him what he meant and to tell him that he would do whatever Harry liked and whatever he wanted to do. He was sure there was nothing he wouldn't have liked if he had done it with Harry.He was about to turn, but Harry beat him to it again, turning the words he was about to say into a muffled moan as he slapped him again while sliding two fingers inside him.“Oh god,” Louis murmured, pushing his hips back to meet his hand.Harry moved quickly and relentlessly, pushing his fingers inside him but not touching his sensitive spot. Louis was sure he was doing it on purpose, because although Harry had never said it out loud, Louis was aware that Harry knew his body by now.“Harry,” Louis panted as he chased after his fingers, just wanting to scream because it wasn't enough.“Shut up,” he hissed through clenched teeth before pulling his fingers out of his body.Louis held his breath, aware that Harry was angry and not knowing what to expect, and gasped as he felt saliva drip between his cheeks. He groaned, gripping the sheet tightly with his fingers as Harry slowly thrust into him and panting out of breath when he stopped.“Fuck,” Harry muttered through clenched teeth as he gripped his hips tightly.He began to move slowly while Louis could do nothing but kneel there and take everything Harry was willing to give him, as always.Louis groaned again as he felt Harry's saliva drip onto his hole once more before he began to thrust into him faster. Harry said nothing, the silence in the room broken only by their moans, their heavy breathing and the sound of their skin touching.“Harry, talk to me,” Louis panted, just wanting to hear his voice, anything.Harry grunted and squeezed his hips tighter, leaning down until he wrapped an arm around Louis' waist and pressed his chest against his back, causing Louis' body to shudder as he felt the hot, panting breath against his ear.“You know that… that you won't be able to go anywhere this time, don't you?” he whispered, thrusting into him with even more intensity.Louis' eyes widened at that statement, realizing for the first time the significance of those words and what they would entail.He was taken aback by the effect they had on him, the thought to actually be able to enjoy Harry after two very long years, to see the effect sex had on him. And the fleeting thought that passed through his mind, the image of Harry taking care of him and then cuddling him to his chest while whispering sweet and kind words to him, made him explode in one of the most intense and satisfying orgasms he had ever experienced.“Fuck, Lou,” Harry growled, still pressed against his back, panting heavily into his ear and reaching orgasm soon after.Louis' knees gave way and he fell back onto the bed, panting, dragging Harry with him.They remained still and silent for a few seconds, Louis didn't even care that Harry's weight was preventing him from breathing. He was so close, he could feel Harry's arm still wrapped around his waist beneath him, and Louis thought he was going to die when Harry left a wet kiss on his cheek.“Are you alright?” Harry whispered, nuzzling his neck.Louis had so many answers to that question that he didn't even know where to start.“Never been better,” he murmured, smiling tiredly.He felt Harry's smile on his skin and whimpered as he moved out of his body to then stand up. Louis didn't have the courage to open his eyes to find out what he was doing, but Harry's words came back to him.Neither of them could go anywhere. Not that Harry had ever been the one to leave after sex, but still.His eyes snapped open and he lifted his head, looking over his shoulder as he felt something rough against his skin. And for the second time in a few minutes, Louis wished he could just die on the spot.Harry had a carefully folded wet towel in his hand and was rubbing it gently between his arsecheeks. He was so focused that his eyebrows were furrowed and his lips pressed together, and he didn't even meet Louis’ gaze as he turned him around to gently clean his stomach and cock.He then rubbed the towel on the bed to remove any residue from the sheets before cleaning himself as well, and when he finally looked up and met Louis' gaze, he tilted his head and frowned.“What's wrong?” Harry asked, looking confused.“You… you’ve never done it before.”Harry looked at him silently for a few seconds and then shook his head before standing up. “You've never stayed before,” he replied almost flatly as he walked into the bathroom with the towel, only to return empty-handed.Louis recognized the irritated, ironic tone in his voice, however, and wondered why. Maybe Harry was just the type who liked to take care of the person he slept with after sex, Louis didn't know.He moved to his side of the bed as Harry lifted the sheets, slid underneath and carefully covered them both while Louis wanted to die for the third time.Harry switched off the light and they lay on their backs in silence, staring at the ceiling. Louis wanted to say so many things at that moment and there were so many thoughts running through his head that he didn't even know where to start.However, the loudest one was also the most frequent and the one that tormented him the most. That I love you that he wanted to scream at Harry at the top of his lungs.“Good night,” Harry whispered at one point, making him wince, convinced that he was already asleep."Good night, Harry," he murmured, squeezing his eyes to stop the other three words from leaving his lips.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He hadn't had such a beautiful and real dream for a long time. Actually, he couldn't remember ever having one that didn't involve vampires, ghosts, werewolves and the various ways they could kill him.
As with everything else, the only remotely beautiful dreams involved Harry, even if they weren't real. Them making love while Louis told him how much he loved him, how much he needed him and how much he wanted to spend the rest of his life with him. At least that was the case until the dream turned into a nightmare where Harry laughed hysterically at his confessions or hurriedly got dressed before closing the door behind him, never to return.
Perhaps now he was having that beautiful dream because he had fallen asleep next to Harry, even though he saw nothing but black and the only thing he felt was a gentle touch on his skin.
He smiled stupidly, and the moment he groaned in approval as he rolled over in the sheets, the touch was gone. He opened his eyes and then blinked to adjust to the sunlight streaming in through the window, then turned to find Harry lying on his stomach with his eyes wide, staring at the ceiling, and his cheeks flushed.
Louis sat up abruptly and frowned. “What happened?”
Harry winced and cleared his throat before sitting up. “Nothing. What would have to happen? Everything is perfectly in order.”
“You look frightened. Why are you lying there with your eyes wide open, as if you've seen a ghost?”
Well, an inappropriate choice of words given the situation, but it still conveyed the idea of the expression that had been printed on Harry's face.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Harry muttered as he avoided his gaze, the blush on his cheeks becoming even more pronounced.
Louis watched him in silence for a few moments and then blushed terribly as he remembered that the night before they'd fallen asleep next to each other for the first time after making love, and that he'd woken up dreaming of Harry caressing him. It had felt so real that Louis just wanted to scream. Or maybe it had been? No, impossible, Harry had never and would never touch him like that.
Louis groaned in frustration and flopped back into the pillows, covering his eyes with one arm, then heard Harry clear his throat again and move next to him.
Just as he felt Harry getting too close, Louis yanked his arm away from his face and opened his mouth in surprise. He stiffened and was on the verge of a nervous breakdown mixed with what was probably the beginning of a heart attack when he saw Harry snuggling up by his side.
“What are you doing?” Louis whispered, then mentally cursed himself when Harry began to move away. Instinctively, he put an arm around Harry's shoulders, preventing him from moving.
They both remained still. Harry stiffened as well, while Louis held his breath and waited for that dream to end too, because there was no way it was really happening.
“Am I… bothering you?” Harry muttered hesitantly.
Louis sometimes wondered if he was really stupid or if he did it on purpose.
"No. Of course not,” Louis replied, tightening his grip on his shoulders and using all his strength not to leave a kiss in his hair.
Fuck, now that he thought about it, they were still naked and hugging. They were naked, hugging, and just waking up after making love.
Louis was
definitely
having a nervous breakdown and the beginning of a heart attack as he rethought all of his life's priorities and reconsidered his entire existence.
He wasn't being dramatic
at all
, he was just completely fucked up and in love. He was lost, gone, destroyed by the man he was holding close to his chest.
Harry slowly relaxed and, he didn't understand how, Louis began to breathe again. At least it was like that for a few seconds until Harry, the bloody bastard, started outlining imaginary drawings on his chest. Louis couldn't face that, he was too weak and sensitive. And what the hell was Harry doing? Why was he touching him like that? That touch was so light and so similar to the one in his dream...
The way Harry was behaving, Louis began to seriously consider that it hadn't been a dream.
Perfect, he could already read the article Harry would write: Twenty-eight-year-old man dead in a damn motel; multiple and unidentifiable causes of death, but the police hypothesize that another man simply caressing him was to blame.
What a death worthy of a hunter. Any vampire, werewolf, stupid ghost and all the other crazy things he hunted would have been proud of him.
They were silent for an indeterminate amount of time that Louis wished was infinite, while Harry continued to trace imaginary lines on his skin with his fingers.
“Do you think we'll ever find out what happened here?” Harry asked at one point, interrupting Louis' daydream.
He sighed and thought about the answer, even though he wasn't sure and still had a bad feeling.
“I don't know,” he answered truthfully. “But I've discovered something.”
He bit his tongue painfully as Harry lifted himself off his chest to sit cross-legged, and after sighing softly, Louis sat up as well. He grabbed his computer, turned it on and opened the email Liam had sent him.
“My source has found a hundred cases of disappearances from 1999 to the present and all the victims were last seen in Lawrence. None of them have ever been found, alive or dead.”
“Is that why you went out last night?”
Louis didn't meet Harry's gaze, which he felt on him, focusing on the computer screen.
“Yes. He called me and I didn't want to risk waking you up.”
Harry didn't answer and Louis was grateful for that. He hadn't really lied, it was the truth, but he would have liked to tell him his suspicions about the witch too.
Opening the file, he found a series of photos of the victims with a few key pieces of information about each of them. He began to flip through them as he read quickly, not recognizing any of the faces in front of him and wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with all that seemingly useless information.
“Wait a minute. Go back,” Harry suddenly shouted, jumping up into bed.
Louis frowned in confusion, but complied.
“Stop.”
“What is it?” Louis asked, confused, looking at the photo of a smiling young woman.
“I saw her on the first day, when I went to buy breakfast while you were asleep.”
Louis raised his eyebrows and met his gaze, noticing how confident Harry seemed.
“Are you sure? Maybe she looked like her or-”
“I'm one hundred percent sure. I passed her in the corridor and she even smiled at me. She was a maid and was cleaning a room on this floor.”
Louis opened his mouth and closed it again because he didn't know exactly what to say. Maybe it was just a coincidence and Harry was wrong. After all, the woman was quite anonymous, with blonde hair and dark eyes, like probably a quarter of the world's population. And yet Harry seemed so confident…
“Okay,” Louis said, still not quite sure, and glanced back at the screen, starting to scroll through the photos again and ignoring the way Harry snorted.
Louis moved his finger quickly, scrolling through each page and almost starting to get bored, because they were already halfway through the file and nothing else had popped up, at least until he'd reached page fifty-two.
He froze with his finger on the trackpad, his eyes and mouth widening in surprise as he stared at the photo in front of him.
“What the fuck,” he and Harry muttered in unison, meeting each other's gazes before staring at the screen again.
In front of them was a photo of a woman, her long brown hair framing her pale face and with large blue eyes, and they both knew exactly who she was. It was the motel receptionist who had greeted them when they arrived.
“Christal Moore, twenty-three years old, student and native of Texas. Disappeared four years ago,” Harry read. “The tag she had pinned to her sweater said ‘Becky’.”
“Hmm, I don't think Becky is short for Christal,” Louis said. “Maybe she hasn't disappeared. Maybe she's just left home and changed her identity.”
“Yeah, like the maid,” Harry muttered.
He wasn't entirely wrong and Louis began to believe that Harry wasn't wrong about her either. It was only then that he remembered how Becky had looked at him, she seemed so intrigued by him, and how cold her hand felt when they accidentally touched.
What the hell did it mean? Maybe she had recognized him and knew he was a hunter, that's why she had looked at him like that. Perhaps she was under the influence of the witch's spell that had warned her about hunters, though Louis didn't understand how she could recognize him. Or maybe she was the witch herself.
“Keep scrolling,” Harry urged with a mixture of excitement and confusion, interrupting his thoughts.
“Okay, this is fucking a joke,” Louis muttered as he found another photo.
This time it was a boy, Ronald Jones, originally from Minnesota, who had disappeared three years earlier, and it was the same waiter who had served them.
At that point, it could no longer be a coincidence, and as he had feared, they continued to scroll through the photos and found all the people they had seen up to that point.
The woman and man sitting at the table were a couple who had disappeared eight years earlier and were originally from California, as well as some people they had met in the corridors.
But the most disturbing and downright unnatural thing they found was a photo of the same man sitting alone at a table in the motel dining room reading a book, Samuel Campbell from Kansas.
“That's not possible,” Louis whispered as he read the few lines that spoke of the man.
“He disappeared
twenty-four
years ago at the age of forty-seven, but the photo is identical to what he looks like now. How the fuck is that possible?” Harry muttered with an even more confused expression on his face.
“I don't know, but he hasn't aged a day.”
Numerous theories formed in Louis' head, each more absurd than the other, but he didn't know what else to think. The most realistic and frightening, however, were only two.
The first was that everyone was somehow possessed by ghosts, because that would explain Becky's cold hand and the power surge in the corridor the night before, and maybe that was why the EMF ghost detector didn't work.
He'd never heard of a person being possessed by a ghost before, though, and he had no idea how to go about it. Usually salt and iron were enough to drive a ghost away, and then it was necessary to burn the bodies that once belonged to the entities, but he didn't know who they were or how many there were.
After all, the whole town seemed compromised, including the families of the latest victims as they too had been acting strangely after their disappearance, so perhaps they were all possessed? And even if he had managed to rid the victims of the ghosts, if the entities were from other states, how on earth would he have found their bodies to burn?
Shit, he didn't know if he could do it alone. Maybe he should call Zayn.
The second theory remained the one about the witch, and that was that the creature had cast a spell on everyone. As much as he disliked facing one, Louis hoped the second theory was the correct one.
“Louis.”
He was startled out of his thoughts by Harry's voice and turned to meet his gaze. He had furrowed his brow and was looking at him with a worried expression.
“Huh?”
“I called you three times, but apparently you were in your own world,” Harry said, forcing a smile. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I… I was thinking about this,” he muttered, averting his eyes.
“What are we gonna do? I mean, I'm a little confused. Why hasn't the man aged a day? Do you… do you think it could be something, uh, something not… normal?”
Louis suddenly jerked his head up and stared at him in silence for a few moments, frowning. “What do you mean by ‘not normal’?”
Harry blushed visibly and looked away, playing nervously with the sheet. “Uh, well, I was thinking that… that…” he stammered awkwardly and then took a deep breath. “That it could be something… supernatural? I don't know if you believe that, but, uh, well... I have no other explanation, that is.”
Louis dropped his mouth in surprise and his eyes widened so much that he was sure he would see them rolling on the bed at any moment, staring at Harry as he replayed in his head what he had just said.
The blush on Harry's face spread as he convulsively gripped the sheet in his hands until his knuckles turned white.
“Well, given your face, I'd say it's a good thing you didn't read my blog,” he muttered and then burst into a laugh so unnatural and forced that Louis woke up from his state of shock.
“No, I-”
“You know what? Forget what I said,” Harry mumbled quickly, forcing himself to smile before hastily getting out of bed and rummaging through his bag. “I'm gonna take a shower,” he added, locking himself in the bathroom.
What the hell had just happened? Had Louis just heard the word
supernatural
come out of Harry's mouth?
He pinched his arm to make sure it wasn't a dream, still staring at the spot where Harry had been sitting moments before. He shook his head to regain his senses, thinking about the other things he had said.
The blog… Okay, now Louis really needed to read that damn blog and understand why Harry was glad he hadn't read it yet.
Opening a new page on the computer, he typed in the name of the blog and realized that he had never visited the site before that moment, only read the article his father had sent him.
The main page showed the words
The Slyest Writer
in red asymmetrical letters at the top, giving it a slightly creepy look, and at the bottom appeared the preview of the most recently published article, the one about the motel.
He clicked on the drop-down menu at the top and then on the biography, finding only a few lines of writing and no photo of Harry.
Journalist by trade, researcher in my spare time, and writer once I've survived my adventures. Maybe even an investigator of creepy facts, but only find out if you have the courage and if you have no problems sleeping at night. I have warned you…
Louis suppressed a laugh as he thought about how adorable Harry was and how he didn't even know how many things would keep him from sleeping at night if he only knew.
Shaking his head, he went back to the menu to pull up the archives and then clicked on the first article at the top of the list.
It was from about three weeks ago, when Louis had disappeared because he was hunting the werewolf in Texas, which turned out to be two werewolves.
He frowned when he read the title, ‘A spooky night at the Compton Mansion’, and as he scrolled on, he found a few lines that told the story of the house. According to what Harry had written, the house had been built in the early 1900s and had been renovated a few times by different owners, but after a tragedy that had occurred at the house in 1987, it hadn't been bought by anyone else.
His eyes widened when he spotted a video a little further down and, after plugging the headphones into the computer, he started it up.
Harry was in the foreground, smiling at the camera and showing off his dimples.
Adorable.
It was night and his face was illuminated by what looked like the light of a flashlight. He was in a garden and a house could be seen behind him.
Louis approached the screen, squinting, and noticed that some of the windows were boarded up, the wooden porch was shabby and worn and the facade was peeling in places, revealing the bricks underneath.
“Have you missed me? Guys, it's been a long time since I posted a video along with an article, but in the comments one of you pointed me to this story, and so here I am.”
Louis frowned again, not understanding what he was doing, and shifted nervously in bed as Harry walked towards the house.
“I've read all about the Compton Mansion and I can tell you there's definitely something here. In 1987, a woman killed her children by drowning them in the bathtub, then took her own life after taking an excessive amount of sleeping pills. It's very difficult to drown yourself, you know? In fact, my theory is that she overdosed
before
drowning in the bathtub. Anyway, it seems that she did it to take revenge on her husband for cheating on her, even though some sources I have read say that the woman suffered from mental disorders.”
God, Louis was so mesmerized by the way he spoke, explaining even such a macabre thing as the one he was telling.
“The husband left the house after the homicide-suicide and no one has lived here since, partly because numerous people, including neighbors and onlookers, have had quite… traumatic experiences, that is. The curious thing is that they were only experienced by men who claim to have heard or even seen a woman dressed in white walking around the house, crying and screaming. For this reason, she was given the name ‘Woman in White’, although in reality the legend of the White Woman has much older origins, but it was always born from a woman who had killed her own children. Anyway, since there are few things that scare me and I love challenges, let's go and see what happens in the house. I’ll speak quietly because if she is indeed inside, I don't wanna disturb her, but…”
Harry paused, raising his eyebrows rhythmically with a winking expression and a smirk on his lips as he slid the backpack he was carrying on his shoulders onto the dry grass and then opened it.
What the fuck?
“Do you think I would’ve ever come here without this? Obviously not. I think it's the best investment I've ever made, and I don't think I would’ve ever really started believing in these things without it. Anyway, shall we go?”
Louis’ eyes and mouth had opened so wide he feared facial paralysis, and he had to pause the video to rationalize what he had just seen. What the hell was Harry doing with an EMF ghost detector?
Reading the title of the article again, he thought about everything Harry had said, and it was then that Louis realized what he was doing. He was… hunting ghosts?
“Holy shit,” he muttered, running a hand over his face.
It also explained why Harry had asked him
where the fuck did he get that
the the night before, when Louis returned to the room with the EMF in his hand. Not
‘What's that?’
as someone who didn't know what it was would have asked, because Harry already knew.
He shook his head, now more determined than ever to understand what Harry knew about that world, and he was at ease seeing Harry in that situation only because he was there with him, safe and sound.
What sane person would go into a house that might be haunted in the middle of the night? No one would. Except Louis, of course.
He sighed and started the video again. He felt his anxiety grow as Harry approached the entrance and opened the door, as he began to walk as quietly as possible through the first floor of the house and as he climbed the stairs. He reached his climax as Harry pressed the button to turn on the EMF, which began to emit an intermittent sound as the red lights above the device lit up.
Louis had always been fascinated by the device and the way it could not only detect the presence of ghosts, thanks to the power surges they generated and the electromagnetic waves they emitted, but also by the fact that it was able to recognize the intensity of the presence and communicate it via a small screen on which an oscillating pointer was positioned, and via the number of red lights that lit up depending on the amount of waves detected.
And Harry's not only was ringing continuously and the lights were all on, but the pointer was also on the maximum level.
So at that point there were three possibilities: Harry was a fraud, someone had sold him a fake EMF, or the house really was haunted.
Louis didn't know which of the three possibilities he should hope for if he had to be honest.
“We're going upstairs to the bathroom where the incident happened,” Harry whispered, but then suddenly stopped on the last step. “Did you hear that?”
Louis turned the volume all the way up, went back a few seconds and pressed the headphones to his ears to hear better. His eyes widened as he heard footsteps in the corridor next to Harry, as if someone was running.
He thought again that he was at peace only because Harry was there, because the house was probably really haunted.
He continued to watch the video and noticed a movement on the left that Harry hadn't seen. He looked at the scene again and increased the brightness of the screen, seeing a translucent and practically invisible shadow - not to his trained eye - a few steps away from Harry.
Louis wondered if Harry had spotted it as he watched the video again.
The curious thing was that the figure seemed too small to be that of a woman, and Louis thought that perhaps it wasn't her but the two children who were haunting the house.
His theory was confirmed when Harry entered the bathroom, and Louis spotted another figure next to the bathtub that seemed smaller than the previous one. This time it was obvious that Harry had seen it too, and he clearly held his breath and cleared his throat quietly.
“Uh, hello? I don't want to disturb you or hurt you, but if I'm bothering you, I'll leave, okay?” he said in a low voice. “What's your name?” he then asked, remaining silent as if waiting for an answer.
It was common for ghosts to materialize and speak like a real person, but if they were the two children, who were probably also angry about how they had died, Louis wasn't convinced they were particularly friendly.
He didn't hate ghosts, many of them were harmless and didn't bother anyone, which was why he only hunted and eliminated the dangerous and violent ones.
Anyway, the figure didn't materialize, it remained almost transparent and motionless next to the bathtub, at least at first.
Louis held his breath as he saw it slowly approach Harry, who didn't take a step back and remained still, breathing heavily.
“My name is Harry. Are you… are you Alicia? Or are you Joseph?”
Well, Louis had never had any doubts about Harry's intelligence. Not that he had ever wished him a life like that, but he had a feeling he would make an excellent hunter.
The figure didn't answer and stopped in front of him before raising an arm and presumably touching him, given the way Harry flinched.
“Do you… do you want me to leave?” he whispered.
The figure again made no move to take shape or speak, but the moment Louis heard a thud, Harry suddenly turned and found himself facing a child of no more than ten years old, dripping with water and his face clearly contorted with rage.
“
Get out
,” he hissed, his voice soft but tinged with anger and hatred.
Harry began to breathe more heavily, pressing himself against the bathroom wall and crawling along it, as far away as possible from the child, who didn't let him out of his sight.
“I won't... I won't hurt you,” Harry whispered as he retreated into the doorway.
Louis bit his nails nervously as he watched the scene before his eyes helplessly, holding his breath as Harry stumbled and fell backwards. He got back to his feet with a speed that certainly couldn't be described as human and ran down the stairs, opened the door and ran on without stopping.
When he reached his car, he bent down to catch his breath and turned the camera to focus on his face. He was sweaty and pale, with wide eyes and dilated pupils, but he didn't really seem scared.
“Shit. That was so fucking close.” He gasped still out of breath.
“Well, now we know that the house is indeed haunted and that there are two children there. After all, ghosts stick to objects or places that were important to them when they were alive. I don't think the mother is there, but it's not strange that the kids are. Maybe they sent her away because they’re too angry with her for what she had done? I guess we'll never know because I'm not going back in there,” he said and then chuckled. “It was interesting though, wasn't it? I hope I've kept you company and I'll see you in the next video.”
Louis stared at the screen, unable to rationalize what he had just seen. Harry knew about the existence of the supernatural and had created a blog about it with articles and videos.
For two bloody years Louis had lied to him constantly, partly because he thought that if he'd told him about the creatures he hunted, Harry would have thought he was crazy. The same Harry who had just walked into a fucking haunted house with an EMF, seen two ghosts, and didn't seem particularly bothered by what had happened.
Perfect, Louis’ life couldn't have been more ridiculous.
He continued with the second article, then the third, the fourth and so on. Not all of them were accompanied by a video, but all of them were about paranormal events, from witches to haunted places, from werewolves or shape-shifters to cursed objects or places. There were videos of Harry in a desecrated church, in a cemetery in the middle of the night, in a disused fucking asylum.
Luckily, the videos were all about ghost hauntings, because Louis wasn't sure if Harry knew how to kill a werewolf or a shapeshifter or whatever.
He lost count of how many articles and videos he watched, only taking his eyes off the screen when he felt the shower stop running.
Louis
had
to get out of that room. He needed to take a walk around the damn motel, get away from Harry's presence and think about what he'd just discovered.
The idea of leaving Harry alone in the room didn't make him feel comfortable but he had to get out, if only for five bloody minutes, or he would literally go mad.
He got up and dressed hurriedly, ignoring Harry as he came out of the bathroom. He grabbed his phone and room key, stuffing them in his jeans pocket.
“What are you doing?” Harry asked from behind him.
Louis froze and took a deep breath before turning. “I need some fresh air.”
Harry frowned. “Uh, okay? If you give me time to get dressed, I'll come-”
“No. I need… I wanna go alone, okay?” he retorted in a perhaps too grumpy tone.
“What? Don't even bloody think about it!” Harry exclaimed, raising his voice and coming at him with a menacing expression. “You said we should
never
go out alone. You made me feel like shit for doing it, even though you did it too, and now you want to-”
“Harry,” he interrupted. “I said I need to be alone.”
Harry's expression changed, anger turning to shock and uncertainty as he took a step back as if Louis had just slapped him.
“Do you… don't you wanna stay here... with me? Is it because of what I said about… that there might be something supernatural here?” he murmured, averting his gaze for a moment before turning it back to Louis, now pleading. “I told you to forget what I said. It's just stupid, okay? I don't want that-”
Louis sighed, running a hand over his face and through his hair. “It has nothing to do with it, okay? I just need ten fucking minutes to myself. Can I go or are you gonna fucking tie me up?” he said, raising his voice, realizing too late that he'd been too harsh.
Harry looked at him with an expression that seemed almost sad, resigned or disappointed, before straightening his shoulders and turning away.
“Do what you want. And fuck off too, since you're going out.”
“Harry-”
Harry whirled around and his expression had changed again, his face now contorted with anger. “I told you to
fuck off,
do you understand?”
Louis sighed and hunched his shoulders. After all, as always, he had asked for it.
He kept his gaze fixed on Harry’s for a few seconds before giving up to the fact that he had, once again, found a way to ruin a quiet moment between them.
“Call if you need anything,” he murmured before turning and leaving the room, closing the door behind him. Just like every other time.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He pressed the elevator button repeatedly, angry at himself for acting how he had. And at the fact that Harry was probably now feeling insecure and judged because of his reaction to Harry's comment about the supernatural, when in reality he was right.Louis couldn't believe that he had spent two years telling lies in vain and inventing a life that wasn't his own in order to appear normal in Harry's eyes. But even Harry had never told him that he had a blog.Although they had never talked much, Louis knew the essentials, including those concerning his job. Perhaps Harry had never told him about it for the same reason Louis had never told him what he did in his life.However, that didn't change anything. Louis would never tell Harry the truth because it would put him in danger and make him an easy target, and also because he didn't have the courage.The fact that Harry believed in the paranormal didn't mean he would be willing to be with someone like him, a poor loser with no job who used fake credit cards and identities to make a living and avoid getting arrested.In any case, not only had they argued and Louis was still shocked by what he'd seen, but he still hadn't figured out what the motel was hiding. They had found those victims, but Louis still hadn't found the answer to what the real problem was, and he didn't have the slightest idea how to find out.When he stepped out of the elevator, Louis found himself in front of the reception desk and noticed that behind the counter was sitting Becky... Or Christal Moore.As he walked past her, the woman smiled kindly at him, but Louis felt a shiver run down his spine again, and he didn't know if it was for some external reason or just the fact that the situation was absolutely unsettling.How was it possible that many of the missing victims were walking around peacefully or working at the motel as if nothing had happened?They were definitely under the influence of a spell.Yes, he had finally come to the conclusion that they weren't ghosts because the main consequences of their presence were missing, namely the cold and the lack of EMF detection, although he still thought it might be because they weren't really ghosts but people possessed by them.It had never happened to him before, so he didn't know if the cold and altered electromagnetic frequencies manifested or not in the case of possession.He walked out of the motel and took the phone out of his jeans pocket, pressing the button to make the call.“Hello?” Zayn answered after a few rings.“Zay, I need help,” he admitted, because he wasn't so stupid that he couldn't recognize when he couldn't handle a situation on his own.“What happened? Are you alright? Where are you?” he asked in a worried tone.“Yeah, I'm fine.”Louis sighed before he began to recount everything that had happened, everything he had discovered, and although he left out the most intimate details, he also explained what had happened with Harry since they had arrived at the motel. When he finished, Zayn was silent for a few seconds before sighing heavily.“Let me get this straight… You're sharing a room with a pseudo-hunter, slash curious about the supernatural, slash fuck buddy, slash love of your life, from whom you've kept practically your entire existence hidden - uselessly, I might add at this point - while surrounded by missing victims probably possessed by ghosts or under the spell of a witch, in a fucking motel in the middle of nowhere and in the town where your mother died?”Louis looked down at the concrete, suddenly interested in the pebble he was kicking as a distraction.“Uh, well… It's a bit depressing that way, but you get the idea, yeah,” he murmured, feeling his cheeks heat up.“Okay, I'll leave Harry out because you're so stupid I can't even find a way to explain it to you, so let's just talk about the damn motel.”Louis jerked his head up and frowned. “What do you mean? Why am I stupid?” he muttered, offended.“I'll explain it to you when you grow up.” Zayn sighed. “Anyway… I've never dealt with people possessed by ghosts before, but I know some hunters have come across them. As far as I know, the hunters didn't feel the cold caused by them and the EMF didn't detect them, so it might actually be a similar situation.”“How can I be sure of that? And most importantly, if that's the case, how do I rid the bodies of the possession?”“Well, the only way is the one we use to chase away a ghost, which is salt and iron. The problem is that they’re inside the bodie so, unfortunately, to free them you have to stab them with an iron object covered with salt.”“Fuck, Zayn. You want me to stab all these people? What if I'm wrong?”“You need to be sure first, genius,” Zayn retorted sarcastically. “I would advise you to start with salt. Pour some on someone and see what happens. It won’t rid the body of the possession, but it should react as if it's been burned.”“Okay. And what do you think of the witch theory?”Zayn was silent for a few moments while Louis paced back and forth in the almost deserted parking lot.“I think the ghost theory is more valid. Witches are extremely solitary and I've never heard of one that has enchanted so many people over such a long period of time. And the fact that no one seems to have aged since the disappearance leads me to believe that they’re indeed ghosts.”“You're not exactly cheering me up. Even if I found a way to free them, I'd have to find every single corpse of those damn ghosts and burn them.”“Well, I don't think that's difficult. Ghosts never stray too far from where they died. They could all be buried near the motel. If you manage to catch one of the vessels, you could torture them to talk.”Louis thought about what he had said and came to the conclusion it was the simplest and most effective plan.“In any case, if you need me, I can definitely get to you in no time.”“Okay, thanks Zay. I'll keep you updated.”“Lou, be careful,” he said apprehensively before hanging up.Louis stayed in the parking lot a little longer, thinking of a plan to test his theory.They would have to be very careful because the likelihood that one of them, if not both, would be possessed if they were discovered was too high. He cursed through gritted teeth at the thought and wondered why he had been so stupid, as he always was, to leave Harry alone.He hurried to the motel, opened the door and headed for the elevator as fear overcame him.“Mr. Winchester.”Louis stopped a few feet from the elevator when he heard Becky's voice calling for him, and after cursing once more and taking a deep breath, he turned around.“Yes?” he asked, walking towards the reception desk.As she had done when they booked the room, the woman tilted her head to one side and gave him a curious look before smiling kindly.“Since you have booked the room for a few more nights, I assume you’ll be here tonight.”Louis frowned and nodded.“Well. Would you like to attend a party? It's nothing special, just the staff and a few guests, but we care a lot because it's the motel's 20th anniversary.”Louis stared at her for a moment, hesitating because either he was so incredibly lucky that he could have everyone in one room, or it was the most obvious trap to set. Either way, it would be the ideal situation if he could find a way to test his theory about ghosts.“Okay, we'll be there.”Becky smiled enthusiastically. “Perfect, then. I'll see you tonight at seven. Obviously, it's on the house.”Louis nodded and forced himself to smile before turning and walking back to the elevator, anxiety gnawing at his stomach once more. He hurried down the hallway, pulled the room key out of his pocket, opened the door and stepped in quickly, but paused when he saw Harry.“What the fuck are you doing?” Louis blurted out, reaching the bed and snatching the object Harry had in his hands.Harry jerked his head up, widening his eyes and giving him a guilty and embarrassed look. “I-”“Why the hell did you go through my things?” Louis shouted, beside himself with rage, not only at the fact that Harry had invaded his privacy, but also because Harry probably thought he was completely insane now.“I'm sorry, okay? I- I opened your bag just because that thing wouldn't stop ringing and I found the journal and-”“What the fuck are you talking about?”Harry averted his eyes and blushed, then turned back to him. “The EMF. You thought I didn't know what that was? Oh yeah, you didn't read my blog, although I'm beginning to think we have a lot more in common than I thought.”Louis frowned, opened his mouth and closed it again, not knowing what to say. He decided to ignore the second part of Harry's words and rummaged in his duffle bag until he found the EMF.Last night he had probably forgotten to turn it off and he wondered why it had started ringing now. He felt his blood run cold as he thought about the fact that if it had done that, it meant that a ghost had manifested itself while he had left Harry alone in the room. Why did he always have to be so stupid and selfish ?“How long was he ringing?” he asked, turning back to Harry.“Uh, a few minutes and then it stopped,” he replied, frowning. “Louis-”“Do you feel strange? Different? What happened?”“What the hell are you talking-”“Answer me, damn it!” Louis shouted, beside himself, only realizing he'd gone too far when Harry gasped. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout,” he added, running a hand over his face to calm himself down.“No, I'm not… I'm fine,” Harry mumbled. “Louis, why do you have a bloody EMF and what the hell is all this writing about? I mean, I know what it is, but I don't understand.”Louis sighed, searching his mind for an explanation that would make any sense, but before he could find one, Harry interrupted him.“Is that why you keep disappearing? Are you a writer or something, too? Why didn't you tell me before?” he asked, getting up from the bed and walking hesitantly towards him. “You lied for two years and… for what reason?”Louis suppressed a laugh, though the situation was anything but funny, as Harry had given voice to his thoughts and how stupid he already felt without Harry twisting the knife in the wound by reminding him of how he had tried in vain to hide what he did for a living.“I'm not a fucking writer, Harry, and I didn't lie to you.”Harry looked at him for a moment, licking his lips as if considering what to say, and when he spoke, Louis thought he really was hopelessly screwed at this point.“Who's talking now? Louis Tomlinson, Dean Winchester or the guy who works at the construction company?”Harry had already told him that he knew the one about his job was a lie, but Louis had found a way to deflect the conversation then. At that moment, however, he felt like there was no way out and frankly, he was tired .He didn't have the strength to tell everything though, and they had a job to do, not as important as Harry, but still necessary to try and put an end to the madness that had been going on for over twenty years now.“Look, I don't have time for this bullshit right now, okay? We have more important things to talk about, so I'm gonna take a shower and then we'll go to lunch,” he said, stuffing the journal into his duffle bag as he tried to ignore Harry's hurt look.“You know, Louis,” he said, blocking him in the bathroom doorway in a tone that foreshadowed something Louis knew would break his heart, “I always thought you were different, and obviously you are, but apparently you're a bigger asshole than I thought and I never wanted to admit it. And maybe... maybe I should've listened to my head when it kept telling me to drop you once and for all.”Louis didn't turn around, he closed his eyes and bit his lip as the meaning of Harry's words hit him, the realization of his deepest fear: that Harry would find out the truth, even if only partially, and decide he wanted nothing more to do with him.He wanted to turn around, he wanted to sit next to Harry on the bed and tell him everything because now he had nothing to lose, but for once, perhaps for the first time since they had met, he decided not to be selfish and think only of Harry's well-being. The only way he could do that was to free Harry from his own lies and a life half-lived because of him, because Louis had never found the courage to be honest about himself and his feelings, and Harry deserved more.Louis closed the bathroom door behind him, aware that he had just made a decision that he had put off for far too long out of pure selfishness, and knowing that he would never forgive himself for the way he had acted towards Harry, and for making suffer the only person he had ever really cared about in his life.He let the hot water flow, covering the stifled sobs and taking with it the pain he felt in his chest and the tears he had never been able to shed.When he came out of the bathroom, he found Harry still sitting on the bed, staring into space with red eyes. It was clear that he cried and Louis could do nothing but hate himself even more than he already did, wondering if those tears were, at least for Harry, the sign of his release from a toxic non-relationship and the beginning of a happy life without him, which Harry evidently wanted.The silence between them was almost suffocating and full of tension as they left the room without saying a word, as they spent endless seconds locked in the elevator and as they sat at the same table in the corner of the room.Louis had to force himself to put his feelings and suffering aside long enough to focus on the case and think about how he could test the ghost theory.He frowned thoughtfully and an idea occurred to him as the waiter poured water into their glasses before leaving with their orders. Looking around to make sure no one was watching them, he reached for the salt bottle, unscrewing the cap as he took his glass and hid it under the table.“What the hell are you doing?” Harry whispered, making him flinch, surprised by the only words he'd spoken to him since they'd left the room.“Shut up,” Louis muttered, looking around again as he tipped the salt into the glass.He capped the salt bottle and put it back, then quickly stirred the solution in the glass with his finger and pretended to take a sip before placing it back on the table, near the edge of it and next to the salt bottle.Louis knew it was risky because that way the waiter could understand his intentions if the plan actually worked, but he had no other way to test his theory.The waiter returned to them after a short while and Louis took a deep breath, waiting for him to place the plates on the table before reaching for the salt and accidentally hitting the glass with the back of his hand. It poured onto the table, wetting the tablecloth and the waiter's pants, who hissed through clenched teeth and backed away as if he'd been burned.Louis had to restrain himself and use all his strength not to reach for the knife and stab him at that moment. He decided it wasn't the right time yet, mainly because Harry was there and it would be too dangerous.“Oh my god!” he exclaimed instead, putting on the most guilty and innocent expression he could muster as he grabbed the napkin and pressed it to the waiter's pants, pretending to want to undo the damage. “I'm so sorry. I'm so clumsy sometimes.”“Doesn't matter,” the man muttered, glaring at him before hurrying off towards the kitchen.That was clearly a grimace of pain on his face and Louis had just confirmed his theory.They were possessed by ghosts and now he knew how to put an end to it. Or rather, he knew what to do thanks to Zayn, but he didn't know how to go about it because there were too many of them compared to him and Harry.Louis followed him with his gaze until the man disappeared behind the swinging door of the kitchen and then turned his head, meeting Harry's gaze, who was staring at him with his mouth open and his eyes wide. Louis kicked him from under the table and Harry seemed to get the message, clearing his throat and putting on a serious expression as he looked around before leaning over the table.“Is that… is that a ghost?” Harry whispered.Louis ignored his question and nodded at his plate, then burst into fake laughter and leaned towards him as he forced an amused expression.“We will eat now, we'll talk quietly as two friends would and when we're done, we'll get up and go back to our room. Behave normally, no hasty movements and stop looking around all the time. If you do what I tell you, everything will be fine. Do you understand?”Harry opened and closed his mouth repeatedly and then nodded, probably unable to form a coherent sentence. Louis didn't even blame him for the startled look on his face.It was Louis who started the conversation, as it was clear that Harry was incapable of it, and after several attempts of Louis practically talking to himself about sports, Harry seemed to relax. The conversation then turned to the trips they had both taken throughout their lives and Louis decided not to lie for once, hoping that Harry was sincere about the things he was saying. Not that it would have made any difference at that point, when he had already made the decision to end their relationship.When they had finished eating, Louis stood up calmly as he laughed, telling an anecdote about a truck driver he had met on one of his trips. He quickly looked around and noticed that the same couple from the day before that they had found among the missing victims were staring at them, while the waiter frowned and averted his gaze when he saw Louis looking at him.They left the room and headed for the elevator as they continued to talk. As the doors closed though, he saw Harry drop his cheerful mask, so Louis moved closer to him and put his arms around his shoulders, trying to make it look natural as he leaned towards him.“There's a camera in the elevator, so don't be an idiot and keep pretending until we get to the room,” he whispered in his ear, taking advantage of the moment to nuzzle Harry's neck and breathe in his scent.Harry hesitated for a moment before wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling him close. “How do you know there are no cameras in the room too?”“Do you think I'm so stupid that I haven't already checked?” Louis retorted in an amused tone, wincing as Harry gripped his hips tightly.“I never thought you were,” Harry murmured, squeezing him again before pulling back just enough to look him in his eye.Louis held his breath while a part of him begged Harry in his mind to kiss him, to hold him tight and never let go, to hug him and keep him with him forever.When the bell rang and the doors opened, however, Harry only looked at him for a moment before backing away and clearing his throat, holding out his hand and waiting for Louis to take it. They walked down the corridor in silence, holding hands, while the rational part of Louis told him that it was a set-up, that Harry was only pretending because Louis himself had asked him to.In fact, the first thing Harry did after they closed the bedroom door behind them was yank his arm to free his hand and then collapse on the bed. He stared at the ceiling for a few seconds while Louis looked at him, leaning against the wall, then he sat up and rubbed a hand over his face repeatedly, taking deep breaths.“I just wanna know if I'm gonna… die in this fucking motel because- because if I am, I have to tell you something and… and I don't wanna die without-”“No one is gonna die, do you understand? If you don't wanna stay, I'll find a way to get you out of here,” Louis interrupted.Harry's eyes widened and he quickly stood up, starting to pace nervously around the room. “What the fuck are you talking about? Are we prisoners? Do you think they won't let us go?”Louis shrugged. “I doubt it, especially if they realized we've exposed them, but I have to find a way to fix this, so I have to stay. You can leave now, but don't take your bag with you so it doesn't look like you're leaving and-”Harry stopped and turned to face him. “Leaving? Alone, you mean?”“Well... yes. I told you, I-”“You're totally out of your fucking mind if you think I'm gonna leave you alone in this… haunted place? That's what it's about, isn't it?” Harry asked with a serious expression and then raised a finger before Louis could answer. “Don't fucking lie to me. Don't you understand that it makes no sense? I'll never leave, which means I can help you, but I can't do it if you're not honest with me.”Louis stared at him for a few seconds as he wondered why Harry was so determined to stay with him. Maybe he was just afraid that something might happen to him and that he would have him on his conscience if he went away, leaving him alone.He shook his head, telling himself that now wasn't the time to be distracted, and sighed in resignation. He would just tell Harry the basics, he didn't have the time or the desire to tell him now the story of his life.“I think they're all possessed by ghosts. That would explain Becky's cold hand - she touched me when she gave me the room key on the first day - and the fact that the other night when I went out, the lights started flickering.”“Electromagnetic phenomena.” Harry frowned and tilted his head thoughtfully. “Is that why you stayed out so long? Did something happen?”“No. Like I told you, I just went out to answer the call from my source, but then there was the power surge. I went to the car to… to take the EMF, but it didn't work. Entrance, elevator, hallway. Nothing. So I thought it wasn't a ghost, but then you heard the EMF ring.”“Why does it only ring sometimes?”Louis shrugged. “Maybe because the ghosts are inside the bodies and that's why they can't be detected? I don't know, but my source says that to free the victims, we need to stab the body with an iron knife covered with-”“Salt,” Harry muttered, finishing the sentence.Louis widened his eyes in surprise, opening his mouth and then closing it again, although Harry had already asked him if they were ghosts after what he'd done with the waiter, so it was clear that he had at least the basic knowledge.Harry shrugged. “What? I like this kind of stuff, okay? I mean, I'd rather not be here if I'm honest, but I've read a lot about the subject and done a lot of research. Some legends explain that this is the way to rid a body of a possession, but of course you never know what's true and what's not about the things you read on the internet. So are you sure this is the right method?”Louis wanted to laugh at that point, because what he knew was certainly not the result of stupid internet research, but of course Harry couldn't know that.“Very sure. And no, I didn't read it on the internet.”Harry frowned. “So you've been in a similar situation before? How can you be so sure?”Louis moistened his lips, thinking about what to say, then sat down on the bed. “Not me directly, but… but my source knows someone who's had something like this happen to them.”Harry fell silent, and then threw his arms up in the air as if he were exasperated. “May I know what the fuck you're hiding? I... I don't understand, Louis. You don't trust me, is that why?”Louis sighed, rubbing his temples to calm himself down. “Harry-”“Louis,” he interrupted abruptly. “I'm giving you a chance to… to come back but if you don't want to, just say so, okay? I'm tired of running after you every fucking time and…” He sighed dryly. “If you wanna screw things up, just tell me and I'll stop being the idiot running after you.”Louis stared at him, thinking about how much courage Harry had to expose himself like that, to admit again that he'd always been the one to keep their relationship going and keep running after him, even though Louis had done nothing but act like a perfect idiot.What he didn't understand was why Harry was blaming him. After all, Louis had never forced him to stay, and more importantly, why Harry kept going after him. For once he needed to know, then at least he would understand why Harry was being so stubborn, something Louis had never been able to understand. Just like he didn't understand what he was supposed to screw up since they weren't even together.“Why?”“Why, what?” Harry asked, frowning.“Why do you insist on running after me when I've always been an asshole if… if I make you feel bad?”Harry stood still, looking at him with an impassive expression. At some point, it was Louis who had to avert his gaze because he couldn't withstand the other's intense green eyes.After what felt like an eternity, Harry took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin in a proud gesture.“You probably put all your intelligence into your… job or whatever it is you do, because otherwise I really don't understand what your damn problem is,” Harry blurted out, crossing his arms in front of his chest and then, without saying anything else, locked himself in the bathroom.Louis groaned, flopping back into bed and burying his hands in his hair. He wondered why Harry always had to be so enigmatic and couldn't even answer a stupid question easily. Once again, Louis didn't understand what he meant and resigned himself to the fact that he probably never would.When Harry came out of the bathroom, he seemed distant. He didn't seem angry but almost exhausted, and Louis wondered for the umpteenth time what he had said or done wrong this time that made Harry ignore him again.“Becky, the receptionist, has invited us to a party tonight,” Louis said, trying to lighten the tense atmosphere that had been created.“And you think it's a good idea to go?” Harry said absent-mindedly as he stuffed the clothes into his bag.“Well, we have to find a way to rid everyone of these fucking ghosts so I guess we have no choice. According to Becky, the staff will also be present, so this is the perfect opportunity to gather them all in one room.”“Hmm,” Harry hummed, giving him a thoughtful look. “And your… source also told you what to do after we stab dozens of people? Or we just do it and the ghosts will disappear forever?”Louis sighed, ignoring Harry's ironic tone. “Uh, actually, no. That would just free the bodies, but to get rid of the ghosts, we'd have to burn what once were their corpse.”Harry frowned and then raised an eyebrow. “How the fuck are we gonna find their corpse? We don't even know who they are!” he shouted, throwing his arms in the air. “Wait… Ghosts stay bound to the place where they died, right? So you think the bodies are buried around here?”God, Louis would have loved to kiss him at that moment because the way Harry spoke was so sensual and captivating, so natural, as if he too had been doing that job all his life.“Exactly. I just hope they're not buried under the motel or the parking lot.”“Damn it, I didn't think of that,” Harry muttered, sitting down next to him on the bed. “Okay, I think your little game with the water and the salt might have made them suspicious, so maybe we should free the bodies first and then go looking for corpses.”Louis nodded. “I agree, also because we have to assume that they’ve found out about us and won’t let us go.”“How nice,” Harry muttered ironically and then widened his eyes in shock. “What if… what if they possessed one of us?”“I've already thought of that,” Louis said, standing up and opening his duffle bag. He took out all his clothes, and the box of cartridges and a knife from the bottom.“I'd like to ask you why the hell you have a rifle but I'm not sure I wanna know,” Harry muttered behind him.Louis ignored him and opened a cartridge, spilling the contents on Harry's hand and doing the same with another cartridge.“Salt and iron pellets. Put them in your pocket, if you have them on you, they can not possess you,” he explained as he stuffed the contents into the front pocket of his jeans.Harry frowned at the mixture in his palm, then shook his head and put it in his pocket as well.“Okay, now we need to figure out where to get an iron dagger to take these bastards out.”“Hmm,” Harry murmured thoughtfully. “Does it have to be a dagger? And does the iron have to be pure?”“No, any object will do, and it doesn't have to be pure as long as it contains iron.”"Cutlery? I mean, not that those knives are particularly sharp, but you know... I don't walk around with iron daggers. Unless you have one, of course.”“I only have one, but it's in the car,” Louis replied. “Are you sure the cutlery is made of iron?”“Uh, well, I doubt there's any silverware in this shithole, so I'm assuming it's steel, and steel is an alloy of iron and carbon.”Louis stared at him for a few moments as he thought about what good he had done in his life to be lucky enough to meet Harry. Not only did he believe in the supernatural, but he was sly and intelligent, essential qualities of a hunter. Not that Louis thought himself particularly intelligent and not that he would ever wish such a life for Harry, but it was so sexy and intriguing to see him immersed in that world that he couldn't help but think about it.Louis licked his lips as he continued to stare at him and Harry probably understood the effect it was having on him, given the way he blushed and looked away.“So… so what do we do?” Harry mumbled awkwardly, shifting his weight on his feet as if he was uncomfortable.Louis shook his head, trying to gain some clarity. He stood up and paced the room as he organized the plan in his head.“Let's go into the dining room. If there's a chance to sit down, take the table we normally sit at but sit next to me this time, not in front of me. Act normal and don't show that you're scared, okay? That would only make the situation worse.”Harry suppressed a laugh, then lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders. “Scared? If you'd watched the videos on my blog, you'd know I'm not easily impressed.”Louis looked at him impassively and then raised an eyebrow. “You were on the verge of wet your pants at lunch, Harry.”“That's not true,” he grumbled, crossing his arms in front of his chest and pushing his lips forward into a pout.Louis sighed, partly because he didn't have time to deal with this discussion and partly because Harry was going to drive him mad if he didn't stop looking at him like that.He was interrupted by the ringing of his phone and after reading the name on the display, he answered it.“Hello?”“Lou,” Liam spoke on the other end of the phone.Although Louis almost didn't know him, the concern in his voice was clear to hear.“What's happened?”“Maybe… maybe you should sit down to listen to what I'm about to tell you.”Louis caught Harry's eye, who was already looking at him with a frown and a puzzled expression, but he took the advice and sat down on the bed while pressing a button on the display.“Speak. You're on speakerphone.”Liam took a deep breath and then clear his throat. “I couldn't get the theory out of my head that the cases are somehow connected to your mother's death, and Zayn told me that you found out they're all possessed by ghosts.”“Go on.”“Well, I don't know if you've made the connection before but November 2nd, the day your mother died and the day the first of the last seven victims disappeared, is the Day of the Dead.”Louis frowned, and although he hadn't thought about it, he didn't think it mattered. “Maybe it's just the stupid irony of ghosts.”“Yeah, I thought so too, but there's more to it. In thinking about it, I wondered if your mother might be more closely related than we thought, so I dug deeper. It wasn't easy at all, I don't know why the documents were all deleted from the databases, but I managed it in the end.”Louis sighed, rubbing his temples. “Are you gonna come to a conclusion or…?”“Did you know the motel was built twenty years ago?”“Uh, yeah. I found that out today, actually. The receptionist told me and invited us to some kind of party they're organizing. We shouldn't go, but I think it's the perfect opportunity to have them all there and it should be-”“Louis,” Liam interrupted quietly.Louis stopped his monologue because he heard something in his tone that sent a shiver down his spine.“The motel is on the site where your house used to be.”Louis remained impassive for a few seconds, digesting the information that was beginning to take on meaning for him. He was walking over the place where he had spent the first years of his life, where his mother had died and where he had seen that same life disappear, changing into something he deeply hated.As the awareness dawned on him, he wondered if his father knew about it and if he had given him that case on purpose, because he didn't have the courage to face it. He wondered if his father had once again decided to saddle him with a responsibility that was too great for him to bear and face just because he was a coward.Louis felt a hand rest on his shoulder and winced as he looked up and caught sight of Harry sitting next to him with a sympathetic expression on his face.“Do you… do you think my father knew? That… that he entrusted me with the case because he knew that…” he whispered, not understanding which of the three he was addressing the question to.“I don't know,” Liam replied after a few seconds of silence. “I think… I think so. I mean, you were too young to remember and like I said, it was hard to find the information, but I think John knows where the house was and the address.”Louis felt a wave of anger wash over him, mixed with the hatred he'd had for his father for so long. How could he expose him to something like that again? And why had he done it?Louis wasn't sure he wanted to know the answers to those questions and he wasn't even sure he cared. He just wanted to call him and scream at the top of his lungs what he had kept to himself for years, but he knew his father would never answer his call. He never had, and over the years Louis had given up on it as he slowly forgot the sound of his voice.All he ever got in return were those stupid text messages with new cases to work on, but this time he would see his father face to face, find him as soon as the case was closed and put a definitive end to that story. He would scream at John about how much he hated him for dragging him into that life and then he would drop everything because he was just tired .“Liam, do you have his phone number?” he murmured after long minutes of silence.“Uh, yeah, why?”“I want you to track down his location,” he replied in a distant tone, standing up and ending the call.He hurried to his bag and grabbed the box of bullets filled with salt and iron pellets.“Louis,” he heard Harry's voice behind him and then a hand rested on his shoulder.Louis flinched at the touch, as if it had just pulled him out of the spiral of thought he had fallen into but he ignored him, pulled his gun from under the pillow and placed it on the table with the box.“Lou,” Harry tried again.“Not now,” he said dryly.“Yes, now,” Harry retorted, grabbing him by the shoulder and forcing him to turn around. “Are you okay?”Louis avoided his gaze and bit his lip to hold back the wave of emotion that threatened to erupt in the form of tears and choked sobs.“I'm fine,” he whispered, knowing full well that it was the biggest and most implausible lie he had ever told.“Louis,” he called out again, bowing his head to meet his gaze. “I don't know why… why your father did it, but it's clear you're not okay. Please, talk to me.”Louis took a deep breath and squinted, then exhaled slowly and straightened his shoulders to compose himself. He had a job to do, he couldn't afford to be weak right now and certainly not in front of Harry, because he had a feeling that if he allowed the dam of emotions to break, he wouldn't be able to stop the waterfall.“Let's get to work,” he replied, meeting Harry's gaze one last time before turning around and rolling up the sleeves of his sweatshirt.He removed the magazine from his gun and replaced the silver bullets with the ones filled with salt and iron, then reinserted the magazine and loaded the gun before pulling the hammer.“Give me your gun,” he said to Harry, reaching out his hand without turning around and huffing when Harry hesitated. “We don't have all day.”Harry sighed as he handed it to him, and Louis did the same with his bullets too.“Can I ask what the hell you're doing?”“Well, I can't go to the party with a bloody rifle, so this is the best option. The bullets are full of salt and iron. I don't think it'll free the bodies because we'll have to stab them, but it might slow them down if…”“If they try to kill us?” Harry concluded for him.Louis met his gaze and suppressed a laugh. If there was one person who wasn't going to die that night, it was Harry.“You're not gonna die, Harry.”Harry frowned and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “ We are not gonna die, Louis.”Louis rolled his eyes but didn't answer, knowing they would have argued again if he did.On the one hand, he envied Harry's naivety because it meant he didn't really know what they were about to face, but he hoped it didn't make Harry underestimate the seriousness of the situation.When he was done, he handed Harry the gun and tucked his own into the back of his jeans, watching as Harry did the same.“Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go there, act normal, and wait for as many people as possible to arrive. I don't know how you are with hand-to-hand combat or human anatomy, but try not to stab them in vital parts, okay? The goal is to free them and not let them bleed to death,” Louis explained as he made his way to the door, but then stopped and turned to face Harry. “If anything goes wrong, if things escalate or even if you're just too scared, promise me you'll run away.”Harry didn't answer, just stared at him for a few seconds with a raised eyebrow and then sighed. “How many times do I have to tell you that I won't leave you alone in this shitty place?”“Harry, I'm serious. I want you to promise me-”“I won't fucking do it!” he shouted in exasperation, throwing his arms in the air. “It's never gonna happen, did you hear me? Now open this fucking door and let's destroy these fucking ghosts.”Louis snorted, part of him was so stubborn he was about to argue and refuse to leave the room until Harry promised him to leave, but the other part knew he'd never convince him and didn't understand why Harry was willing to risk his life instead of walking away if things went bad.He shook his head and sighed. Giving up, he opened the door and took a deep breath as they walked down the hallway, knowing they were probably headed for death.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Louis couldn't help but widen his eyes when they entered the room, and when he saw Harry out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that he had the same astonished look on his face. He immediately pulled himself together and put on the most realistic smile he could fake though.The number of victims who had disappeared in the last twenty-four years was around one hundred, but there were only about twenty people in the room. He recognized Becky, the waiter, the couple and the man who had been reading a book the day before, two cleaning ladies and two women he had passed in the corridor in those days.There were about eighty people missing from the roll call, where the hell were they? Were they hidden somewhere or were those people the only ones left?Maybe the ghosts had used their bodies and then abandoned them somewhere when they no longer needed them? And most importantly, they needed them for what?Louis still hadn't found an answer to that last question. Well, to none, actually.Another thing Louis had noticed that he didn't like at all was that all the tables had been lined up into one long line down the center of the room, starting from the entrance and ending near the fireplace on the other side.He hoped he could at least sit in the seat closest to the entrance.“Oh, there you are, we've been waiting for you,” Becky exclaimed, coming up to them with a smile. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mr. Winchester and Mr. Styles,” she added, turning to the other guests and pointing at them as she introduced them.Louis forced himself to smile and raised his hand in greeting. When he looked at Harry out of the corner of his eye, Louis saw that he was transfixed and wide-eyed so he nudged him, giving him a dirty look. After a moment's hesitation, Harry smiled too, although one didn't have to know him to know that it was the most fake and unrealistic smile in the world.“Stop it,” Louis hissed through clenched teeth.“I need to talk to you,” Harry whispered, looking around furtively.“Harry, I swear to God, calm down,” he retorted dryly, before turning and smiling back at the guests and Becky, who was watching him curiously. Damn ghost, why the hell did she always look at him like that?“So, shall we sit down?” the waiter asked after clapping his hands to draw attention.Louis was about to sit at the head of the table, the point closest to the door, but Becky beat him to it and led them to two seats in the middle of the table. Louis bit a curse, trying not to push it so as not to seem any more suspicious than they probably already were, but at least he relaxed to the fact that Harry would be sitting next to him.Becky, of course, sat on his right, the man who had been reading the book the day before sat across from him, and the damn waiter sat on Harry's left.At that moment, something inside Louis screamed that it was the stupidest idea he'd ever had while he looked at the people sitting around them, feeling as if he'd just stepped into a wolf's den.Dinner began and proceeded quietly though, everyone chatting happily and several times he was caught up in conversation. Harry always kept to himself, eating in silence and only speaking when he was asked a direct question, and it was clear that he was trying hard not to get up and run out of the room.Louis once thought about taking him aside because he had specifically told him to behave normally, but he had given up on it because he realized that he couldn't expect anything from Harry. After all, although Harry said he wasn't afraid and had dealt with ghosts before, this situation was much more complex than what he was used to.In any case, there was another thing that worried Louis more than anything else, the first thing he had looked for when they had sat down and the only thing missing from the table: salt.There was all sorts of food, various bottles of oil and spices, but there was no bloody salt.He didn't know if Harry had noticed it either, but without that one thing, their whole plan was ruined. He knew he had it in the trunk of his car, and he cursed himself in his mind for not taking it with him when he got the EMF, but he would never leave Harry alone to get it. He only hoped the weapons alone would be enough to at least create a diversion and give them time to get it from his car.But the very fact that it wasn't on the table spoke volumes, now Louis was sure they had been exposed.The only thing they could do now was to get up discreetly and find an excuse to leave. After all, why would they hurt them that very evening?They would stay at the motel for a few more days, although Louis’ instinct reminded him that there was probably a reason for this dinner, especially after what had happened with the waiter, even if they had been invited before what had happened at lunch. That was the only thing that cheered him up, the fact that dinner had been planned in advance.“Well, I guess it's not an easy job being a contractor, Dean,” the man sitting in front of him said. “Who knows how many flaws you've found in our motel.”Louis chuckled and took a sip of water, hoping he knew enough about construction, then frowned. “Our ? So you're one of the owners?”The man shrugged. He said his name was John and when he introduced himself, Louis had suppressed a laugh at the funny coincidence, even though he knew his real name was Samuel Campbell.“I think I'm more of a guest at this point. I've lived here since it was built but yes, I'm one of the owners together with Margaret” he replied, smiling at the woman sitting next to him.Louis smiled back and took another sip. “Well, anyway, we've been fine since we arrived and you're all very hospitable, so we have nothing to complain about. Right, Harry?” he asked, turning to him and squeezing his thigh under the table.“Yeah, it's a nice place and the beds are really comfortable,” Harry replied, putting on another fake smile. “Speaking of... I think we should go, I'm really tired,” he added, catching Louis' gaze and curling his lips into a pout.Louis had to admit it. Although he had remained quite aloof, his acting level wasn't exactly bad at that moment.“Oh, no. Are you leaving already?” Becky asked, mimicking his pouty expression.Louis agreed with Harry. They needed salt and to reorganize the plan, because without it they would have accomplished nothing and only risked getting them both killed.Feeling his phone vibrate in his pocket, Louis discreetly pulled it out and frowned as he saw some missed calls from Zayn and several texts from Liam. In some, he simply asked to be called back, but the most disturbing message, the one that sent a shiver down his spine without him knowing the reason, was the last one: Get tf out of there. Now. He locked the phone and put it in his pocket, cocking his head and smiling at the woman.“Yes, but we're very grateful for your invitation,” Louis said as he stood up. Or rather, he tried to, before everything escalated so quickly that he didn't even have time to realize what was happening.Louis felt hands on his shoulders, forcing him to sit back down, and when he instinctively turned to Harry, he saw the damn waiter behind him. He hadn't even seen him get up from the table, nor had he seen the woman behind him, who was holding him with an iron and almost painful grip.“It's not very polite to get up before you've finished eating. Has anyone taught you manners, Louis?” John said, still sitting in his seat opposite him and with a half-smile on his lips.At that exact moment, Louis felt his blood run cold and realized that they were truly, literally and irrevocably fucked.“Did you really think we were that stupid?” John stifled a laugh and shook his head. “Let me tell you something… If you're here, both of you, it's just because I wanted you to be.”Louis frowned, opened his mouth to say something back and then closed it again, not knowing what to say and extremely confused.“What does it mean? Do you… do you know us?” he finally mumbled.“Of course he knows us. I've never told anyone my last name, but when we arrived, Becky knew it,” Harry interjected.Fuck, that's what Harry wanted to tell him as they entered the room.John looked from Louis to Harry, giving him a half-smile. “Well, let's just say my main interest has always been Louis, you're just a side effect. Or perhaps I should say... that little extra something that will give me extreme pleasure when I tear you to pieces in front of him.”Louis squirmed in his seat and tried to stand up, giving the man a look of anger and hatred, but the woman's grip on his shoulders was so strong that he could barely move.“If you dare touch him…” he hissed through clenched teeth.“What are you gonna do to me, uh? Are you gonna stab me with iron and salt?” John burst out laughing. “You know, Louis, for the son of the infamous hunter John Tomlinson, I have to say you're pretty disappointing.”Louis tensed, not only because he knew of their plan, but also because he somehow knew his father.“How- how do you know about my father?”John stood up and paced in front of them, rubbing his hands together as if he were thinking. When he stopped, he met his gaze and then burst out laughing again.“Do you really think my name is John? Oh no, that was just another sweet revenge for what that disgusting bastard did to us,” he said, clenching his fists at his sides as any trace of amusement vanished from his face.Louis felt Harry's hand grab his own and squeeze it tightly, but he didn't have the courage to turn around, he couldn't bear to look at the horror in his eyes. Not when he realized that probably none of them would ever leave that damn motel. And with that, there was a question he didn't dare ask, because part of him already knew the answer.“Where's my father?” Louis whispered as he came to the conclusion that he didn't want to die without knowing the truth.“Well, that depends on the point of view. A normal person would tell you that he just died.” John shrugged. “But I'll tell you that he's right where he deserves to be and where I can enjoy his suffering until the end of my days.” Died. His father was… dead. Louis had hated him so much for too many reasons and at that moment, he realized he couldn't tell him everything he'd already decided to tell once the case was closed.“You're lying,” Louis whispered, unable to rationalize what had been said.“Really?” John retorted, before taking a phone out of his pocket and throwing it on the table in front of him.Louis frowned, not understanding what he meant.“Do you want to try calling your father?” the man asked.Louis felt a shiver run down his spine and he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and opened them again.“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Harry suddenly blurted out, in a tone so determined that he caught Louis off guard.He turned and saw the determination on Harry's face, his brow furrowed and the hand that wasn't busy clenching his own tightly closed in a fist on the table.John stared at him in silence for a few moments and then gave him a half-smile before turning his gaze back to Louis. “I can't even tell you how much I enjoyed killing him with my own hands, but I felt like it wasn't enough. I actually felt kind of sorry for him. After all, he was still pretty pissed about Mary's death."Louis squirmed in his seat, once again in vain. “Don't talk about her,” he hissed through clenched teeth.“Oh, Louis, but it all started with her. Let me tell you this story, I'm sure you'll be interested to know everything in detail before joining your beloved father,” John said, sitting down on the chair in front of him. “I can actually say that if Mary had minded her own business, all of this probably wouldn't have happened,” he continued, then frowned. “From your expression, I take it that your father never told you that she was a hunter too.”Louis’ jaw dropped in surprise as his eyes widened. “What? No. She… she wasn't...”“Yes, she was. She stopped when she got pregnant with you, but apparently your father didn't find out about it until a year after she died, when you two started hunting too,” John interrupted.“I can say that Mary's mistake was going against us, but I have to admit that she was pretty good, and I also understand why she hated us so much. Like I told you, she stopped hunting when she got pregnant with you, but… Well, let's just say that when I chose my… host I didn't know who he was,” he said, rolling his eyes and pointing at his body.Louis frowned, more and more puzzled and not understanding what he was talking about.“You look particularly confused, so I suspect you don't even know your mother's real surname.” John suppressed a laugh and shook his head. “Her name was Mary Campbell.”Louis stiffened in his chair, his eyes and mouth widening as another piece of the puzzle fell into place. The man in front of him had been possessed in '99, a few months before his mother's death, and his name was Samuel Campbell.“Yes. That's why four years after Mary decided to lay down her arms after getting pregnant with you, she started hunting again without your father's knowledge,” John said, rolling his eyes again.“Did you- did you take possession of my… grandfather’s body?” Louis murmured and this time it was he who squeezed Harry's hand tightly, unsure if he could handle the situation.John shrugged. “Like I told you, I didn't know he was the father of a hunter. Just like I didn't know Samuel was a hunter either.”Louis’ eyes widened again, and he wondered how much he still didn't know about his family. At this point, he was sure he knew next to nothing.“Anyway… She understood right away that something was wrong with Samuel and after less time than I expected, she found out about us and managed to chase some of our people away. Not me, of course, and… Well, you know what happened next.”“Did you kill her?” Louis muttered, increasingly confused and unable to digest all the information he was spewing at him.“With my own hands. Or rather, with Samuel's hands. You don't know how satisfying it was to see the look on her face while she was being killed by her own father,” he replied, as if he was proud of it. “Oh, and I'm sorry you saw her… that way. Nothing personal of course, I just wanted her to look at you before she died.”Louis took a deep breath and exhaled shakily, biting his cheek so as not to show himself weak now, even though the pain was becoming almost unbearable. He felt Harry's hand tighten on his again, and that was probably what brought him back down to earth just enough to keep from breaking down.“Anyway… After the fire, the house was demolished and I couldn't resist the temptation. Stepping on the ground where that stupid bitch had died was so… satisfying, and if I'm honest, I was doing just fine. But then your father discovered the existence of the supernatural, even if it took him more than a decade to figure out what killed your mother.”“When… when did that happen?” Louis.“Uh, if you wanna know if it happened when he left you, the answer is yes. He probably thought he was protecting you, and if I'm honest, it wasn't that easy to find him. We only managed to catch him a few weeks ago and somehow I admire the fact that he never gave up.”“Never gave up on what?” he muttered, holding his breath.“On you. He never told us anything about you and let him tell you, we were very… persuasive,” John replied, smirking.Louis couldn't think straight, his head was cluttered with too many thoughts. His father had left to protect him, but still Louis couldn't feel pity or sympathy for him. He had dragged him into that life, he had exposed him to so many dangers and if he found himself in this situation, it was entirely his fault.“Anyway, in the end, technology is always the answer to everything, isn't it? All we had to do was take his phone, and from there we tracked you down and found out everything about you in no time,” John explained, turning his gaze on Harry for a moment. “And all it took was a message to lure you here. Well, both of you. Like I said, after what your father did to us, after all the children of mine that he made suffer, the least I could do was to repay him with the same coin. And you too, because I know that you'd be willing to do to us what he did if you could.”“May I know who the fuck you are? Why… why are you telling me all these things?” Louis murmured as a part of him began to realize that perhaps he wasn't looking at the creature he had expected to find. Maybe this whole story really was bigger than he had imagined.“You know, I'm surprised that your father hunted us for years, that he left to protect you, but that he never explained anything about us to you. But I don't think it matters anymore at this point. The only thing that matters is that you'll reach him soon and rot with him in the lowest point of hell,” John said.And when the man, or whatever he was, tilted his head and gave him a half-smile, that was the exact moment Louis felt the blood freeze in his veins. The moment when, as he stared at him intently, his eyes changed color and went completely black.Louis reacted instinctively, not really knowing what to do or what they were dealing with but whatever it was, everything in him was screaming to run .He grabbed a knife and stabbed Becky's throat, who was sitting next to him, while he reached for the gun with his other hand. He shot behind him, hearing the woman scream in pain and loosen her grip on him, then he did the same to the man behind Harry. Louis grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the room as he shot blindly behind them, running as fast as he could to the fire escape and up to their floor. They didn't stop until they reached their room, and it wasn't until he closed the door behind them that Louis realized how fucked up they really were.They were trapped.“We gotta get out of here,” he said breathlessly, approaching the window to see how far up they were.“Oh, sure. Maybe you should've thought of that before you dragged us here instead of running out!” Harry shouted, gesturing nervously."What are we gonna do now? What the fuck are we supposed to do? I knew I was gonna fucking die here,” Louis yelled in a shrill voice.“Hey, asshole,” Harry exclaimed, shaking him vigorously by the shoulders. “The only person here who has the right to kill you for being a stupid idiot is only me , do you understand?”“Is it the bloody time to insult me and-”Harry pounced on his lips with so much force that Louis winced at the sudden pain before grabbing his hips and pulling Harry close, thinking that that would probably be the last time he would ever do this. Just as he also thought that this would be the last chance to tell him how he really felt. He was a coward, he knew that. He had waited until he was about to die to do it, but now he didn't care anymore.“I love you,” Louis whispered on his lips, meeting his eyes and losing himself in the green, even though he knew it by heart now.Harry backed away, narrowing his gaze and pointing a finger at him. “Did you wait to say it just now? Does it feel like this is the fucking right time?”“I… I don't wanna die without you knowing that-”“Listen, you dickhead, I told you you're not gonna die,” Harry interrupted him firmly, then he hunched his shoulders and smiled sheepishly, his features softening and looking at him like he perhaps never had before. “And I love you too.”Louis widened his eyes and mouth in surprise, opening and closing it, not knowing what to say. “But- but… Why are you telling me that?” he finally mumbled.Harry snorted, rolling his eyes. “Well, I thought I was pretty obvious, so either I wasn't or you're being incredibly stupid. If I have to be honest, I lean towards the second option and-”Fuck it. Louis pounced on his lips, cupping his face with his hands and squeezing it tightly.“Say it again,” he whispered breathlessly, his heart beating faster than it perhaps ever had before."I love you," Harry repeated, resting his forehead against his.Maybe it was the adrenaline or maybe it was those three simple words that gave Louis the push he needed, that desire to live that he had never felt before, except when he was with Harry.He left one last kiss on his lips before pulling away and running to his duffle bag, grabbing the box of cartridges and spilling them on the table.“Becky didn't react when I stabbed her, but the others screamed in pain when I shot them, so I don't think iron has any effect on them but salt does, whatever they are, because they're definitely not ghosts,” Louis muttered as he opened the cartridges, which also contained salt. “Take care of the window.”Louis ran to the door and poured the contents in front of the sill, making sure to cover the corners as well, then helped Harry. When they finished, Louis turned to him and scowled, noticing Harry's frowning expression and following his gaze, which was fixed on the motel sign that could be seen from their room.“What's wrong?”“Fuck. Holy shit,” Harry muttered and then sighed dryly. “You know, for a… hunter, or whatever that asshole called you, you're really stupid. Haven't you ever seen a horror movie in your life?”“Oh, sorry, I'm always too busy chasing real fucking monsters,” Louis snapped wryly.Harry snorted. “Can I see the journal? It was your father's, wasn't it?” he asked, ignoring what he had said.Louis frowned again. “Yeah, how do you know that?”“Because if it was yours, you would know what this story is about,” he said. “Can I read it or not?” he then asked impatiently, holding out his hand.Louis hesitated for a moment and then sighed, opening his duffle bag and taking out the journal, but then hesitated again when he saw the EMF.“Why do you think it rang if they aren't ghosts?” he asked quietly.Harry was silent for a few seconds, grabbing the journal and sitting on the bed. “Your mother died here, didn't she?”“Okay, but it only rang that one time and I wasn't even in the room.”Harry pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Maybe- maybe they're able to… hold her somewhere? Not let her in? Or maybe it's not her at all? Who knows how many people they've killed here.”Harry opened the journal, quickly flipping to the last page and reading it before meeting his gaze.“I think we're really fucked,” he whispered, the confidence he had kept up until then now swept away by the pure fear on his face.“What the fuck are you talking about?” Louis grumbled, stepping closer to him and reading the page. “This spell is after the pages about witches and I don't think it's them.”Harry sighed dryly, running a hand over his face. “Did you ever learn Latin at school?”“Well, no? You know... My father thought it would be more fun to make me learn ab-”“It's not a spell, Louis,” he interrupted. “It's an exorcism. Damn it, it's written here, holy shit. Exorcizamus is the first fucking word and you didn't get it?”“How the fuck was I supposed to understand it if I never learned Latin?” Louis blurted out.“So you find something you don't understand the meaning of in a journal that… that I assume is to help you kill fucking monsters, and you don't bother to learn the meaning?” Harry exclaimed in a shrill voice.Well, Louis didn't even open his mouth to reply, because he was right. He was fucking right and if Harry hadn't been there, he probably would have been dead by now.“Forget it, damn it,” Harry muttered. “Read the name of the motel,” he then added, pointing to the window with a nod of his head.Louis frowned and peered outside, though he didn't understand what he was supposed to get about the name on the sign.“So?”"Oh my god! That's a fucking anagram, Louis,” Harry shouted in an exasperated tone. “Les Mondes is French and it means The Worlds, but if you reverse the letters, you get-”“Les Demons,” Louis murmured, turning abruptly to face Harry. “Demons? Is that what you think this is about?”Harry looked at him impassively and then raised an eyebrow. “What do you think an exorcism is for?”Louis stared transfixed as all the puzzle pieces began to fit together in his head. The motel, the place where it was built, the connection to his mother and the fact that John said his father was rotting at the lowest point of hell.His father who, from what the... demon had said, had left when he'd discovered their existence, but before that he'd given him the journal and apparently the last page he'd written was precisely about them. He probably wrote that damn page when he found out about the demons, in case Louis encountered them one day, and then left.“I think… I think that's the way to kill them,” Louis muttered, staring at the journal Harry still held in his hands.“Do you think this will be enough?”“The… demon said that my father hurt some of them, and he wouldn't have written that stuff if it wasn't important,” he said with conviction and then sighed, shrugging. “My father is… was a lot of things, including a huge piece of shit, but he was obsessed with the supernatural and killing every creature that crossed his path. He wanted me to be like him, to learn everything about this fucking world. Even though he was an asshole, he left to protect me, but I don't think he would've done that without telling me how to kill some of the creatures he was hunting, especially if he thought they could hunt me one day.”Harry looked at him silently for a few moments with a thoughtful expression on his face. Louis knew that he had kept the truth from him for a long time and that he was instead overwhelming him with too much information at the moment, but by now they had reached a point where he could no longer lie to him.Although Louis hadn't liked the idea from the start because he only wanted to protect him, they were a team now and Harry seemed decidedly more informed than he was.Louis never thought he would ding himself at that point anyway. At the point where, without Harry's presence, he probably would never have found out about the exorcism or the true nature of those creatures, and so he would therefore already be dead.“Okay, let's assume this damn exorcism works. What do we do then?” Harry asked.“Uh, is there anything else on the page?”Harry read on quickly. “No, just the word 'salt' next to a little scrawled pentacle.”“Do you think the pentacle is something that can be used against them?”"I don't know? I’m sorry, but who the fuck do you think I am? I only go to fucking haunted houses and have a chat with ghosts,” Harry snapped indignantly.Louis suppressed a laugh. “A chat? Did you enjoy chatting with the kids of the Woman in White?”Harry's eyes widened. “You watched my videos?” he asked, his cheeks turning red.“Yeah, the other day, and if you don't mind me saying, you're fucking irresponsible.” Louis shrugged and then raised a finger before Harry could reply. “So… The pentacle?”Harry thought about it for a few seconds and then shook his head. “Could it just be a way to identify them? I don't fucking know, Louis! It's your father's journal, if you don't know what the fuck it means, how am I supposed to know?”Louis sighed, sitting down next to him and propped his head in his hands. He thought back to the times he had seen his father write in the journal and as messy as his handwriting was, the way he wrote things wasn't at all.He rubbed his face with one hand and took the journal from Harry, biting his lip as he looked at the writing on the page.“Okay, look, my father was very precise in his madness so… so if he wrote the word salt next to the drawing, that means they're connected somehow.”“Well, we know that salt hurts them in some way but it doesn't exorcize them, so maybe it's the same with the pentacle? Like, I don't know, crosses and garlic to ward off vampires,” Harry guessed.Louis raised an eyebrow, staring at him with an impassive look. “Harry, that vampire stuff is bullshit.”Harry's eyes widened. “Have you- have you ever seen a real vampire? And what are they like? How do you kill them? According to the legends-”“Harry, do you think it's the right time?” he interrupted, snorting. “Anyway… What do we know for sure about demons? Apart from salt.”Harry thought about it for a few moments. “That they're capable of possessing humans for long periods of time?”"Exactly. The pentacle is drawn next to the salt, so both could be ways to ward them off.”“Oh! Do you think it's like, I don't know, an anti-possession thing?”Louis shrugged. “Could be. Like I said, my father would never have left without giving me all the vital information to protect myself from them.”Harry pursed his lips thoughtfully and frowned, then snorted. “And where the fuck are we gonna get a pentacle? How can we not get possessed?” he asked, his eyes widening. “Oh God. Oh my god . They can do it! What if they possessed us? What if- if-”“Harry, focus,” Louis interrupted, squeezing his shoulder firmly.Harry closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before opening them again. “Okay, we don't have a pentacle and I think… I think it should be something we have to carry with us, right? Like a pendant or something.”“Well, wait for me, I'll go buy one,” Louis retorted sarcastically.Harry ignored him, raising a hand as if to ask him to be quiet. “What if… what if we engraved it on ourselves?” he asked, then he faked a retch. “Okay, I'm gonna puke now.”“You mean like a mark?” Louis asked and Harry nodded. “Well, that could work. I think.”"You think?" Harry repeated in a shrill voice. “Do you realize that if you're wrong, we could get… possessed?”“I'll remind you that it was your idea,” Louis argued, sighing dryly.Harry crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Do you have a better one?”“You're the one who's afraid it won't work!” Louis exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air. “Okay, this discussion is pointless, so-”They both flinched as they heard a knock on the door, then their eyes met. Harry froze as the fear he had probably been able to suppress until then showed on his face.Louis hated seeing him like that, so scared, but at the same time he loved his determination and the way he had managed to come up with a possible solution despite not really belonging to that world and not having the knowledge that he had.Well, actually, Louis didn't have any knowledge on the matter either, but still.“Louis,” he heard the voice of John, the demon, chanting. “Open the door.”Harry grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly. “So the salt works,” he whispered.“Yeah, but I don't know for how long and we can't stay locked in here forever. We gotta find a way out.”“Out?” Harry repeated in a choked voice. “We're locked in a fucking room on the second floor, Louis. How the hell are we gonna get out of here?”“Maybe hell isn't quite the right word in this case,” Louis muttered, chuckling.“That's not fucking funny,” Harry hissed.Louis looked serious again and took a deep breath before standing up and emptying the contents of his duffle bag onto the floor. He grabbed the knife he always carried with him, the alcohol and the matches and walked into the bathroom, followed by Harry.“What are you doing?”“What you suggested,” Louis said, placing the knife in the sink and pouring the alcohol over it, then lit a match and let the flame envelop the blade until it extinguished. While he waited for it to cool, he grabbed Harry's hand, doused it with alcohol and did the same with his own, then took the knife.“Ready?” he asked, meeting Harry's gaze.“Just fucking do it. And do it well, because it'll probably leave a scar,” he muttered, looking away and squinting.Louis took a deep breath before placing the tip in his palm. He forced himself to ignore the way Harry winced and gripped him tightly so he wouldn't move as he carved the symbol into his flesh. When he was done, he took a towel, wet it with water and pressed it firmly to the bleeding wound for a few seconds before taking it off.“It's a bit crooked,” Harry muttered, looking at the incision in his skin.Louis snorted and jerked his head up when there was another knock on the door and his name was called, then he took a deep breath before carving the symbol into the palm of his hand as well.“Okay, done,” he murmured, pressing the towel to the wound to stop the blood, then tossing it into the sink.“What if we did the exorcism from here? Do you think it would work?” Harry asked as they returned to the other room.“I don't know, but-”They both winced as a sound spread through the room, one they both knew well. Louis scurried to the contents of his duffle bag, which were still on the floor, and rummaged through the items until he found what he was looking for.It was the EMF. He was sure he'd turned it off the last time, but at that moment all the red lights were on, the needle was pointing to the highest detection level and it was beeping incessantly.“What the fuck…” he muttered, looking at the object with a frown.“Louis,” Harry whispered, and when Louis lifted his gaze to meet his, he noticed Harry’s startled look. “The EMF has a range of two meters, right?”“Yes, but-”“And the- the salt also blocks access to ghosts, right?” Harry added.“Yeah, so what?”“So why- why is it ringing if…” He didn't finish the question, but glanced at the door and the window where the mixture of salt and iron pellets they had removed from the cartridges was scattered.Louis’ eyes widened, standing up abruptly and looking around the room. It was certainly longer than two meters and that meant that if the EMF was ringing, the ghost was in the room with them, and not outside.It was at that moment that Louis felt an all too familiar chill come over him, goosebumps forming on his bare arms, and with the next breath he saw a cloud of white condensation escape from his lips.He looked around several times without noticing anything around them, until his gaze landed on the floor. Instinctively, he pushed Harry against the wall, stood in front of him and opened his arms as if to shield him, while a white shadow rose from the floor and loomed in front of them until it took on the outline of a silhouette.Louis knew it was a ghost, he had seen and experienced so many in his life that he recognized the way they manifested, but as the color of the shadow changed and became lighter until it took on distinct outlines, he was sure he had heard his heart stop for a few seconds before starting to beat painfully in his chest again.Over time, his memories had faded, and though he always carried a photograph with him, he had no real ones, mostly because he was too young to remember. Or at least he was too young to remember anything other than the last memory he had of her.“Louis,” she whispered in a soft voice.Louis closed his eyes as a tear ran down his face before he opened them again, looking into the eyes that were so similar to his own. In a white nightgown that clung to her small body, with long blonde hair framing her pale face and big blue eyes, stood his mother.“Mom,” Louis whispered, biting his lip to stifle a sob.The woman smiled sweetly and slowly approached him with silent steps, then reached out and touched his cheek with cold fingers.“I knew you would be beautiful,” the woman whispered, looking at him intently, then adopting an expression that was a mixture of sadness and worry. “I'm sorry your father dragged you into this. I never wanted you to live this life.”“He… he really died?” Louis asked in a whisper, almost inaudible to his own ears.His mother, Mary, nodded. “The demon told you the truth, but not all of it. Your father found out about their existence fourteen years after my death, when you were eighteen and he… left you. It's true, he did it to protect you, but that's not all.”Louis frowned. “What does it mean?”Mary sighed sadly. “When he left, he made a deal with one of them. He thought he'd made a smart move, because in the deal he promised not to hunt that particular demon. His real name is Azazel, but he goes by John, we can tell he's their leader. In return, they would leave you alone. Your father hunted a lot of them and chased some of them away, but he managed not to break the deal,” the woman explained, then she sighed again. “What he didn't know was that demonic deals don't last forever, but only ten years.”Louis' eyes widened and his lips parted as the meaning of her words hit him. “I was eighteen when he left and…”“And now you're twenty-eight,” Mary concluded.“Is that why they waited so long to kill him? The demon said they couldn't find him.”Mary stifled a laugh and shook her head. “He lied, you have no idea what they are capable of, so I don't think it's possible they didn't know. I think they just wanted to prolong your father's suffering, to let him live with the knowledge that death could come at any moment.”“Why did the demon lie? Why didn't he tell me about the deal?”“They are demons, they lie.” Mary shrugged. “Anyway, listen to me carefully now,” she continued, putting on a serious face.Louis relaxed and lowered his arms, which he had still raised to protect Harry. He suppressed the urge to scream and cry, overwhelmed by all the emotions and the presence of his mother in front of him, and sat down on the bed. Harry stood aloof, leaning against the wall, his eyes still widened in shock.“Twenty-four years ago, a hunter was hunting a werewolf in Stull Cemetery, a few months before I died. He couldn't have known it, but in chasing the werewolf, he opened a door he shouldn't have.”“The legend of Stull,” Harry murmured and when Louis met his gaze with a puzzled expression, he shrugged. “They say that the gateway to hell is in the Stull cemetery and… Well, I don't think it's a legend at this point.”“It’s not. When the hunter opened the gate, he let the demons out, freeing them,” Mary explained. “Azazel was telling the truth, though. When he was freed too, he took over my father's body. I was one of the first hunters to come across them, and after I found a way, I freed a body that was possessed by one of them. That made them angry and… Well, here I am,” she muttered, pointing to her body.“The demon said you chased one of them away and that's why they… killed you,” Louis whispered the last words.Mary nodded. “I never found a way to kill them, only to free the bodies. The exorcism doesn't kill them, it just frees the bodies they have taken possession of and sends them back to hell temporarily. I want you to know that… that many of the hosts may not make it. Once the demon leaves the body, it becomes human again. If the body has suffered trauma or serious injury, death is inevitable.”Louis closed his eyes for a moment, thinking of the way he had stabbed Becky, who would surely die once he got rid of the demon possessing her, and who knew how many others with her. But he had no other choice. Either that or having demons on the loose who would continue to possess and kill people.He took a deep breath. “So what are we supposed to do?”“You need to perform the exorcism to return them to hell momentarily and give you time to go to Stull. If you don't close the door, they'll keep coming out.”“Just close it?”“Yes. It was specifically designed to trap them inside. There's no way to bring back every demon who left. Who knows how many others are still around, but those possessing the people from the motel are the most dangerous ones and Azazel, their leader, is the strongest of them all.”“And the city in general? Everyone's acting strange, including the relatives of some recent missing victims who don't even live in Lawrence. How can I exercise them all?”“Uh, well, I... I don't think that's gonna be a problem, Lou,” Harry whispered as he walked to the window.Louis frowned, hurrying over and peering out. He held his breath as he watched the scene unfold before their eyes, feeling his body begin to tremble. Even though he had never been particularly scared before, at that moment he was fucking terrified.Black shadows loomed in the sky, rushing toward them like a tidal wave, floating in the air and covering everything around the motel with what looked like thick, black smoke.“We don't have much time,” Mary said urgently.“Mom, do you think the pentacles will protect us?” Louis asked, showing the engraving in his palm.“Yes, that should be enough,” the woman replied. “Here's what we're gonna do. Break the line at the door and I'll distract them so you have time to perform the exorcism. Please, remember that you must pronounce every word correctly or it won't work. As soon as you're done, run to Stull and close the door.”“What- what do you mean you're gonna distract them? What if- what if they hurt you? What if they kill you?”Mary smiled sadly and Louis realized only after saying those words that she was, in fact, already dead. She moved closer, reached out and stroked his cheek with her cold palm. Although Louis didn't find the touch pleasant, he tilted his head and closed his eyes, knowing that it would be the last time he would see her.“I'll use my energy to do it.”“It's gonna… destroy you, isn’t it?” he asked in a whisper as a tear rolled down his cheek.“It will allow me to save my son,” Mary replied, smiling softly. “I love you.”Louis stifled a sob and bit his lip as he threw his arms around her neck, hugging her tightly and ignoring the cold shivers that the contact with her icy skin caused.“I love you too,” he murmured against her neck.As he pulled away, he met his mother's eyes for the last time, memorizing every detail before turning around and meeting Harry's gaze.“Are you ready?”Harry took a deep breath and pulled the gun from the back of his jeans, gripping it firmly in one hand while holding the journal open to the exorcism page in the other. He'd already figured out on his own that he had to do that part because Louis wouldn't be able to pronounce the words correctly, though it was clear Harry wasn't thrilled about that because it meant Louis would be standing in front of him to protect him.“I'm ready,” Harry replied.Louis looked at him for a few moments, hoping that Harry would understand that there were many things he would have liked to tell him before risking death, but that he didn't have the time. Harry nodded resolutely as if he understood, as always, without Louis saying it out loud. This time though, he would tell him everything if they survived.Louis nodded in turn and gave his mother one last look before clutching the gun in one hand as he approached the door, breaking the strip of salt in front of it with the other.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Louis broke the salt strip and backed away quickly until he was in front of Harry again, his back to him.The door flew open suddenly and violently, slamming against the wall and causing a gust of wind.They flinched as they heard the sound of glass breaking. Turning around, Louis noticed that the strip of salt on the window had been broken by the wind and the wave of black smoke coming dangerously close to the motel.He turned back again, bringing his gaze forward and watching his mother, who stood between him and Azazel, the demon, looking determined and decidedly pissed off.“Mary, my dear, been a while,” Azazel said, giving her a wicked smile as his eyes turned black.“Leave my son alone,” Mary hissed, opening her arms and tilting her head back.A strong, blinding white light emanated from her body, making Louis close his eyes and turning away from it. Forcing himself to open them again, he crossed Harry's gaze, then grabbed him violently by the arm in which he was holding the journal.“Harry!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, looking over his shoulder and catching a glimpse of his mother's body in the blinding light and the demons fighting their way into the room.He pushed Harry to the back of the room, causing him to hit the wall and standing in front of him to protect him.“Read, damn it!” he shouted again, grabbing Harry by the shoulders and shaking him forcefully in an attempt to help him recover from the shock and horror that was written all over his face.When Harry met his gaze, he seemed to regain some clarity, then glanced over Louis’ shoulder, widening his eyes again. As Louis turned around, he noticed that the light was dimming and Azazel and a few other demons were only a few steps away from them.“Louis, you do realize that you have nowhere to go, right? It will be my great pleasure to,”“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,” Harry said suddenly, and the moment he pronounced those words, every demon in the room froze, fear written all over their faces.“Go on,” Louis muttered, watching as the demons shook their bodies before walking back towards them.“Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis congregatio et- et secta diabolica,” Harry pronounced in a more determined voice, probably spurred on by the fact that it seemed to be working.“No!” Azazel growled through clenched teeth before screaming in rage and lunging at Louis.“Louis!” Harry shouted.Louis lost his balance and slipped on the floor, hitting his head and breathing heavily under the weight of the demon on top of him.He squirmed as a hand wrapped around his throat and then screamed in surprise as he heard a gunshot. Azazel cried out, lifting from his body and scrambling back across the floor.When Louis looked up, he saw Harry pointing his gun at the demon with a look of pure rage on his face that made even Louis tremble for a moment.“Only I can kill him, you bastard,” Harry muttered, pointing the gun at another approaching demon and shooting it in the leg.“Give me that bloody journal,” Louis muttered, snatching it out of Harry's hands as he stood up, thinking that they would never finish otherwise.“You can't read it!” Harry exclaimed as he shot Azazel again, who had gotten back to his feet.“Uh, it sounds easy,” Louis commented. “Elgo - No… Ergo, draco maledicte, ut eccle-ecclesiam tuam, uhm, secura, tibi facia-”“Louis, damn it!” Harry screamed as the demons writhed in pain and knelt on the floor, screaming curses and pleas.“Shut up,” Louis snapped. “Tibi facias libertate servire. Te rogamus,” he continued, forcibly closing the journal and jerking his head up to look at the demons before they were exorcized by the last word. “Adios , bitches.”And… nothing happened. The demons kneeling on the floor raised their heads and Azazel burst out laughing, while Louis felt his blood freeze in his veins.It hadn't worked, they had read it till the end and the exorcism had had no effect. How was that possible when his father had written it and his mother had told him that-“It's not adios, you idiot! It's audi nos,” Harry snapped.The moment he spoke those words, the demons writhed and screamed at the top of their lungs as thick black smoke poured from the mouths of the bodies they had possessed, heading out the window. It merged with the cloud that had already enveloped the motel, and slowly began to retreat.Louis stood gasping, looking at the collapsed corpses in front of them.Three of the bodies lay motionless, their eyes wide open. A woman near the bedroom door gasped and coughed violently as she rolled onto her side and tried to get up.Azazel… Samuel, his grandfather, lay on the floor as blood began to flow from the wounds the bullets had inflicted on him, and probably others he had sustained over all those years. After lying still for a few moments, however, he began to pant and cough, cursing loudly.“Fuck!” Harry shouted, kneeling down next to the man.Louis rushed up to him and grabbed him forcefully by the arm, forcing him to stand up.“Harry, we don't have time. Get your things, we'll call the police from the car.”“But your grandfather…”“We don't have time,” Louis insisted, biting his lip, because although he didn't know him, Samuel was the only family he had left at that point.Harry hesitated for a moment and then, breathlessly, stuffed everything into his bag.Louis was used to escaping this way before the police arrived, so he meticulously gathered everything that might seem suspicious, from the bullets to his clothes, from weapons to the knife that was still in the sink.They hurried down the stairs and through the dining room, trying to ignore the bodies lying on the floor, including Becky's. Louis quickly gathered up all the shell casings, counting them to make sure he got them all before running out of the motel.All was quiet as they got into Louis’ car and drove off at full speed, the tires screeching on the asphalt.Louis opened the glove compartment and took out the prepaid phone he used for anonymous tips, dialed the emergency number and gave the address of the motel before hanging up. Then he texted Liam to let him know he was okay and to ask him to delete all video footage from the motel.“How far is it?” Louis asked, putting the phone back in his pocket when he received a positive reply from Liam.Harry pulled out his phone, set the navigator and placed it on the dashboard. “Fifteen minutes.”“Make it less than ten,” Louis replied, pressing the gas pedal.From that moment on, silence reigned in the cockpit, broken only by the sound of the engine and Harry's occasional snort. When Louis got tired of hearing them, thinking he clearly had something to say, he snorted back.“What is it?”“Can I ask you something?” Harry demanded, as if he was just waiting for permission to do so. “Why didn't you tell me? I mean… I don't understand.”Louis sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before turning them back to the dark road. “It's complicated.”“Were you afraid I wouldn't believe you? Or that I wouldn't… accept it? I would understand, you know? After all, you didn't know I have this... interest in the supernatural, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was the reason.”Yeah… Harry always understood everything and Louis felt like a real fool. He had no way of knowing that Harry had this knowledge of the paranormal or that he was an enthusiast, but his stomach churned at the thought that he had wasted two years trying in vain to hide his true life.Louis clutched the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “I didn't want to lose you. I… I was afraid you'd walk away if I told the truth.”“But- but why? I mean… After all, our relationship had started just for sex, so why were you afraid?”Louis smiled bitterly, feeling less stupid than him for once. “It started like that…”Harry fell silent and when Louis turned for a moment to meet his gaze, he saw the astonished look on his face. Louis had decided not to lie anymore though, so he wouldn't.“How long?” Harry whispered.Louis took a deep breath. “For… for about a year and a half.”“A year-” he muttered, then sighed dryly. “Bloody hell, Louis! Do you have any idea how many times I've tried to make you understand in two fucking years?”Louis suddenly turned his head and opened his mouth, only to close it again.“Yes, Mr. Idiot, you heard me right. Two. Fucking. Years.”Louis was… speechless. Upset. Confused. Euphoric. Annihilated.“Why?” he simply whispered, it was a question he had asked himself many times before. Why Harry was wasting his time on someone like him."Why , what?""Why me? What… what did you see in me? Why have you been after me for two years, even though I- I've been acting like an asshole to you?”“Uh, because you're sensitive and caring, because I know you trust me and let me… take care of you? Because you've always tried to hide this side of you, but I've seen it?” Harry replied, speaking quickly as if he had been keeping those thoughts to himself for too long. “When you look at me like that, like... like you're gonna break at any moment and beg me to make you feel good, or when you let me work with you on this case. I call this trust and it's precious, especially when it's given by a distrustful person like you.”Louis stopped the car suddenly as he realized they had reached their destination, and for a moment he stood still as he let Harry's words penetrate every fiber of his body.He trusted Harry, he always had, but it had always been something to do with the intimate sphere rather than daily life. And yet, at that moment, Harry was sitting next to him as he was telling him, with the utmost ease and without embarrassment, that he knew Louis really trusted him, and not just under the sheets.At that moment, Harry was sitting next to him, helping him survive, tackling a case with him, when Louis had been used to doing it on his own for too long. Harry was telling him, and not too implicitly, that he was there with him and that he wasn't alone, that Harry saw him and loved him for who he was.Louis turned to meet his gaze for a moment, and when Harry smiled shyly, he felt on the verge of lunging for his lips. But he wouldn't give in, they would close that damn door and then he would do everything right. He would tell him everything first, from his mother's death to that moment, so Harry could really have a chance to make up his mind.“Let's close this matter first, then we'll talk seriously,” Louis muttered, turning his gaze back to the other's green eyes.Harry looked at him intently for a few seconds and then nodded, taking a deep breath before opening the door and getting out of the car. Louis followed suit and opened the trunk, taking out two torches and salt just in case before closing it and hurrying to the entrance of the cemetery.Everything around them was silent, not even the wild animals made a sound. The sky was covered in thick clouds that didn't let the moon's rays through and even the streetlights were switched off, so the only sources of light illuminating their path were their torches.“Where is it? Damn it, we should've looked for a map of the cemetery,” Louis grumbled under his breath. The last thing he wanted to do was to piss off some ghosts, even if something told him they wouldn't dare go out that night either.Harry suppressed a laugh. “This cemetery is smaller than the bathroom in my house. Come this way,” he whispered, walking determinedly as if he knew the way.“I assume you know everything about this place.”“I like doing research,” he replied with a shrug.“And I can also assume that you've been here before.”Harry chuckled as if it was funny. “Do you think I'm that stupid? I've never had the courage to come here.”Louis frowned. “Is it that famous? I've never heard of it.”He couldn't see him because of the darkness but from the way Harry sighed, Louis could tell he had just rolled his eyes.“I think there are few people who don't know the legend of Stull, especially those from Kansas,” Harry replied. “The legend is centuries old and dates back to the 1800s.”“And why has it become so famous?”“The usual... … People who heard strange noises or had memory loss after being here. It was a tourist destination for years,” Harry explained. “Anyway, it all started with the church. The story goes that in the 19th century, the mayor of the town was killed on the consecrated ground of the cemetery and a church was built on the spot where he died. Apparently there's an underground staircase inside the church that is said to lead to the gates of hell, although I've found no evidence of people descending it. Apart from the hunter who opened the gate, of course.”“That's it?” Louis asked, frowning.“Yeah. People camped out at least twice a year, on the days they thought the devil would show up, but it never happened,” Harry went on to explain. “In any case, the church was torn down years ago without permission. It's not known who ordered it but when it happened, the door had already been opened. Who knows, maybe a hunter knew about the door and had the church torn down because he thought he would close it that way.”Louis smiled, intrigued by the things he knew and the way he had already connected the pieces of the puzzle with the information they had only recently received.“What is it?” Harry asked, shining the flashlight in his face.Louis shrugged. “Nothing, just that you are very… smart, to say the least.”“Well, you must be too if you haven't gotten yourself killed in all these years,” Harry chuckled.“If it wasn't for you, I probably never would've found out about the exorcism and this whole thing, and they would've killed me before I could even get up from that damn table,” Louis admitted.“Well, then let's say I'm the mastermind and you’re the arm in the pair," Harry replied, chuckling again.
In the pair.
Louis bit his lip to suppress a smile. He didn't know if he liked that definition, which didn't refer to them and their intimate relationship but rather to what they were doing.He hated that life and would've gladly given it up, but now that Harry had found out the truth, the part of Louis that loved that job because it had allowed him to save many lives, wondered if a life together might have made it more bearable. The other part of him, however, would never want Harry to lead such a life, and this inner conflict made everything even more difficult.“Here we are,” Harry said, stopping in front of some ruins.Actually, they couldn't even be called ruins, because all that was left of the church were the foundations.“Where's the ladder?” Louis asked, pointing his flashlight in different directions to find it.Harry walked around what was left of the structure until he reached the other side and shone the torch at a specific point.“It should be here,” he said, climbing over what was left of one of the church walls.Louis cursed grudgingly and followed him, glancing at the rubble that covered the entrance to the underground staircase. He clamped the flashlight between his teeth, as did Harry, and together they began to quickly move the debris until they found a square hole and the remains of an old metal ladder.“I hope I don't break my neck,” Harry muttered.“You can stay here if you want,” Louis said, stepping over some rubble and carefully placing his foot on the first step to make sure it could support his weight.Harry stifled a laugh. “First of all, I won't let you go down there alone. And secondly, I'm not stupid enough to stay up here alone.”Louis rolled his eyes but smiled, starting to climb down the ladder as quickly but carefully as possible. When he saw the last steps, he suddenly stopped, feeling his blood freeze in his veins and his heart stop in his chest.“Did you hear that?” he asked in a whisper.Harry was silent for a moment. “It sounds like a… a roar?” he said in an uncertain voice, then they both flinched as they heard the sound again, this time followed by a strong gust of wind.“Run!” Louis shouted, jumping down the last few steps and running as fast as he could down the narrow, rock-lined corridor.He pointed the flashlight in front of him at a large metal double door only a few meters away from them, which split the corridor leading down to the entrance of hell, a thick cloud of black smoke moving rapidly towards them.He threw himself to one side of the double door and Harry to the other, next to him, pushing with all the strength he had to swing it on its hinges and cursing when it didn't budge an inch.“Fuck!” he shouted breathlessly.Louis tried again, leaning on the door with all his weight and squinting as the wind grew stronger. He shone the flashlight beyond the door for a moment, noticing how the cloud was getting closer and denser, then he met Harry's gaze, seeing the horror written all over his features.Once again, that was exactly what gave Louis the strength he needed. The sight of Harry, so frightened and so fragile, but still by his side despite everything.He pushed with all the strength he had in his body, feeling his muscles burning and screaming in pain, but he didn't stop until he felt the door give way and, finally, swing around its hinges. He wondered if Harry had felt the same rush or if it was just fear that gave him the strength, when a thin cloud of black smoke fluttered past the door, and with a final muffled growl, they managed to close it with a dull thud.Louis leaned against it and slumped on the cold ground, breathing heavily, then turned to see Harry in the same position. They looked at each other for a moment before bursting into hysterical laughter, as if it was funny to be leaning against the gates of hell.“How many do you think came out?” Harry asked as they both began to breathe evenly again.“I don't know,” Louis muttered. “Damn sons of bitches.”“Do you think they'll possess someone else now?”“I don't know that either,” Louis replied, sighing as he stood up, and held out his hand to Harry to help him do the same. “If you don't mind, I'd just like to go home and sleep now. I'm a bit tired.”“A bit?” Harry chuckled. “I think I'm gonna take a week off. I feel like I've been hit by a train,” he added, grabbing his hand and standing up.Louis burst out laughing, followed by Harry, and as the laughter died away, he met his eyes in the dim light illuminated only by the torches. He had promised himself he would wait, make everything right and give Harry a chance to make up his mind once he knew the whole truth, but at that moment he couldn't help himself.Louis lunged for his lips, dropping the torch to the ground with a thud and cupping his face with both hands. Harry gasped, perhaps unprepared or because of the force with which he had thrown himself at him, but Louis took advantage of the way he parted his lips to slide his tongue between them.Harry didn't push him away though, instead grabbing his hips forcefully and pressing him against his body, following the quick and desperate movements of Louis’ tongue around his.Sensing that he was out of breath, Louis pulled back, still holding Harry's face in his hands and resting his forehead against his. They looked at each other intently for a few seconds, then an amused smile broke out on Harry's face.“I can't believe you gave me our first real kiss in a cemetery and in front of the gates of hell.”Louis burst out laughing, shaking his head and leaving another kiss on his lips. “Be thankful I still have a shred of dignity, because you were so sexy I'd gladly get down on my knees right now.”Harry wrinkled his nose and chuckled. “I don't wanna end up in hell too, thank you very much.”“Ha ha, very funny,” Louis muttered, kissing him one last time before they climbed the stairs and went out into the fresh air, walking to the car in silence.“I gotta get my car,” Harry said, breaking the silence that had fallen.Louis remained in silence thinking as he opened the back door of the Impala and the small cooler he always carried with him. He took out two bottles of beer and uncorked them before handing one to Harry, then opened the driver's door to turn on the headlights to shed light. They sat on the hood of the car and clinked the bottles before taking a sip.“Hmm, I think we should wait until the police have gone. It would be too risky to do it now.”“Well, by now they'll have memorized the license plate and figured out my identity. I can go and pretend nothing happened, just say I was a guest at the motel but I wasn't there when whatever happened,” Harry retorted, then cursed. “There are fucking cameras.”“I have already asked my source to delete all the footage.”Harry sighed, shaking his head. “You might as well stop calling him your source, you know?” he muttered, then cleared his throat and looked away. “It's Liam, right? The one who gave you the information about the motel when we were in the room.”Louis frowned at Harry's behavior, settling on the hood of the car to get a better look at him. “Yeah, why?”Harry shrugged, lowering his head and nervously playing with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “You and him… Uh…”Louis bit back a laugh and shook his head, feeling his heart beat a little faster at the thought of Harry being jealous. Then he took a deep breath, knowing that it was time to tell Harry the whole truth.“There's never been anyone else in these two years, Harry. Only you,” he said, meeting his gaze and looking at him intently.Harry blushed and smiled shyly. “There's never been anyone else for me either.”Louis bit his lip at that admission, because that was what had always tormented him, the idea that there was someone else in Harry's life.He sighed as he realized that he no longer had an excuse to put off the conversation, and once again the fear of losing Harry gripped his stomach.Harry hadn't run away under any circumstances and he hadn't rejected him when Louis kissed him, he had admitted that he had feelings for Louis for two years and had told him that he loved him, but it was so surreal and incomprehensible to Louis that Harry actually wanted to be with him that it wasn't enough.Louis had to tell him everything, firstly because he was tired of lying and because Harry had the right to know the truth, especially after he had stayed with him in that madness until the end, and secondly because he no longer had the strength to remain in doubt.“Listen…” he murmured after several minutes of silence spent sipping their beers. “I know that… that you said you loved me and... and everything that happened and what you said, but I need to tell you the truth because I owe you and because I'm fucking tired of lying.”“Lou-”“No, Harry. Listen to me, okay? I know this all seems cool and fun to you now, but I assure you it's not.”Harry looked at him impassively, then raised an eyebrow. “Cool and fun? Do you think that's what I thought when that bastard told you that your father…? Or when we were about to be possessed by fucking demons? When you saw your mother's ghost, or when I read a fucking exorcism and looked as a fucking demon was about to kill you?”Louis opened his mouth to say something back, but Harry raised a hand to cut him off before he could, and something that looked like anger appeared on his face.“If you wanna tell me your story, okay, but I want you to do it because you want to or because you need to, and not because you think I need to hear it to make a decision about… about us,” he snapped indignantly. “I already made that damn decision two years ago. And if I was stupid enough to stay even though you kept disappearing, even though I felt like you only cared about sex, and even though nothing about your behavior ever made me think you had feelings for me, what the hell makes you think I'd let you go now that I know you have feelings for me?”Louis bit his lip to stop the tears he had been holding back for so long from coming out.“Okay,” he whispered in a low voice.Harry looked at him for a moment, then sighed and nodded, reaching out and intertwining their fingers as if to give him comfort, or the strength Louis would need.He took a deep breath and exhaled shakily before he began to recount everything from his mother's death to the change his father had gone through, how he had raised him and how he had felt all those years. It was difficult as he had never told anyone the whole story or how he had felt emotionally, but Harry kept silent the whole time without interrupting.“Harry, I don't want you to live this life just because you want to be with me,” he murmured when he finished his story and after wiping away the tears he hadn't been able to hold back, hoping that Harry would see his point of view.“I didn't have a choice, okay? I grew up like this and I've always lived this life, but you didn't. I know what it means to put everything aside, including self-love, to… to follow someone you love just to make them happy, and I don't want that to happen between us.”Harry looked at him silently for a few moments, then his features softened and he sighed.“Lou, you were just a kid when you started this life, so you didn't have much of a choice. I'm an adult and a mature person, and even though I have to admit that I'm a little naive, I'm able to recognize what I'd be facing and decide accordingly.”Louis sighed softly, leaning back against the windshield and looking up at the dark sky above them.“I don't want you to live this life. I hate this life.”“No, Lou, you hate the reasons that pushed you to continue living this life, not it per se. You hate that you had no choice, you hate that it took your father and his affection away from you, and you hate that you only kept going because you were seeking approval from him, but you don't hate what you're doing,” Harry replied softly.Louis met his gaze and fell silent, thinking about what he had said until he came to the conclusion that Harry was right. He liked saving people, protecting them from things they couldn't understand. It strengthened him and gave him a sense of fulfillment.Part of Louis knew it, even if he didn't want to admit it, because it was the same part that kept telling him that his father didn't really care about him, and the fact that he left to protect him didn't change that.“I'm sorry about your father,” Harry murmured eventually, as if reading his mind once again.Louis shrugged and licked his lips, trying to find a way to express his feelings. “Do you think that- that I'm a bad person if I tell you that I don't care? I mean… I know he left to protect me and all that, but he forced me into this life long before he left.”Harry thought about it for a few moments and then snuggled against him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and leaving a kiss on his temple.“No one has the right to tell you how to feel, and there's no right or wrong in these cases, Lou. If that's how you feel, then that's valid and it's okay.”Louis sighed, relaxing, and rested his head on his chest. “Are you still sure you wanna be part of this? Your life is gonna change forever, Harry, or at least until you decide to… to do this job.”“I'm sure, Lou, and I don't wanna do it because I feel like I don't have a choice. I could just wait for you at home and do what I normally do, but I wanna go on this adventure with you.”“And… and what would you do if I died one day from a werewolf or a shapeshifter or a vampire or any of the damn things I have to deal with?” he muttered and then held his breath. “I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you.”“And what have I done so far, Louis? I've been waiting for you for two years , always, so what difference would it make? That's what I already do, don't you understand?” Harry replied in an exasperated tone. “And that's what a team is for, isn't it? Being able to rely on each other and protect each other, no matter what.”Louis hesitated and met his gaze, finding only certainties and the security he had always sought but never found. The comfort, the companionship, the desire to be part of something and to be able to share his life with someone. Not with just anyone, but with Harry.He still wasn't convinced it was the best decision and he knew he would live with the fear of losing him every day, but Harry was right, it was no different to the fear of losing him that he had always felt in those two years that had passed.He took a deep breath and decided that it would be worth it after all, and that he wouldn't want anyone but Harry by his side.He kissed him gently, a silent promise to tell him that he would do what Harry had always done for him, take care of him without ever asking for anything in return.Louis stood up from the hood and held out a hand, which Harry took without hesitation, leading him to the back of the car and opening the trunk.“Well, then I think our first lesson should start here,” Louis said, wedging a rifle between the bottom of the trunk and the door to hold it open. “We've got work to do.”