Close to Nowhere (Larry Stylinson)

two

It wasn't until Harry grabbed him on the wrist that Louis finally came back to the physical plane of existence. Begrudgingly so.

"Why do you always have to do that?"

"Because you're stupid and reckless, and you love just throwing your soul into the other realm for the sole reason of pissing me off," Harry responded, keeping his fingers wrapped around Louis' wrist. Physical touch tended to mess up his concentration, subsequently grounding him in the real world. Harry knew that.

He was always going on and on about Louis just carelessly throwing his soul into the void. One day that little silver thread keeping your soul attached to your body is gonna snap , he always warned. And you're gonna turn into a vegetable. Also known as, lost in the other realm without a body to go back to. It was a valid concern, but unlike Harry, Louis wasn't too worried. He considered himself to be an expert at astral projection.

"Did you fix the car?"

"No."

"So what now?"

"We're gonna have to leg it."

Louis squinted up at Harry's silhouette, backlit by the bright Tennessee sun. His shirt was clinging to his skin, damp with sweat, and his hair fluttered in the breeze. The expression on his face said he wasn't joking.

Louis realized he just wasted the perfect opportunity to sit back and watch an attractive man sweat over trying to fix a car. The entire time he was lying back with his eyes closed, trying to see ghosts, and he could've been admiring the view.

"I'd rather die," Louis said.

"Don't do that. I already have enough crabby ghosts to deal with. Let's go."

They began walking down the road, in the direction they were headed before the rental car decided it'd had enough. Louis was still dressed in his traveling clothes, which included sweats and a t-shirt, all of which felt too hot in the June weather. Since he grew up in Wisconsin, he wasn't used to it being so warm this early in the summer. It was annoying.

"So we should probably talk more about the case," Harry said eventually. The stretch of road ahead of them seemed endless.

"We've already discussed everything." It was true. It only took about twenty minutes to talk through everything they knew about the mess they were getting themselves into.

They didn't know much at all, except for the fact that Ashland ranch was haunted and the sheriff couldn't do anything about it because there wasn't any evidence, so he tried to drop the case. Well, really he never wanted it in the first place. But the man who owned the ranch kept badgering him, not to mention the rest of the department, until he finally stooped low enough to call Louis.

"I mean, formulate a plan and figure out where we're going to start."

Louis exaggerated a shiver for Harry's sake. He hated planning ahead. Absolutely loathed it. Planning ruined everything about his abilities and his character in general. It went against the core of his being, which was based in spontaneity.

Harry called it recklessness, but Louis called it intuition.

"How about we see the property first and then go from there." Not a question.

Harry still answered it as if it was one. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"I know you don't, but this is my case," he enunciated slowly. "Not yours. You're just here to drive me around. And now that the car died, you're off the hook. You can go run away to the mountains and live like a monk like I know you want to do so badly."