Omnipresence ♾ Zarry

v.

When Harry gets back, roughly fifteen minutes later, he lights up an aromatic candle in every room of the house and puts on a record to drown out the sounds of whatever might want to fuck with his sanity that day.

xxx

Harry's done many incredible things in his life, he's published two books, countless articles. He thinks he's a pretty good person who's a good influence on his surroundings. Yet, he wholeheartedly believes that his biggest achievement in life was leash-training his lazy indoor cat. That's right. Jolene now goes on walks with him. She's a relatively good company, as long as they don't run into any dogs or squirrels because then his house cat turns into a tiger.

The baby is making itself known. It's terrifying in a way, looking at himself in the mirror and seeing a curve in his figure that's never been there before, knowing his child is somewhere inside of his body. Harry feels the presence of the child more and more, mainly in his own consciousness since he's still very lean and can hide the belly with a sweatshirt. But he knows, and he actively thinks about the little one. How big they are now (the apps won't let him forget to check, and yes, the baby is the size of an artichoke now), wondering if it's a boy or a girl (Harry's awfully vivid dreams have presented him with both options) or which room he'll pick for the nursery. It makes him happy sometimes, the sheer excitement of the unknown.

He also feels Zayn's cold absence. There is no one holding him when he wakes up, no one to kiss him a million times a day. A hello kiss, an I-love-you kiss, a quick peck while they pass each other in the living room while they're both doing their own thing. It hurts, it hurts every day and the pain isn't getting any more bearable. Of course, Harry doesn't spend his days crying and cursing the world. He can't, not anymore. From the outside, his life looks pretty put together. He's back to his healthy lifestyle, he's working again, he even went out to an exhibition opening with a few friends once. But the other side of this coin is very different. Rotten, decaying, painful.

Christmas makes everything worse. Harry doesn't even decorate the house, apart from slapping a wreath on the front door and wrapping one solitary line of Christmas lights around the stairs' bannister. He doesn't put a tree up. There's no point really.

Anne and Gemma eventually bully him into spending the Christmas holiday with them. The past couple of years, Harry and Zayn just visited each of their families for one day and that was it. They were married, they felt like Christmas should be spent together in their own house. Now, of course, Harry would spend it in a sour mood with Jolene, watching some awful Christmas romcoms on the TV.

The day before Christmas Eve, Harry's packing in the bedroom. Jolene is making the whole affair even more miserable by insisting on fighting every piece of clothing Harry pulls out of the closet. And there must be something wrong with the heating because the room is absolutely freezing. Harry's wearing the thickest sweater he could find and his fingers are close to getting frostbite. He doesn't think it's even that cold outside. It's fucking London, not the north of Scotland.

Jolene starts growling out of nowhere. Harry frowns at her and shakes his head before going to the walk-in closet again. He takes three nice shirts from the racks, expecting to be whisked away to some Christmas parties his mum's girlfriends will be throwing. They're almost like family, Harry doesn't mind.

The entire time he was in the closet, he could hear Jolene's growling but when he returns, Jolene is back to trying to stuff herself into Harry's hold-all.

"You're coming with me, dummy," Harry mumbles as he pulls Jolene out of his bag for the twentieth time. Jolene meows in protest. "You have your own bag carrier, you don't need to crawl into mine."

Harry shakes his head with a smile and goes to pick up a few things from the top of the dresser. He grabs a pair of sunglasses, a few hair clips and a couple of rings. But in the little bowl he keeps his rings in, he finds a surprise. At the bottom of it, after he removes the set of his usual rings, he finds Zayn's wedding ring. And he knows it's his ring because Harry is wearing his own and it's the same gold band. When in the world did he put it here?

He picks up the ring and holds it delicately between his fingers. Harry hasn't seen it since he put it... somewhere after he unpacked the bag of Zayn's possessions he received from the police. He doesn't quite remember where he put it. The ring could have well been here the whole time, but Harry didn't notice it.

Both of their rings have the same engraving on the inside - amor vincit omnia. It means 'love conquers all things'. It's a good saying. Love does often conquer all. Harry sees it at work every single day when he wakes up and the love he feels for his child brings him out of bed. When the love he still has for his husband keeps driving him forward because relentlessly crying over the past and things he can't change won't do him any good. So love does conquer all, Harry thinks. At least when it comes to emotions. Love can't conquer death.

Harry decides to put Zayn's ring on the necklace with the cross that doesn't leave his neck. The promise of forever they once swore to each other is still present. This way, the symbol of it will rest right next to Harry's heart.

The terror of the realization sets in only as Harry's driving up to his mum's house already. Jolene has been hissing before he found it, just like with the book and many other times. Can cats see ghosts? It has been said that animals can sense the paranormal, and children often as well. Maybe he's not insane. Maybe he's really being haunted by his dead husband.

Harry shakes his head. That can't be. Weird shit had been happening for years. He only notices it more because he lives alone. But the ghost, ghosts, whoever, they don't treat Harry with malice. Apart from the broken glass when he wanted to drink wine, nothing has been broken or ruined. He hasn't been assaulted by any unseen force yet. Only Jolene has been truly irritated by the strange activity.

The wondering is pushed back into the very depth of Harry's mind. He'll deal with it once he comes back in the New Year.

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spooky shit on main is happening again yall