Chapter 8: The Invisible Touch
The scent of mayonnaise and toasted bread clung to the air. Derek stood at the cracked counter, knife in hand, assembling a haphazard turkey sandwich.The flickering overhead light cast a stuttering silhouette against the peeling linoleum. He was thinking about grout, about the oppressive damp smell seeping from the basement door, about the warmth of Laurence’s solid form curled asleep upstairs.Normal things.Strange things.
The first touch was a feather-light pressure on the back of his thigh, just above the knee.
He froze, the knife poised over the lettuce.A bug?A draft?The house settling in its wet, wooden bones?
Then the pressure moved. A deliberate, slow slide up the seam of his jeans, warm and unmistakably a hand. He jumped, a full-body flinch that sent the knife clattering against the ceramic plate.“Christ!”
A low, familiar laugh vibrated the air by his right ear. “You’re tense. You think about grout too much.”
Derek spun, his heart hammering against his ribs.The kitchen was empty.The back door was locked. The only movement was the frantic dance of a fly against the windowpane.“Laurence?”
No answer. But then, on the counter, the strawberry he’d set aside for his sandwich trembled. It lifted, rotating slowly in mid-air as if held by careful, invisible fingers. It drifted toward his face, the pointed end bumping gently against the tip of his nose.He went cross-eyed trying to look at it. “Cut it out.”
The strawberry dropped onto his sandwich with a soft, wet thud. The voice returned, closer now, the words forming right against the shell of his ear. “I’ve been practicing.”
A shiver, totally involuntary, cascaded down Derek’s spine. It wasn’t fear.It was something else, a sharp, anticipatory thrill. “Practicing what?Being a poltergeist?”
“Focus.” The word was a purr. “You can feel me when I’m like this, can’t you?Solid. But the visual part… I can fold that away now. Like closing a shade.”
As he spoke, the invisible touch returned.Not on his leg this time. A single finger traced the line of his collarbone, exposed by the V of his t-shirt. It trailed across his skin, unbearably slow, leaving a path of raised goosebumps in its wake.Derek’s breath hitched. He shut his eyes, leaning back against the counter’s edge for support. It was more intense with his vision gone.The touch was all there was.“See?” Laurence murmured. The finger slid lower, tracing the defined ridge of a rib.“No warning.Just… sensation.”
Derek bit back a sound. His hands gripped the counter behind him, the cold laminate a sharp contrast to the heat blooming under his skin. Another touch joined the first—a palm, flat and cool, splaying against the bare strip of his waist where his shirt had ridden up. The thumb stroked a small, maddening arc over his hip bone.“You’re not playing fair,” Derek managed, his voice tight.
“I never said I would.”
The exploration continued, a silent, one-sided cartography. Invisible fingertips traced the line of his jaw, the column of his throat, the sensitive dip behind his ear. Derek shuddered, a wave of helpless laughter mixing with a sharper, darker want. He was reacting to empty air, to the ghost of a boy who was, functionally, groping him in a half-renovated kitchen.It was absurd. It was the most real thing he’d felt in years.
When a hand—both hands?—skated up his ribs, heading for the same devastating spots mapped the night before, Derek finally broke.He moved fast. Pushing off the counter, he lunged forward into the space where he thought Laurence might be. His arms closed around a solid, cool waist.He had him. He spun, pinning the invisible form against the counter with a soft thud. He could feel the lean muscle of Laurence’s torso, the quick rise and fall of a chest under his forearm.
“Show yourself,” Derek demanded, his mouth close to where he guessed Laurence’s ear would be.His own breathing was ragged.
For a second, nothing.Then, a pressure against his lips—cool, insistent. A kiss from the void.It was disorienting and deeply erotic. Derek kissed back, pushing into the emptiness, feeling it coalesce and firm under his mouth.
“Okay,” a breathless voice conceded against his lips.Like a photograph developing in reverse, Laurence faded in. Starting from the points of contact: the lips Derek was kissing, the chest under his arm, the waist his other hand gripped. Then outward, until the full picture resolved—Laurence, pressed between Derek and the counter, his wavy hair mussed, his dark eyes glittering with triumph and something darker.Fully solid. Fully visible.“Hi,” Laurence said, a little smug.Derek didn’t answer. He just stared, taking in the reality of him, the miracle of it. Then he kissed him again, deeper this time, a claiming. Laurence melted into it, his invisible hands now visible as they came up to tangle in Derek’s hair.When they parted, Derek kept him pinned. “So that’s your new trick. Solid but unseen.”
“It’s efficient.” Laurence’s thumbs stroked the short hair at Derek’s temples. “Saves on the whole ‘perpetually attached’ dilemma.I can be… nearby. Without being in your way.”
“Nearby,” Derek repeated, suspicion coloring his tone.“You mean you could be anywhere.Watching. Waiting to ambush me.”
Laurence’s grin was unrepentant. “The potential for mischief is profoundly underexplored.”
Derek finally released him, taking a half-step back. The loss of contact felt abrupt, wrong. He watched, a familiar twist of anxiety in his gut, as Laurence’s hand, where it rested on the counter, began to lose its opacity at the edges.A faint translucency seeped back in.Laurence noticed it too. His smile dimmed.“Still need the anchor to hold it,” he said, almost to himself. “The invisibility… it’s just a layer on top. But the substance comes from you.” He looked up, meeting Derek’s eyes. “I can wander the house invisible, but I’ll fade if I’m not touching you for too long. It’s like… I’m drawing a charge. I can spend it for a while, but I need to return to the source to recharge.”
The metaphor, the electrical terminology, felt cold.Clinical. It reduced the warmth of Laurence’s skin, the reality of his laugh, to a matter of circuits and reserves. Derek didn’t like it.
“So last night,” Derek began, leaning back against the opposite counter, crossing his arms.“When you were… practicing your science. You were spending your charge.”
Laurence’s cheeks flushed a pale, beautiful pink.He looked down, suddenly shy. “I was.And it was the best thing I’ve ever spent it on.”
The honesty disarmed Derek. The anxiety uncoiled, replaced by a soft, aching fondness. He pushed off the counter and closed the distance again, not to pin, but to offer. He took Laurence’s now slightly translucent hand in his.The solidity returned, bleeding back from the point of contact.
“You don’t have to hide,” Derek said quietly.
“Sometimes I want to,” Laurence admitted, his voice soft.“Not from you.From the… the burden of being seen. Of being this.” He gestured at himself with his free hand. “It’s a relief, to just be a touch.A presence.Not a ghost, not a memory. Just… effect without cause.”
Derek understood, more than he could say. To be a thing that acted, not a thing that was perceived.It sounded like freedom.
The fly finally found the window’s edge and buzzed away.The only sound was the persistent, low hum of the faulty light. Derek’s gaze drifted past Laurence, toward the basement door. A fresh, dark stain marred the floorboards just in front of it, wider than the drops from before.It looked like a small, weeping mouth.
Laurence followed his look.The playful light vanished from his eyes. “It’s getting worse.”
“The damp?”
“The pressure,” Laurence corrected. He shuddered, a full-body ripple that Derek felt through their joined hands. “When I’m… incorporeal, it’s like a noise.A bad song. When I’m solid, with you, it’s quieter.Muffled.But it’s still there. And it’s getting louder.” He squeezed Derek’s hand.“The stone in your pocket. It’s not just a rock.It’s a… a clot. A piece of whatever’s down there that got stuck in the world.”
Derek remembered the weight of it, the wrongness. “You think we need to go down.”
“I think it won’t wait much longer.” Laurence’s face was pale and serious. “And I think, now that I can be solid on my own for a little while… maybe I can help. Maybe I can finally see what it is.”
The proposition hung in the rancid kitchen air. It was the obvious next step, the source of the house’s sickness. But the thought of taking Laurence down there, of exposing that hard-won solidity to the damp, metallic dark, made Derek’s blood run cold.
“Not tonight,” Derek said, finality in his tone.“We need light.Real light. I’ll buy work lamps tomorrow.”
Laurence nodded, a flicker of relief in his eyes. He wasn’t ready either. “Tomorrow, then.”
Derek pulled him gently away from the counter, away from the view of the stained floor. “Tonight,” he said, leading him toward the stairs, “you can practice your new trick.But visible. I want to see you.”
A slow, genuine smile returned to Laurence’s face. “Demanding.”
“You started it,” Derek said, and didn’t let go of his hand all the way up to their room, where the fading daylight was kinder, and the only damp was the sweat on their skin, and the only music was the sound of their own breathing, learning each other’s rhythms in the gathering dark.
The bedroom air was cool, carrying the evening’s damp chill through the thin window glass. Derek didn’t turn on the lamp, letting the deep blue twilight fill the space. He sat on the edge of the bed, the old springs groaning a familiar complaint, and watched Laurence remain standing, a silhouette against the window.“You’re thinking about downstairs,” Laurence said.It wasn’t a question.
“Aren’t you?”
Laurence’s answer was to cross the room and kneel on the floorboards between Derek’s knees. He placed his hands on Derek’s thighs, the solid weight of them a grounding comfort. “Right now, I’m thinking about how your heart is still hammering from the kitchen. I distracted you, but I didn’t stop it.”
Derek let out a long breath, his shoulders slumping. “You’re too perceptive for a dead guy.”
“Occupational hazard of being a permanent observer.” Laurence’s thumbs drew slow circles on the denim.“We don’t have to talk about the basement. We don’t have to do anything.”
“I want to do something,” Derek said, his voice low. He slid off the bed to join him on the floor.The worn wood was unforgiving against his knees. “Just not that.”
He cupped Laurence’s face, his thumbs tracing the sharp arches of his cheekbones. In the dim light, Laurence’s eyes were pools of soft darkness, his expression open and waiting. Derek leaned in and kissed him, not with the frantic energy from the kitchen, but with a deliberate, searching slowness. It was a quiet discovery, a mapping of pressure and response.
Laurence melted into it with a soft sigh, his hands coming up to cradle Derek’s wrists. The kiss deepened, tasting of shared breath and the faint, clean ozone that always lingered on Laurence’s skin. Derek could feel the subtle tremor in Laurence’s frame, a vibration of concentrated feeling.When they parted, they stayed close, foreheads touching.
“Still so cold?” Derek whispered, his lips brushing Laurence’s.
“Less, when I’m like this. When I’m with you.” Laurence shifted, pressing a kiss to the corner of Derek’s mouth.“You’re like a furnace. It’s… decadent.”
They moved to the bed in a clumsy, entwined shuffle, shedding their clothes not with urgency, but with a practical simplicity.The sheets were cool and rough against Derek’s back. Then Laurence was there, his body a long, cool line against Derek’s side.The sensation was profoundly new. The weight of another person, the pressure of a thigh over his, the scratch of dark hair against his shoulder.“Okay?” Laurence whispered into the hollow of his throat.“Yeah. More than.”
They kissed again, lazily now, learning the textures. Derek ran his hands down the smooth plane of Laurence’s back, feeling the knobs of his spine, the subtle shift of muscle. Laurence explored the solidity of Derek’s chest, the coarse hair there, the steady, strong pulse beneath his palm. Every touch was amplified, devoid of the visual noise of the world, reduced to pure, shimmering sensation.
“I never thought I’d feel this again,” Laurence murmured, his words muffled against Derek’s collarbone.“The weight of a blanket. The scratch of stubble.The heat of another person’s skin. It’s almost overwhelming.”
Derek tightened his arm around him, pulling him closer. “You’re not overwhelming me.”
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, punctuated by soft kisses and the rustle of sheets. Derek traced the shell of Laurence’s ear, the curve of his jaw. Laurence nuzzled into the touch, a contented hum vibrating in his chest. The fears of the house, the damp stain on the kitchen floor, receded into a distant hum, outmatched by the simple, seismic fact of this contact.
“I could stay right here,” Derek said, his voice thick with a drowsy contentment he hadn’t known he could feel.
“Me too.” Laurence’s hand settled possessively on Derek’s hip, his cold nose pressed into Derek’s shoulder. “For a hundred years.”
Sleep began to curl around the edges of the room, soft and inviting. Their breathing synchronized, a slow tide in the dark. Derek’s last conscious thought was of the stone, a cold counterweight in his jacket pocket downstairs, and the pressing, silent dark waiting just beyond a locked door. But here, now, anchored by the solid, breathing weight in his arms, he let the tide pull him under.
But here, now, anchored by the solid, breathing weight in his arms, he let the tide pull him under.Derek woke to an odd sensation. Something was moving through the body hair that went from his chest, down beneath his waistband.It wasn’t a hand. Too fluid-like.A ribbon of cool, silken pressure, tracing the trail from his sternum. Whatever it was was causing the lightest of tickles: not enough to draw full laughter, but enough to cause squirming and a wide, unconscious smile. He kept his eyes closed, feigning sleep, savoring the delicate exploration.It coiled lazily around his navel before retreating back up. Then it returned, more confident this time.A whisper of touch, all suggestion.
“I know you’re awake,” Laurence’s voice murmured, close to his ear.His breath was cool. “Your pulse just jumped in your throat.”
“What is that?” Derek asked, his voice raspy with sleep.He still didn’t open his eyes.
“Focus.” The ribbon—a tendril of cool, cohesive mist—dipped lower again, slipping just beneath the elastic of his boxers.It was the most intimate violation, utterly gentle.Derek’s stomach muscles clenched. “It’s just an extension.A part of me I can… push out. When I’m charged up.When I’m with you.”
The tendril retreated.Derek finally cracked his eyes open. The grey dawn light showed Laurence propped on one elbow beside him, fully visible and solid, his dark eyes fixed on Derek’s face with a look of rapt concentration. A wisp of faint, pearlescent mist curled from Laurence’s fingertip, sinuous and intelligent, before dissolving into the air.“You’re full of new tricks,” Derek said.
“I had a good battery charge.” Laurence’s smile was soft, private. He leaned down and kissed Derek, a slow, deep kiss that tasted of sleep and ozone. Derek’s hand came up to cup the back of his neck, holding him there. The world was this room, this bed, this cool mouth on his.When they parted, Laurence’s expression turned more serious. “The pressure’s quieter this morning.But it’s a waiting quiet.You feel it?”
Derek did. The house around them felt like a held breath. The normal creaks and sighs were absent, replaced by a thick, listening silence.It made the warm nest of their bed feel precarious. “I feel it.”
“We should go today.With the lights.”
The thought was a cold stone in Derek’s gut. He traced the line of Laurence’s eyebrow with his thumb. “You don’t have to come down. You can stay up here, where it’s safe.”
Laurence laughed, a short, sharp sound.“And do what?Wait for you to maybe not come back up? I’ve been trapped in this house for years, Derek. I’m not staying trapped up here while you go into the only part of it I’m actually afraid of.” He captured Derek’s hand, pressing it flat against his own chest.“I’m going with you. This body, this solid thing you’ve given me? It’s the only weapon I’ve got.”
The determination in his voice was absolute. Derek saw the young man he must have been—stubborn, a little reckless.He nodded.“Okay.Together.”
The practicality of it was a relief. They got up, moving through the morning routine with a new, quiet synchronicity. Showering was less a comedy now and more a silent ritual of preparation. Derek made strong coffee while Laurence, maintaining contact with a shoulder pressed to Derek’s arm, experimentally solidified a spoon and watched it clatter to the floor when he let go.“Charge is holding better,” he noted.
“Good.”
They dressed in layers. Derek pulled on his heaviest boots and a durable jacket, the river stone a heavy lump in its pocket. Laurence wore clothes borrowed from Derek’s drawers—a grey henley and jeans that hung loose on his slimmer frame, the fabric slowly gaining and holding its color as he focused.He looked like a sketch of a person steadily filling in.
Derek assembled the gear in the hallway: two powerful LED work lamps on long cords, a crowbar, a heavy flashlight.The new lock on the basement door gleamed, cold and silver against the old wood. The dark stain beneath it had spread, a map of some slow, internal bleeding.
“Ready?” Derek’s voice was too loud in the hush.
“No.” Laurence slid his hand into Derek’s.Their fingers laced together, a perfect fit. “Let’s go anyway.”
The new padlock clicked open with a sound like a breaking bone. Derek turned the knob and pushed the door inward.A wave of air rolled over them, thick and frigid. It carried the smell of wet earth, of rust, and that underlying metallic tinge that was now unmistakably old blood. The darkness beyond the doorway was absolute, a solid wall of black.
Derek flicked on the flashlight. The beam cut a trembling swath down a steep set of wooden stairs, catching floating motes of dust that looked like ash.The steps descended into nothing.
He plugged in the first work lamp, and its brutal white light blasted the immediate landing. It revealed damp, crumbling concrete walls, a heap of rotten lumber, shadows that leaped and shrank but didn’t disappear. The light didn’t invite; it accused.
“Stay close,” Derek said, and it wasn’t a command, it was a plea.“Always.” Laurence’s grip tightened.
They took the first step down together.The wood groaned a different, deeper protest under their combined weight. The temperature dropped with each step, the cold seeping through their clothes. By the time they reached the bottom, their breath fogged in the twin beams of the lamp and flashlight.The basement was a cavern of forgotten things. The floor was packed earth, veined with phosphorescent streaks of white mold. The ceiling was a low snarl of cobwebbed pipes and joists. The far walls were lost in shadow, beyond the reach of their lights.Derek swept his flashlight.
An old furnace sat like a rusted beast in the corner, its door hanging open on black hinges. A shelf held ancient, bulging cans of paint. And in the very center of the space, directly under the main support beam of the house, the earth was different.It was sunken. A perfect, disturbing circle of soil about three feet wide, dark and glittering with dampness. It looked less like a hole and more like a sinkhole, as if the ground had simply decided to swallow itself. The air above it wavered slightly, like heat haze off asphalt, but the cold was deepest here.“There,” Laurence whispered. His voice was thin, strained.He was staring at the sunken circle, his body rigid. “That’s the… the source.The knot.”
Derek moved the flashlight beam over the depression. Something glinted, half-buried in the black soil at its center.Not a stone. Something longer, paler.A smooth, curved line.
He took a step closer, pulling Laurence with him. The silence was no longer quiet; it was a dense, listening pressure against his eardrums.He took another step.The glint resolved.It was bone. A human femur, clean and white, protruding from the dark earth.
And curled around it, fingers resting possessively on the bleached surface, was a hand. Translucent, shimmering with a sick, internal phosphorescence. It was attached to an arm, which trailed back into the dark soil of the depression, belonging to something buried beneath.The hand tightened its grip on the bone.
A sound began, low and rhythmic, rising from the earth.It was the sound of wet clay being squeezed. A slow, viscous squelching.
The soil in the sunken circle bulged.