A Rock Star Christmas Carol

“For the last time, I know what I saw! They were not linked to my imagination! Can you not get that through your cranium? I. saw.DEMON.MEN-CHILDREN and I need those items, pronto! Now would you PLEASE give me some holy water and a bloody cross?! I know you have to have them stashed somewhere around this place of hypocrisy.” Louis sneered, walking up the alter and that would have been okay– if the congregation wasn’t in the middle of their service…and if it wasn’t a Jehovah Witness church.

Liam groaned and hit his hand against his forehead in exasperation, with Harry not far from joining him in his now adult form next to Zayn and Niall.

Zayn was still finding great amusement in the mortal’s actions as he watched Louis go up to a desk and start to look through it.

Evidently, the elder was not amused as he insisted that they did not believe in symbols as symbolism is a sign of false prophet and will damn the soul into eternal damnat –

Zayn yawned.

“Yeah, he’s not gonna have much luck here.” Zayn chuckled, his eyes following a flying drawer as it nearly missed one of the other elders sitting in the front row.

“This isn’t funny, mate.” Harry frowned, crossing his arms into his chest with a stern look.

Zayn rolled his eyes and glanced at Liam, the tired look in that bloke’s soul sobered the ghost slightly.

“What’s this one’s story then? I’d of quit years ago if I was stuck working for the world’s largest arse.” Zayn asked, puffing on his fag. He was curious and Harry was after all, the ghost of the past.

“He was Louis’s first and only friend in boarding school. His mum and dad sent him there when he became too difficult to deal with at home and while Louis was away, his father died. Car accident, hit dead on by a drunk driver,” Harry paused and looked down with a simple shake of his head, before pressing on.

“His mum paid for extracurricular schooling for him after and married a year later. By the time she sent home for him, he was already well into the limelight. He wanted and still wants nothing to do with her. Liam stayed with Louis because he is in a sense, keeping the man from going off the edge, but it won’t be enough. He has a lot of demons in his closet and that’s what concerns me as we might not overcome them in one night. He has a lot to face.” Harry sighed, pinching the headache he felt coming on – even though he couldn’t physically get one since he had been dead for nearly three hundred and seventy-five years.

Zayn let out a small grunt.

“Fine, let me talk to hi – “Harry cut the other ghost off with a sharp-tongued warning.

“Don’t you dare! We stick to only becoming visible when the situation calls for it, Zayn.” Harry yelled, jumping when the whole desk suddenly went flying.

Zayn gave Harry a sarcastic look, blowing smoke out his nose.

“It’s a bird! It’s a plane!” Zayn exclaimed in mock sarcasm, before dropping his voice back to a passive monotone. “No, never mind it’s just the sight of flying drawers, chairs, desks and an Elder about to drop dead from a high blood pressure coronary,” He finished lamely, rolling his eyes.

“Harry? I think now would be a good time to pop up and remind Lou about being a good little church-boy, unless you want Niall to have to lead Elder Uptight into the light?” Zayn asked, cocking his brows and tossing his eternal lit cigarette to the floor and reaching into his pack to grab another one.

“You have a serious smoking problem and they don’t even burn down. The tip burns forever, why do you keep doing that?” Harry asked, curious at the very least – considering the cig never burned passed the tip, even as he sucked on it.

Zayn shrugged.

“I had them on me at the time of my death, lit one and wham – no more me. It’s nice to have endless fags and never have to worry about buying more or them burning down. I doubt they have a ghostly commissary around here to buy them at and then there’s the currency to purchase them with. Hell, if this is damnation, why should I worry?” Zayn finished with a shrug.

“Because we don’t know if damnation is walking the earth forever or if it’s worse than Simon’s punishment. We don’t know so therefore, you need to quit mucking about.”

Harry’s head snapped at the sudden crash of a potted plant being kicked nearly across the room.

“HOW PRIMITIVE ARE YOU IDIOTS?! WHO DOESN’T CARRY THESE ITEMS IN A CHURCH!?” Louis yelled, making Harry sigh and make himself visible.

“Louis!” Harry exclaimed, his voice deep.

Louis spun around and let out a high-pitched scream, before bolting toward the door and out it.

Zayn watched him run, his lanky legs kicking up a storm, though he still couldn’t help the smirk that overcame his lips.

“DEMON MEN-CHILDREN!” Louis screamed in panic, running down the street.

Harry stomped his foot in frustration, turning to Niall and Zayn.

“Come on, Z, we’re going to have to ghost him again.” Harry turned to face his fellow spirits.

Zayn rolled his eyes.

“We won’t be able to do anything if he keeps running away from us.”

Harry mocked his earlier action.

“Gee, I wonder whose fault that is, hm?” Harry returned just as sarcastic.

“Niall’s,” Zayn accused without pause, smirking. “He’s the one who materialized his bitty-boppity stick with the curved edge and zippity zappity zipped to go collect more deadlings to fill his tunnel of darkness. Hell, if I was still mortal – I’d of pissed myself and ran too.”

Harry let out a groan and transported to where Louis has gone, leaving Liam to apologize to the Elder – who was currently upset and berating him.

Zayn frowned, turning to Niall.

Niall just stood there with an immense look of displeasure across his extremely pale face and his middle finger sticking directly out.

Zayn shooed him with his hand.

“Catch up to Harry, I’ll be with to joining you in a tick.” Zayn promised, seeing Niall disappear without argument – well, not that he could really argue considering.

“I’m sorry about Louis. This time of year is pretty ha –“ Liam tried to apologize again, but failed when the Elder spoke above him.

“Regardless! I have half a mind to phone the police! He destroyed property!” The elder gestured about wildly and then pointed to the destroyed plant across the room. “That, was a present from my mother and it added character to here, now look at it!”

The ugly off brown of the majority of the church and the hideous off white walls were enough to convince Liam that the plant didn’t add anything, but he really wasn’t in the mood to challenge the opinion.

“I’m sorry, I will mail you a check and you can replace anything that was dama –“ Liam paused when he noticed the Elder’s pants started to slide down his hips.

The Elder noticed it too and yanked them back up.

“It cannot replace that plant! My mother gave it to me a few years’ prior before dying. I don’t care about the desks or the chairs – but that plant added something in this church that cannot be replaced and your friend’s behavior is unacceptable! He is mad. You best escape while you’re still able.” He insisted, glaring at Liam.

Liam knew how the elder felt. For example, he couldn’t begin to replace the sanity he’d lost this morning alone thanks to Louis and no amount of money or pleading to God has yet changed that course.

“I know how he feels, sir. My sanity wakes up every morning before me, escapes from its cage and jumps out the window naked and takes a nice leisurely stroll somewhere between Doncaster, England and Italy. If you see him, please tell him to come home, I’m beginning to miss him.” Liam half chuckled and half cried, turning to walk away without waiting for further verbal abuse from the angry Elder.

“Don’t come back!” He heard before the door closed completely and Liam most definitely took that to heart. He wouldn’t be returning, even if it was the last standing building in England.

Liam groaned, hearing a loud bout of excitement inside from fellow Jehovah witnesses. If he had opened the door again, he might have seen the elder standing with his trousers and skives down around his ankles.

Zayn smirked and decided to follow Liam out without transporting to Harry.

“You did mention naked, mate. I figure he could use some humility, don’t thank me or anything,” He chuckled, knowing Liam couldn’t hear him. With a shrug, he continued. “Should we go find –“ Zayn paused, hearing Harry call for him telepathically.

He rolled his eyes.

“Excuse me, I’m being summoned by curly pain. Gotta pop, but stay safe, yeah?” He asked, disappearing to Harry, who had Louis on the ground, paralyzed.

Zayn chuckled.

“What’s going on?”

Harry’s hand was tightly on Louis’s mouth and Louis was trying unsuccessfully to bite him.

“Will you silence him, please?” Harry asked, seeing Zayn channel the link and wave his hand up, effectively paralyzing Louis’s vocals to the inside of their heads so only they could hear.

Niall was nowhere to be found.

“Let me go you demonic children-men of the corn!” Louis screamed at them, making Harry smile despite the situation.

“We aren’t demons, Louis. We are –“Harry began, but Louis interrupted him.

“Tall, dark and evil there said you were!” Louis insisted, trying his hardest to struggle against their invisible hold.

“yeah? Well, Zayn is a smartarse. We’re spirits, not demons. Running across one of those is like finding a leprechaun under a rainbow with a pot of gold. It’s near impossible. As for who I am; I’m Harry Styles.” He furrowed his eyebrows, watching Louis’s eyes as they could only stare upright in frozen fear and annoyance.

“No! Imbecil, I meant, who the hell are you? Where did you come from?! I demand to know if you’re going to be demonizing me!” Louis screamed in their heads.

Harry snorted and Zayn smirked.

The curly headed young man cleared his throat, not that it needed it. He was dead and their voices didn’t crack, because they could not feel anything of their own lives. Simply put, Harry could feel every emotion and feeling from the past of the people he saw and that was torture, because he couldn’t feel an ounce of sadness for his own young soul that had been snuffed out.

“I was mortal once, just as you. I was born February 1st, 1619 in Redditch, England. I died February 14th, 1641. It was a carriage accident in Holmes Chapel that claimed my life. I had just turned twenty-two and I stepped onto the street while clearing the slush of snow for my mum, since it was Winter and we had just had our last snowfall of the season and she was not in the best of health due to the less than satisfactory conditions of our home,” Harry cleared his throat again inside his head out of habit, wishing Louis could somehow feel what he should be able to, but couldn’t.

“My sister spent her days helping a neighbor who had just lost her teenaged son to the bubonic plague – something that later claimed my sister. Mum died not long after and I didn’t stick around much, even after I had died, I couldn’t bear to see her in that state. Even if I couldn’t fully connect.” Harry recalled, his light eyes slightly darkening at the memory. It was his curse to see everyone’s past, his own included; whether he wanted to or not.

Louis tried to move, their heads unnaturally quiet from lack of his vocal protesting, which made Zayn cork an eyebrow.

“Nothing smartass to add? How uncharacteristic of you, Louis.” Zayn antagonized sardonically.

Louis furrowed his eyebrows, about the only thing he could move.

“Louis! Oh, God! Are you alright?” Liam asked, the sound of his footsteps growing closer.

Harry looked into Louis’s eyes.

“Louis? I need you to stop screaming about demons, alright? We are ghosts, nothing more and nothing less – except Niall, but he’s a special case. I’m going to unghost you now, okay? I need you to get up calmly and tell Liam that you’re alright. When you do that, he’s going to help you up and take you home. When you get home, eat and get some rest. It will be a very long night for you and for us. Let me know if you understand, because I really don’t want to have to keep doing this to you.” Harry demanded, his voice calmingly slow and gentle, his face glancing down at Louis while he just laid on the sidewalk by Liam’s car. He had desperately been trying to claw his way inside before Harry and Niall had caught up.

“Yes, I understand.” Louis answered bitterly, hate in his eyes.

It was amazing, his moods changed quicker than an unstable hurricane.

“I mean it Louis – “Harry began sternly, waving his hand slowly and nodding to Zayn.

Zayn waved his hand up a moment later, nodding to Louis to go ahead and speak.

“I’m fine, low blood sugar.” Louis lied, his voice cracking from screaming so much and his head killing him for the same reason.

The cold wind blew around them for a moment, the small swoosh of air parting to accommodate the physical forms of the two living beings.

“Alright, let’s go pick something up and get you back to your flat.” Liam suggested, helping the lanky man from the ground.

Louis let him help, turning back to see the two other spirits already gone.

“Wonderful.” Louis muttered disdainfully, jerking open the now unlocked door and getting into the passenger seat without another word.

“Do you still want to try another church, Lou? I know one more. “Liam asked when he got in, starting up the car and putting his seatbelt on.

Harry, Zayn and Niall were back in their child-like forms, sitting quietly in the back to continue their task.

Louis sighed tiredly, looking into Liam’s equally exhausted eyes.

“Tell me, Liam – do you think getting these items will help my soul any less be damned when I die? Because at this point, if these ghosts are demons, I’m beginning not to give a f –“ He was cut off by his phone ringing.

Louis shook his head and took it out.

“Louis bend-over-and-take-it-today Tomlinson, how may I assist you in torturing me as I live and breathe?” He grit out, his eyes growing a darker blue if that was even possible.

Zayn laughed.

“I could have been besties with this bloke if I hadn’t died in WW1 at 23, now those were the times to be alive, mate. Woman loved a solider in a suit and chasing tale was not a feted challenge.” Zayn recalled with a smirk, though the feelings associated with his time of life was hard to place, because the happiness he felt was only associated in the here and now. He couldn’t go back and he couldn’t move forward.

Harry chortled.

“Yeah, I’m sure you were a real ladies man. Keep smoking whatever it is that you’re smoking, because I don’t see how chasing women is such a lavish goal in mortal life, but then again – mum raised me to be a gentleman.” He finished with a shrug.

Zayn let out a loud ‘HAH!’ before full out laughing.

“I think that’s what got you in the position you’re in, in the first place.” Zayn shot back, referring to shoveling the snow before his untimely demise.

Harry let out a smirk of his own.

“Yeah and your smoking got you to where you are, didn’t it? Don’t cast the first stone, because I know everyone’s history here. You lit your fag and then got a cannon ball right through your head because you idiotically stood up from your trench. Hell, you were buried in a mass grave with the other fallen platoon. Not even a proper burial. Your family – “Harry stopped when he saw the hard look crossing Zayn’s face.

“I suppose I should be thankful I can’t feel emotions, not my bloody own at least – because then it would be a pretty safe bet to say that I would beat the death out of you. My family suffered enough, my sisters were orphaned because my parents abandoned them, so step off and keep your non-breathing nose out of my past you curly haired little cockroach.” Zayn huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and focusing back up to the front.

“No…no…well, cut his contract then. He has an album left and it isn’t my fault he’s a has-been cokehead. I didn’t force the bump down his nose and if he dies from the overdose, send a bouquet of dead roses to his mother for condolences and a card that says she should have tried better in raising him right without the drugs. He had problems when I signed him, I sent him to a program – he chose to screw it up, not me.” Louis defended hotly.

Niall pointed to Louis’s phone.

“Your next appointment?” Harry asked, adjusting himself in the seat. “Will you shrink some more, Niall? The backseat here for three of us, even in lad’s form is a tight fit.”

Niall nodded, gesturing a two and then a zero, pointing again, but at the car clock this time.

“Twenty minutes, sounds good.” Zayn nodded, deciding to try another form that wasn’t a kid and smaller than one so he could stretch out a bit and be comfortable.

Harry watched with slight amusement when Zayn started to shift into a pure black coated cat with beautiful honey brown eyes.

Niall rolled his eyes, though chose to shift into an Irish red and white setter.

“More room for me, thanks lads.” Harry smirked, choosing to grow into his normal twenty-two-year-old body.

Zayn let out a purr, a small glint in his eye as an idea came to mind.

“Zayn? Don’t you even – “Harry warned, but watched as Zayn’s eyes glinted with mischief and he made himself visible to Louis, jumping onto his lap and showing off a smile that cats shouldn’t know how to even make.

“DEMON CAT!” Louis screamed, his cellphone flying out the window when he threw his hand away.

Liam’s head jerked as he saw his boss go stiff, his hand on the handle of the door to open it, which would have happened if Harry didn’t ghost him again.

Since Harry needed Louis to calm down and not try to kill himself by jumping from a moving car, he decided to ghost him completely, leaving Zayn to use his paws to manually shut Louis’s eyes.

“Lou, you okay?” Liam asked, gently shaking his shoulder.

Louis scream inside the dead channel of the other three ghost’s minds, making them flinch – mostly because the words leaving his mouth would make a nun have a heart attack.

“Lou, Zayn’s a dick, but for the last bloody time, WE AREN’T DEMONS! We’re dead, we can take whatever shape we want.” Harry yelled over his screaming, making Zayn and Niall rub their heads, glad they could only feel a phantom of what a headache was.

“Is there a way to gag him completely?” Zayn asked, jumping in the back again.

“You started it! He was about to jump out the bloody door!” Harry accused, making Niall roll his dog eyes and vanish in a puff of smoke to his next appointment sos not to be late.

“Okay, fine – no more toying with the mortal. I’ll be a good little ghostie from now on, reaper’s honor.” Zayn chuckled, switching back into his kid form, staring up at Harry with the largest smile, kicking his feet back and forth.

Harry looked back and saw that Liam had gone back to driving, assuming Louis fell asleep – though, Louis was still pissed off about Liam not stopping to make sure his cellphone was alright and complaining about having to get another one and that it was most definitely coming out of his pay.

Harry gave up trying to calm him, it was an hour back to his flat, hopefully by that time he will have calmed down – but it was Louis after all, so God only knew.

“Tonight, is going to be long, but I swear to God, Zayn, if you cock your time up, you’re pretty much screwing all our chances down the loo. Please just do what the powers that be ask, okay? It depends on all of us working as a team, because I’m tired. I’m tired of hanging around, seeing everyone’s past and being stuck. Nearly four hundred years, mate. I’m ready to see something else beyond this world.” Harry admitted with defeat, eyeing off the smaller boy’s form.

Zayn was quiet for a moment – as was Louis strangely enough.

“How do we even know there’s an existence beyond this one?” He challenged back with curiosity, stopping his feet and tapping his fingers against the window to create a rhythm on the glass that only they could hear.

Harry shrugged.

“I don’t, but if there’s life beyond death, then there is something beyond death, right?” Harry pondered, hearing Louis let out a scoff.

“If there is, then their whole system is fu –“Harry stopped listening at that point, his eyes furrowing at the simple question that they themselves as the dead didn’t even have an answer for.

“I don’t know, but cheers. Here’s to hoping.” Harry nodded, shaking his head when Louis was back on his cellphone and demanding to be unfrozen so he could scream at Liam to take a detour to the nearest phone store – Harry needless to say, just let him vent. It was all he could do at that moment and if Liam knew, no doubt he’d be falling onto his knees in thankfulness, but since Louis looked like he was asleep, well, Liam was still thankful.

“I hope you three burn in hell you no good, evil, demonic motherfu –“ Louis continued like that all the way to his flat, which took extra time thanks to heavy traffic.

Notes