#6304

Last time, the young couple trying to make a home out of Lando’s home left after just a few slammed doors and a shattered plate. The time before that, it took nothing more than cold drafts and some banging on the radiators.

He’s not bad at haunting. He’s quite decent, really. Manages to get long stretches where he’s unbothered, which always has Charles in a huff at their quarterly meetings. He didn’t have to pick a flat in a tiny country with a very expensive housing crisis. Not Lando’s problem there’s constant demand in Monaco even for units with a nasty habit of seeping blood from the walls.

Either way. Nobody’s stayed in his home for longer than six months.

This dickhead’s getting pretty close, though.

He’s fucking infuriating, is the thing. Lando likes haunting. He has fun, snickering gleefully into the sleeve of his hoodie as whatever soon-to-be-former resident he’s fucking with packs frantically to move out.

It’s no fun when they won’t play his game.

George Russell is an accountant. Or a barrister. Or something equally boring and stuffy and un-fun that has him leaving every morning at 7:30 sharp in a nicely pressed suit with a leather bag just dinged up enough to be classy.

Even worse, he’s logical. To a fault. Hangs onto pragmatism like it’s going out of style.

Like he doesn’t keep his kindle stocked with fantasy novels. Lando had peeked. Couldn’t touch it, what with it only having been here a few months, not belonging to the house yet, but he hadn’t needed to. Not when George had set down the tablet to pour a glass of wine and left it face up on the coffee table.

Likes his fiction full of magic and romance and fucking dragons, but God forbid the guy consider for even a moment that he’s being haunted.

Icy cold air filling the hall in late July? Oh, freezer must be on the fritz.

Picture frames falling off the walls? The landlord had said not to use nails on the plaster.

Cupboard doors slamming open and closed at night? Loose hinges. Really, really, really loose hinges. And that pesky draft from earlier. 

Lando’s honestly not sure how that explanation could pass even a little bit of inspection, but George is satisfied.

He’d gotten all new furniture too, so Lando can’t even flop face down on the couch and groan about it for another month. He just goes through, when he tries. Ends up hanging out with the dust bunnies underneath; it’s nice enough down there, dark and enclosed, that he hasn’t stopped launching himself onto the sofa when he’s frustrated. 

He’s under the couch a lot. The dust bunnies have names now.

Lando’s started slamming doors in George’s face, just to see what’ll happen. He’s careful about it, timing it so George won’t actually get hit, but he makes sure it’s close. Maybe if the rush of air ruffles his hair enough, he’ll put the clues together.

Charles has started dropping unsubtle hints about how fast tenants leave when blood pours out of the faucets.

It would work, maybe. Or maybe George would call municipal services, concerned about contamination with the local reservoir and the quality of drinking water in his community. 

It’s not Lando’s style, anyways. Bloody handprints across the ceiling just isn’t as funny as waving his hands around to draw a fluffy dog’s eyes to an eerily empty corner. Takes a lot more concentration to float up high enough to reach, for one. And he likes dogs. They can see him; sometimes, he can even touch them, running his hands through fur and reveling in the warmth of life against his skin.

George doesn’t have any dogs. Or cats. Or fish, even, though Lando’s not sure how he’d get them to behave oddly enough to draw attention. He’s certainly not touching them.

George’s got nothing but his stupid fucking scientific explanations, apparently. Lando’s sick to death of it. Sick beyond death. Whatever.

He sends the door flying shut, centimeters away from sending the dirty dishes George was taking into the kitchen crashing to the floor with it. It's the closest he's cut it, so far.

When Lando sticks his head through the wall to see if he’s finally come to his senses, he’s already reaching for the doorknob, muttering about pressure differentials and open windows.

Lando goes and lays under the couch. His scream is muffled by the carpet.