Work Text:
Harry doesn’t have the heart to tell Louis that the daughter he lulls to sleep every night is not real.
Ivy died in a car crash, just a day before her fifth birthday. That was four months ago. Yet, he can’t forget the gruesome details etched in the back of his brain. There was so much blood. The paramedics shook their heads and confirmed what he already knew. One look at her and anyone could tell for certain that she was dead. Her lifeless body was crushed between the seats like a puppet might flop after its strings are cut.Louis came to stand beside Harry. He studied the swollen left side of his face as he told him that he was sorry.
“It’s not your fault,” Harry replies with a hoarse voice. Because it wasn’t. It wasn't Louis’s fault that a drunken driver had chosen to gamble with his life and there was collateral damage.
“Can’t believe we almost lost her,” Louis said with relief.
Hugged close to her chest was a blood-soaked doll, which had been a gift from Louis to her. A doll who looked just like her. Ivy’s blood stained the doll’s dark-red sweater. It almost didn’t look like blood. It could've so easily been mistaken as water if her light brown hair and face didn’t look like they had been sprayed with blood.
“My lovely daughter,” Louis said as he pried away the doll from their dead daughter’s cold hand. “It’s over. You’re safe now. We’ll always keep you safe.” He turns towards Harry with the same cathartic smile. He felt blood splash on his forehead as Louis thrusted the doll towards his face. His first instinct was to move back, but he froze when Louis said the next words. “Your dad and I love you.”
Immersed in his own grief, he let Louis marinate in this delusion.
It spun out of his control such that he couldn’t even get Louis to see Ivy’s coffin being lowered. He simply refused to acknowledge the fact that she was gone. “It’s not funny, Harry! Don’t you dare say that to me again,” he screamed in his face with the doll cradled in his arms. Nothing would do. He doesn’t remember anyone asking him why Louis was not there at her funeral. If they had, he would’ve just driven himself up the wall.
When he returned from the burial, Louis remarked about him being late for dinner. The eyes of the doll seem to be taunting him as his husband places it between them in the bed that night. “Kiss her goodnight,” he says while stroking her hair. The creepy smile etched on her face makes him feel so uneasy. It seems to be getting more and more crooked as each hour goes on.
𓁹‿𓁹
“Louis!” he shrieks when he wakes up with the doll sitting at the foot of the bed. Her eyes were sewn shut.
“Shhh, you'll wake her up,” he says, kissing Harry on the mouth and placing the doll on his chest before hugging them both. “Ivy says that she wants to go on a picnic.”
“Louis,” the doll opens her eyes and her mouth forms into the same smile as the one she had when she was clutched in Ivy's arms. She began blinking at Harry. A sense of dread comes over him as Louis reaches over to touch her again. Before he can do so, Harry throws it across the room. Louis starts wailing and he feels tears forming in his own eyes as he tightly wraps his hands around Louis' waist to hold him in place. “That's not our daughter. It's a fucking doll.” Louis yells at him. He screams and kicks at Harry but he doesn't let go. "She is not real."
"Our daughter-" the doll begins walking upright towards them, calling him her father, "is dead!"
"And who made sure of that, Harry?" The doll on his lap kisses the needle scar on Harry's hand.