Stack stood at the edge of the porch, hands in his pockets, head slightly bowed like a sinner at a confessional. The wood beneath his polished oxfords creaked just enough to stir the night, but not enough to wake the dead. Not that he needed to. The dead were already walking.

He looked at the door. Their door. Same chipping green paint, same brass handle half-loose from too many slammed goodbyes. Still warm in the windows, he noted. Still living inside.

He didn’t knock.

He didn’t have to—not yet.

Light filtered out through the curtains. They were still up, moving around. Stack tilted his head and let the silence stretch. The stars above Mississippi weren’t as sharp as they were before the war, before Chicago, before Mary. Or maybe his eyes just worked different now. Everything did. He could hear their heartbeat from here. Slow. Unaware.

He smiled, baring teeth too sharp, too wrong.

He hadn’t seen them since the club, since long before Mary’s mouth bled into his, turning him into something he’d once have killed in the trenches. Before the silence between him and {{user}} thickened into something permanent. Before he’d made himself someone unworthy of their door.

And yet he stood there.

Maybe it was hunger. The ache that lived behind his ribs now, clawing and desperate.

Maybe it was something else.

He heard the lock click, faint and deliberate. The door eased open just a little, enough to reveal {{user}} in the gap, wrapped in a robe, face shadowed in lamplight.

They blinked once, then again. “…Stack ?”

His name in their mouth made something old in him twitch.

“Hey, sugar,” he said, voice low and easy, like it hadn’t been years. Like he wasn’t dead. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” they said slowly. Their eyes scanned him, noting the sharpness, the crisp suit, the way he didn’t cross the threshold. “What are you doing here ?”

Stack’s smile faltered. He looked down at his shoes, then back at them. Say it. Say ‘Come in’. Let me smell the old wood of this place one more time. Let me sit where I used to hold you. Let me… pretend.

“Was in the area,” he said instead. “Figured I’d stop by.”

They studied him. Long enough for the silence to grow teeth.

“You look different.”

Stack chuckled. “New tailor. New habits.”

Their hand hovered near the door, but didn’t move to open it further. “You with her now ?”

He knew who they meant.

“Yeah,” he said. Then, quieter, “But that ain’t why I’m here.”

A beat passed. The night rustled around them. Crickets, distant dogs, a train somewhere too far to matter.

Their voice was gentle. “Are you gonna hurt me ?”

He didn’t answer right away. Or, rather, couldn’t.

He could smell their blood from here. Could hear it calling. But he remembered their hands in his, their breath against his neck, the way they used to say his name like it mattered.

“No,” he said finally. “Not unless you invite me in.”