He had been a permanent fixture in this reedy, old, cheap apartment for many weeks now, and he had gotten use to the smallness and the dimness and the blandness of the room that had formerly bothered him much. Tom sat in his ricket chair with his back facing Harry, the furious animation of his writing belying his thin frame. Harry was not sure what no good ol'Tommy was up to now. He was weighing the consequences of meddling in his tomfoolery versus the consequences of seeing it inevitably come to some unfortunate fruition.

"Don't think about it," Tom muttered distractedly between scribbles, "or else I'll hurt you. I can hear your slow unnecessary thinking from here, and it is bothering me."

At this, Harry shuffled away as noisily as his incorporeal body would allow. He was mildly annoyed by Tom's rudeness but he had long since gotten used to his anti-social personality so he acted much more put out than he actually was.

Tom and Harry had a strange living arrangement. To begin with, neither of them had wanted to live with the other. It was merely the result of one of those magical happenstances-the ones where to what Harry called law-abiding Upright Citizens would be showered with inexplicable fortune and fame whereas to characters as Tom and himself, he mused, would be served some karmic justice. In this case, Harry had been at work one day in his shop when his "do-gooder" check ran out. It was one of those days when you you wake up with your sock on your hand and your foot in your mouth; every good mechanician knows that on those days you absolutely do not, and I repeat, do not go into the shop at risk of bodily injury and possibly death, but Harry was always more of a wild spirit than a mechanician so he went into the shop and when one unfortunately hooked light bulb lit another unfortunately volatile chemical, it set off a series of reactions that crossed dimensions, broke magical and physical laws alike, and left the both of them in this very sorry state of partial co-non-existence.

You see, Harry is now a phantasm in a magical world that made very little sense, all alone with no family and no friends and no company and with no one who can acknowledge him save for the very first boy he met, a very self-absorbed, delusional, and disrespectful little boy named Tom. In equivalent terms, Harry was all alone.

Harry's main purpose in life was to remind Tom how much he disliked Tom in very subtle and nefarious ways. He was aware that it was not the most flattering personal trait, and it was extremely unfair because Tom had not asked for the situation either, but to be honest Harry was bored because he had little entertainment and when one has little amusement one seeks to make amusement for themselves. He took especially vindictive pleasure in tormenting the insufferable Tom, just as Tom lived to torment others.

His other purpose in life was to keep himself alive. Without a shadow of a doubt, there was a way for Tom to get rid of him, and Harry wanted to avoid learning how complete nonexistence felt for as long as possible. Tom had already tried many times to find a way to separate them, and when Harry was naive and innocent two months ago, he even aided Tom in trying to separate them. Unfortunately, he realized quickly that Tom really had no intention of trying to keep him alive and would probably spend much effort and frustration trying to find a method of separation in which Harry died in a horrible way while Tom lives.

This train of thought soured his mood, and Harry decided that he had left Tom alone and undisturbed for long enough. He floated over to pore over his roommate's shoulder. To his surprise, Tom was signing his name off on a letter and not planning some black magic ritual or sacrifice to the unholy kings.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

Tom didn't respond. Harry wasn't really expecting him to, so he decided to read the letter instead. Doubly to his surprise, Tom pushed the letter away and covered it with his hand.

"I'll be away for a couple of months," he said. "Don't bother me."

"I can't stay away from you for long," Harry argued. "If I do I'll start to disappear and who knows what'll happen to you." Harry was very curious about what type of life event could drive Tom to this type of amateur subterfuge. Harry knew Tom thought careless manipulation crass, and he knew that Tom was touchy about subjects like death, the unknown, and his own worth as a human being, which was very low. Tom had little to offer the world. He smiled at Tom.

Tom stared at him. It was the same type of stare that one dog gives to another when they try to assert dominance after sniffing each other's rear ends on a walk. Harry fancied himself the type who would be the owner of such a dog, so he wasn't very perturbed. Tom's face contorted, and he added, with emphasis, "you're bothersome and I don't want you there."

Harry secretly agreed, but he wasn't about to let this chance at some modicum of freedom go. He opened his mouth to protest.

Unfortunately, this proved too much for Tom to handle, so he sent a red flash of light at Harry. Harry had been the receiver of such a spell so often that he was able to recognize that the color was that of a silencing spell. Spells were hard to dodge even if Tom's anger was predictable, so he was hit by this one, which was soon followed by another redder one that Harry learned would freeze up his arms and legs and make him fall to the ground in a state of highly uncomfortable immobility. He discovered he was able to glare.

Tom stood by and looked down at him with a smile on his face. He was rather charming when he smiled, Harry noted with irritation. He blinked and sighed.

Tom bent down and, for the first time since they had met, touched Harry by pressing his finger on his forehead. Then, he murmured something too low for Harry to catch and suddenly Harry felt his vision fold up on itself. It was not such a bad way to go, he thought.

Sorry this one's short.