Dresden Files FIC: Sacrificial Rites
Title: Sacrificial Rites
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Dresden Files (TV)
Characters: Harry Dresden, Bob
Author's Note: This is in response to awanderingbard's prompt, and while I'm not sure it's technically a full and complete fic, it's definitely too large for one comment box. Anyway, written all in one sitting and not beta'd, so read at your own risk. :)
Summary: When Morgan sends Harry and Bob to the world of the Fae in order to gather a mystical, deadly object before it can be unleashed on the mortal world, everyone involved gets a lot more than they'd bargained on.
* * *
"Oh dear Lord." Bob stands breathless, the storm behind them rocking the trees like they're cardboard cutouts. Rain surges from the sky, the boom of thunder and lightning almost constant, electricity powerful in the air, and Bob can't believe it's come to this again. He points at the chest-sized, gleaming red egg clutched up against Harry's body. "Is that what I think it is, Harry? Are you a sacrifice?"
Harry's powerless, his ankle chained to a stake buried low in the ground and his magic defused. There's nowhere to run. Pressed close together, they're in the center of a massive field, a circle of dead earth burned into the ground for dozens of feet in every direction. A golden glow fills up the night sky, an inhuman shriek from above bringing Harry to his knees with a cry of pain. His ears start bleeding, brilliant vermillion slipping down his face with the rain.
"You're not wrong, Bob!" Reaching for the ghost's leg as though it were possible to grab him and save them both, Harry squints up and starts to shake. Above, the golden glow takes on the shape of a massive bird swooping down to meet them, its wingspan nearly a hundred feet wide and blazing with fire. The bird shrieks again, and the egg in Harry's arms starts vibrating, jerking about like one of those jumping bean contraptions Harry had once brought home from a fair he'd snuck out to see as a child. "It's a phoenix!"
And bless Harry's poor, stupid, about-to-be-killed-by-an-extinct-species soul, but there's so much awe on the wizard's face even as the light starts to burn them both that Bob's heart breaks inside of him, flooding with warmth and he realizes now, as he is about to watch a boy he practically raised as his own die, that he could not love him any more if he tried.
It is the most painful realization Bob has ever had, and when he falls to grab the chain binding Harry to the earth, somehow he fails to notice how his hands grip it solidly, and how the pulse of bright white energy that surges from his hands is his own and no one else's, for only the second time in nearly 900 years.
The chain shatters, frozen into weakness, and Bob grabs Harry's shoulder and drags him into a desperate run, too terrified to contemplate what is happening or what it means that he is suddenly capable of touching anything.
"Bob!?" Harry shrieks, eyes wide and Bob can see it, can see the terror, see Harry wondering if Bob is a shapeshifter or a demon or some other, equally horrible thing, but there is no time, there is simply no time for either one of them to figure this out, not now when the phoenix is so close that the trees are beginning to burst into flames and this field at night is blazing as though it were midday in the hottest desert on Earth.
"SHUT UP AND RUN, HARRY!" Bob yanks at the wizard harder than he'd ever thought himself capable of, their feet pounding impossibly fast and that damn egg still held with Harry's free arm.
The edge of the field of burned earth gets closer, and closer, thirty feet turns to twenty feet turns to five, that creature screaming so loud Bob feels it like a knife in his brain (and Bob knows--he knows what that feels like), and the heat on the back of Bob's neck is so sweltering he feels his skin start to bubble and crack, his favorite velvet jacket suddenly his worst enemy in the world as sweat drenches him from every pore. Even the rain is turning to steam before it lands, so great is the heat.
Behind him, Harry nearly falls, but Bob doesn't let him. He practically drags the other man until Harry's feet are back under him and there, the barrier between the two worlds is within sight, the giant silver lines of the pentagram surrounding the entire park, and Bob tears across this barrier between the mortal world and the world of the Fae like a comet touching down, a blast of cold air feeling like it's tearing him to pieces as Earth's harsh winter springs back into being around him.
He falls, and Harry falls with him, the two of them banging against each other and rolling into the street, where cars honk and swerve on thin ice to avoid them. Before Bob can recover his senses, a strong hand wraps around his forearm and pulls him, hard, straight out of the road and straight into a metal lamppost. No more than a second later, a bus whooshes by, the air catching Bob's skin and throwing him to his knees, palms quickly skinned by a dirty sidewalk beside a metal newspaper dispenser.
Still gasping, Bob lets Harry pull him yet further back, the two of them falling on their butts in the center of the sidewalk, Harry's arms wrapped so tightly around Bob's stomach that Bob can feel the pounding of Harry's heartbeat racketing against Bob's spine like some unholy techno staccato. The phoenix egg rolls to the side, coming to a stop against the newspaper dispenser, and for several long, unbroken seconds, all Harry and Bob can do is sit there and pant hysterically. There are few people on the road this late at night, and those who are give them strange glances and give them a wide berth.
Bob lifts his hands, glancing in a stupor at the bright red, human scrapes all over his palms. He clenches his fists, pain tightening around each joint, a scarlet sunburn all over his knuckles where there had for so long just been the image of pale, ghostly skin. Against his back, Harry lowers his forehead and starts to laugh, long and strong.
"Oh my god," Harry's laughter breaks up the night, a surge of warmth fogging up the air in front of his mouth. "A phoenix brings new life. A phoenix brings--Bob, what the hell? Look at you. Oh my god." He's practically giggling now, his body shaking against Bob's where they're still pressed together, chest to back.
"Harry," Bob gasps, stunned by the beating of his own, inescapably mortal heart. "Are you all right?"
Harry stretches a hand in front of them, and the tiniest spark of gold-orange lightning jumps from his pointer finger to his thumb before he closes his fist. Ah, magic restored then, exquisite.
"Yeah," he says, relieved, "yeah, Bob, I think I'm good."
"I suppose it was merely an effect of the realm, then." Reaching to the side, Bob timidly rests a hand on the phoenix's giant, bright red egg and rolls it closer. "Interesting." His long-slumbering magical senses awakening, Bob regards the egg with a critical eye. It is no longer waking up, its oblong, red body smooth and immobile. He knows it cannot hatch here, the powers of this world not sufficient to awaken it alone, and feels no small measure of relief at this fact. Now, the only task that remains is to see it destroyed.
"Thought I was gonna die," Harry mumbles into Bob's jacket, still giggling a little as though this were a truly funny thing to contemplate. He sobers though, arms tightening around Bob's waist. "Thought you were gonna die." It's obvious which scenario Harry places more weight on, and it's not the one that values self-preservation. With Harry, it never has been. If anyone would, this is a wizard who'd jump straight into the mouth of hell if it meant he could possibly prevent a bad thing from happening to somebody else.
Peeling himself away from Harry's grip, Bob lifts the egg into the air and stands with Harry. They both regard the egg with wary interest, neither terribly concerned now that the barrier has proven (apparently) sufficient to keep the mother phoenix from following them here.
"Morgan will be pleased," Bob says, after a while. The streetlight behind him turns green, and traffic flows past, bright and erratic to his eyes, which are accustomed more to candlelight and natural sunlight through a set of windows.
"Yeah?" Putting a hand on Bob's shoulder and guiding him in the direction where Harry's jeep is parked, maybe a mile or so away, Harry sets them on their way. "Well, he better be, 'cause this is the last time I do his grocery shopping for him."
"It's difficult to conceive that this thing could have destroyed the world had it hatched in that place." Bob turns the egg over in his palms as they walk, the sensation of concrete under his feet somewhat jarring. "This could be dangerous in the wrong hands."
"I trust Morgan will take care of it." Harry nods with finality, and Bob is forced to agree. The Warden had been a great deal kinder over the past few years, and although his attempts to maintain justice had at times been misdirected, he was usually pretty ethically sound once he knew whose side to stand on. "Bob, I can't get over this! You're...you! I mean, you're here! This is..."
"Unexpected? Yes." Bob rubs his thumbs across the giant, red egg, still catching the occasional odd glance in the city streets. "But I cannot find it in me to complain."
Harry laughs again, and his hand slips from Bob's shoulder. "Wow, you burned up so badly."
Bob lifts an eyebrow at Harry, noting the peeling red all over Harry's forehead, hands and cheeks, and the tiny trickles of blood drying on his ears. In a surge of irrational vanity, Bob realizes he must look the same, and he frowns. "A mortal life," he heaves the words out as if they are heavy, and perhaps they should be. "Such struggle."
"Pretty cool, though." Harry juggles the egg out of Bob's hands and slips it under his own jacket, zipping the leather up so that he looks overweight. "Hey," He smiles at Bob, and Bob smiles back, unable to help himself. "You tried to save me, even though you didn't know if you could. Thanks."
Bob looks forward, feeling the cold air of winter fill up his lungs. "You know I will always protect you, Harry." In a world full of inconsistencies, Bob thinks this may be one of his only constants.
Shrugging the giant egg into a more comfortable position against his stomach, Harry nods. "Hey, me too," he says, and Bob has the sense that this is one of Harry's constants, too. For all they've just gone through, Bob's skull is still secure in Harry's backpack, though Bob can no longer feel its tether. He thinks that will be an interesting boundary to test later, at home.
For now, though, the world has been saved yet again, and Bob, standing beside Harry, is content to simply let himself be.
~9/27/2012
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Dresden Files (TV)
Characters: Harry Dresden, Bob
Author's Note: This is in response to awanderingbard's prompt, and while I'm not sure it's technically a full and complete fic, it's definitely too large for one comment box. Anyway, written all in one sitting and not beta'd, so read at your own risk. :)
Summary: When Morgan sends Harry and Bob to the world of the Fae in order to gather a mystical, deadly object before it can be unleashed on the mortal world, everyone involved gets a lot more than they'd bargained on.
* * *
"Oh dear Lord." Bob stands breathless, the storm behind them rocking the trees like they're cardboard cutouts. Rain surges from the sky, the boom of thunder and lightning almost constant, electricity powerful in the air, and Bob can't believe it's come to this again. He points at the chest-sized, gleaming red egg clutched up against Harry's body. "Is that what I think it is, Harry? Are you a sacrifice?"
Harry's powerless, his ankle chained to a stake buried low in the ground and his magic defused. There's nowhere to run. Pressed close together, they're in the center of a massive field, a circle of dead earth burned into the ground for dozens of feet in every direction. A golden glow fills up the night sky, an inhuman shriek from above bringing Harry to his knees with a cry of pain. His ears start bleeding, brilliant vermillion slipping down his face with the rain.
"You're not wrong, Bob!" Reaching for the ghost's leg as though it were possible to grab him and save them both, Harry squints up and starts to shake. Above, the golden glow takes on the shape of a massive bird swooping down to meet them, its wingspan nearly a hundred feet wide and blazing with fire. The bird shrieks again, and the egg in Harry's arms starts vibrating, jerking about like one of those jumping bean contraptions Harry had once brought home from a fair he'd snuck out to see as a child. "It's a phoenix!"
And bless Harry's poor, stupid, about-to-be-killed-by-an-extinct-species soul, but there's so much awe on the wizard's face even as the light starts to burn them both that Bob's heart breaks inside of him, flooding with warmth and he realizes now, as he is about to watch a boy he practically raised as his own die, that he could not love him any more if he tried.
It is the most painful realization Bob has ever had, and when he falls to grab the chain binding Harry to the earth, somehow he fails to notice how his hands grip it solidly, and how the pulse of bright white energy that surges from his hands is his own and no one else's, for only the second time in nearly 900 years.
The chain shatters, frozen into weakness, and Bob grabs Harry's shoulder and drags him into a desperate run, too terrified to contemplate what is happening or what it means that he is suddenly capable of touching anything.
"Bob!?" Harry shrieks, eyes wide and Bob can see it, can see the terror, see Harry wondering if Bob is a shapeshifter or a demon or some other, equally horrible thing, but there is no time, there is simply no time for either one of them to figure this out, not now when the phoenix is so close that the trees are beginning to burst into flames and this field at night is blazing as though it were midday in the hottest desert on Earth.
"SHUT UP AND RUN, HARRY!" Bob yanks at the wizard harder than he'd ever thought himself capable of, their feet pounding impossibly fast and that damn egg still held with Harry's free arm.
The edge of the field of burned earth gets closer, and closer, thirty feet turns to twenty feet turns to five, that creature screaming so loud Bob feels it like a knife in his brain (and Bob knows--he knows what that feels like), and the heat on the back of Bob's neck is so sweltering he feels his skin start to bubble and crack, his favorite velvet jacket suddenly his worst enemy in the world as sweat drenches him from every pore. Even the rain is turning to steam before it lands, so great is the heat.
Behind him, Harry nearly falls, but Bob doesn't let him. He practically drags the other man until Harry's feet are back under him and there, the barrier between the two worlds is within sight, the giant silver lines of the pentagram surrounding the entire park, and Bob tears across this barrier between the mortal world and the world of the Fae like a comet touching down, a blast of cold air feeling like it's tearing him to pieces as Earth's harsh winter springs back into being around him.
He falls, and Harry falls with him, the two of them banging against each other and rolling into the street, where cars honk and swerve on thin ice to avoid them. Before Bob can recover his senses, a strong hand wraps around his forearm and pulls him, hard, straight out of the road and straight into a metal lamppost. No more than a second later, a bus whooshes by, the air catching Bob's skin and throwing him to his knees, palms quickly skinned by a dirty sidewalk beside a metal newspaper dispenser.
Still gasping, Bob lets Harry pull him yet further back, the two of them falling on their butts in the center of the sidewalk, Harry's arms wrapped so tightly around Bob's stomach that Bob can feel the pounding of Harry's heartbeat racketing against Bob's spine like some unholy techno staccato. The phoenix egg rolls to the side, coming to a stop against the newspaper dispenser, and for several long, unbroken seconds, all Harry and Bob can do is sit there and pant hysterically. There are few people on the road this late at night, and those who are give them strange glances and give them a wide berth.
Bob lifts his hands, glancing in a stupor at the bright red, human scrapes all over his palms. He clenches his fists, pain tightening around each joint, a scarlet sunburn all over his knuckles where there had for so long just been the image of pale, ghostly skin. Against his back, Harry lowers his forehead and starts to laugh, long and strong.
"Oh my god," Harry's laughter breaks up the night, a surge of warmth fogging up the air in front of his mouth. "A phoenix brings new life. A phoenix brings--Bob, what the hell? Look at you. Oh my god." He's practically giggling now, his body shaking against Bob's where they're still pressed together, chest to back.
"Harry," Bob gasps, stunned by the beating of his own, inescapably mortal heart. "Are you all right?"
Harry stretches a hand in front of them, and the tiniest spark of gold-orange lightning jumps from his pointer finger to his thumb before he closes his fist. Ah, magic restored then, exquisite.
"Yeah," he says, relieved, "yeah, Bob, I think I'm good."
"I suppose it was merely an effect of the realm, then." Reaching to the side, Bob timidly rests a hand on the phoenix's giant, bright red egg and rolls it closer. "Interesting." His long-slumbering magical senses awakening, Bob regards the egg with a critical eye. It is no longer waking up, its oblong, red body smooth and immobile. He knows it cannot hatch here, the powers of this world not sufficient to awaken it alone, and feels no small measure of relief at this fact. Now, the only task that remains is to see it destroyed.
"Thought I was gonna die," Harry mumbles into Bob's jacket, still giggling a little as though this were a truly funny thing to contemplate. He sobers though, arms tightening around Bob's waist. "Thought you were gonna die." It's obvious which scenario Harry places more weight on, and it's not the one that values self-preservation. With Harry, it never has been. If anyone would, this is a wizard who'd jump straight into the mouth of hell if it meant he could possibly prevent a bad thing from happening to somebody else.
Peeling himself away from Harry's grip, Bob lifts the egg into the air and stands with Harry. They both regard the egg with wary interest, neither terribly concerned now that the barrier has proven (apparently) sufficient to keep the mother phoenix from following them here.
"Morgan will be pleased," Bob says, after a while. The streetlight behind him turns green, and traffic flows past, bright and erratic to his eyes, which are accustomed more to candlelight and natural sunlight through a set of windows.
"Yeah?" Putting a hand on Bob's shoulder and guiding him in the direction where Harry's jeep is parked, maybe a mile or so away, Harry sets them on their way. "Well, he better be, 'cause this is the last time I do his grocery shopping for him."
"It's difficult to conceive that this thing could have destroyed the world had it hatched in that place." Bob turns the egg over in his palms as they walk, the sensation of concrete under his feet somewhat jarring. "This could be dangerous in the wrong hands."
"I trust Morgan will take care of it." Harry nods with finality, and Bob is forced to agree. The Warden had been a great deal kinder over the past few years, and although his attempts to maintain justice had at times been misdirected, he was usually pretty ethically sound once he knew whose side to stand on. "Bob, I can't get over this! You're...you! I mean, you're here! This is..."
"Unexpected? Yes." Bob rubs his thumbs across the giant, red egg, still catching the occasional odd glance in the city streets. "But I cannot find it in me to complain."
Harry laughs again, and his hand slips from Bob's shoulder. "Wow, you burned up so badly."
Bob lifts an eyebrow at Harry, noting the peeling red all over Harry's forehead, hands and cheeks, and the tiny trickles of blood drying on his ears. In a surge of irrational vanity, Bob realizes he must look the same, and he frowns. "A mortal life," he heaves the words out as if they are heavy, and perhaps they should be. "Such struggle."
"Pretty cool, though." Harry juggles the egg out of Bob's hands and slips it under his own jacket, zipping the leather up so that he looks overweight. "Hey," He smiles at Bob, and Bob smiles back, unable to help himself. "You tried to save me, even though you didn't know if you could. Thanks."
Bob looks forward, feeling the cold air of winter fill up his lungs. "You know I will always protect you, Harry." In a world full of inconsistencies, Bob thinks this may be one of his only constants.
Shrugging the giant egg into a more comfortable position against his stomach, Harry nods. "Hey, me too," he says, and Bob has the sense that this is one of Harry's constants, too. For all they've just gone through, Bob's skull is still secure in Harry's backpack, though Bob can no longer feel its tether. He thinks that will be an interesting boundary to test later, at home.
For now, though, the world has been saved yet again, and Bob, standing beside Harry, is content to simply let himself be.
~9/27/2012