Christmas Fic for coolerthnpotter : Catching A Break
Title: Catching A Break
Prompt: Comedy. Any rating. AU. Murphy/Harry, shippy. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”.
Characters: Connie Murphy, Harry Dresden, Sid Kirmani, Bob.
Rating: PG
Pairings: Murphy/Harry
Warnings: None
Author’s Notes: So, I’ve had this idea bouncing around in my head ever since I flipped Murphy and Castiel. This time, I flipped Murphy and Harry. That's right, Murphy's the wizard and Harry's the cop. Oh, Bob and Kirmani also switch along with a few other characters.
It was just as hilarious and fun as I expected. Behold, the crack.
---
Using her shoulder and most of her weight, Murphy leaned hard into the heavy iron door to her lab. It groaned a bit but eventually gave way and swung open. She took a moment to catch her breath then ducked down and hooked her arms underneath Harry’s. Slowly, she dragged him into the lab, wove her way around the work table and stacks of books and right into the center of the silver circle built into the floor.
She sealed the circle with her staff just as the eye sockets of the skull on a stack of books decided to light up and pay attention.
“Is that Lieutenant Dresden?” a disembodied voice asked from the depths of the skull. The orange light became orange smoke and wafted out of the eyes, materializing into her somewhat helpful, always sarcastic assistant. “Is that a naked Lieutenant Dresden?”
“Nice catch, Kirmani.”
“I pride myself on my skills of observation,” he replied dryly. “This is going to be a good story isn’t it?”
She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers and took a deep breath before she turned to face the ghost that was her friend and teacher. Sidmar Kirmani was once a brilliant and powerful wizard until he did something so terrible the High Council trapped him in his own skull for all eternity. There wasn’t much Kirmani didn’t know about magic and he was pretty much insufferable because of it. For some reason, she liked the guy anyway.
“You remember that case Dresden and I were working? Where did we put the research for it?” she asked, looking for the right stack of books. She really needed to clean this place up.
“Left upper corner of the table.” Kirmani pointed and she made her way over. “Yes, of course I remember. Happy couples have been killing each other at higher rates than normal and with more brutality. Lieutenant Dresden thought this was slightly odd, which is surprising considering he was married. Surely he must have wanted to kill his ex-spouse once or twice.”
She grabbed the first book on the stack and started flipping through it. “Right, well, we figured out that all the couples went to this one restaurant the night before they went Psycho on each other. I thought it was the food, you know, slip a little potion into the soup or something but…”
“My dear, if it was in the soup everyone would be killing each other. Anyway, you can’t weave the sort of intricate spell work that would be required to delay the murder in a potion.”
“I know,” she snapped, glaring at him then looking around him when she heard a groan from the shielded circle. “Crap, he’s awake.”
Lieutenant Harry Dresden was a Chicago homicide detective and a pretty decent guy. He kept hiring her even though he didn’t believe the whole wizard thing, so that made him okay in her book. They had a somewhat awkward friendship which was probably going to get more awkward right about now.
Harry sat up and looked around. When his eyes landed on her, he grinned but it wasn’t his usual friendly grin. This was a scary grin.
“There you are,” he said as he got to his feet. “Come here, baby, you’re going to like it, I promise. It’ll only hurt for a bit.”
He charged forward and slammed against the circle, which he immediately bounced off of. Dazed, he stumbled back a few steps before looking around at the silvery, shimmering circle of magic around him. “What the hell?”
“I’ll explain when I find a way to reverse the spell on you,” she said and then pinched the bridge of her nose. “God, the Council is going to try to kill me for this.”
“So we should expect a visit from the lovable Warden Munzer any moment now?”
“If they’ve found out about this already.”
Kirmani hummed for a moment. “It’s possible. This sort of prolonged magical attack would get the Council’s attention.”
“Lucky me,” she muttered and then let out a heavy breath. “Okay, we’ve eliminated the food as being responsible…”
“Connie! Let me out of… this!”
“Can’t you knock him out again? Or at least get him his clothes. Where are his clothes anyway?”
“Look, we had dinner at that place last night, trying to scope it out you know? He drove me home and… things happened. Looked that’s not important…”
But Kirmani was too busy laughing to listen. She let out another heavy breath and cursed quietly. Why did she let her attraction to Dresden get the better of her on a case where lovers were killing each other? Why hadn’t she done anything about it on that case where she did actually kiss him? God, she was an idiot sometimes.
“Kirmani!” She yelled when she had enough. Her tolerance for him only went so far. “We’ve got to snap him out of this or else he won’t stop until I’m dead. If I’m dead, you’ll end up back in the Council’s possession, do you really want that?”
That stopped Kirmani’s laughing rather quickly. He cleared his throat and straightened up, adjusting the robes of his traditional Middle Eastern garb. “Right, well, we’ll need a few samples of hair to test and you’ll have to tell me more about your date.”
“It wasn’t a date,” she grumbled. “How the hell are we supposed to get hair from him when he’s in there and I can’t get close to him?”
“Well, you could check your bed,” Kirmani said, expression innocent except for the laughter in his eyes.
She glared at him, “Shut up.”
“I haven’t even gotten to the best material yet!”
She grumbled under her breath as she walked out of her lab and back to her bedroom. Nothing had seemed odd or unusual last night. The whole dinner had actually been great. They had talked about their lives outside the job, she got to hear about Harry’s daughter and he got to her about her life on the road with her dad. It was nice, hell, it was the best date she had been on for awhile.
Sleeping with him was such a bad idea though, she should have known better. Judging by the incredibly rumbled state of her bed knowing better wasn’t exactly on her mind last night. Although, part of that rumbling was from when she had woken up this morning to Harry’s hands wrapped around her throat. A little magic had stopped that and made her realize just what was going on with the other couples.
It was a spell. Someone or something in that restaurant was casting a spell over certain couples that made them murderous. Obviously, it hadn’t worked on her probably because it was tailored to non-wizards but it had worked on Harry. Well, this case had just become personal.
Murphy found a few hairs on the pillow Harry had used, a few more caught in his undershirt. She folded them neatly in a white handkerchief and was on her way back to her lab when someone knocked on her front door.
“We’re closed today!” she yelled.
“Murphy! Open the door.”
Crap. It was Harry’s partner, Detective Bob Bainbridge. They didn’t exactly get along. Actually, cats and dogs got along better than they did. Thinking fast she went to the front door and opened it about an inch.
“Did Dresden send you?” she asked, blocking his entrance.
Bainbridge scowled at her, “No. He’s not answering his cell and he’s not at his place. Is he here?”
“No,” she lied. “I haven’t seen him. Maybe he’s at the station?”
And please don’t go around back to see his SUV was parked in the alley behind her building.
“I checked there first.” Bainbridge easily looked over her head and scanned her front office. His scowl only got deeper, which made him look ancient with his wrinkles and white hair.
“Maybe it’s a family emergency. Something could be up with his daughter, try calling his ex-wife. Look, I’ve got some really important work to do so…” She tried to close the door but he wedged a foot in.
“If you hear from him, tell him to call.”
“No problem. I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.” She paused for a second. “If I see him.”
Bainbridge looked suspicious but moved his foot and allowed her to close the door. She could feel his eyes on her as she walked back to her lab and ducked inside. Everything was just as she left it, thank God. Harry was still in the circle, still naked and still grinning like Pennywise. Kirmani stood by the work table, looking deeply amused by everything and well, she just couldn’t catch a break sometimes.
“Alright, let’s get to work.”
---
Three hours later they were down to their last hair and their last idea on what to test for. She crossed her fingers behind her back as she finished the last symbol on the table around the last hair and stepped back. Taking a deep breath she began to chant under her breath, drawing on the magic deep within herself she felt it rise up in response to the words. The symbols on the table glowed softly and so did the air.
“There’s something,” Kirmani muttered. “A little more, carefully. We don’t want this one to end up blowing a hole through the table.”
She would have glared at him, except she was concentrating. Very carefully she pushed just a little more magic, a little more will behind the chant. There was a subtle pop of energy and suddenly the room filled with… fiddle music.
Cracking open an eye she looked at the hair, which was glowing bright with every note that played. Kirmani let out a triumphant laugh.
“You’ve got a cursed object!”
“Harry’s hair is cursed?”
“No,” Kirmani said in a tone that clearly called her an idiot. “The curse on Harry was caused by a cursed object. A cursed fiddle. Destroy the fiddle and you’ll break the curse.”
“It’s just that easy?”
Kirmani nodded, “You didn’t notice any malicious magic at the restaurant because no one had the actual intent to use it.”
“So, what’s making it curse people then?”
“After enough time, cursed objects can gain a mind of their own. I suppose this one is cursing whoever it sees fit. It really depends on the original intent of the wizard who cursed the object.”
“Fascinating. You know what, you keep listening, I’m going to go smash a violin.”
“Fiddle, Connie, a fiddle, it’s different…”
“Whatever, Kirmani!” Murphy grabbed her staff and stormed out of the lab. She had a fiddle to crush and an excuse to make up while driving over to the restaurant. She actually managed pretty well. After claiming she’d left her purse behind from last night she “stumbled” into the violinist that walked from table to table and “accidently” grabbed onto the violin as she tried to get her balance. It slipped from the violinst’s hand and she took it down with her, crushing it underneath her. Once she felt the magic burst and break, she let out a relieved breath.
Of course, the manager was really pissed and she was going to be forking over pay checks for a new violin for them but the curse was broken and hopefully none of the staring couples would try to kill each other. All and all, she was feeling very pleased with herself until she got back to her lab, of course.
“Uh, Murph, you want to explain why I’m… stuck in air?” Harry said, poking the shield around him with a finger.
“I already explained why he’s naked,” Kirmani said helpfully.
Yeah, she definitely couldn’t catch a break today.
---
Prompt: Comedy. Any rating. AU. Murphy/Harry, shippy. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”.
Characters: Connie Murphy, Harry Dresden, Sid Kirmani, Bob.
Rating: PG
Pairings: Murphy/Harry
Warnings: None
Author’s Notes: So, I’ve had this idea bouncing around in my head ever since I flipped Murphy and Castiel. This time, I flipped Murphy and Harry. That's right, Murphy's the wizard and Harry's the cop. Oh, Bob and Kirmani also switch along with a few other characters.
It was just as hilarious and fun as I expected. Behold, the crack.
---
Using her shoulder and most of her weight, Murphy leaned hard into the heavy iron door to her lab. It groaned a bit but eventually gave way and swung open. She took a moment to catch her breath then ducked down and hooked her arms underneath Harry’s. Slowly, she dragged him into the lab, wove her way around the work table and stacks of books and right into the center of the silver circle built into the floor.
She sealed the circle with her staff just as the eye sockets of the skull on a stack of books decided to light up and pay attention.
“Is that Lieutenant Dresden?” a disembodied voice asked from the depths of the skull. The orange light became orange smoke and wafted out of the eyes, materializing into her somewhat helpful, always sarcastic assistant. “Is that a naked Lieutenant Dresden?”
“Nice catch, Kirmani.”
“I pride myself on my skills of observation,” he replied dryly. “This is going to be a good story isn’t it?”
She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers and took a deep breath before she turned to face the ghost that was her friend and teacher. Sidmar Kirmani was once a brilliant and powerful wizard until he did something so terrible the High Council trapped him in his own skull for all eternity. There wasn’t much Kirmani didn’t know about magic and he was pretty much insufferable because of it. For some reason, she liked the guy anyway.
“You remember that case Dresden and I were working? Where did we put the research for it?” she asked, looking for the right stack of books. She really needed to clean this place up.
“Left upper corner of the table.” Kirmani pointed and she made her way over. “Yes, of course I remember. Happy couples have been killing each other at higher rates than normal and with more brutality. Lieutenant Dresden thought this was slightly odd, which is surprising considering he was married. Surely he must have wanted to kill his ex-spouse once or twice.”
She grabbed the first book on the stack and started flipping through it. “Right, well, we figured out that all the couples went to this one restaurant the night before they went Psycho on each other. I thought it was the food, you know, slip a little potion into the soup or something but…”
“My dear, if it was in the soup everyone would be killing each other. Anyway, you can’t weave the sort of intricate spell work that would be required to delay the murder in a potion.”
“I know,” she snapped, glaring at him then looking around him when she heard a groan from the shielded circle. “Crap, he’s awake.”
Lieutenant Harry Dresden was a Chicago homicide detective and a pretty decent guy. He kept hiring her even though he didn’t believe the whole wizard thing, so that made him okay in her book. They had a somewhat awkward friendship which was probably going to get more awkward right about now.
Harry sat up and looked around. When his eyes landed on her, he grinned but it wasn’t his usual friendly grin. This was a scary grin.
“There you are,” he said as he got to his feet. “Come here, baby, you’re going to like it, I promise. It’ll only hurt for a bit.”
He charged forward and slammed against the circle, which he immediately bounced off of. Dazed, he stumbled back a few steps before looking around at the silvery, shimmering circle of magic around him. “What the hell?”
“I’ll explain when I find a way to reverse the spell on you,” she said and then pinched the bridge of her nose. “God, the Council is going to try to kill me for this.”
“So we should expect a visit from the lovable Warden Munzer any moment now?”
“If they’ve found out about this already.”
Kirmani hummed for a moment. “It’s possible. This sort of prolonged magical attack would get the Council’s attention.”
“Lucky me,” she muttered and then let out a heavy breath. “Okay, we’ve eliminated the food as being responsible…”
“Connie! Let me out of… this!”
“Can’t you knock him out again? Or at least get him his clothes. Where are his clothes anyway?”
“Look, we had dinner at that place last night, trying to scope it out you know? He drove me home and… things happened. Looked that’s not important…”
But Kirmani was too busy laughing to listen. She let out another heavy breath and cursed quietly. Why did she let her attraction to Dresden get the better of her on a case where lovers were killing each other? Why hadn’t she done anything about it on that case where she did actually kiss him? God, she was an idiot sometimes.
“Kirmani!” She yelled when she had enough. Her tolerance for him only went so far. “We’ve got to snap him out of this or else he won’t stop until I’m dead. If I’m dead, you’ll end up back in the Council’s possession, do you really want that?”
That stopped Kirmani’s laughing rather quickly. He cleared his throat and straightened up, adjusting the robes of his traditional Middle Eastern garb. “Right, well, we’ll need a few samples of hair to test and you’ll have to tell me more about your date.”
“It wasn’t a date,” she grumbled. “How the hell are we supposed to get hair from him when he’s in there and I can’t get close to him?”
“Well, you could check your bed,” Kirmani said, expression innocent except for the laughter in his eyes.
She glared at him, “Shut up.”
“I haven’t even gotten to the best material yet!”
She grumbled under her breath as she walked out of her lab and back to her bedroom. Nothing had seemed odd or unusual last night. The whole dinner had actually been great. They had talked about their lives outside the job, she got to hear about Harry’s daughter and he got to her about her life on the road with her dad. It was nice, hell, it was the best date she had been on for awhile.
Sleeping with him was such a bad idea though, she should have known better. Judging by the incredibly rumbled state of her bed knowing better wasn’t exactly on her mind last night. Although, part of that rumbling was from when she had woken up this morning to Harry’s hands wrapped around her throat. A little magic had stopped that and made her realize just what was going on with the other couples.
It was a spell. Someone or something in that restaurant was casting a spell over certain couples that made them murderous. Obviously, it hadn’t worked on her probably because it was tailored to non-wizards but it had worked on Harry. Well, this case had just become personal.
Murphy found a few hairs on the pillow Harry had used, a few more caught in his undershirt. She folded them neatly in a white handkerchief and was on her way back to her lab when someone knocked on her front door.
“We’re closed today!” she yelled.
“Murphy! Open the door.”
Crap. It was Harry’s partner, Detective Bob Bainbridge. They didn’t exactly get along. Actually, cats and dogs got along better than they did. Thinking fast she went to the front door and opened it about an inch.
“Did Dresden send you?” she asked, blocking his entrance.
Bainbridge scowled at her, “No. He’s not answering his cell and he’s not at his place. Is he here?”
“No,” she lied. “I haven’t seen him. Maybe he’s at the station?”
And please don’t go around back to see his SUV was parked in the alley behind her building.
“I checked there first.” Bainbridge easily looked over her head and scanned her front office. His scowl only got deeper, which made him look ancient with his wrinkles and white hair.
“Maybe it’s a family emergency. Something could be up with his daughter, try calling his ex-wife. Look, I’ve got some really important work to do so…” She tried to close the door but he wedged a foot in.
“If you hear from him, tell him to call.”
“No problem. I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.” She paused for a second. “If I see him.”
Bainbridge looked suspicious but moved his foot and allowed her to close the door. She could feel his eyes on her as she walked back to her lab and ducked inside. Everything was just as she left it, thank God. Harry was still in the circle, still naked and still grinning like Pennywise. Kirmani stood by the work table, looking deeply amused by everything and well, she just couldn’t catch a break sometimes.
“Alright, let’s get to work.”
---
Three hours later they were down to their last hair and their last idea on what to test for. She crossed her fingers behind her back as she finished the last symbol on the table around the last hair and stepped back. Taking a deep breath she began to chant under her breath, drawing on the magic deep within herself she felt it rise up in response to the words. The symbols on the table glowed softly and so did the air.
“There’s something,” Kirmani muttered. “A little more, carefully. We don’t want this one to end up blowing a hole through the table.”
She would have glared at him, except she was concentrating. Very carefully she pushed just a little more magic, a little more will behind the chant. There was a subtle pop of energy and suddenly the room filled with… fiddle music.
Cracking open an eye she looked at the hair, which was glowing bright with every note that played. Kirmani let out a triumphant laugh.
“You’ve got a cursed object!”
“Harry’s hair is cursed?”
“No,” Kirmani said in a tone that clearly called her an idiot. “The curse on Harry was caused by a cursed object. A cursed fiddle. Destroy the fiddle and you’ll break the curse.”
“It’s just that easy?”
Kirmani nodded, “You didn’t notice any malicious magic at the restaurant because no one had the actual intent to use it.”
“So, what’s making it curse people then?”
“After enough time, cursed objects can gain a mind of their own. I suppose this one is cursing whoever it sees fit. It really depends on the original intent of the wizard who cursed the object.”
“Fascinating. You know what, you keep listening, I’m going to go smash a violin.”
“Fiddle, Connie, a fiddle, it’s different…”
“Whatever, Kirmani!” Murphy grabbed her staff and stormed out of the lab. She had a fiddle to crush and an excuse to make up while driving over to the restaurant. She actually managed pretty well. After claiming she’d left her purse behind from last night she “stumbled” into the violinist that walked from table to table and “accidently” grabbed onto the violin as she tried to get her balance. It slipped from the violinst’s hand and she took it down with her, crushing it underneath her. Once she felt the magic burst and break, she let out a relieved breath.
Of course, the manager was really pissed and she was going to be forking over pay checks for a new violin for them but the curse was broken and hopefully none of the staring couples would try to kill each other. All and all, she was feeling very pleased with herself until she got back to her lab, of course.
“Uh, Murph, you want to explain why I’m… stuck in air?” Harry said, poking the shield around him with a finger.
“I already explained why he’s naked,” Kirmani said helpfully.
Yeah, she definitely couldn’t catch a break today.
---