(no subject)
Title: Compulsion part 6 (and on time this time!)
Author: Edana ni Emer
Universe: TV
Pairing: Eventually Harry/Bob, but there are some side trips along the way.
Rating: NC-17 for non-B/H sexx0rz
Warnings: Bob-angst, Harry-cluelessness, and a new ghost. Harry discovers an inborn talent he didn't know he had.
Word Count: 8524
Summary: Sometimes you don't know your own mind. Sometimes somebody wants to make sure you don't.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Harry snapped awake with a jerk, his eyes scanning the corners of the room and his fingers seeking out his shield bracelet where it lay on his wrist.
"Something wrong?" Nick asked, running his hand up Harry's arm. Harry twitched in startlement, but then the events of the night before came to mind, and he smiled. He rolled onto his back, feeling quite pleased with himself and knowing he probably looked pretty goofy.
"Nah, just a dream," Harry said, "Nothing to worry about. Did you sleep well?"
"Yup," said Nick, settling back down. "I actually woke up a little while ago, but I was just so damn comfortable I decided not to get up," he grinned.
"Hey, if you can't be a little lazy on a Saturday morning, you might as well give up on life," Harry said, rolling up on one elbow to look down at Nick.
"Being lazy wasn't exactly the first thing on my mind," Nick said, tugging Harry down on top of him with a quick yank. Harry grunted with surprise, and grinned.
"Really? And what," Harry asked with a slow roll of his hips, "Would have been?"
"Well, that's pretty close," Nick said, his hands sliding under the sheet to grip Harry's ass. Harry dropped his head to chuckle into Nick's shoulder, the sound cut off by a tighter squeeze and a firm grind. With a groan, Harry attacked Nick's neck with teeth and tongue, savoring the salty taste and the shivering reactions he got.
"You taste good," Harry said, hiding a smile against Nick's throat.
"Harry, if you give me a hickey, I swear to God I'll kill you," Nick gasped. "Do you have any idea how much hell the kids would give me over that?"
"I promise I won't leave marks anyplace they'd see," Harry said, working his way down to investigate Nick's collarbone. His hands were busy mapping the contours of Nick's ribs and hips, tracing the lines of bone and muscle.
"You're... such a gentleman," Nick said, curling his legs around Harry's and using the leverage to flip them over. He grinned victoriously down, pinning Harry's shoulders to the mattress with the palms of his hands. Harry narrowed his eyes in mock anger and grabbed Nick's wrists, flipping them back over again.
"Nope," he said adamantly. "You ran the show last night, my turn now."
Nick's eyes widened in surprise, but he stretched out, folding his hands behind his head. "All right," he said with a gleam in his eye. "Do your worst."
"Well I certainly hope not," Harry said with a grin. "Or you're not going to be having much fun."
"I don't think that's going to be a... mmm... problem," Nick said, arching up a little as Harry drew his nails lightly down Nick's stomach. Harry's tongue followed, painting a slick warm trail from his navel to his sternum. Nick slid the fingers of one hand slowly into Harry's hair, cupping the back of his head gently. Harry smiled up at him, then nibbled his way up the curve of Nick's ribcage to trap a nipple between his teeth and tug. Nick hissed, his hips coming up sharply. Harry hummed deep in his throat and did it again. He liked that response.
Harry lingered there a while, switching back and forth at irregular intervals, driving Nick to writhing and rubbing himself against Harry's hip. He finally had enough, and shifted his hand in Harry's hair to the back of his neck, pulling him up for a kiss and wrapping his arms around Harry's waist. They thrust against each other, and Harry groaned at the feel of it before he reluctantly peeled himself away with a last lingering kiss. Nick blinked at him in confusion and frustration.
Harry took a steadying breath and slid back down Nick's body, dropping random kisses on shoulder and chest and belly. The further down he went, the wider Nick's eyes got, until his head was level with Nick's hips. He licked his lips, uncertainly eyeing his goal, and was startled by a gentle touch on the back of his head.
"Are you sure about this?" Nick asked, desire and concern warring on his face. "You don't have to."
Harry rolled his eyes. "If I thought I had to, I wouldn't want to," he replied in irritation. "And if you ask me one more time if I'm sure about anything, including toppings on my pizza, I'll kick your butt." With that he bent his head and tentatively drew his tongue across the tip of Nick's cock, barely restraining the face he really wanted to make at the taste. It would definitely take some getting used to, but then the caviar he'd had to choke down and smile about at some of Justin's parties wasn't any better, so he'd learn to deal. And the look on Nick's face, full of want and wonder, was more than worth it.
A second swipe, getting used to it now, and he let it rest on his lower lip as he flickered his tongue around the head. He glanced up to see that Nick had his hands gripped tight around the headboard, his knuckles white. It gave him the courage to slide down a little further, taking a little more in.
"Christ, Harry," Nick moaned. "Your mouth...."
Harry wracked his brains for all the things he'd liked when he'd been on the receiving end. Tongue and suction and as deep as he could go without choking, careful with the teeth and try not to drool too much. He listened to the noises Nick was making to show him what he liked and what he could live without, getting lost in the weight on his tongue and the smell and the taste of it, the stretch of his lips and the ache in his jaw. A featherlight touch on his face startled him a little, and he opened eyes he hadn't realized he'd closed. Nick's finger gently traced the outer curve of his lips where they were wrapped around Nick's cock, making him shiver. Making him ache.
Nick's hand fell away and his eyes rolled back in his head, groaning as Harry instinctively upped the pace, his own sighs vibrating in his throat. He closed his eyes again to focus on sheer sensation, missing the rising sharpness of Nick's cries and being caught unprepared by the flood of bitter, salty liquid. Startled, he swallowed, and then again, before turning his head to cough violently.
"Sorry... so sorry," Nick panted. "Tried to warn you but... fucking hell, Harry." Nick all but leapt forward, pressing Harry backwards to the bed and licking up the stray drops that had escaped Harry's lips before kissing him hungrily. One hand found Harry's erection and wrapped firmly around it, the contact to aching flesh making Harry arch and cry out. He was so hard it was starting to get uncomfortable, but Nick's knowing grip eased him and inflamed him at the same time. Then the kiss was broken and Nick's mouth was on him, hot and frantic, drawing the pleasure ruthlessly out of him. When the last shudders had faded, Nick crawled back up and collapsed on top of him.
"That was... wow."
Nick chuckled a little hoarsely. "I think that's supposed to be my line," he said. "If I hadn't known, I'd never have guessed you hadn't done that before. You..." he trailed off.
"Me?" Harry asked, his breathing still ragged and the sweat drying on his skin.
"I'm trying to find a way to compliment you without anything like 'born to suck cock' ending up in it, and without sounding like an extra from Deliverance." Nick said wryly. "Give me a minute, my brain's still not working too well." Harry snickered. "I'll tell you this, I'm never going out to eat ice cream with you again. I wouldn't be able to walk."
Harry buried his face in the crook of Nick's neck and shoulder, laughing through the heat he could feel in his face.
***
Harry looked up from his careful perusal of a book on glamours and illusions as the bell rang at the front of the shop. When an attractive, fair-haired man poked his head tentatively around the door he stood with a welcoming smile.
"Uh, Mr. Dresden?" the man asked cautiously.
"That's me," Harry answered cheerfully. "Come on in, sit down. Would you like something to drink?"
"No, no that's fine," he said nervously, taking the offered seat. "I... saw your ad. In the yellow pages?" He was drumming his fingers uncomfortably on his knee, looking about a minute from changing his mind and making a run for it.
"Yeah, I'm a wizard," Harry said, keeping his voice non-threatening. "No, I'm not crazy, and no, I'm not going to think you are, either."
"Sounds like you've got some experience at this kind of thing," the man said with a small snort of amusement.
"Just a little," Harry said with a grin. "By the way, I didn't catch your name."
"Oh, sorry. I'm Mark Foster," he said, starting to relax a little.
"Well, how can I help you, Mr. Foster?" Harry asked.
"Call me Mark," he said, obviously building up his nerve. "Listen, Mr. Dresden--"
"Harry."
"Right, Harry... do you believe in ghosts?" The look in Mark's eyes was almost desperately hopeful. Harry leaned back a bit, knowing that any expression of amusement would be taken entirely the wrong way.
"From my point of view, that's kind of like believing in cars, or airplanes," he said. "Trying not to would be pretty silly. Have you been having a problem?"
Mark sighed in relief, smiling. "Oh, thank God," he muttered. "Yes, I--we, my sister and I--have been having a problem. There's been a ghost in my family's house for several generations now. The nearest we can figure is that it's one of our ancestors from around the Civil War, we're not sure which one."
"How do you figure that?" Harry asked curiously.
Mark snorted. "Long story. Let's just say that we don't watch 'Gone With The Wind' in that house." Harry snickered. "We really used to not mind having him around, though. We'd hear the piano playing once in a while, or a door would get closed here or there, a faucet would get turned off. Nothing big, nothing even creepy, and the stories about him locking my Dad out of the house when he and Mom had a fight were actually pretty funny."
"But something changed," Harry anticipated.
"Yeah. Something changed," Mark said glumly. "First, light bulbs started blowing out a lot more often. We got the wiring inspected, but everything seemed okay. Mirrors and windows started cracking for no reason. Things started getting lost." He sighed. "Then he pegged a coffee cup at my sister's head. It was empty, fortunately, but she needed three stitches."
"Wow, is she okay?" Harry asked, frowning.
"Yeah, she's fine. Staying with her boyfriend for a few days. Look, we don't want him to go if he wants to stay, but we can't keep this up. Do you think you can calm him down?"
If I knew a sure way to calm down a pissed-off ghost, my life would be a lot simpler, Harry thought to himself. "I can sure give it a shot," he said out loud. He explained his fee and got the man's address, promising to be there after lunch, before sending him on his way.
When Mark was gone, Harry leaned back in his chair, frowning. "This sounds like a bad situation for everybody," Harry said absently. "I hope I can help."
But the expected response didn't manifest. Neither did Bob. Come to think of it, there had been a distinct shortage of Bob, and Bob's snide comments, for a day or two.
"Bob?" he called. No answer. His frown deepened and he stood, moving quickly to Bob's skull and picking it up. It still felt like Bob was in there. "Bob?" He was definitely starting to get worried. But then the familiar black cloud poured out and solidified.
"Was there something you needed?" Bob asked quietly.
"Well, I wanted to ask your advice on dealing with this guy's ghost, but now I'm more interested in finding out what's wrong with you," Harry said with concern. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, thank you," Bob said with a short inclination of his head, his voice still oddly subdued. "I'm afraid I have little to offer in respects to your case, however. You're already quite familiar with what needs to be done, and it's not the first time you've done it."
"Right, right... Find out what he wants, duck anything he throws at me, see if I can find a way to make him happy once I can communicate with him, set up a dialog, that kind of thing. Basically play shrink as best I can, right?" Harry waited for Bob to express his opinion on Harry's abilities in that area, but he remained silent. "Okay, now I'm really worried. I set that one right up for you, and you didn't even take a swing. Are you sure you're okay?"
"As I said, I'm fine. If you've no further need of me," he said with another nod of his head, "I'll be in my skull."
Confused and more than a little hurt, Harry watched as Bob dissolved again and flowed back into the skull he held. He sat it carefully down, resisting the temptation to call Bob back out and demand answers. When Bob really didn't want to talk about something, nothing short of a direct command could force him to. Even then he was sometimes stubborn enough to resist the geas. As much as Harry wanted to know, Bob did deserve his privacy. Plus there was the little fact that if Harry forced him to say something he was resisting, he'd feel guilty as hell, and Bob would make his life miserable for days.
Trailing his fingers lightly along the top curve of bone, Harry reluctantly turned away. He did have some things he needed to get done. Probably best to leave Bob alone like he wanted.
***
Harry stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the Foster house. It was a nice-looking house, carefully tended and welcoming, with no immediate sign of the turmoil within. Shrugging, he followed the short path to the front door and knocked. After a remarkably short time, it opened to reveal Mark's relieved face.
"Mr. Dres--" He shook his head sharply, correcting himself. "Harry, sorry. Thanks for being so prompt... please, come on in."
Harry stepped across the threshold and into the entryway, looking around. The floors were polished wood, the walls covered in a subdued wallpaper, and a short hallway joined up with what looked like a small sitting room a few steps away. Everything smelled faintly of lemon and floor wax. All in all, it just felt like a home, like the people who lived here were happy to be here, and everyone at least mostly liked each other.
Harry was pretty sure he was jealous.
But that wasn't what he was here for. "So, is there any place in particular your ghost likes to hang out? Favorite part of the building or whatever?" he asked, turning to Mark.
"He goes all over the house really, but there's one bedroom he seems to spend a lot of time in," Mark said with a shrug.
"Lead the way," said Harry, steeling himself.
The second upstairs bedroom was soothingly decorated in blues and greens, with a massive sleigh-style bed taking up most of the available floor space. Harry cast a wary eye at the scatter of knick-knacks that lent the room a homey feel and fingered his shield bracelet. They looked good, but with a ghost around that had a history of throwing things....
"You might want to step outside," he told Mark. "Just in case he starts tossing things around. I'll yell if I need you," he said with a grin. Mark nodded, his eyes flicking around nervously, and quickly ducked out of the room. Harry shook himself and closed his eyes, opening his other senses and reaching out. For a long moment he was tangled up in the residual impressions of a dozen generations of emotional energy; laughter and tears, births and deaths. He struggled to sort through it, to seek out the one active impression in the lingering flavor of a hundred lives.
A flicker of... something... snapped his eyes open, and he brought his shield up just in time to repel a heavy-looking metal hairbrush that was on a collision course with his face. "Settle down," he attempted. "I'm just here to talk." He was hit with a wave of *sadnessangerconfusionfrustrationgriefregretfear* that staggered him, and with a plant in a small terra-cotta pot that shattered against his shoulder.
Harry swore under his breath, taking a step back as his hand flew to his injured shoulder. A hand mirror that matched the brush, a pair of wooden candlesticks, and a good-sized hardcover book followed in rapid succession. "Hey, not the books!" he yelped out of habit. He barely got out of the way of an alarm clock that had been pegged at his stomach with an admirable fastball spin.
"I'm here. To. Help." Harry gritted, raising his shield again. Another rain of small, heavy objects bounced off of it, sliding down to form a pile on the floor before petering out. Harry started to relax, breathing a sigh of relief before noticing that his breath was starting to fog as the temperature in the room dropped. He scowled. If this ghost thought a little bit of overdone air conditioning was going to send him running, he clearly had no idea what it was like to live with Bob some days.
He dropped his shield and stepped forward, hands out placatingly. Just as he was opening his mouth to speak, he was hit by a confused welter of impressions and images. Gunfire, screaming, death, pain, fear... the ground beneath his feet churned to red mud by the blood pouring from the wounded and dead. Blue uniforms, gray, butternut yellow, all washed to the same color in the crimson tide that threatened to overflow the edges of his vision.
A sharp pain to the back of his head shocked him from the visions, and he realized he'd backed himself into the door hard enough to soundly knock his skull against the wood. Shaking the daze away he stepped forward again, shoring up his mental defenses. Another wave of barely-deflected imagery nearly sent him staggering, but he managed to fend it off.
"All right, that's enough," Harry snarled, before being hit by one final, weakening blast. "I said that's enough!" This time it was enforced by his Will, and he felt the spirit flinch away in terror. He closed his eyes and sighed.
"I'm not here to hurt you," he said more gently. "I'm here to try to help." The temperature in the room slowly started to return to normal, much to Harry's relief. "Mark brought me in because he can't hear you, can't understand you. All he knows is that you've been upset, and that you hurt his sister." A tentative wave of *penitencesorrowregret* brushed by him. "Okay, you're sorry, that's good." *guiltyapologeticashamed* "You didn't mean to hit her?"*agreement*
Harry received the impression of a coffee cup sailing past someone's head to shatter against the wall, then a rerun of the same scene where it impacted with her head. "You missed?" *mortificationregret* Harry sighed. "Well, I'm sure she'll forgive you if you apologize." *hope* Harry seized his opportunity. "Look, they both really do like having you around, you're family as far as they're concerned. Mark was even telling me how funny the stories of you locking his Dad out of the house were." Harry got the faint impression of a smile, and the feeling that the ghost was starting to lose coherence. He carefully gathered energy and slowly fed it back into the spirit, helping him regain his strength a bit.
He got a warm up-swell of gratitude in response, and a corner-of-his-eye impression of how the ghost likely looked in life. Gray-haired and heavyset, a fatherly looking figure in mutton-chop whiskers and Yankee blue. "Really," Harry said. "It's gonna be okay. I know you've been upset, just tell me what's wrong so we can do something about it."
There was a long moment of hesitation, and another sense of shame. "What, you... feel bad about getting worked up over it? Hey, everybody gets worked up over things sometimes. Help me figure it out, and maybe we can make it better." Another long hesitation, and an image of a bed, a four-poster, in the room Harry was standing in. It certainly wasn't the sleigh bed that was in the room now. "A bed? I don't understand."
More images, all revolving around the bed. A woman in a bridal gown standing next to it, the same woman lying in it and holding a baby, children jumping up and down on it, the covers turned neatly down day after day, the woman again, older and gray haired and resting quietly under the canopy. "It was your bed," Harry realized. "Oh, wow. Uh, hold on a sec," he said, before realizing how foolish it sounded.
He opened the door and stuck his head out. "Mark, you still here?" There was a clatter of footsteps and Mark's blond head tentatively poked around the hallway entrance.
"Uh, is everything okay? I heard some noises but..." Mark was pale, his eyes wide and nervous. Harry smiled reassuringly.
"Everything's fine, if a little messy," he said. "Come on in, I think you need to be in here for this." Mark nodded and joined Harry in the guest bedroom, blanching briefly at the detritus that littered the floor. "All right... do you know anything about a bed that may have once been in the house? Big thing, a four-poster with carvings all over the place?" Harry asked.
"I-- Yeah," Mark said, confused. "There was one like that in this room, it was as old as the house. We had to get rid of it, though. I didn't want to, and neither did Suzy, my sister, but the posts were half-rotted through and we were afraid they'd fall on somebody."
"Well, it was his," Harry said. "From the day he got married to the day he died, and then his kids got it."
"Aw, crap," Mark moaned. "I didn't even consider that... I'm so sorry," he said, his eyes searching thin air for someone to speak to. "But we had to, even though we didn't want to. Somebody was going to get hurt."
"He's sorry, too," Harry informed him. "He didn't mean to hurt your sister, he just missed. The coffee cup was supposed to hit the wall."
Mark blinked. "Well, I'm sure that'll make her feel better, at least," he said gamely. "She was really upset, thinking that it was her fault you were mad."
"Sounds to me like he was just unhappy, really," Harry said, checking on the spirit for a dissenting opinion. "I guess he just got frustrated and started throwing things because he couldn't express how he was feeling any other way. That bed seems to have meant a lot to him."
"I guess so," Mark said softly. "Is there anything I can do? I mean, we can't really get the bed back. Even if we could, the reasons for not having it here anymore would still be there. It was really old, and apparently there'd been leaks over it a few times and the water had gotten into it pretty badly. There wasn't much that could have been done to save it."
Harry wobbled a bit at the intense wave of sorrow that came from the ghost. "Whoa, tone it down a little?" he asked. It receded a little, but Harry caught the flicker of memory after memory associated with the bed. But each memory faded to a misty wash of color, and the overwhelming feeling he got was of worry and grief. "Oh," Harry said. "I get it, I think."
"What?" Mark demanded.
"He's worried that he's going to forget," Harry said softly. "That bed held a lot of memories, and he's afraid that without something there to remind him, they'll just fade away." *agreement*
Mark looked sympathetic and distressed. "I, uh... what can I do? Can I help somehow?"
Harry, caught flat-footed, wracked his brains. He wasn't helped by the wave of resignation from the spirit. "Stop that," he scolded. "I'm trying to think. No, we're not going to force you to move on unless you want to."
Mark blinked. "You can do that? Not that I'd want to," he amended hurriedly.
"You can, but it's kinda..." Harry grimaced. "Rude. I don't really like to unless I have to." He scratched at the back of his head, looking absently around the room in hopes that inspiration would strike. The jangle of his mother's bracelet around his wrist registered and he looked at it, frowning. If there were any other mementos sitting around, they'd probably already be out where they'd be useful. But...
"Do you have any pictures?" he asked thoughtfully. "Or copies of them? You could set up a family history wall somewhere in the house, going as far back as you can. With some research, you might be able to get some that go all the way back."
"That might be easier than you think," Mark said with dawning excitement. "My Aunt Becky's made a hobby of family tree research. She might already have a lot of them."
"Perfect, then," Harry said with a smile and a firm nod. "Just pass the word on to any kids you might have to leave the pictures up. The longer it takes before this happens again, the better." He turned to the bit of air that felt like the ghost and frowned. "And how about trying to leave a note or something next time something happens that pisses you off?" He got the feeling of great effort. "Uh... you'll try?" he asked hesitantly. *agreement*
"Great," he said cheerfully, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. "Easier than I thought, then." Mark blinked at the pile of projectiles that covered the floor, then at Harry. Harry shrugged.
"Actually," Mark said hesitantly. "There's one more thing I'd like to ask. Purely for my own curiosity, so it's not a big deal if you can't," he hurriedly reassured Harry.
"If I can, sure," Harry said, mystified.
"He's been around forever," Mark said earnestly. "My sister and I have known him all our lives, and so did our mother. But none of us know his name."
Harry turned to the ghost. "Well? You think you can figure out a way to tell me?" he asked expectantly. He got a flash of candlelight and parchment, and the tip of a nib pen forming letters.
"William," Harry said with a smile. "His name is William."
***
"I can't thank you enough, Harry," Mark said, shaking his hand.
"Glad I could help," Harry said. "Oh, here's my card. If there are any problems, or you just need to talk to him for some reason, let me know." He shrugged. "That's what I'm here for." He paused for a moment, then ducked his head to scratch behind his ear. "Or you could just pick up a Ouija board. I don't usually recommend them, but if you're just trying to get in touch with William it should be safe."
"Safe?" Mark asked in trepidation.
"Don't worry about it," Harry waved off. "William will keep anything else that might be lurking away. And I'm sure he'll find a way to get you to call me if he needs any help."
Mark's eyes were wide, but he nodded. "Right. I sure hope so. I'm just... really glad that my kids will get to know William." He suddenly grinned, brilliantly enough to make Harry blink a bit. "Someday, at any rate." He shook his head. "It's still so strange to think that all the trouble was, well, over that old bed."
"That wasn't actually the problem," Harry pointed out. "The problem was when he couldn't tell you about it. If he'd been able to communicate, to talk to you, it never would have degenerated as far as it did. The only real way he had left to reach out just happened to be destructive." Harry shrugged. "That happens with living people sometimes, too."
"I guess you're right," Mark said thoughtfully. It was clearly something he was going to be thinking about for a while. "Look, are you sure you don't want to wait and meet Suzy? I called her, she could be back anytime, and I know she'd want to thank you too."
"Nah, that's okay," Harry said. "I do have some errands I need to run this afternoon." It was true. There were at least a dozen things he'd been putting off for weeks that desperately needed to get done. The odds were good he'd end up putting them off again when he got home. But better a lame excuse than meeting Mark's sister, who if she looked anything like him would be quite pretty, and having it rubbed in his face that he wasn't attracted to women anymore, and being reminded, again, of what Justin had done.
He shook off the surprisingly bitter thought and made his apologies and said his farewells, making sure to say goodbye to William on the way out. He forced his thoughts to a more pleasant track on the drive home. He'd actually done a good bit of work today. The house, while not exactly free of haunting, was at least home to a happier ghost now. The homeowners were happy, he'd made some money, and other than a sore shoulder he wasn't even hurt.
Overall, not a bad day.
His mood darkened, though, when he got home and Bob was still nowhere to be seen or heard. The silence was oddly depressing, considering how often and how fervently he'd wished for it sometimes. He thought about just starting to talk, to tell Bob what had happened and how it went... but if Bob wanted to be left alone, the least Harry could do is respect that; he'd certainly seemed like he hadn't wanted to be bothered earlier. At least not by Harry.
As he headed for the kitchen for a sandwich he didn't really want, he trailed his hand over Bob's skull in silence. He stopped by for a swig of the stronger painkilling potion and used the food to kill the taste of turpentine it left in his mouth. He ate in silence, he cleaned up in silence, and then that silence was just too fucking much and he got the hell out of there for a while.
***
The touch of Harry's hand made Bob ache inside his skull. He wanted, so much, to feel, to taste, to be touched in return. To see the look in Harry's eyes that he so wished were there. He simply wanted. But perhaps it were better that he got no closer than he was now. Star-crossed lovers gets tiresome after the first few hearings, and they've yet to come up with a new way to tell the tale. Not that pining from afar was any less stale a story, but at least then only one of them was miserable.
Harry, at least, was clearly not miserable. In fact, he seemed to be more content overall than Bob had ever seen him. The removal of those blasted spells seemed to have released a weight from his shoulders neither of them had known was there. And while he was on the subject, not noticing said spells was certainly another line on his list of sins and failures. But that list was so long it would take more than a lifetime to read it, and even had he seen, what could he have done? Justin never would have allowed him to speak of it, and had Harry attempted to throw the spells off or break them while Justin lived... he shuddered to think.
When Harry left, looking discontented, Bob manifested to gaze after him. Harry didn't deal with silence well, after his upbringing at Morningway manor, and Bob regretted that his had driven Harry out of his own home. He simply couldn't muster the energy to act normally, though. Soon enough he would be able to put this foolishness aside, and put it behind him. Dreams like these were for living men, men with choices.
Men like that Nick fellow. Who, despite having Harry in his bed, didn't seem to want to keep him. Harry had his flaws, Bob would be the first one to admit that, but the very thought of having a chance and not just letting it slip away, but actively refusing it, was enough to make him ill. At least he seemed to be treating Harry decently enough. It would be entirely too much to stand by and watch Harry be taken advantage of, under the circumstances. Not that he would. He'd find a way to intervene somehow, if he had to.
It was amazing, really, how easy it was to fool oneself. He had known for years that he loved Harry; as a child he'd been easy to love, and just as much so as a man. They took their tempers out on one another from time to time, as one sometimes did with those dear to them. Every time he'd been sent back to his skull, he'd earned it one way or another, and there had been times that Harry had gone stomping off himself. Times he'd returned to his skull on his own in a snit. Times he'd won an argument only because he could out-shout Harry without his throat getting sore.
He'd known their relationship was far different than any he'd had with previous holders of his skull, as well. Harry listened to him, treated him like a person rather than a servant, and he had responded by allowing himself to act like a man rather than an automaton. It was little wonder he'd fallen, and less of a wonder that he'd tried to hide it from himself. Love had put him through quite enough, thank you.
He sighed. No, love hadn't done a thing to him. His own obsession and foolishness had done him more harm than anything else possibly could have, and if he didn't guard himself carefully it would do so again. Worse, it could hurt Harry. He was beyond aid in many ways, but Harry deserved a good life. Even if listening to him upstairs with that Nick fellow had hurt so badly it had been nearly indistinguishable from physical pain. The sounds he'd heard, coupled with Harry's unusual silence and his momentary coughing fit had made it quite clear what was going on up there, and for a brief vicious moment he'd have fed Nick his own slow roasted heart.
But if Harry was... happy... he'd try to be as well. There wasn't much else he could do. He'd even try to repress these feelings again, if he could. It was unlikely he'd be able to, but if nothing else he might at least manage to mimic the facade of normality. It was something he'd had enough practice at, though less in these last years with Harry. Hardly at all in fact. He supposed it was something you never forgot how to do, though. But beginning his pretense could wait until morning. For tonight he would indulge himself, and revel as much as he could in the fact that he could still care, still love despite the pain. The centuries hadn't burned it out of him yet.
He slipped back into his skull, so absorbed in his own reflections that he was startled when the door opened and Harry returned, carrying a bag from one of the larger chain bookstores. He closed the door behind him and absently double-checked the wards, looking around with an air of resignation when he was done.
He trudged up the stairs, oddly enough taking the books with him, still in their bag. He normally chose to read downstairs, in one of the more comfortable chairs. The upstairs light came on, and for a while the only noise was the occasional squeak of the bedsprings when Harry shifted as he read. A while later, Harry rose again and Bob heard the water in the bathroom run. He allowed his mind to linger for a moment on the thought of Harry's skin flushed and damp from the shower's heat, to imagine what might have inspired Harry to need a shower so late in the evening.
And it was a long shower indeed. But eventually it was done, and the lights went out, and all that was left was the sounds of Harry's restlessness. It seemed the shower had done little to relax him. It took hours of tossing and turning and the occasional irritated sigh before he padded blearily down the stairs in his boxers and t-shirt, and sat at the table where Bob's skull rested. His fingers traced the runes along the brow bone as he stared blankly down, lost in thought. Bob resisted the urge to manifest and ask what he wanted. If Harry truly wished to speak to him, he'd call him out. For now it looked like he'd rather be left to mull in peace.
Harry's head started to droop with exhaustion, and he ended up pillowing his forehead on one arm while the other curled around Bob's skull. He dropped off to sleep almost instantly. Bob was hit by a rush of emotion that would have brought him to tears, had he not been within his skull. Harry did love him. It may not have been in the way that he wished, and probably better so for both of them, but that could be enough. He would make it be enough. It was more than he'd expected, and frankly more than he probably deserved.
He savored the feeling as long as he dared, soaking up the sense of Harry's arm around him, the warmth of Harry's energies against his own. But if Harry slept the night away like that he was going to be terribly sore the next day, so Bob left his skull and crouched down beside Harry's slumbering form.
"Harry," he called gently, not wanting to startle him awake. "Harry, come now. Time for bed." Harry snuffled blearily and blinked up at him, smiling when he saw who had woken him. "Trying to sleep like that will give you a crick in your neck," Bob scolded mildly. He was certain his expression was giving far too much away, and could only hope that Harry was to sleep-blurred to pay attention.
Harry nodded and stood, stretching his back out with a grimace and turning to shuffle up the stairs. Bob smiled wistfully after him, then sobered. He was going to have to be careful of things like that. Harry could be oblivious, but he wasn't stupid, and Bob was not fond of the thought of the kind of talk his feelings being revealed would necessitate. Harry letting him down gently, now that would be grand, he snorted to himself. And the careful way he'd act later, trying not to give the wrong impression... no. There would be no need for that.
It would be... difficult, he acknowledged to himself, seeing Harry with other men. He was simply going to have to learn to live with it, though. Er, so to speak. He'd likely get plenty of practice, all things considered. Harry certainly didn't show any signs of starting a life of celibacy any time soon, and he was likely to spend more time chased than chaste. His mood soured rapidly at the thought. The same things that drew Bob would draw others, it was inevitable. And he was going to have to watch.
Hopefully not literally. Harry hardly ever cleaned that couch.
***
"Hey, Harry," Murphy said, sticking her head in the door without bothering to knock. "You busy?"
"Oh, hey Murphy," Harry said in surprise. "What brings you by?" He tucked the ribbon bookmark conscientiously into place in the enormous book he'd been hunched over and turned to face her.
"A couple of things to get you off my back," she said wryly. "Mind if I come in?" Harry stood and gestured her in with a half-mocking bow and a teasing smile on his face that turned into a full-out grin when he saw what she was carrying.
"My stuff," he exclaimed gleefully. He rushed over to relieve her of her burden of hockey stick and plastic bag full of books. Murphy rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"You're entirely too attached to that thing, Dresden."
He examined it from end to end, nodding satisfied when he was done. None of the enchantments he'd laid into it had been seriously disturbed. He gave the stick a one-handed twirl and grinned at Murphy. "Hey, I've had this thing for a long time. What took so long, anyway?" he asked.
"Harry, do you have any idea how many blood stains there were all over that thing? The lab guys went over every single one of them... and all of it was yours," she answered, folding her arms across her chest and leaning up against the edge of one of his bookcases. "What, do all the beatings you got with it give it some sort of sentimental value?"
"Hey, I've never gotten beat up with it," Harry said, then scratched at one eyebrow, looking at the floor. "Around it a lot, maybe."
"And the bloodstains on the books?" she asked archly. "That's why they took them, you know. And why they kept everything so long. Some of the subject matter sure raised some eyebrows, too."
"Uh..." Harry's eyes twitched wildly around the room. "I don't suppose you'd buy they were from papercuts?"
"Nope."
"Didn't think so," he said with resignation. She sighed and shook her head.
"You know, you still owe me that explanation," she said. Harry tried not to show his nervousness as he wracked his brains for which of the thousand or so things he owed Murphy an explanation about she was referring to.
"Oh?" he finally said. "About what?"
"About why you got that shifty look on your face when I asked you about electronics blowing out. The same kind of shifty look you've got right now, as a matter of fact," she pointed out.
Harry tried to suppress his relieved expression, knowing it would only make her dig for the things he was glad she wasn't asking. "Well, uh...." he looked away, deliberately.
"Harry," she prodded remorselessly.
Harry caved, and made sure it was obvious he was caving. "The kind of people who can do the kinds of things I can do tend to be rough on electronics," he confessed. "Or anything complicated really."
"And?" she pressed.
"And not always on purpose. Sometimes just getting too upset or excited around something like that can make it go poof."
"Make it go 'poof'," Murphy repeated skeptically.
"Okay, maybe more like kaboom," he admitted. The skeptical look only deepened. He sighed. "Look, um... your watch," he said with sudden inspiration. "Is it new or expensive or anything?"
"No..." she said slowly. "It's just a Timex. I wouldn't wear an expensive one to work."
"Here, toss it over," Harry said. "I'll get you a new one." She eyed him suspiciously and unfastened the band, handing it over to him reluctantly. He took it by the band, making sure she could see that he never touched the actual watch itself, and loosened his control just a bit. There was a bright spark and a crackling sound. Murphy's eyes went wide. He handed her the watch back.
"This isn't just one of those tricks you learned from your father is it?" she asked a little tentatively as she took the watch back, peering at the dead face and tapping it a few times with her fingernail.
"To be honest, Murph, the only things I picked up from my Dad were some card tricks and a little sleight of hand," he said with a reminiscent smile. "Not that they haven't been just as useful as the real stuff, sometimes." Murphy's head snapped up with a glare.
"That witness! The girl!" she snapped. "You knew the camera would go out and you did it on purpose!"
Crap. He was hoping she'd forgotten that. "Uh, see..."
"What didn't you want anybody to see?" she demanded.
"Damnit Murphy, calm down," he said, frowning. "She didn't do anything wrong, just... fell in love with the wrong guy. He got out of the mess he was in, and they're living someplace where they won't get into any trouble."
"So you know where they are," Murphy didn't ask.
"Nope," Harry said apologetically. "Just that they're sort of in a witness protection sort of thing." She growled in frustration, looking about a hair from grabbing her gun and shooting him. "Hey," he said, making placating motions with his hands. "Why don't you sit down and let me make you a cup of coffee. Black, two sugars, right?" She glared at him in a way eerily reminiscent of the way Mai looked at him sometimes, and stuffed the nearly-forgotten watch into her pocket.
"For instant? Better make it three," she said grudgingly.
"Right," he nodded. "Three it is," he confirmed and gratefully escaped to the kitchen.
A hell of a lot of people would be laughing their asses off right now. Harry Dresden, Slayer of Evil Things, Defier of the Council... chased out of his own living room by a normal human woman. But those people didn't know Murphy. He filled the kettle and set it on the burner, checking the heat level before turning to get the sugar and coffee.
"Well it seems the redoubtable Detective Murphy has you on the run again," Bob said from over his shoulder. Harry turned and mock-glared at him.
"If you make me explain why I've been talking to myself in the kitchen...." he threatened vaguely. It was so nice to have Bob back and acting pretty much normally that he couldn't work himself up to real irritation.
"Really, Harry," Bob said with a smirk. "It's unlikely that she'll take it as anything but one more evidence of your... 'oddness'. She's very nearly accustomed to that now."
Harry snorted, absently encouraging the water to boil a little faster. "Murphy's a good friend, but one of these days she really is gonna shoot me, I think."
"And I'm sure you'll deserve it," Bob said in a soothing tone. Harry glared at him. Bob dissolved into smoke with a smirk and was gone, just as the kettle started to ramp up to a scream. Moments later and he was carefully carrying the coffee back out to the main room, hesitating in the doorway when he saw the look on Murphy's face.
"Murph?" he asked hesitantly.
"By my count you owe me three cellphones and eight reports," she said, caught somewhere between amusement and irritation. "And don't worry, you will be paying up one way or another."
"Sure thing, Murph," Whatever you say, Murph. Just don't glare at me with that scary look in your eyes anymore, okay? He handed over the coffee and she wrapped her hands around it.
"So the whole... electronics thing. That why you don't have a coffee pot?" she asked.
"Yeah," he sighed. "Or a toaster, a TV, an answering machine that works, a telephone made after 1950, a microwave...." he took a drink of his coffee and made a reflexive face. He really did hate instant.
"Sounds rough. I'm not sure how I'd manage without my coffee pot," Murphy said with a sip of her own. She didn't grimace, but then the stuff they served at the station was worse than he could manage if he tried. Harry shrugged, and they fell into a comfortable silence as they drank their coffee.
"So," she finally asked. "What were you reading when I came in?"
"It's a compendium of most of the major spells that need a human sacrifice," Harry answered absently. "Not specifics, just an overview of the kinds of things you might need certain kinds of tools for." He realized what he'd said, and his eyes went wide and snapped to Murphy's face.
"So you do know more about that than you said you did," Murphy smirked. "I thought as much. Didn't I tell you to stay out of it?"
"I am staying out of it!" Harry protested. She raised her eyebrows at him in disbelief. "Really," he reassured her. "All I'm doing is looking through some books, I'm not going out and getting into any trouble."
"That'll be the day," she snorted.
"Okay, not getting into any trouble related to the Tanner murders," he grumbled with a roll of his eyes.
"Still not sure I buy that, but I'll let it slide. This time," she warned. "So what have you found?"
Harry sighed. "Not a lot," he admitted.
"Tell me everything," she ordered. Harry grimaced, leaning back in his seat.
"Murphy... you've got to realize that the odds of you actually having something solid to put on the books?" he shook his head. "Pretty damn small."
"You're saying I can't solve this?" she asked sharply.
"I'm saying that there aren't a lot of ways for you to keep somebody locked up that can control another person's mind," Harry said. "And that's assuming you can catch him in the first place and not get sent out like a wind-up soldier to kill another cop, or me, or yourself. Or your daughter." She paled. "I'm not trying to scare you... okay, maybe I am a little. But you warned me to stay out of the case while I was still a suspect, and I'm warning you to be careful. This is big and nasty and not something you're equipped to deal with."
"I can't drop this case just on your say-so, Harry. It doesn't work that way," she said, her lips tight and her eyes shuttered.
"I'm not asking you to. I know better," he snorted, rolling his eyes. "I'm just saying be careful, okay?"
"I always am," she reassured him. Harry glowered down into his coffee, not terribly comforted. Yeah, she was careful, but that didn't help when she didn't know what to be careful of. "You're one to be talking about being careful, anyway. Need I remind you about what was all over your hockey stick?"
"Yeah, but I'm supposed to trip over this kind of stuff," he protested. "It's my job."
"Any chance you could mean that in anything other than a literal sense?" she smirked.
Harry glared at her. She chuckled into her coffee.
Author: Edana ni Emer
Universe: TV
Pairing: Eventually Harry/Bob, but there are some side trips along the way.
Rating: NC-17 for non-B/H sexx0rz
Warnings: Bob-angst, Harry-cluelessness, and a new ghost. Harry discovers an inborn talent he didn't know he had.
Word Count: 8524
Summary: Sometimes you don't know your own mind. Sometimes somebody wants to make sure you don't.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Harry snapped awake with a jerk, his eyes scanning the corners of the room and his fingers seeking out his shield bracelet where it lay on his wrist.
"Something wrong?" Nick asked, running his hand up Harry's arm. Harry twitched in startlement, but then the events of the night before came to mind, and he smiled. He rolled onto his back, feeling quite pleased with himself and knowing he probably looked pretty goofy.
"Nah, just a dream," Harry said, "Nothing to worry about. Did you sleep well?"
"Yup," said Nick, settling back down. "I actually woke up a little while ago, but I was just so damn comfortable I decided not to get up," he grinned.
"Hey, if you can't be a little lazy on a Saturday morning, you might as well give up on life," Harry said, rolling up on one elbow to look down at Nick.
"Being lazy wasn't exactly the first thing on my mind," Nick said, tugging Harry down on top of him with a quick yank. Harry grunted with surprise, and grinned.
"Really? And what," Harry asked with a slow roll of his hips, "Would have been?"
"Well, that's pretty close," Nick said, his hands sliding under the sheet to grip Harry's ass. Harry dropped his head to chuckle into Nick's shoulder, the sound cut off by a tighter squeeze and a firm grind. With a groan, Harry attacked Nick's neck with teeth and tongue, savoring the salty taste and the shivering reactions he got.
"You taste good," Harry said, hiding a smile against Nick's throat.
"Harry, if you give me a hickey, I swear to God I'll kill you," Nick gasped. "Do you have any idea how much hell the kids would give me over that?"
"I promise I won't leave marks anyplace they'd see," Harry said, working his way down to investigate Nick's collarbone. His hands were busy mapping the contours of Nick's ribs and hips, tracing the lines of bone and muscle.
"You're... such a gentleman," Nick said, curling his legs around Harry's and using the leverage to flip them over. He grinned victoriously down, pinning Harry's shoulders to the mattress with the palms of his hands. Harry narrowed his eyes in mock anger and grabbed Nick's wrists, flipping them back over again.
"Nope," he said adamantly. "You ran the show last night, my turn now."
Nick's eyes widened in surprise, but he stretched out, folding his hands behind his head. "All right," he said with a gleam in his eye. "Do your worst."
"Well I certainly hope not," Harry said with a grin. "Or you're not going to be having much fun."
"I don't think that's going to be a... mmm... problem," Nick said, arching up a little as Harry drew his nails lightly down Nick's stomach. Harry's tongue followed, painting a slick warm trail from his navel to his sternum. Nick slid the fingers of one hand slowly into Harry's hair, cupping the back of his head gently. Harry smiled up at him, then nibbled his way up the curve of Nick's ribcage to trap a nipple between his teeth and tug. Nick hissed, his hips coming up sharply. Harry hummed deep in his throat and did it again. He liked that response.
Harry lingered there a while, switching back and forth at irregular intervals, driving Nick to writhing and rubbing himself against Harry's hip. He finally had enough, and shifted his hand in Harry's hair to the back of his neck, pulling him up for a kiss and wrapping his arms around Harry's waist. They thrust against each other, and Harry groaned at the feel of it before he reluctantly peeled himself away with a last lingering kiss. Nick blinked at him in confusion and frustration.
Harry took a steadying breath and slid back down Nick's body, dropping random kisses on shoulder and chest and belly. The further down he went, the wider Nick's eyes got, until his head was level with Nick's hips. He licked his lips, uncertainly eyeing his goal, and was startled by a gentle touch on the back of his head.
"Are you sure about this?" Nick asked, desire and concern warring on his face. "You don't have to."
Harry rolled his eyes. "If I thought I had to, I wouldn't want to," he replied in irritation. "And if you ask me one more time if I'm sure about anything, including toppings on my pizza, I'll kick your butt." With that he bent his head and tentatively drew his tongue across the tip of Nick's cock, barely restraining the face he really wanted to make at the taste. It would definitely take some getting used to, but then the caviar he'd had to choke down and smile about at some of Justin's parties wasn't any better, so he'd learn to deal. And the look on Nick's face, full of want and wonder, was more than worth it.
A second swipe, getting used to it now, and he let it rest on his lower lip as he flickered his tongue around the head. He glanced up to see that Nick had his hands gripped tight around the headboard, his knuckles white. It gave him the courage to slide down a little further, taking a little more in.
"Christ, Harry," Nick moaned. "Your mouth...."
Harry wracked his brains for all the things he'd liked when he'd been on the receiving end. Tongue and suction and as deep as he could go without choking, careful with the teeth and try not to drool too much. He listened to the noises Nick was making to show him what he liked and what he could live without, getting lost in the weight on his tongue and the smell and the taste of it, the stretch of his lips and the ache in his jaw. A featherlight touch on his face startled him a little, and he opened eyes he hadn't realized he'd closed. Nick's finger gently traced the outer curve of his lips where they were wrapped around Nick's cock, making him shiver. Making him ache.
Nick's hand fell away and his eyes rolled back in his head, groaning as Harry instinctively upped the pace, his own sighs vibrating in his throat. He closed his eyes again to focus on sheer sensation, missing the rising sharpness of Nick's cries and being caught unprepared by the flood of bitter, salty liquid. Startled, he swallowed, and then again, before turning his head to cough violently.
"Sorry... so sorry," Nick panted. "Tried to warn you but... fucking hell, Harry." Nick all but leapt forward, pressing Harry backwards to the bed and licking up the stray drops that had escaped Harry's lips before kissing him hungrily. One hand found Harry's erection and wrapped firmly around it, the contact to aching flesh making Harry arch and cry out. He was so hard it was starting to get uncomfortable, but Nick's knowing grip eased him and inflamed him at the same time. Then the kiss was broken and Nick's mouth was on him, hot and frantic, drawing the pleasure ruthlessly out of him. When the last shudders had faded, Nick crawled back up and collapsed on top of him.
"That was... wow."
Nick chuckled a little hoarsely. "I think that's supposed to be my line," he said. "If I hadn't known, I'd never have guessed you hadn't done that before. You..." he trailed off.
"Me?" Harry asked, his breathing still ragged and the sweat drying on his skin.
"I'm trying to find a way to compliment you without anything like 'born to suck cock' ending up in it, and without sounding like an extra from Deliverance." Nick said wryly. "Give me a minute, my brain's still not working too well." Harry snickered. "I'll tell you this, I'm never going out to eat ice cream with you again. I wouldn't be able to walk."
Harry buried his face in the crook of Nick's neck and shoulder, laughing through the heat he could feel in his face.
***
Harry looked up from his careful perusal of a book on glamours and illusions as the bell rang at the front of the shop. When an attractive, fair-haired man poked his head tentatively around the door he stood with a welcoming smile.
"Uh, Mr. Dresden?" the man asked cautiously.
"That's me," Harry answered cheerfully. "Come on in, sit down. Would you like something to drink?"
"No, no that's fine," he said nervously, taking the offered seat. "I... saw your ad. In the yellow pages?" He was drumming his fingers uncomfortably on his knee, looking about a minute from changing his mind and making a run for it.
"Yeah, I'm a wizard," Harry said, keeping his voice non-threatening. "No, I'm not crazy, and no, I'm not going to think you are, either."
"Sounds like you've got some experience at this kind of thing," the man said with a small snort of amusement.
"Just a little," Harry said with a grin. "By the way, I didn't catch your name."
"Oh, sorry. I'm Mark Foster," he said, starting to relax a little.
"Well, how can I help you, Mr. Foster?" Harry asked.
"Call me Mark," he said, obviously building up his nerve. "Listen, Mr. Dresden--"
"Harry."
"Right, Harry... do you believe in ghosts?" The look in Mark's eyes was almost desperately hopeful. Harry leaned back a bit, knowing that any expression of amusement would be taken entirely the wrong way.
"From my point of view, that's kind of like believing in cars, or airplanes," he said. "Trying not to would be pretty silly. Have you been having a problem?"
Mark sighed in relief, smiling. "Oh, thank God," he muttered. "Yes, I--we, my sister and I--have been having a problem. There's been a ghost in my family's house for several generations now. The nearest we can figure is that it's one of our ancestors from around the Civil War, we're not sure which one."
"How do you figure that?" Harry asked curiously.
Mark snorted. "Long story. Let's just say that we don't watch 'Gone With The Wind' in that house." Harry snickered. "We really used to not mind having him around, though. We'd hear the piano playing once in a while, or a door would get closed here or there, a faucet would get turned off. Nothing big, nothing even creepy, and the stories about him locking my Dad out of the house when he and Mom had a fight were actually pretty funny."
"But something changed," Harry anticipated.
"Yeah. Something changed," Mark said glumly. "First, light bulbs started blowing out a lot more often. We got the wiring inspected, but everything seemed okay. Mirrors and windows started cracking for no reason. Things started getting lost." He sighed. "Then he pegged a coffee cup at my sister's head. It was empty, fortunately, but she needed three stitches."
"Wow, is she okay?" Harry asked, frowning.
"Yeah, she's fine. Staying with her boyfriend for a few days. Look, we don't want him to go if he wants to stay, but we can't keep this up. Do you think you can calm him down?"
If I knew a sure way to calm down a pissed-off ghost, my life would be a lot simpler, Harry thought to himself. "I can sure give it a shot," he said out loud. He explained his fee and got the man's address, promising to be there after lunch, before sending him on his way.
When Mark was gone, Harry leaned back in his chair, frowning. "This sounds like a bad situation for everybody," Harry said absently. "I hope I can help."
But the expected response didn't manifest. Neither did Bob. Come to think of it, there had been a distinct shortage of Bob, and Bob's snide comments, for a day or two.
"Bob?" he called. No answer. His frown deepened and he stood, moving quickly to Bob's skull and picking it up. It still felt like Bob was in there. "Bob?" He was definitely starting to get worried. But then the familiar black cloud poured out and solidified.
"Was there something you needed?" Bob asked quietly.
"Well, I wanted to ask your advice on dealing with this guy's ghost, but now I'm more interested in finding out what's wrong with you," Harry said with concern. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, thank you," Bob said with a short inclination of his head, his voice still oddly subdued. "I'm afraid I have little to offer in respects to your case, however. You're already quite familiar with what needs to be done, and it's not the first time you've done it."
"Right, right... Find out what he wants, duck anything he throws at me, see if I can find a way to make him happy once I can communicate with him, set up a dialog, that kind of thing. Basically play shrink as best I can, right?" Harry waited for Bob to express his opinion on Harry's abilities in that area, but he remained silent. "Okay, now I'm really worried. I set that one right up for you, and you didn't even take a swing. Are you sure you're okay?"
"As I said, I'm fine. If you've no further need of me," he said with another nod of his head, "I'll be in my skull."
Confused and more than a little hurt, Harry watched as Bob dissolved again and flowed back into the skull he held. He sat it carefully down, resisting the temptation to call Bob back out and demand answers. When Bob really didn't want to talk about something, nothing short of a direct command could force him to. Even then he was sometimes stubborn enough to resist the geas. As much as Harry wanted to know, Bob did deserve his privacy. Plus there was the little fact that if Harry forced him to say something he was resisting, he'd feel guilty as hell, and Bob would make his life miserable for days.
Trailing his fingers lightly along the top curve of bone, Harry reluctantly turned away. He did have some things he needed to get done. Probably best to leave Bob alone like he wanted.
***
Harry stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the Foster house. It was a nice-looking house, carefully tended and welcoming, with no immediate sign of the turmoil within. Shrugging, he followed the short path to the front door and knocked. After a remarkably short time, it opened to reveal Mark's relieved face.
"Mr. Dres--" He shook his head sharply, correcting himself. "Harry, sorry. Thanks for being so prompt... please, come on in."
Harry stepped across the threshold and into the entryway, looking around. The floors were polished wood, the walls covered in a subdued wallpaper, and a short hallway joined up with what looked like a small sitting room a few steps away. Everything smelled faintly of lemon and floor wax. All in all, it just felt like a home, like the people who lived here were happy to be here, and everyone at least mostly liked each other.
Harry was pretty sure he was jealous.
But that wasn't what he was here for. "So, is there any place in particular your ghost likes to hang out? Favorite part of the building or whatever?" he asked, turning to Mark.
"He goes all over the house really, but there's one bedroom he seems to spend a lot of time in," Mark said with a shrug.
"Lead the way," said Harry, steeling himself.
The second upstairs bedroom was soothingly decorated in blues and greens, with a massive sleigh-style bed taking up most of the available floor space. Harry cast a wary eye at the scatter of knick-knacks that lent the room a homey feel and fingered his shield bracelet. They looked good, but with a ghost around that had a history of throwing things....
"You might want to step outside," he told Mark. "Just in case he starts tossing things around. I'll yell if I need you," he said with a grin. Mark nodded, his eyes flicking around nervously, and quickly ducked out of the room. Harry shook himself and closed his eyes, opening his other senses and reaching out. For a long moment he was tangled up in the residual impressions of a dozen generations of emotional energy; laughter and tears, births and deaths. He struggled to sort through it, to seek out the one active impression in the lingering flavor of a hundred lives.
A flicker of... something... snapped his eyes open, and he brought his shield up just in time to repel a heavy-looking metal hairbrush that was on a collision course with his face. "Settle down," he attempted. "I'm just here to talk." He was hit with a wave of *sadnessangerconfusionfrustrationgriefregretfear* that staggered him, and with a plant in a small terra-cotta pot that shattered against his shoulder.
Harry swore under his breath, taking a step back as his hand flew to his injured shoulder. A hand mirror that matched the brush, a pair of wooden candlesticks, and a good-sized hardcover book followed in rapid succession. "Hey, not the books!" he yelped out of habit. He barely got out of the way of an alarm clock that had been pegged at his stomach with an admirable fastball spin.
"I'm here. To. Help." Harry gritted, raising his shield again. Another rain of small, heavy objects bounced off of it, sliding down to form a pile on the floor before petering out. Harry started to relax, breathing a sigh of relief before noticing that his breath was starting to fog as the temperature in the room dropped. He scowled. If this ghost thought a little bit of overdone air conditioning was going to send him running, he clearly had no idea what it was like to live with Bob some days.
He dropped his shield and stepped forward, hands out placatingly. Just as he was opening his mouth to speak, he was hit by a confused welter of impressions and images. Gunfire, screaming, death, pain, fear... the ground beneath his feet churned to red mud by the blood pouring from the wounded and dead. Blue uniforms, gray, butternut yellow, all washed to the same color in the crimson tide that threatened to overflow the edges of his vision.
A sharp pain to the back of his head shocked him from the visions, and he realized he'd backed himself into the door hard enough to soundly knock his skull against the wood. Shaking the daze away he stepped forward again, shoring up his mental defenses. Another wave of barely-deflected imagery nearly sent him staggering, but he managed to fend it off.
"All right, that's enough," Harry snarled, before being hit by one final, weakening blast. "I said that's enough!" This time it was enforced by his Will, and he felt the spirit flinch away in terror. He closed his eyes and sighed.
"I'm not here to hurt you," he said more gently. "I'm here to try to help." The temperature in the room slowly started to return to normal, much to Harry's relief. "Mark brought me in because he can't hear you, can't understand you. All he knows is that you've been upset, and that you hurt his sister." A tentative wave of *penitencesorrowregret* brushed by him. "Okay, you're sorry, that's good." *guiltyapologeticashamed* "You didn't mean to hit her?"*agreement*
Harry received the impression of a coffee cup sailing past someone's head to shatter against the wall, then a rerun of the same scene where it impacted with her head. "You missed?" *mortificationregret* Harry sighed. "Well, I'm sure she'll forgive you if you apologize." *hope* Harry seized his opportunity. "Look, they both really do like having you around, you're family as far as they're concerned. Mark was even telling me how funny the stories of you locking his Dad out of the house were." Harry got the faint impression of a smile, and the feeling that the ghost was starting to lose coherence. He carefully gathered energy and slowly fed it back into the spirit, helping him regain his strength a bit.
He got a warm up-swell of gratitude in response, and a corner-of-his-eye impression of how the ghost likely looked in life. Gray-haired and heavyset, a fatherly looking figure in mutton-chop whiskers and Yankee blue. "Really," Harry said. "It's gonna be okay. I know you've been upset, just tell me what's wrong so we can do something about it."
There was a long moment of hesitation, and another sense of shame. "What, you... feel bad about getting worked up over it? Hey, everybody gets worked up over things sometimes. Help me figure it out, and maybe we can make it better." Another long hesitation, and an image of a bed, a four-poster, in the room Harry was standing in. It certainly wasn't the sleigh bed that was in the room now. "A bed? I don't understand."
More images, all revolving around the bed. A woman in a bridal gown standing next to it, the same woman lying in it and holding a baby, children jumping up and down on it, the covers turned neatly down day after day, the woman again, older and gray haired and resting quietly under the canopy. "It was your bed," Harry realized. "Oh, wow. Uh, hold on a sec," he said, before realizing how foolish it sounded.
He opened the door and stuck his head out. "Mark, you still here?" There was a clatter of footsteps and Mark's blond head tentatively poked around the hallway entrance.
"Uh, is everything okay? I heard some noises but..." Mark was pale, his eyes wide and nervous. Harry smiled reassuringly.
"Everything's fine, if a little messy," he said. "Come on in, I think you need to be in here for this." Mark nodded and joined Harry in the guest bedroom, blanching briefly at the detritus that littered the floor. "All right... do you know anything about a bed that may have once been in the house? Big thing, a four-poster with carvings all over the place?" Harry asked.
"I-- Yeah," Mark said, confused. "There was one like that in this room, it was as old as the house. We had to get rid of it, though. I didn't want to, and neither did Suzy, my sister, but the posts were half-rotted through and we were afraid they'd fall on somebody."
"Well, it was his," Harry said. "From the day he got married to the day he died, and then his kids got it."
"Aw, crap," Mark moaned. "I didn't even consider that... I'm so sorry," he said, his eyes searching thin air for someone to speak to. "But we had to, even though we didn't want to. Somebody was going to get hurt."
"He's sorry, too," Harry informed him. "He didn't mean to hurt your sister, he just missed. The coffee cup was supposed to hit the wall."
Mark blinked. "Well, I'm sure that'll make her feel better, at least," he said gamely. "She was really upset, thinking that it was her fault you were mad."
"Sounds to me like he was just unhappy, really," Harry said, checking on the spirit for a dissenting opinion. "I guess he just got frustrated and started throwing things because he couldn't express how he was feeling any other way. That bed seems to have meant a lot to him."
"I guess so," Mark said softly. "Is there anything I can do? I mean, we can't really get the bed back. Even if we could, the reasons for not having it here anymore would still be there. It was really old, and apparently there'd been leaks over it a few times and the water had gotten into it pretty badly. There wasn't much that could have been done to save it."
Harry wobbled a bit at the intense wave of sorrow that came from the ghost. "Whoa, tone it down a little?" he asked. It receded a little, but Harry caught the flicker of memory after memory associated with the bed. But each memory faded to a misty wash of color, and the overwhelming feeling he got was of worry and grief. "Oh," Harry said. "I get it, I think."
"What?" Mark demanded.
"He's worried that he's going to forget," Harry said softly. "That bed held a lot of memories, and he's afraid that without something there to remind him, they'll just fade away." *agreement*
Mark looked sympathetic and distressed. "I, uh... what can I do? Can I help somehow?"
Harry, caught flat-footed, wracked his brains. He wasn't helped by the wave of resignation from the spirit. "Stop that," he scolded. "I'm trying to think. No, we're not going to force you to move on unless you want to."
Mark blinked. "You can do that? Not that I'd want to," he amended hurriedly.
"You can, but it's kinda..." Harry grimaced. "Rude. I don't really like to unless I have to." He scratched at the back of his head, looking absently around the room in hopes that inspiration would strike. The jangle of his mother's bracelet around his wrist registered and he looked at it, frowning. If there were any other mementos sitting around, they'd probably already be out where they'd be useful. But...
"Do you have any pictures?" he asked thoughtfully. "Or copies of them? You could set up a family history wall somewhere in the house, going as far back as you can. With some research, you might be able to get some that go all the way back."
"That might be easier than you think," Mark said with dawning excitement. "My Aunt Becky's made a hobby of family tree research. She might already have a lot of them."
"Perfect, then," Harry said with a smile and a firm nod. "Just pass the word on to any kids you might have to leave the pictures up. The longer it takes before this happens again, the better." He turned to the bit of air that felt like the ghost and frowned. "And how about trying to leave a note or something next time something happens that pisses you off?" He got the feeling of great effort. "Uh... you'll try?" he asked hesitantly. *agreement*
"Great," he said cheerfully, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. "Easier than I thought, then." Mark blinked at the pile of projectiles that covered the floor, then at Harry. Harry shrugged.
"Actually," Mark said hesitantly. "There's one more thing I'd like to ask. Purely for my own curiosity, so it's not a big deal if you can't," he hurriedly reassured Harry.
"If I can, sure," Harry said, mystified.
"He's been around forever," Mark said earnestly. "My sister and I have known him all our lives, and so did our mother. But none of us know his name."
Harry turned to the ghost. "Well? You think you can figure out a way to tell me?" he asked expectantly. He got a flash of candlelight and parchment, and the tip of a nib pen forming letters.
"William," Harry said with a smile. "His name is William."
***
"I can't thank you enough, Harry," Mark said, shaking his hand.
"Glad I could help," Harry said. "Oh, here's my card. If there are any problems, or you just need to talk to him for some reason, let me know." He shrugged. "That's what I'm here for." He paused for a moment, then ducked his head to scratch behind his ear. "Or you could just pick up a Ouija board. I don't usually recommend them, but if you're just trying to get in touch with William it should be safe."
"Safe?" Mark asked in trepidation.
"Don't worry about it," Harry waved off. "William will keep anything else that might be lurking away. And I'm sure he'll find a way to get you to call me if he needs any help."
Mark's eyes were wide, but he nodded. "Right. I sure hope so. I'm just... really glad that my kids will get to know William." He suddenly grinned, brilliantly enough to make Harry blink a bit. "Someday, at any rate." He shook his head. "It's still so strange to think that all the trouble was, well, over that old bed."
"That wasn't actually the problem," Harry pointed out. "The problem was when he couldn't tell you about it. If he'd been able to communicate, to talk to you, it never would have degenerated as far as it did. The only real way he had left to reach out just happened to be destructive." Harry shrugged. "That happens with living people sometimes, too."
"I guess you're right," Mark said thoughtfully. It was clearly something he was going to be thinking about for a while. "Look, are you sure you don't want to wait and meet Suzy? I called her, she could be back anytime, and I know she'd want to thank you too."
"Nah, that's okay," Harry said. "I do have some errands I need to run this afternoon." It was true. There were at least a dozen things he'd been putting off for weeks that desperately needed to get done. The odds were good he'd end up putting them off again when he got home. But better a lame excuse than meeting Mark's sister, who if she looked anything like him would be quite pretty, and having it rubbed in his face that he wasn't attracted to women anymore, and being reminded, again, of what Justin had done.
He shook off the surprisingly bitter thought and made his apologies and said his farewells, making sure to say goodbye to William on the way out. He forced his thoughts to a more pleasant track on the drive home. He'd actually done a good bit of work today. The house, while not exactly free of haunting, was at least home to a happier ghost now. The homeowners were happy, he'd made some money, and other than a sore shoulder he wasn't even hurt.
Overall, not a bad day.
His mood darkened, though, when he got home and Bob was still nowhere to be seen or heard. The silence was oddly depressing, considering how often and how fervently he'd wished for it sometimes. He thought about just starting to talk, to tell Bob what had happened and how it went... but if Bob wanted to be left alone, the least Harry could do is respect that; he'd certainly seemed like he hadn't wanted to be bothered earlier. At least not by Harry.
As he headed for the kitchen for a sandwich he didn't really want, he trailed his hand over Bob's skull in silence. He stopped by for a swig of the stronger painkilling potion and used the food to kill the taste of turpentine it left in his mouth. He ate in silence, he cleaned up in silence, and then that silence was just too fucking much and he got the hell out of there for a while.
***
The touch of Harry's hand made Bob ache inside his skull. He wanted, so much, to feel, to taste, to be touched in return. To see the look in Harry's eyes that he so wished were there. He simply wanted. But perhaps it were better that he got no closer than he was now. Star-crossed lovers gets tiresome after the first few hearings, and they've yet to come up with a new way to tell the tale. Not that pining from afar was any less stale a story, but at least then only one of them was miserable.
Harry, at least, was clearly not miserable. In fact, he seemed to be more content overall than Bob had ever seen him. The removal of those blasted spells seemed to have released a weight from his shoulders neither of them had known was there. And while he was on the subject, not noticing said spells was certainly another line on his list of sins and failures. But that list was so long it would take more than a lifetime to read it, and even had he seen, what could he have done? Justin never would have allowed him to speak of it, and had Harry attempted to throw the spells off or break them while Justin lived... he shuddered to think.
When Harry left, looking discontented, Bob manifested to gaze after him. Harry didn't deal with silence well, after his upbringing at Morningway manor, and Bob regretted that his had driven Harry out of his own home. He simply couldn't muster the energy to act normally, though. Soon enough he would be able to put this foolishness aside, and put it behind him. Dreams like these were for living men, men with choices.
Men like that Nick fellow. Who, despite having Harry in his bed, didn't seem to want to keep him. Harry had his flaws, Bob would be the first one to admit that, but the very thought of having a chance and not just letting it slip away, but actively refusing it, was enough to make him ill. At least he seemed to be treating Harry decently enough. It would be entirely too much to stand by and watch Harry be taken advantage of, under the circumstances. Not that he would. He'd find a way to intervene somehow, if he had to.
It was amazing, really, how easy it was to fool oneself. He had known for years that he loved Harry; as a child he'd been easy to love, and just as much so as a man. They took their tempers out on one another from time to time, as one sometimes did with those dear to them. Every time he'd been sent back to his skull, he'd earned it one way or another, and there had been times that Harry had gone stomping off himself. Times he'd returned to his skull on his own in a snit. Times he'd won an argument only because he could out-shout Harry without his throat getting sore.
He'd known their relationship was far different than any he'd had with previous holders of his skull, as well. Harry listened to him, treated him like a person rather than a servant, and he had responded by allowing himself to act like a man rather than an automaton. It was little wonder he'd fallen, and less of a wonder that he'd tried to hide it from himself. Love had put him through quite enough, thank you.
He sighed. No, love hadn't done a thing to him. His own obsession and foolishness had done him more harm than anything else possibly could have, and if he didn't guard himself carefully it would do so again. Worse, it could hurt Harry. He was beyond aid in many ways, but Harry deserved a good life. Even if listening to him upstairs with that Nick fellow had hurt so badly it had been nearly indistinguishable from physical pain. The sounds he'd heard, coupled with Harry's unusual silence and his momentary coughing fit had made it quite clear what was going on up there, and for a brief vicious moment he'd have fed Nick his own slow roasted heart.
But if Harry was... happy... he'd try to be as well. There wasn't much else he could do. He'd even try to repress these feelings again, if he could. It was unlikely he'd be able to, but if nothing else he might at least manage to mimic the facade of normality. It was something he'd had enough practice at, though less in these last years with Harry. Hardly at all in fact. He supposed it was something you never forgot how to do, though. But beginning his pretense could wait until morning. For tonight he would indulge himself, and revel as much as he could in the fact that he could still care, still love despite the pain. The centuries hadn't burned it out of him yet.
He slipped back into his skull, so absorbed in his own reflections that he was startled when the door opened and Harry returned, carrying a bag from one of the larger chain bookstores. He closed the door behind him and absently double-checked the wards, looking around with an air of resignation when he was done.
He trudged up the stairs, oddly enough taking the books with him, still in their bag. He normally chose to read downstairs, in one of the more comfortable chairs. The upstairs light came on, and for a while the only noise was the occasional squeak of the bedsprings when Harry shifted as he read. A while later, Harry rose again and Bob heard the water in the bathroom run. He allowed his mind to linger for a moment on the thought of Harry's skin flushed and damp from the shower's heat, to imagine what might have inspired Harry to need a shower so late in the evening.
And it was a long shower indeed. But eventually it was done, and the lights went out, and all that was left was the sounds of Harry's restlessness. It seemed the shower had done little to relax him. It took hours of tossing and turning and the occasional irritated sigh before he padded blearily down the stairs in his boxers and t-shirt, and sat at the table where Bob's skull rested. His fingers traced the runes along the brow bone as he stared blankly down, lost in thought. Bob resisted the urge to manifest and ask what he wanted. If Harry truly wished to speak to him, he'd call him out. For now it looked like he'd rather be left to mull in peace.
Harry's head started to droop with exhaustion, and he ended up pillowing his forehead on one arm while the other curled around Bob's skull. He dropped off to sleep almost instantly. Bob was hit by a rush of emotion that would have brought him to tears, had he not been within his skull. Harry did love him. It may not have been in the way that he wished, and probably better so for both of them, but that could be enough. He would make it be enough. It was more than he'd expected, and frankly more than he probably deserved.
He savored the feeling as long as he dared, soaking up the sense of Harry's arm around him, the warmth of Harry's energies against his own. But if Harry slept the night away like that he was going to be terribly sore the next day, so Bob left his skull and crouched down beside Harry's slumbering form.
"Harry," he called gently, not wanting to startle him awake. "Harry, come now. Time for bed." Harry snuffled blearily and blinked up at him, smiling when he saw who had woken him. "Trying to sleep like that will give you a crick in your neck," Bob scolded mildly. He was certain his expression was giving far too much away, and could only hope that Harry was to sleep-blurred to pay attention.
Harry nodded and stood, stretching his back out with a grimace and turning to shuffle up the stairs. Bob smiled wistfully after him, then sobered. He was going to have to be careful of things like that. Harry could be oblivious, but he wasn't stupid, and Bob was not fond of the thought of the kind of talk his feelings being revealed would necessitate. Harry letting him down gently, now that would be grand, he snorted to himself. And the careful way he'd act later, trying not to give the wrong impression... no. There would be no need for that.
It would be... difficult, he acknowledged to himself, seeing Harry with other men. He was simply going to have to learn to live with it, though. Er, so to speak. He'd likely get plenty of practice, all things considered. Harry certainly didn't show any signs of starting a life of celibacy any time soon, and he was likely to spend more time chased than chaste. His mood soured rapidly at the thought. The same things that drew Bob would draw others, it was inevitable. And he was going to have to watch.
Hopefully not literally. Harry hardly ever cleaned that couch.
***
"Hey, Harry," Murphy said, sticking her head in the door without bothering to knock. "You busy?"
"Oh, hey Murphy," Harry said in surprise. "What brings you by?" He tucked the ribbon bookmark conscientiously into place in the enormous book he'd been hunched over and turned to face her.
"A couple of things to get you off my back," she said wryly. "Mind if I come in?" Harry stood and gestured her in with a half-mocking bow and a teasing smile on his face that turned into a full-out grin when he saw what she was carrying.
"My stuff," he exclaimed gleefully. He rushed over to relieve her of her burden of hockey stick and plastic bag full of books. Murphy rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"You're entirely too attached to that thing, Dresden."
He examined it from end to end, nodding satisfied when he was done. None of the enchantments he'd laid into it had been seriously disturbed. He gave the stick a one-handed twirl and grinned at Murphy. "Hey, I've had this thing for a long time. What took so long, anyway?" he asked.
"Harry, do you have any idea how many blood stains there were all over that thing? The lab guys went over every single one of them... and all of it was yours," she answered, folding her arms across her chest and leaning up against the edge of one of his bookcases. "What, do all the beatings you got with it give it some sort of sentimental value?"
"Hey, I've never gotten beat up with it," Harry said, then scratched at one eyebrow, looking at the floor. "Around it a lot, maybe."
"And the bloodstains on the books?" she asked archly. "That's why they took them, you know. And why they kept everything so long. Some of the subject matter sure raised some eyebrows, too."
"Uh..." Harry's eyes twitched wildly around the room. "I don't suppose you'd buy they were from papercuts?"
"Nope."
"Didn't think so," he said with resignation. She sighed and shook her head.
"You know, you still owe me that explanation," she said. Harry tried not to show his nervousness as he wracked his brains for which of the thousand or so things he owed Murphy an explanation about she was referring to.
"Oh?" he finally said. "About what?"
"About why you got that shifty look on your face when I asked you about electronics blowing out. The same kind of shifty look you've got right now, as a matter of fact," she pointed out.
Harry tried to suppress his relieved expression, knowing it would only make her dig for the things he was glad she wasn't asking. "Well, uh...." he looked away, deliberately.
"Harry," she prodded remorselessly.
Harry caved, and made sure it was obvious he was caving. "The kind of people who can do the kinds of things I can do tend to be rough on electronics," he confessed. "Or anything complicated really."
"And?" she pressed.
"And not always on purpose. Sometimes just getting too upset or excited around something like that can make it go poof."
"Make it go 'poof'," Murphy repeated skeptically.
"Okay, maybe more like kaboom," he admitted. The skeptical look only deepened. He sighed. "Look, um... your watch," he said with sudden inspiration. "Is it new or expensive or anything?"
"No..." she said slowly. "It's just a Timex. I wouldn't wear an expensive one to work."
"Here, toss it over," Harry said. "I'll get you a new one." She eyed him suspiciously and unfastened the band, handing it over to him reluctantly. He took it by the band, making sure she could see that he never touched the actual watch itself, and loosened his control just a bit. There was a bright spark and a crackling sound. Murphy's eyes went wide. He handed her the watch back.
"This isn't just one of those tricks you learned from your father is it?" she asked a little tentatively as she took the watch back, peering at the dead face and tapping it a few times with her fingernail.
"To be honest, Murph, the only things I picked up from my Dad were some card tricks and a little sleight of hand," he said with a reminiscent smile. "Not that they haven't been just as useful as the real stuff, sometimes." Murphy's head snapped up with a glare.
"That witness! The girl!" she snapped. "You knew the camera would go out and you did it on purpose!"
Crap. He was hoping she'd forgotten that. "Uh, see..."
"What didn't you want anybody to see?" she demanded.
"Damnit Murphy, calm down," he said, frowning. "She didn't do anything wrong, just... fell in love with the wrong guy. He got out of the mess he was in, and they're living someplace where they won't get into any trouble."
"So you know where they are," Murphy didn't ask.
"Nope," Harry said apologetically. "Just that they're sort of in a witness protection sort of thing." She growled in frustration, looking about a hair from grabbing her gun and shooting him. "Hey," he said, making placating motions with his hands. "Why don't you sit down and let me make you a cup of coffee. Black, two sugars, right?" She glared at him in a way eerily reminiscent of the way Mai looked at him sometimes, and stuffed the nearly-forgotten watch into her pocket.
"For instant? Better make it three," she said grudgingly.
"Right," he nodded. "Three it is," he confirmed and gratefully escaped to the kitchen.
A hell of a lot of people would be laughing their asses off right now. Harry Dresden, Slayer of Evil Things, Defier of the Council... chased out of his own living room by a normal human woman. But those people didn't know Murphy. He filled the kettle and set it on the burner, checking the heat level before turning to get the sugar and coffee.
"Well it seems the redoubtable Detective Murphy has you on the run again," Bob said from over his shoulder. Harry turned and mock-glared at him.
"If you make me explain why I've been talking to myself in the kitchen...." he threatened vaguely. It was so nice to have Bob back and acting pretty much normally that he couldn't work himself up to real irritation.
"Really, Harry," Bob said with a smirk. "It's unlikely that she'll take it as anything but one more evidence of your... 'oddness'. She's very nearly accustomed to that now."
Harry snorted, absently encouraging the water to boil a little faster. "Murphy's a good friend, but one of these days she really is gonna shoot me, I think."
"And I'm sure you'll deserve it," Bob said in a soothing tone. Harry glared at him. Bob dissolved into smoke with a smirk and was gone, just as the kettle started to ramp up to a scream. Moments later and he was carefully carrying the coffee back out to the main room, hesitating in the doorway when he saw the look on Murphy's face.
"Murph?" he asked hesitantly.
"By my count you owe me three cellphones and eight reports," she said, caught somewhere between amusement and irritation. "And don't worry, you will be paying up one way or another."
"Sure thing, Murph," Whatever you say, Murph. Just don't glare at me with that scary look in your eyes anymore, okay? He handed over the coffee and she wrapped her hands around it.
"So the whole... electronics thing. That why you don't have a coffee pot?" she asked.
"Yeah," he sighed. "Or a toaster, a TV, an answering machine that works, a telephone made after 1950, a microwave...." he took a drink of his coffee and made a reflexive face. He really did hate instant.
"Sounds rough. I'm not sure how I'd manage without my coffee pot," Murphy said with a sip of her own. She didn't grimace, but then the stuff they served at the station was worse than he could manage if he tried. Harry shrugged, and they fell into a comfortable silence as they drank their coffee.
"So," she finally asked. "What were you reading when I came in?"
"It's a compendium of most of the major spells that need a human sacrifice," Harry answered absently. "Not specifics, just an overview of the kinds of things you might need certain kinds of tools for." He realized what he'd said, and his eyes went wide and snapped to Murphy's face.
"So you do know more about that than you said you did," Murphy smirked. "I thought as much. Didn't I tell you to stay out of it?"
"I am staying out of it!" Harry protested. She raised her eyebrows at him in disbelief. "Really," he reassured her. "All I'm doing is looking through some books, I'm not going out and getting into any trouble."
"That'll be the day," she snorted.
"Okay, not getting into any trouble related to the Tanner murders," he grumbled with a roll of his eyes.
"Still not sure I buy that, but I'll let it slide. This time," she warned. "So what have you found?"
Harry sighed. "Not a lot," he admitted.
"Tell me everything," she ordered. Harry grimaced, leaning back in his seat.
"Murphy... you've got to realize that the odds of you actually having something solid to put on the books?" he shook his head. "Pretty damn small."
"You're saying I can't solve this?" she asked sharply.
"I'm saying that there aren't a lot of ways for you to keep somebody locked up that can control another person's mind," Harry said. "And that's assuming you can catch him in the first place and not get sent out like a wind-up soldier to kill another cop, or me, or yourself. Or your daughter." She paled. "I'm not trying to scare you... okay, maybe I am a little. But you warned me to stay out of the case while I was still a suspect, and I'm warning you to be careful. This is big and nasty and not something you're equipped to deal with."
"I can't drop this case just on your say-so, Harry. It doesn't work that way," she said, her lips tight and her eyes shuttered.
"I'm not asking you to. I know better," he snorted, rolling his eyes. "I'm just saying be careful, okay?"
"I always am," she reassured him. Harry glowered down into his coffee, not terribly comforted. Yeah, she was careful, but that didn't help when she didn't know what to be careful of. "You're one to be talking about being careful, anyway. Need I remind you about what was all over your hockey stick?"
"Yeah, but I'm supposed to trip over this kind of stuff," he protested. "It's my job."
"Any chance you could mean that in anything other than a literal sense?" she smirked.
Harry glared at her. She chuckled into her coffee.