Fic: This Side of the Truth 3/3 [G] Dresden Files/Highlander crossover
Title: This Side of the Truth
Author: A Lanart
Fandom/Genre: Dresden Files/Highlander crossover. TV verse Dresden with bookverse cameos.
Rating: G
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Pairing/Characters: Harry and McAnally from DF, Methos and Amanda from HL
Summary: McAnally has more in common with Harry's new friends than Harry realises.
Disclaimer: Dresden Files stuff is the property of Jim Butcher and the scifi channel.
Highlander stuff is the property of Panzer/Davies productions
No copyright infringement intended, no profit made.
Title nicked from the song of the same name by MELT
A/N: Part of the With Friends Like These... series. Direct sequel to A Breakdown in Comprehension?
Part One
Part Two
Also can be read complete at my AO3 account from the series page.
*
I was woken by the warmth of sunlight on my face, the smell of coffee and the soft murmur of voices. I threw an arm over my face, not wanting to be blinded by the light as I opened my eyes, and tried to make sense of what I was hearing. Bob doesn’t talk to himself much and when he does it’s about magic, not about… McAnally. That enabled me to place the other voice; Adam Pierson.
“How did you get in?” I asked from the sofa, not ready to risk further movement until I’d gotten my head a bit straighter.
“You didn’t reset the wards, Harry. They still recognised him. He’s been…ah… enlightening… me about last night.”
“Oh,” I replied, hoping that Adam hadn’t told Bob *everything* or I’d never be able to face him again, ghost or not.
“Coffee?” Adam asked, before I could say anything else. I nodded, removed my arm from my face and carefully hauled myself upright before opening my eyes. My favourite cup was placed on the table in front of me, the coffee within it smelling like the nectar of the gods.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“Anytime.” He wandered off to the large table, which appeared to be covered in papers, and books with the book from yesterday in pride of place at the centre. I tried to make sense of the picture, and failed.
“What…?” My brain decided not to provide me with the rest of the sentence and I stared at Adam helplessly. He smiled at me, and indicated the table.
“I thought I’d do those translations before I left as I don’t know when I’ll be back in Chicago.”
“But…” There were a lot more books on the table than the one he’d offered to translate yesterday. His smile turned sheepish.
“I got distracted. You have quite a collection of obscure medieval texts, even if most of them are copies.”
“Side effect of the lifestyle,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee. It was damn good. “Bob looks after the really old books downstairs.” Half way through the sentence Bob began shaking his head and making ‘stop right there’ motions. Needless to say my mouth took no notice of him while my eyes found his antics rather amusing. My brain was lagging behind at the ‘what?’ stage of things and hadn’t realised the significance of what I’d said. Then it clicked. Adam Pierson was an unashamed Bibliophile and if I let him get his oh-so-careful hands on the books that Bob guarded, I’d probably never get him out of my home. Great move, Harry. Bob rolled his eyes at me, rearranging his face as Adam turned to look at him with a rapt expression.
“You do?”
Bob nodded. “And for a very good reason - many of them are dangerous.”
“Not to me,” Adam said; he sounded hopeful rather than certain to my ears.
“Especially to you,” Bob replied, frowning at Adam. He presented a very good picture of determined righteousness, manacles notwithstanding, as he stood there with his arms folded and an almost haughty frown on his face. Adam met his eyes for a moment with a glare that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Bob. The undercurrents between them were so obvious that even I could see them, although I didn’t understand the cause and wasn’t sure I wanted to either. In those few seconds of impasse, some kind of agreement must have been reached as they broke away from the glaring match simultaneously.
“Fair enough,” Adam conceded. “But I’d…”
“If you want to drool over the rest of my books, Dr Pierson, then you’ll just have to make sure you come back for a visit, won’t you?”
I have no idea what the hell my subconscious thought it was doing putting those words into my mouth, especially not when I hadn’t quite decided if I *liked* Adam Pierson or not, never mind whether I trusted him. I decided to let it be - wizards and their instincts again - as obviously *something* in me thought seeing Adam again would be a good idea and I was sure I could get used to him eventually.
Adam turned round to grin at me.
“I don’t drool over books...” I didn’t give him a very articulate reply but I’m sure my muttered grumble of ‘yeah, right’ coupled with the smirk on my face told him what I thought about that.
“But I suppose I will make the effort to visit,” he said. I could tell from the sparkle in his eyes that it wouldn’t exactly be a chore for him. “Good beer and old books, how could I resist?” He glanced over at Bob. “And the odd game of chess would be appreciated, too.”
“I think I could bring myself to indulge.” The stern tone of Bob’s voice was belied by the smile on his face. If he enjoyed chess that much, maybe I should get him to attempt to teach me. I’d probably be dreadful but that in itself would provide Bob with entertainment.
Adam began to tidy some of the books and papers up.
“In that case, there’s no desperate hurry to do everything today. I’ll finish that translation I promised before I leave, though,” he said as he settled back into a chair and pulled pen, paper and book toward himself. In less than 10 seconds, he was no longer in the room with me. I’ve seen that sort of focused concentration in magical practitioners, hell I can even manage it myself if needs be, but we usually have to do more of a song and dance to get to that state - we are creatures of ritual and any sort of ritual takes time to set up. I watched him for a moment; eyes flicking over the hieroglyphs in the book, scribbling alternately on 2 different pieces of paper but what impressed me was that he wasn’t even looking at what he was writing, he seemed to know *exactly* where each line needed to start and finish without thinking about it. I picked up my coffee and scrambled noisily off the couch - amazingly without disturbing Adam - and wandered over to Bob, who was also watching him work. I nodded in the direction of the table.
“That would be a neat trick to learn,” I commented. Bob chuckled.
“It would, and while I think you’re capable of doing it you might find your writing lets you down.” He had a point; I didn’t write, I scrawled. I always maintained that it was the sign of a busy mind, Bob said it was because neatness was obviously anathema to me, usually with a pointed glance at whatever pair of ripped jeans I was wearing or the holes in my socks.
“You’re probably right,” I conceded, “but it would still be a neat trick. Wonder where he learnt it?” We both glanced over to the table again; Adam seemed blissfully unaware of us.
“Monastery, I expect; he said he used to be a scribe.” I snorted; good beer and old books? Obviously the habit of at least one lifetime - in more ways than one. Bob continued, thinking aloud by the look of it. “Also, being on Holy Ground is likely to act as a trigger - if he didn’t feel safe, he wouldn’t risk it.” There was a half smile on Adam’s face; maybe he *was* listening but was too engrossed to acknowledge the conversation.
“It’s still a lot of trust for someone like him to put in a person he’s only just met.” A movement beside me dragged my eyes away from watching Adam. Bob was smiling as he rubbed at one of his manacled wrists. Smiling at *me* in a way that I rarely saw.
“Did it ever cross your mind that you might actually *inspire* trust in some people, Harry? You’re a good man at heart, and it shows.”
Oh. Now that was unexpected. Bob and I usually hide our feelings under a veneer of bad jokes, sarcasm and shows of ill temper but we were both aware that our relationship was one that would be frowned upon by the White Council seeing as it was more of a partnership than that of a custodian and cursed artefact. Luckily for us, the people who knew for certain were as unlikely to say anything to the Council as I was, for which I was truly thankful. For Bob to come right out and *say* something about it was not exactly the way we usually played it.
Mind you, I guess having a god-knows-how-many thousand year old immortal guy sitting at the table in your home is enough to mess up ‘usual’ for anyone, even if they have been dead for a thousand years. We stared at each other and Bob met my raised eyebrow with a decisive nod; he meant every word, no matter what I may think of myself.
Mister chose that moment to emit a plaintive yowl from my feet demanding, also unusually, to be picked up or more accurately for me to sit down so he could jump on me. Mister is *not* a small cat; he’s also not stupid and I think he’d decided to take matters into his own paws. Needless to say, I obliged - I’m not stupid enough to argue with my cat - making my way back over to the sofa and settling back into the cushions. Mister imperiously climbed onto my lap and fell asleep as if he and he alone, owned me. Nothing unusual there, then. Of course, with a lap full of cat I was limited in what else I could achieve and so I took Mister’s example, and fell back asleep.
I woke when Mister decided he’d had enough and clawed his way off me. The goddam cat seems to be incapable of climbing off me gently, which happens to be the reason most of my jeans are ripped. At least this time he hadn’t drawn blood. I glanced over to the table to find it empty of books, papers and Adam Pierson. I *listened* for a moment and a rumbling purr from Mister in the direction of the kitchen told me where he and by deduction Adam as Mister doesn’t purr for Bob, was likely to be so I headed in that direction.
Adam was shrugging into his coat, a sheaf of papers in his hand, while Mister twined around his ankles doing impressions of a steam engine. Bob looked faintly disgusted by the proceedings but then he has a somewhat… strained… relationship with my cat. Coat in place, Adam passed the papers to me before bending to scratch Mister between the ears.
“It’s an accurate translation of the hieroglyphs, but it still doesn’t make an awful lot of sense to me. I’m sure you and Bob will have more success understanding it; magic is not my area of expertise after all.” I glanced through the papers while he muttered incomprehensible phrases to my ecstatic cat. Latin *and* English was set out in such a way that it was obvious which phrase corresponded with which; it made his simultaneous translation even more impressive and I found I was kind of envious. Maybe I could inveigle him into giving me a few Latin lessons in payment for getting a look at my more interesting books.
“Thanks,” I said. It seemed kind of inadequate, but it was all I had as he’d helped me drink all the beer the night before.
“It was a pleasure,” he replied, straightening up from his crouch while Mister sauntered off with a feline glare in my direction. Funny thing was, Adam meant every word - I could feel the power of the truth in them. Weird. I walked with him towards the door, papers still in hand.
“Look me up next time you’re in the area,” I told him. “You know where I am, and if you want my number, I’m in the book.”
He smiled up at me, head tilted to one side, hands in pockets.
“Under W for wizard?” he asked. The smile was infectious; I grinned back.
“You got it.”
We didn’t say goodbye; I think we both knew he would be back. Whether it was beer with Mac, chess with Bob or drooling over my books I found that surprisingly I didn’t really care as for some reason I was glad that Adam Pierson - whatever his real name might be - wouldn’t be disappearing completely out of my life. Even if I wasn’t exactly comfortable with *what* he was my instincts were telling me that I could get very comfortable with *who* he was. Remember what I said about wizards trusting their instincts even when good sense tells them they’re being foolish? Well I was very much ignoring my good sense and for once Bob wasn’t calling me on it. Maybe we both needed another friend, in which case it looked like Adam Pierson was running for the job whether he realised it or not. I wondered what he would make of it when he did, but that was definitely something I would only find out in the future. I found myself looking forward to it.
Author: A Lanart
Fandom/Genre: Dresden Files/Highlander crossover. TV verse Dresden with bookverse cameos.
Rating: G
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Pairing/Characters: Harry and McAnally from DF, Methos and Amanda from HL
Summary: McAnally has more in common with Harry's new friends than Harry realises.
Disclaimer: Dresden Files stuff is the property of Jim Butcher and the scifi channel.
Highlander stuff is the property of Panzer/Davies productions
No copyright infringement intended, no profit made.
Title nicked from the song of the same name by MELT
A/N: Part of the With Friends Like These... series. Direct sequel to A Breakdown in Comprehension?
Part One
Part Two
Also can be read complete at my AO3 account from the series page.
*
I was woken by the warmth of sunlight on my face, the smell of coffee and the soft murmur of voices. I threw an arm over my face, not wanting to be blinded by the light as I opened my eyes, and tried to make sense of what I was hearing. Bob doesn’t talk to himself much and when he does it’s about magic, not about… McAnally. That enabled me to place the other voice; Adam Pierson.
“How did you get in?” I asked from the sofa, not ready to risk further movement until I’d gotten my head a bit straighter.
“You didn’t reset the wards, Harry. They still recognised him. He’s been…ah… enlightening… me about last night.”
“Oh,” I replied, hoping that Adam hadn’t told Bob *everything* or I’d never be able to face him again, ghost or not.
“Coffee?” Adam asked, before I could say anything else. I nodded, removed my arm from my face and carefully hauled myself upright before opening my eyes. My favourite cup was placed on the table in front of me, the coffee within it smelling like the nectar of the gods.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“Anytime.” He wandered off to the large table, which appeared to be covered in papers, and books with the book from yesterday in pride of place at the centre. I tried to make sense of the picture, and failed.
“What…?” My brain decided not to provide me with the rest of the sentence and I stared at Adam helplessly. He smiled at me, and indicated the table.
“I thought I’d do those translations before I left as I don’t know when I’ll be back in Chicago.”
“But…” There were a lot more books on the table than the one he’d offered to translate yesterday. His smile turned sheepish.
“I got distracted. You have quite a collection of obscure medieval texts, even if most of them are copies.”
“Side effect of the lifestyle,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee. It was damn good. “Bob looks after the really old books downstairs.” Half way through the sentence Bob began shaking his head and making ‘stop right there’ motions. Needless to say my mouth took no notice of him while my eyes found his antics rather amusing. My brain was lagging behind at the ‘what?’ stage of things and hadn’t realised the significance of what I’d said. Then it clicked. Adam Pierson was an unashamed Bibliophile and if I let him get his oh-so-careful hands on the books that Bob guarded, I’d probably never get him out of my home. Great move, Harry. Bob rolled his eyes at me, rearranging his face as Adam turned to look at him with a rapt expression.
“You do?”
Bob nodded. “And for a very good reason - many of them are dangerous.”
“Not to me,” Adam said; he sounded hopeful rather than certain to my ears.
“Especially to you,” Bob replied, frowning at Adam. He presented a very good picture of determined righteousness, manacles notwithstanding, as he stood there with his arms folded and an almost haughty frown on his face. Adam met his eyes for a moment with a glare that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Bob. The undercurrents between them were so obvious that even I could see them, although I didn’t understand the cause and wasn’t sure I wanted to either. In those few seconds of impasse, some kind of agreement must have been reached as they broke away from the glaring match simultaneously.
“Fair enough,” Adam conceded. “But I’d…”
“If you want to drool over the rest of my books, Dr Pierson, then you’ll just have to make sure you come back for a visit, won’t you?”
I have no idea what the hell my subconscious thought it was doing putting those words into my mouth, especially not when I hadn’t quite decided if I *liked* Adam Pierson or not, never mind whether I trusted him. I decided to let it be - wizards and their instincts again - as obviously *something* in me thought seeing Adam again would be a good idea and I was sure I could get used to him eventually.
Adam turned round to grin at me.
“I don’t drool over books...” I didn’t give him a very articulate reply but I’m sure my muttered grumble of ‘yeah, right’ coupled with the smirk on my face told him what I thought about that.
“But I suppose I will make the effort to visit,” he said. I could tell from the sparkle in his eyes that it wouldn’t exactly be a chore for him. “Good beer and old books, how could I resist?” He glanced over at Bob. “And the odd game of chess would be appreciated, too.”
“I think I could bring myself to indulge.” The stern tone of Bob’s voice was belied by the smile on his face. If he enjoyed chess that much, maybe I should get him to attempt to teach me. I’d probably be dreadful but that in itself would provide Bob with entertainment.
Adam began to tidy some of the books and papers up.
“In that case, there’s no desperate hurry to do everything today. I’ll finish that translation I promised before I leave, though,” he said as he settled back into a chair and pulled pen, paper and book toward himself. In less than 10 seconds, he was no longer in the room with me. I’ve seen that sort of focused concentration in magical practitioners, hell I can even manage it myself if needs be, but we usually have to do more of a song and dance to get to that state - we are creatures of ritual and any sort of ritual takes time to set up. I watched him for a moment; eyes flicking over the hieroglyphs in the book, scribbling alternately on 2 different pieces of paper but what impressed me was that he wasn’t even looking at what he was writing, he seemed to know *exactly* where each line needed to start and finish without thinking about it. I picked up my coffee and scrambled noisily off the couch - amazingly without disturbing Adam - and wandered over to Bob, who was also watching him work. I nodded in the direction of the table.
“That would be a neat trick to learn,” I commented. Bob chuckled.
“It would, and while I think you’re capable of doing it you might find your writing lets you down.” He had a point; I didn’t write, I scrawled. I always maintained that it was the sign of a busy mind, Bob said it was because neatness was obviously anathema to me, usually with a pointed glance at whatever pair of ripped jeans I was wearing or the holes in my socks.
“You’re probably right,” I conceded, “but it would still be a neat trick. Wonder where he learnt it?” We both glanced over to the table again; Adam seemed blissfully unaware of us.
“Monastery, I expect; he said he used to be a scribe.” I snorted; good beer and old books? Obviously the habit of at least one lifetime - in more ways than one. Bob continued, thinking aloud by the look of it. “Also, being on Holy Ground is likely to act as a trigger - if he didn’t feel safe, he wouldn’t risk it.” There was a half smile on Adam’s face; maybe he *was* listening but was too engrossed to acknowledge the conversation.
“It’s still a lot of trust for someone like him to put in a person he’s only just met.” A movement beside me dragged my eyes away from watching Adam. Bob was smiling as he rubbed at one of his manacled wrists. Smiling at *me* in a way that I rarely saw.
“Did it ever cross your mind that you might actually *inspire* trust in some people, Harry? You’re a good man at heart, and it shows.”
Oh. Now that was unexpected. Bob and I usually hide our feelings under a veneer of bad jokes, sarcasm and shows of ill temper but we were both aware that our relationship was one that would be frowned upon by the White Council seeing as it was more of a partnership than that of a custodian and cursed artefact. Luckily for us, the people who knew for certain were as unlikely to say anything to the Council as I was, for which I was truly thankful. For Bob to come right out and *say* something about it was not exactly the way we usually played it.
Mind you, I guess having a god-knows-how-many thousand year old immortal guy sitting at the table in your home is enough to mess up ‘usual’ for anyone, even if they have been dead for a thousand years. We stared at each other and Bob met my raised eyebrow with a decisive nod; he meant every word, no matter what I may think of myself.
Mister chose that moment to emit a plaintive yowl from my feet demanding, also unusually, to be picked up or more accurately for me to sit down so he could jump on me. Mister is *not* a small cat; he’s also not stupid and I think he’d decided to take matters into his own paws. Needless to say, I obliged - I’m not stupid enough to argue with my cat - making my way back over to the sofa and settling back into the cushions. Mister imperiously climbed onto my lap and fell asleep as if he and he alone, owned me. Nothing unusual there, then. Of course, with a lap full of cat I was limited in what else I could achieve and so I took Mister’s example, and fell back asleep.
I woke when Mister decided he’d had enough and clawed his way off me. The goddam cat seems to be incapable of climbing off me gently, which happens to be the reason most of my jeans are ripped. At least this time he hadn’t drawn blood. I glanced over to the table to find it empty of books, papers and Adam Pierson. I *listened* for a moment and a rumbling purr from Mister in the direction of the kitchen told me where he and by deduction Adam as Mister doesn’t purr for Bob, was likely to be so I headed in that direction.
Adam was shrugging into his coat, a sheaf of papers in his hand, while Mister twined around his ankles doing impressions of a steam engine. Bob looked faintly disgusted by the proceedings but then he has a somewhat… strained… relationship with my cat. Coat in place, Adam passed the papers to me before bending to scratch Mister between the ears.
“It’s an accurate translation of the hieroglyphs, but it still doesn’t make an awful lot of sense to me. I’m sure you and Bob will have more success understanding it; magic is not my area of expertise after all.” I glanced through the papers while he muttered incomprehensible phrases to my ecstatic cat. Latin *and* English was set out in such a way that it was obvious which phrase corresponded with which; it made his simultaneous translation even more impressive and I found I was kind of envious. Maybe I could inveigle him into giving me a few Latin lessons in payment for getting a look at my more interesting books.
“Thanks,” I said. It seemed kind of inadequate, but it was all I had as he’d helped me drink all the beer the night before.
“It was a pleasure,” he replied, straightening up from his crouch while Mister sauntered off with a feline glare in my direction. Funny thing was, Adam meant every word - I could feel the power of the truth in them. Weird. I walked with him towards the door, papers still in hand.
“Look me up next time you’re in the area,” I told him. “You know where I am, and if you want my number, I’m in the book.”
He smiled up at me, head tilted to one side, hands in pockets.
“Under W for wizard?” he asked. The smile was infectious; I grinned back.
“You got it.”
We didn’t say goodbye; I think we both knew he would be back. Whether it was beer with Mac, chess with Bob or drooling over my books I found that surprisingly I didn’t really care as for some reason I was glad that Adam Pierson - whatever his real name might be - wouldn’t be disappearing completely out of my life. Even if I wasn’t exactly comfortable with *what* he was my instincts were telling me that I could get very comfortable with *who* he was. Remember what I said about wizards trusting their instincts even when good sense tells them they’re being foolish? Well I was very much ignoring my good sense and for once Bob wasn’t calling me on it. Maybe we both needed another friend, in which case it looked like Adam Pierson was running for the job whether he realised it or not. I wondered what he would make of it when he did, but that was definitely something I would only find out in the future. I found myself looking forward to it.