Round Four IS CLOSED

[dresden_kink_mods]

Round Four is closed to new prompts and fills. Go to Round Five



| Round One: open only for feedback, WIPs continued in The Overflow Post or Round Four |
| Round Two: open only for feedback, WIPs continued in The Overflow Post or Round Four |
| Round Three: open only for feedback and WIPs continuation |
| if you previously continued your WIP in The Overflow Post or Round Four, keep going where ever you like, just link link link! |

Round Four: Closed


Read this first. Do it. It's not here to be pretty.

The Rules. Including the Posting Guidelines. aka:

In the first line of your fill, please include:

Character(s)/Pairing(s)/Threesome(s)/Moresome(s) as applicable; Any kinks included; MANDATORY WARNINGS if there is dubcon or noncon, underage characters in sexual situations, and/or major character death. Please don't conflate warnings and kinks; treat each individually, and use your pairings to indicate gen/het/slash/multi/&c. Do not warn for het, slash, or otherwise.

For images: Please post image prompts and fills with alt tag descriptions or with a text description of the piece. Example: [img src="neked.jpg" alt="Here's John being all hot and half naked saying Dresden et cetera et cetera"]. If you are linking to an external image, please include a description with the link.

Thank you.


The discussion post is here. Mod questions go here. The delicious account is here.

Don't forget about all the unfilled prompts. Got an unfilled prompt you want to give a second chance? Repost it here. Otherwise, go ahead and repost an unfilled prompt as a new comment with a link to the original if you are filling it.

Comments in chronological order: http://dresden-kink.dreamwidth.org/2675.html?view=flat

Any prompts, fills, discussion, or meta featuring authentic Ghost Story spoilers should be posted on the Ghost Story post.

ROUND FOUR IS CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS AND FILLS. GO TO ROUND FIVE. YOU CAN CONTINUE YOUR ROUND FOUR WIPS HERE.

Comments

OPEN PROMPT

[dresden_kink_mods]

Continued from here.

Did you read a prompt that gave a similar but different idea? Do you have the sudden urge to write a bit of fic that doesn't fit any of the prompts? Do you want to just play around with a pairing no one has requested?

Go to town here!

Re: OPEN PROMPT

[raindragon]

Dresden/Marcone - Warning for some one underage character having sex

Soooo.... when I first started reading Dresden I had this fic idea pop into my head and I wrote like the first half before it sputtered out. This is probably dreadful and out of character, however if someone wants to take the idea and run with it I would be delighted.



My name is Victoria Lynnette DeBenedetto and I have been a minor Seer for most of my life. I have led a fairly quiet life, my talents not being strong enough to make me a target, I was little more than an educated vanilla mortal and I mostly lived my life as if I was one. None of my children or grandchildren inherited my gift and I was content with my knowledge of the supernatural world dying with me. Two things happened to change that. I became fatally ill with a brain tumor that strengthened my gift exponentially and one of my grandsons came to visit me on leave from the military to say his goodbyes as he didn’t know where he would be when the time came.

Johnny was twenty-two but he would always be the sweet young boy that I helped to raise in my mind. I simply grasped his hand to pull him into a hug and I saw his future. The visions had become much stronger but I had never in my life been shown a future as rock solid as his was. The pain of it made me desperate to find some way to change things for him. I desperately chased down every possible path and alternative for something to let me direct it into a better future, but every possibility that I could find only led to darker paths. It took almost fifteen years before I found a light in the darkness and what a light it was, blazing and burning away at the darkness he had shouldered even from a distance. I reached for it to find a way to bring that light closer to my grandson.

I was shocked. A wizard! A powerful one and once I touched on his future I was dragged backwards through his life, seeing him survive the darkness that sought to destroy him until finally I reached the present. I knew that I would not have much time to do what I could and that while there was much I could not change for either young man, in order to change anything for the better I would need to seek the help of the Wizard Harry Dresden.

There was no time to waste. I came back to myself to find that I had apparently kept an iron grip on Johnny’s hand and that he had been trying to wake me from my trance.

“It’s alright Johnny, I’m fine.” At his skeptical look I elaborated. “Well, no, not fine. But I’m not dying just yet either.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?” The poor boy was looking at me like I was going to drop dead at his feet.

“Yes there is my darling boy. I need you to give me a lift somewhere right now. I will explain on the way, but we have a fairly tight deadline to meet.” He looked skeptical but very kindly decided to humor me.

He was not as happy to do so when I began to explain. I gave him only the very most basic explanation that I was a Seer and that magic existed. I could tell that he thought I was crazy and it was only my insistence that a young man needed our help that kept him following my directions. It took us almost two hours to reach the estate of Harry Dresden’s guardian so that it was almost noon when we arrived. I asked Johnny to stay with the car until I called for him and went to the door myself. My vision had already told me the information that I needed, the boy’s guardian and fellow apprentice would not return until well after sundown. Harry answered the door readily enough and nearly took my breath away. It was one thing to experience the power the young man could wield in a vision and another to sense it directly.

“Hello Harry Dresden. My Name is Victoria Lynnette DeBenedetto. I am a Seer and I need to consult with you about a vision that I have had. I am no threat to you and do not seek to pass your wards. I ask that you join me for a discussion in the garden.”

“What guarantee do I have that I won’t be attacked if I leave the wards?” His suspicion was blatant and I could not blame the poor thing with only having Justin DuMorne to base his opinions on.

“Look into my eyes and judge for yourself.” I do not know if it was a choice or simply shock that connected his eyes to mine. The Soulgaze was enough to make me wish that I could deal with Justin DuMorne myself for the damage he had done to the child. Instead I used the lingering connection to show him as much as I could of the vision that brought me to him. I showed him also that most of it could not be changed as all other avenues led to much darker futures. I cut it off where his presence showed up, not allowing him to see his own future.

“How can I help?” He asked me as he stepped outside. We sat on the steps and I began the true job of a Seer: manipulating the future by manipulating the ones who would shape it.

What I planned to do was in many ways massively unfair for Harry, but in others I would be making his life much better without his ever knowing it. I had a deep knowledge of him that I could use to twist him to my purpose that he could not defend against.

“The next twenty years cannot be meddled with very much at all. I can see a way to bend things and to make the years afterwards much better but I would have to ask you to make choices that you are very young to be making.”

“What choices?”

“Harry, as a Seer I know a great deal about your life, such as the fact that you are currently a virgin and that if I had not come into your life you would give your virginity to your fellow apprentice Elaine in three days on your sixteenth birthday.” The poor dear went brick red. No teenager expects to have to discuss their sex life with anybody’s grandmother.

“What does that have to do with anything?” He just barely squeaked out.

“If it was just bettering the life of my grandson I would not ask it of you, but he will become a very influential man as you are aware and he will be able to do a lot of good. The trick will be getting him there. I am dying and so will be unable to use my gift to help him. So I am asking you to give him the lifespan and healing abilities of a wizard.”

“I wouldn’t even begin to know how to do that!” He objected.

“I don’t know the spells either; however I can sense a future where you do just that. Calm yourself and theorize aloud about what would be needed. Maybe I will be able to direct you a bit if you are coming close. I can give you a place to start, but you won’t like it.”

“Why is that?” He was already giving me an unhappy stare.

“I brought up your status as a virgin for a reason. It is quite likely that you will be giving up that status today.”

He made a sort of gurgling sound in his throat as he tried to protest before dropping his head into his hands as he started to mumble into them. It took him several moments to regain possession of himself.

“You’re suggesting using a deflowering ritual.” He said it very flatly.

“Yes, though obviously it would require more than that but I imagine you could use it as a base.” I was trying to be encouraging but he dropped his head into his hands again and didn’t bother lifting it again before he replied.

“Okay, I am just going to treat this like a theoretical situation from my tutor. Alright, deflowering ritual would suggest either raising power or binding it, maybe both but let’s just set that aside for a second. Let’s talk about what we want to give him. The only way I can see to give him a wizard’s lifespan and healing is to share mine with him.”

“That feels right to me.” I could see him turning the problem around in his head.

“That kind of link can’t be one way; he would have to give me something in exchange. Not to mention that I don’t have any way to forge that kind of link, and that kind of delicate touch doesn’t come naturally to me. It would take me months to research how to do it and I would still probably need help.”

“Harry, it has to be today, otherwise there will be too many changes. It doesn’t have to be perfect it just has to work.” He stood up and began to pace mumbling to himself for several minutes before stopping to turn to me again. I met his gaze, trying to beam my support directly to his mind if I could and his eyes widened and the pacing began again even faster than before. He stopped and came back to sit beside me.

“I think that I could do it, but I’m not sure what all of the side effects will be and… basically I would be marrying him with a few magical bells and whistles thrown in.” The poor child looked so scared that I felt bad for doing this to him. I reached for his hand and I read the possible future that would result from following through on this plan.

I could see the immediate future: the ritual working, the side effects and how it would affect my grandson’s future. The events remained unchanged for the most part but any changes that were there were for the better and in twenty years when the future became more flexible the differences were amazing. I reached out for Harry with my power and showed my vision to him, not with as much clarity as in the aftermath of the Soulgaze we shared, but enough to convince him that it was better than the alternative. What I did not show him was how it would affect his own future, mostly for the better, but he was going to be very lonely for that twenty year period.

“Whatever your idea is will work, it will need to be strengthened at least once a year by a… well let’s just call it a conjugal visit, but I would aim for every ten months to be on the safe side.” He did that adorable flushing thing again.

“How do you even plan to get him to go along with this? He doesn’t even believe in magic at all.”

“Obviously we cannot tell a lie, however, I think that it would be best that he believe that he is doing this to humor me and as a favor to you. You will most likely need to do a few flashy pieces of magic to prove our point but otherwise let me do most of the talking. Go get a space set up while I introduce him to the idea.”

Re: OPEN PROMPT

[raindragon]

My grandmother has obviously lost the plot. I spent the time in the car waiting for her to call for me trying to figure out the best way to get her some help. No one seems to have realized that her mental condition has deteriorated so quickly. I watched her go to the front door of the mansion we had arrived at that was completely surrounded by gardens. It was everything I could ever think to picture of the stereotypical classy ultra-rich home. I don’t know how she might know the people who lived here and could only expect that she didn’t and that we were possibly going to get the cops called on us by whatever servant answered the door.

I was surprised when a very tall young man in black slacks and a long sleeved white button down shirt answered the door and after only a brief pause walked out of the house barefoot to sit with my grandmother on the steps. I will admit to getting a little distracted watching him as he paced back and forth. My tendencies toward admiration of the male of the species were generally kept tightly locked away - mostly for reasons of self-preservation as a member of the armed forces. I figured there was no harm in a little self-indulgence right then as I watched the tall thin figure pace, I was a bit surprised to find that the sight of his bare feet was really a turn on and disappointed when my eye-candy went back inside. It looked like my little mental break was over though as my grandmother waved me over and into the recently vacated spot beside her.

“Johnny, I know that you didn’t believe me earlier when I tried to explain that I had a vision of a young man that needed our help and that is perfectly fine. Harry will be able to help me prove it to you in a few minutes. For now I just need you to take it on faith that I believe what I’m saying to you because in order to help you are going to have to cooperate with him fully, even if it doesn’t make much sense to you.”

“Gran… I am completely lost here. You know I’m happy to help someone out, but if you are talking magic and visions… what can I possibly do?” The skepticism was rife in his voice.

“We need to do a magic ritual, now you don’t need all the details of it, but I can tell you what you would be expected to do and that you will be getting some benefits from the ritual as well.”

“What benefits?” Now I was getting suspicious. Was someone managing to scam my grandmother with some hocus pocus and had managed to convince her that she was having ‘visions’?

“That would be an increase in your possible lifespan taking it from one century to four or five and a greatly increased healing ability.”

I think I must have blinked at her for several moments and definitely had to snap my mouth closed from my jaw falling open. She seemed so certain and matter of fact it was hard to keep doubting her sanity. Gran had always been so immensely practical that her approach to even such whimsical ideas as magic fit her grounded personality to a tee.

“I’m not even certain where to begin asking questions about this.”

“Which is a good thing because there are a great many answers that I cannot give you, not without changing the future in some very bad ways. The goal here is to take advantage of a very short window of opportunity. In order to do that I need you to agree to participate in the ritual - and take a great deal on faith that although you won’t get the answers now, you will eventually get them.”

“What do I need to do in this ritual? It better not require that I get naked and dance around a fire.” If it wasn’t anything too ridiculous it probably wouldn’t hurt anything to go along with it.

“No dancing, but there will be a little bit of nudity. Nothing for you to be self-conscious about as it will only be you and Harry there. I won’t be participating or watching the proceedings.”

“Why exactly is nudity a requirement then?”

“Well, that would be because at its most basic this is a sex ritual.”

I had to rub my hands roughly over my face. This was insane. I was not expecting this when I decided to visit my dying grandmother when I got leave.

“You expect me to just go have sex with a perfect stranger? How can this possibly seem sane to you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous Johnny. What do you think you’re doing when you pick someone up at a club? This isn’t any different on how much you know about your potential partner and this is for a good cause.”

Before she could say anymore we were interrupted by the return of the young man in question. He looked between us uncertainly for a moment before he spoke.

“I’ve set up the ritual area in the west garden.” Before he could say anything else gran broke in.

“Harry could you fetch me some paper and a pen? I need to write a few letters while you are dealing with other matters.”

He seemed relieved for the excuse to duck back inside and gran immediately turned back to me.

“I’m not going to try and convince you, but I am going to ask that you go with Harry and ask him for the details of the ritual before you decide.”

As that didn’t seem too unreasonable a request I very shortly found myself following the still deliciously bare foot young man around the side of the house and through a fair length of gardens and into a large circle of grass with a blanket in the middle surrounded by five candles. We stood awkwardly for a moment neither of us sure of what to do next until I decided to introduce myself and held out my hand.

“Hi, my name is Johnny DeBenedetto.” I considered that a nice neutral enough icebreaker so I was surprised by his response.

“That’s not your True Name.” He seemed to realize that he’d been rude and he flushed as he mumbled an apology.

“How would you know if it was or not?” I was made a little suspicious at his knowing anything about me considering how little I knew about him.

“A True Name always carries a little magic with it, even if you don’t have any magic of your own. Anyone with magic can tell the difference.”

I was getting a little annoyed at all the references to magic that were being made. That and the way he would just barely flick a glance at me before looking away.

“My name is Marcus Jonathan DeBenedetto and I have yet to see any proof that magic exists or that this so called magical ritual is necessary.” That earned me another flick of his eyes and a fairly shy grin as he mumbled something and the candles flared to life. I was a little surprised but still skeptical.

“Could be a trick.” I was still considering the candles as he stepped up behind me and pressed himself up against my back as he brought both of his long arms stretched out in front of me and murmured in my ear.

“How about this then? Ventas.” In his left hand I could see a small cyclone of air above his palm and I could feel the wind ruffling my hair. “Fuego.” Now a small ball of flame appeared in his right, then he brought his hands together and he was holding a small cyclone made of flame between his hands and I could feel the heat pressing into me, pressing me back into his chest. He clapped his hands together briskly and it was gone.

I took a deep breath, then another before spinning in place grabbing his head to pull him down and introducing his lips to mine and doing my best to map his mouth with my tongue. After a few moments I let his mouth go but I kept my hands buried in his hair and our foreheads pressed together. I was still rather breathless when I started speaking again.

“That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, so, magical sex ritual… what exactly do you need me to do?”

He was keeping his eyes closed and he was a little flushed from our make out session but I could see his face darken further as he thought about it.

“It’s not going to be that complicated, but it will have a small ceremonial aspect to start with, detailing what we will be giving to each other through the ritual starting with our True Names. The key to that part is to follow my lead but not to say anything that you don’t mean or can’t live up to because that will cause the ritual not to work. As I will be concentrating on the magical half, the physical will be your job. The next tricky part…” He trailed off and I used the opportunity to ask a question I should have asked before.

“Wait a second, what will we be giving each other with the ritual? My gran said something about extending my life and better healing, but what would I be giving you?”

“I’m not sure. Your grandmother said that we would work that out between the two of us. I am sharing with you something inherent to what I am so you will need to do the same. Do you have any skills that you can share with me?”

“I don’t think I have any skills that can even begin to compare to what you would be sharing.”

“Well, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m in the military.” I was not expecting his face to light up at that.

“So you have fighting skills?”

“Yeah. Hand to hand combat, marksmanship, survival skills and things along those lines.”

“That’s great. Those are some skills that are really useful, that’s perfect.”

“I’m not seeing the trade-off here. It still seems unequal to me.”

“It works out. In order to give you that longer lifespan and health benefits I have to tie your life to mine, however I’m still as vulnerable to being killed as the next guy so the additional survival skills are actually a really good compliment to the ritual. It adds a really good balance.”

“Okay, so what’s the next tricky part?”

“Never mind, I can direct as we go.” He did flush adorably when he was embarrassed so it was obvious that the next ‘tricky bit’ was probably to do with the sex.

Wee bit of Missouri

[luciazephyr]

Harry, Missouri State Fair, narrative kink only. Just me indulging in my state, all shamelessly based on my own experiences. Harry being calmed down by living in Missouri post-Justin makes a lot of sense to me. Commentboxed, apologies for sloppiness.


Sedalia in August was a hotbox. Well, the Midwest at large was a hotbox this time of year, but Sedalia was flat and lacking in trees, meaning there was no shade to be found. The Fairgrounds had quite a few buildings and a handful even had air conditioning.

Harry was not in one of those buildings. He sat on the iron fence, watching two of Eb's livestock while Eb handled registration paperwork for the auction. The sun was beating down, and he wondered if this was what it was like to be cooked.

On a whim, he uncapped his bottle of water and pour a drop on the metal he was perched on. It didn't sizzle, exactly, but the water evaporated in seconds. It wasn't even noon yet. Harry was sure if he got hungry later, he could cook a hot dog on this fence.

Below him, one of the pigs made a snorting sound and nuzzled his shoe. Harry smiled. "Yeah, no kidding." He tipped some water onto the pig. It was going to be someone's dinner soon, but he couldn't begrudge it a little comfort before that.

There was a ruckus behind him. Harry twisted to look, wincing when he accidentally set his hand down on the hot metal as he did. Across the way was a corral for show horses and one teenager not much older than Harry was riding one. He was holding onto the saddle and reins lightly, easy and confident even as the horse tilted with the curve of it's path.

Leaning on the fences was a gaggle of girls dressed for the hot weather in halter tops and shorts that would make Daisy Duke blush. They cheered the rider on, their fingers in their mouths to whistle loudly.

Harry swallowed thickly and fanned his face with the schedule sheet. What was with this part of the state and never getting a single breeze? At least back home on the Lakes, you had some wind to cut through the ungodly heat.

The pig nudged his foot again, and Harry startled, almost toppling off the fence. Looking down, he subsided, sighing, and poured a little more water on the pig. "I wonder how pissed Eb would be if I tried to turn you into a Clydesdale."

The pig gave him a skeptical look.

"Yeah, I know. I'd just end up with a miniature pony or something." Harry rolled his eyes, picturing his gangly form on a pony, trotting it past the girls. "Totally sexy."



Eb eventually let him go, and Harry didn't waste time hunting down a cool spot and something to drink. The Farmers' Association had set itself up in its usual building, a squat blue thing with peeling paint. The line in front was twenty people long, but Harry put up with it and walked out five minutes later happy, licking chocolate goat's milk off his lips.

He walked down the main road, feeling like he'd stumbled and fell fifty years into the past. A few kids were running down the road, a large metal loop rolling alongside them. They drove it on with some well-timed hits with a stick, seeing who could keep it going the longest. The Amish men driving a carriage around them, and a woman carrying a tray hocked some local brewery's wares. Harry drifted over to her hopefully, but she gave him a sly smirk and shook her head.

The picturesque scene was interrupted by the stadium nearby. There was a tractor pull going on, and the sound was loud enough to be heard from the other side of fairgrounds. But compared to Chicago, it was still a time warp. There was something very earthy and grounded about the fair, about the entire state really.

Compared to Chicago, it was slow and quiet, and that quiet seemed to soak into Harry, through his skin and deep down into his bones, past that into his soul.



He helped Eb pack the trailer back up a week later dutifully. Eb asked, "Didn't bore you too much this year, did it, Hoss?"

Harry shook his head, saying nothing, but smiling, feeling warm. It wasn't the oppressive heat of a raging inferno, but of the heat of skin after a day under a blue summer sky.

Re: Wee bit of Missouri

[(Anonymous)]

This was oddly sweet. But I can't, for the life of me, remember where Sedalia is. Near Joplin?

Fic: Sequel to Lost in a Life - Warning/Kink Header Post

[akelios]

I think this is the appropriate place for this. If it's not, let me know and I'll take it down whilst feeling very silly. Okay then.

Title: The Life We Make (it's silly, I know. But I have to name everything)

Pairings: Marcone/Harry, eventual: Hendricks/Harry, Hendricks/Marcone, Hendricks/Marcone/Harry

Warnings/Kinks (for the entire fic): noncon (nothing has changed from the original fic. Marcone still has executive veto power over Harry's mind, making it noncon even if Harry thinks it's his idea), consensual sex, rough sex, oral sex, penetration, bondage, double penetration, fisting, wax play, knife play, spanking, all the kinks? - I'll warn on top of each section what kinks are included to cover the bases.

Notes: First, the rough, unfinished draft of this fic is over 50k words. I'm sorry. Second, the fic switches to Harry's point of view after the first section. Harry is, even more than he is in canon, an unreliable narrator. Think of someone who has been so thoroughly brainwashed that they can't recall any problems they had with what was done to them in the beginning. That's Harry. So his perspective on John and John's actions is severely skewed from reality.

Fic: The Life We Make 1a/?(infinity)

[akelios]

Kinks/Warnings: oral sex, rough/fight sex, possessiveness, biting, mention of drug use
-

The young man in front of me screamed and gibbered, drool coursing down his chin and staining his thin, filthy t-shirt. His eyes were wide and blood shot, the pupils huge. He looked like what he was, a drug addict. But it was not one of my drugs. Not something that came from my people.

“Are there many more like this?” I turned to Jamie, my head of distribution in this area. She sighed and nodded.

“Ten that we've found, with some dead that were probably on it too. The junkies are calling it Three-Eye.” The folder she handed to me was thin but the pages swam with technical, chemical terms. “The thing that kills me is that there's nothing in it. The only damn thing that's addictive is the absinthe, and there's not a whole hell of a lot of that in each dose. The other ingredients are junk. There's glitter in there for fucks sake. But it's somehow addictive as hell and it turns them into this.” She pointed at the addict who was now flopped back on the cement of the floor, no longer screaming. He stared up at the roof of the building whispering soft nonsense to himself.

“Do we have any leads on the distributor?”

“I'm working on it. Tracking down junkies, trying to find one that's bought but hasn't gone this far yet. Soon as I have something I'll let you know, sir.”

“Is he going to recover?” Jamie shrugged.

“Maybe. We'll drop him in front of the hospital and they'll take it from there.” I moved to stand over the man, watching him for a few seconds. I'd seen many people in the depths of a reaction to drugs before. I'd seen them coming down from their highs, crashing to the depths of pain and suffering and longing for just a little more to make it better, all the while knowing that it would only come to this again and again. This was amongst the worst I'd ever seen.

Those strange, staring eyes flicked over my face without seeming to really see and then locked on me, finally seeing something real. His lips peeled back from his teeth into a manic grin and he started to laugh, a breathless, howling sound. It lasted for only a few seconds before it stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

“Have you seen him? Have you looked at him and let him see the real you? Thief. Monster. Murderer. He'd hate you, if he saw the truth. Claw himself to shreds to rid himself of the parts you made.” The man's voice was a bleeding whisper, barely coherent. He trailed off again into absolute silence, his ragged, skipping breaths grating through the room.

“Wh-” Jamie cut herself off before I could turn to look at her. Just as well. I wasn't certain what I would say to her or what might be showing on my face. I got myself under control and turned from the shell of a man at my feet.

“Get rid of him and find where this Three-Eye is coming from. I will not tolerate this in my city.” I left the half-built building, my guards following closely.

The drive home was too long and sharply quiet. I'd grown too used to having Harry right there beside me over the past four years. These last few months had been a strange experience. He'd spent far more time at the university or in his room studying than he had with me. It was disconcerting to watch him slipping away from me, even as I encouraged his growth, his interests.

Nate met me in the garage, his bright red hair newly cropped down to near military length. It made him look harder. A dog on a chain. The image was more true than it had been even just a few years ago, but it still failed to encompass even a tenth of who Nate was.

“How'd it go?”

“Badly. The drug is real, though our labs apparently cannot discover what makes it work.” I waved the sheaf of papers at him. Nate caught it and tugged it carefully from my hands. “There's something about it though. The man I saw tonight seemed to know some things about me that he could not have known.”

“Magic?” He spoke as we walked, his head down as he flipped through the pages. If I'd tried that I'd have walked into a wall. Nate managed to make it all look natural and graceful. “Maybe we should have Harry look at this.”

“That was my intention, yes. How did- where is he?”

“Upstairs, probably showering. He worked out and took a long run around the property after he got home. I think the tests went well, but you know how he is. He's not going to relax until the grades are in.”

“Mmhmm.” It was true. Harry was...focused. Nearly obsessively so at times. I worried, occasionally, that I had done that to him. That the drive was a part of myself that had leaked over without my knowledge. If it was, I regretted it. It made my life more difficult than it needed to be quite often these days. “I'll bring it up to him in the morning. If he's still riding that high and I give it to him now he won't sleep.”

“Yeah.” Nate flipped the papers closed and tucked them under his arm. “I'll hang on to these until tomorrow. Maybe something will click.” We bade each other good night and went our separate ways.

The shower was, in fact, running when I walked through the door into my room. I followed the trail of clothing detritus through the bedroom. Shoes, socks, t-shirt all in a meandering line that ended with the crumpled sweats in the open door of the bath. I dropped my own clothing into the hamper and slid the door of the shower open.

Harry stood beneath the spray, head tilted back beneath the steaming water. There was a small smile on his face as he turned his head to peer at me with one eye before he turned so that the jets of water pounded against his back.

“Sore?”

“A little. Kevin pushes me hard, but it's a good ache.” He rolled his shoulders and moaned a little, a sound that went through me like a knife. I closed the door behind myself and slid beneath the spray with him, laying my hands on his shoulders and pressing, urging him down. Harry leaned down and kissed me, his long, lean arms wrapping around me, the thin fingers of one hand tickling over the curve of my spine until he grasped at my ass, pulled me in tight against him.

His erection glided across my stomach, the water easing the way even as it made us stick together. I moaned into his mouth and pulled back, forcing him to release me.

“Hey! I was just getting going!” He playfully tugged at my arm, careful not to pull hard at all. No one wanted to explain a bathroom injury to Nate. Not again at any rate.

“I had something else in mind.” I urged him over to the recessed seat and he grinned wolfishly at me, seeing where I was going. Harry settled onto the warm tile and let his legs sprawl open, presenting himself to me. His collar clacked softly against the tile as he leaned back to watch me kneel in front of him, my hands on his knees.

I didn't do this often, not even for Harry. I didn't enjoy it, not the way Harry did, once he'd gotten the hang of it. But for special occasions, or when the rare mood struck me, I went down on him. He savored it, his eyes dark and intense as he watched, never, ever closing his eyes, never looking away. I took my time, enjoying the softness of his skin, the slick hard flesh beneath that. I stroked him, squeezing gently in a slow, pulsing rhythm. Harry laughed, his thigh tensing and trembling a little beneath my hand.

Long fingers slid through my hair and tugged, pulled me closer to him.

“Stop playing with it John.” I rolled my eyes up to meet his. He looked away after a second. “John...”

I took him in my mouth, just enough so that he rested full and heavy against my tongue. My hands pinned his hips down, kept him still even as he wanted to jerk up, drive more of himself into my mouth. I pressed my tongue along him, ran the tip of it just behind the head. He hissed and his fingers tightened on the back of my head, trying to force me closer. I laughed around him and took a little more in.

I kept up a gentle suction, grasping the rest of his naked length in my slick hand and drew up my own memories of this. Of Harry on his knees in front of me, the hot, endless cavern of his mouth, the way he seemed to breathe me in. Harry crouched beneath my desk at the office, one of my lieutenants delivering a report as Harry licked at me, quick, fluttering movements that teased but did nothing to bring me to completion. I pulled every scrap of pleasure I could recall together and fed it back to Harry, a flood of sensation through the link between us.

There was a small, sharp pain in my scalp, Harry's nails scraping me and he came, head thudding against the tile and a deep gasp echoing around us. I swallowed, the taste bitter but not entirely unpleasant and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth as I pulled away.

“So what's the occasion?” Harry's hands stroked down my neck, across my shoulders. I cupped my hand to gather some of the water, using it to wash the lingering taste from my mouth. Harry's hands fell away as I rose to my feet and redirected the water to start cleaning us off.

“Maybe I just wanted to make you lose control?”

“You do that all the time and you know it.” Harry shook his head and stood, edging me out of the way to get his own portion of the water. I didn't miss the look he directed down the length of my body, or the way his shoulders tightened as he saw my lack of arousal. “You only do that when you want something you know I'm not going to like.” Harry cleaned himself off quickly and stepped from the shower, watching me with wary eyes as he toweled off.

“That's not true.” I rinsed myself off and then finished my shower, scrubbing the day from my skin. “Sometimes I do it because I want to celebrate with you.”

“Uh-huh.” He moved away as I shut the shower off and dried myself quickly. I found him sitting on the bed, boxers hanging loose and low on his hips. Harry had changed so much since I'd first found him. Gone from a skinny, naïve boy to a wiry, clever man. I missed the boy, sometimes. “So which is it this time?”

“Celebration. You've finished your finals. You're about to graduate. I thought that was worthy of a little celebration.” I pulled on my own pajama bottoms and watched him from across the room. “And now that you're finished with college you can start getting more involved with the local occult community and begin liaising with the Council.” His face closed down, but not before I saw the sour twist of his lips.

“I'm not done with school yet. I told you I'm going back to get my Master's. That's another three years.”

“We discussed this, Harry. I don't think that you need-”

“I want it. I'm good at physics and you know it. You just don't like it because it takes me away from you.” He shoved off the bed and stalked across the room, pacing. “You're being selfish.” I sighed and sat in my chair.

“That's not it at all and you know it. The occult community will only open up so much to someone on the outside and no matter what I do for them, that's what I will always be. You're one of them. They'll tell you things that they won't tell me or my men.”

“I'm already in good with them. How do you think I get ingredients, huh? Being friends with people isn't a job, John. Not for most people anyway.” Another dark, pointed look. I tried to let it and the building anger I felt from Harry roll over me and then away, in spite of the answering flicker in my chest. Harry was rarely unreasonable, and that should have made me more understanding when he was. It didn't. “And I'm not going to do any damn thing with the Council.”

“Harry,” I did my best to project calm reason through my tone, in spite of my own growing anger. We had discussed this. “The Council is still struggling to rebuild itself. They listen to my advice, but again, I'm an outsider to them. I don't understand many of the things that they have issues with because I am incapable of magic.”

“Bullshit.” Harry stopped his restless movement and glared at me. “You understand magic just fine. And you're smoking something if you think they're going to talk to me. I'm a damned warlock remember?” He yanked at the collar, his knuckles turning white with the strength of his grip, the skin above the hard line of the collar swelling red where it wasn't bloodless white. “You think I don't notice the way they treat me when they come here? They don't look at me. They don't fucking acknowledge that I'm alive. Fuck them. And fuck you too if you think I'm going to go crawl for those assholes, begging them to accept me.” Harry turned on his heel, heading for the door.

“Harry, stop.” He froze. “Come back here. I'm not done speaking with you.” Harry stumbled and shuffled back over to me, standing in front of me and swaying slightly. “I'm not asking you to crawl. Not for them. I'm asking you to help them. Show them that you're better than they are. A true wizard, no matter what the old regime said. You're a fully trained wizard and those are in short supply at the moment.”

“I hate them.” He stared down at the floor, the dark well of his emotions visible on his face.

Fic: The Life We Make 2a/?

[akelios]

John left early the next morning, handing me two Aspirin and a glass of water on his way out the door. Some meeting with a guy who wanted to be mayor next term. John must have liked him, or seen some sort of potential, because he was gifting the man with a personal meeting, not something that he usually did for upstart politicians.

I took my medicine like a good boy and got dressed in a pair of jeans that had somehow migrated to under John's bed from my room and one of John's faded t-shirts. It hung too loose on me and made me feel sort of like a kid playing dress up, but it beat limping into my room to rummage through the pile in my closet. Mister had terrified the last maid who tried to organize my rooms, so I was pretty much left to my own devices there. I kept it neat, but there was always a lot of rummaging to be done before I found exactly what I was looking for. Much easier to just steal one of John's shirts.

Nate was at the table by the time I made my way downstairs, cursing John and Kevin in the same breath the whole way. His eyebrows bobbed up in a silent question and I bared my teeth at him in a friendly mock growl.

“Rough night?”

“Please.” I rolled my eyes and sat, a little carefully, down in my chair. Nate nudged over a mug of coffee and I brought it up to take a deep, blissful inhalation of the scent. I took a sip and it was perfect, just the way I liked it. “You, sir, are a god among men.”

“Yeah. All those years on the street, the college courses on the sly, keeping Johnny from getting us all killed in really nasty ways, and my greatest achievement is remembering how an annoying, skinny kid likes his coffee. I feel appreciated and loved.” But he was grinning as he said it, a true, unalloyed smile. Those were rare, reserved for when we were alone.

I pulled myself away from the nectar of the gods and made two plates from the spread that ran down the middle of the table. I pushed one, the one whose contents weighted ever so slightly more to the fruits than the meats, over to Nate and kept the other for myself. Nate hadn't ever been a big breakfast guy, though he was still better than John, who would eat a bagel or some dry toast in the car if left to his own devices. With Nate, through a campaign of subtle hints and not so subtle insistence, I'd finally manged to make him sit down and eat a real breakfast with me. All a part of my master plan to make Lucinda happy. It was how I got all the extra cookies.

“How come you're not with John today?”

“It's a milk run. Tommy and Gracie can handle it. He's wearing that tracking thing you made him, right? The one with the personal shielding?”

“Course. He never leaves home without it.” I munched on a link of sausage and scuffed my heels across the cold floor. “He doesn't want me to go back to college.”

Nate speared a slice of kiwi and dredged it through the cup of yogurt at his elbow.

“We knew he wasn't going to go for it right away. You can't let him just bulldoze over the idea though.”

“But he kind of has a point. The White Council used to be a sort of...guardian force. They kept predatory beings from having free reign in the mortal world. Without them, everyone who was once protected is vulnerable. If there's something I can do to help keep people safe...”

“You're one guy, Harry. Should you help people? Sure. If you're in the right position to do it. But that doesn't mean that you have to put all of your goals to the side. John just needs to be convinced is all.”

“So what do I do? He doesn't listen when I try to tell him. You know what he gets like. 'I'm John Freaking Marcone! I know what's best for every breathing creature on the planet, and if you don't agree with me you're an idiot and I'll stare you down into submission!'” I did my best to imitate John's voice, cold and deep. Implacable. The voice of God.

Nate snorted and took a drink of his milk to try and cover it.

“I keep telling you, it's about compromise. Johnny's used to getting his own way because everyone is too scared to say boo to him.”

“Except you.”

“True. But I've seen the man buck naked and puking in a bush that was crawling with poison ivy. So, there's that.” I opened my mouth to beg for that story and Nate laughed, shaking his head. “Nu-uh. That one's a sworn secret.” He mimed locking his lips shut and throwing away the key. “But you get what I've been saying, right? You need to give a little to get a little. So make a concession. Try working with John on something he wants you to do and asking about finishing out school after you've made some progress on one of his projects. Prove that you can do both things.”

“Isn't that still John getting his way?”

“Yeah. But it's also getting you what you want. And that, Harry, is the whole point here.”

“Okay. I'll try it out.” I tried to look confident, but I was pretty sure Nate could see through it. I wanted this to work, but I didn't think that it would.

~

I met John for lunch in his newest restaurant. It was a really nice little family place that served absolutely delicious Middle Eastern food. My tastes were still provincial I guess, because there were a few things on the menu I refused to try, no matter how delicious John said they were. I stuck with what I knew I liked. Dolmeh and Tas Kebab. John tried something different every time we went, and sometimes that didn't turn out so well. So I felt justified in my choices.

For instance, his plate currently had something on it that was lightly browned, but a sort of grey beneath that and looked an awful lot like a dissected brain. I wasn't going to ask if it really was brain, but just the thought was enough to make my stomach flop. Like I said. Provincial.

We ate for a few minutes in comparative silence, just enjoying the food and the atmosphere for a while. Once the server had come and done the refills for our drinks, I took a last scoop of my rice and wiped my hands clean. It was a nervous, delaying gesture and I knew it, but that didn't mean I could stop myself from doing it. I didn't insist on things with John. I just didn't. It never occurred to me half the time, which was another one of those things that would worry Nate and make his head spin if I tried to explain it, so I was just never going to do that.

“What if I-” I bit my lip and then released it abruptly. I hated that I still did that. Like a kid. John thought it was cute, but it was hardly the sort of thing a grown man did, was it? “I'll go and talk to the locals. See if there are any problems that need to be addressed. Make them aware that we're here to help them out when they need it. Like that.”

“Not so much that we are here to help them, though that is the heart of the matter, of course. It is more, Harry, that you, as one of them with access to resources that they cannot hope of putting together themselves, want to make certain they know the option is there.

“Forcing your help on people only works in certain very limited situations. It's better if they come to you on their own initiative. It cuts down on resentment later on.”

“Fine. So I go and...what? Just say, 'Hey, I'm Harry and I have access to the mob! Need anything?'. I'm sure that'll go over like a ton of bricks.”

John smiled, the one that reached all the way into his eyes, and dabbed at his lips with his napkin.

“Of course not.” He reached under the table and pulled a file out of his briefcase. “You will go to them asking questions about this.” The thin folder dropped gently onto the table beside my plate. I flicked it open far enough to get a quick look at the contents and then let it drop shut again. Chemical analysis and incident reports. “A new drug that has hit the streets. Lethal in nearly all cases, extremely addictive, and it leaves every user twisted, mentally. My suspicion, though you'll have to review the evidence that we have managed to put together, is that the drug is somehow a magical product.”

“No!” John and I looked at each other in the silence following my outburst and I sighed, heavy. It was instinctive, the denial that someone could or would use magic to make something as harmful as what John was describing. I really should know better by this point. I mean, hell. People did black magic all the time. Was the idea that someone had figured out how to use it to make supernatural crack or something all that out of the question? No.

I mean, there were potions and spells that could do all sorts of really nasty things to people. Wizards just didn't...sell them to mundanes, usually. Hells bells. Was that really my problem here? That a wizard might be breaking the unspoken rules?

“Okay, right. It's possible, of course. Just...wizards don't do that. They don't draw attention to themselves, and getting a bunch of mundanes hooked on a magical drug is not the way to stay out of the spotlight.”

“Perhaps they did not do so in the past, but there is nothing to stop someone from doing so now.” John sipped at his water and glanced at his watch. “It's possible that there is nothing magical about this drug in the first place. The samples that we have obtained may not have been the actual drug, but a placebo, something that the distributor mixes in with batches of the real drug in order to maximize their profits. In which case we will deal with them through the usual channels.”

“I'll check around. See if anyone knows anything.” I glanced out the window. It was starting to rain, which was just utterly perfect for both my mood and the subject matter, really. “About the Council thing.”

“I have some proposals for them to consider. Ongoing changes to the search process for those with emerging talents and the training in some key areas. We'll start small. Simply have you deliver my proposals to them. Get your name and face out there.”

“Oh, I think they know who I am by now.”

“You know what I mean Harry.” John glanced at his watch again and rose from the table. “I've got to go.” He leaned down and traced a gentle kiss over my temple. “It'll be fine. Trust me.” And the terrible part was, I did. A warm, tingling rush worked through me, the same rush I felt any time that John was pleased with me and I relaxed into it. I trusted him on a level more instinctive than breathing.

He was John. I trusted him so deeply there weren't words for it.

~

Start small. That was the plan anyway. What I knew about investigating and looking for people could fit in a little paper sack, but I figured I needed to start somewhere. Pick a place where there was a lot of traffic, a lot of people coming and going who were in the know and put feelers out. From there, I'd track back any information I got. It seemed like an awful slow way to go about it, but I hadn't been able to think of a better idea just yet.

As for the Council, John had arranged to have one of the younger full fledged members meet me in a week so I could play delivery boy for his plans. That left me plenty of time to try and come up with some sort of...something that would make me seem less like a monster to them. It also gave me plenty of time to freak out and consider making a gas that would turn them all green and give them explosive diarrhea. Normal stuff like that.

The locals didn't scare me. None of them even came close to my level of power or skill, which sounds like bragging, but isn't. It's just a fact. Aside from which, they were one hell of a lot less judgmental than the few full fledged wizards I'd met.

I'd been making friends in the community for years. Most people wanted to be left to live their own lives, but once they knew that you weren't coming in to mock them or judge them for their beliefs, they were usually really friendly.

I'd looked at the information that the lab guys had put together and given them a call, gotten them to explain the parts that I didn't understand. It shouldn't even be a drug. The combination of indigestible crap should make the users sick, no doubt, but it was doing other things to them according to the reports. My best guess was that John was right and there was magic being used, but unless I could find someone using it or find whoever was making it and how, there was no way for me to be sure. So that left me with the talking to people plan. If someone was making a magical drug it was going to hurt the whole community, not just the addicts. Black magic was like that. It spread and spread, destroying everything it touched. I should know.

Fic: The Life We Make 3a/?

[akelios]

The meeting with the representative from the Council was worse than I'd imagined. The wizard had started out by staring at me with disgust, open and raw, when I first walked into the hotel lobby. Once I introduced myself and started to speak, going over the reports that John had given me and the talking points Nate and I had worked up together he dropped his gaze to his copy of the papers and never looked back up. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone who is doing their best not to acknowledge your existence?

It's awkward and hard as hell to do. It is also incredibly frustrating and anger inducing. I spent a lot of time counting to ten and trying to find some nice, calm spot inside my head. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to grab the decorative little potted plant in the middle of the table and throw it, aiming at a spot behind his head, through his nasty, tight lipped mouth. That was how you did real damage, when you hit someone. You didn't just try to hit them, you tried to hit something behind them. As I spoke, fighting to keep my tone even and calm, friendly, I imagined doing just that. Just once.

Once I'd finished my presentation, the wizard flipped the folder shut with one fingertip, as if he didn't want to touch it more than he had to. And he explained to me, in a snide, insulting tone all while still not fucking looking at me that my suggestions were impractical and that the Council did not need to be told what to do by an infant.

“Look, Wizard Higgins. We're not saying that your training for defense against mental magic isn't good, just that it's not complete. These techniques haven't been reviewed since the sixteen hundreds!”

“It is perfectly adequate. Our curriculum has guarded the minds of White Council members for centuries and I see no reason to change it now. In addition, it is impossible to explore new techniques. Would you like to know why?” No. I would like to punch you in the teeth. “Because that would require someone to use black magic on another wizard. I understand that this is a hard concept for someone like you to grasp, but-” I bit through my lip.

“I'm sorry, 'for someone like me'? I-”

“You are a warlock, Dresden. Irrevocably tainted. Twisted and warped into something sick. It does not surprise me that you are having such a hard time with the concept. I'm certain it seems like a brilliant idea to you.”

“I'm innocent!” My throat started to close up, my chest going tight. I knew it. I told John and he just wouldn't listen! I shouldn't have said anything. They were never going to believe me, no matter how I behaved, no matter what I tried to do for them. I was a warlock, and that meant I was guilty. Simple as that. Tears swam in my eyes and I blinked them away. I hated being so weak.

“I'm certain you've convinced yourself that your story is true.” Higgins made a sympathetic face. “However, the fact remains that you are not a member of this Council. You are, in fact, a convicted criminal. One who is suggesting a course of action that would lead other, law abiding members of the Council into committing crimes. I'm afraid our answer is going to have to be no.”

“Look.” I took a shaky breath. “Whatever you think of me, this is a good plan. At least take it back to the other members of the Council for review.” And then my last card. Appeal to God. “It's not my idea. It's John's recommendation.”

Higgins' eyes went wide, then narrowed again. He frowned down at the reports and I could see the wheels in his head clicking over to a new set of rules and desires. Oh, well if it's John, then it's okay, right? Wouldn't want to insult the savior of the wizarding word. Insulting his chattel was something else, of course. Jackass. They were all hide bound assholes.

“I see. That does change things, of course. I hadn't realized that this particular suggestion was a part of what Mr. Marcone said he was sending over.”

“What, you really thought I'd just slipped in some of my- without John's approval?” I cut myself off, rising and shaking my head, cutting my hands through the air in a tight, angry arc. “Of course you did. Warlock, right?”

Higgins rose as well, tucking the files up under one arm.

“Indeed. Warlock.” His eyes, pale, dull gray, flickered with something that might have been sympathy if it had come from someone who had the tiniest belief that I was a human being before he looked away, his features shutting down on me once more. “I am sorry for you, Dresden. It's a terrible cruelty to keep you alive this way.”

The bottom dropped out of my stomach.

I watched him leave, unable to say another word through the churning mix of fear and anger and pain that choked me. I felt cold, my legs weak. It was a terrible, helpless sensation. Pity was one thing. I could deal with that. I did every time I went out into the community, around people who knew my story. Disgust was harder, so was fear. Higgins thought I was better off dead, and that was a whole different level of- I didn't even know what to call it. How many of the Council agreed with him? How many people out there wanted me dead for my own good? I swallowed and fought down my nausea.

No matter what John thought, I knew I was never going to get through to them. Not if they were all like Higgins. But I'd tried, hadn't I? John couldn't ask me for anything more. I'd told him it would go badly, that the Council wouldn't listen and he'd just ignored me. So here I was, waiting for Higgins and his bodyguard, because I knew there was one, to leave so they wouldn't see me meet my 'escort'. I didn't know why I cared anyway. Higgins would have approved of the 'never leave Harry alone' policy. After all, I might snap and start running around murdering people left and right with my magic, twisting their minds and setting up my own evil empire, even through the controls of the collar.

I was dangerous.

~

“So then he says, 'Well, of course they didn't listen at first. It's going to take time for them to change their minds. They need to be made to see beyond your hi- your youth and inexperience. We'll work on it slowly.' Jackass.” I muttered under my breath, my voice rising on the last word as I threw the cloth rag down to the tile floor and glared at the donation box. It gleamed, the wood warm and healthy with all the oil I'd just rubbed into it. Father Forthill, several feet away, coughed discreetly. “Sorry.” I said loud enough for him to hear clearly. “Jerk. That's what I meant. Jerk.” Big, over confident, arrogant jerk who thought he was too clever for everyone else and ran my life. I kicked at the rag, making it slide a few inches.

“Perhaps, rather than take your frustration out on the innocent floor, you might talk whatever it is through with him. Maybe without yelling this time? Explain how important it is for you to finish your degree.” Father Forthill was a nice guy. I liked him a lot. But he didn't get it. Which wasn't really his fault. I couldn't explain my life to him. The magic, John, the collar, everything. So he thought I complained about my well meaning but over protective boyfriend who wanted me to come work for him, rather than the reality of John and everything he was to me.

I sighed and knelt to pick up the rag.

“Won't work. Won't ever happen.”

“Why?”

“Because he's right. It's more important for me to help these people than it is for me to get my Master's in Physics. I mean, hell. It's important work, this charity. It's a big deal. Even if the people in charge are a bunch of old...tools. And what am I going to do with another degree anyway?”

“Teach.” He laid the last of the flowers in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary and stepped back, looking at it. “You'd be a good teacher, Harry. You've got a lot of patience and you love the material. You're wonderful with the kids here. I know you'd make it exciting for them if you decided to be a teacher.”

“I could be a teacher now. It's not going to happen. There's too much...” I waved my hands around in an all encompassing gesture. “There's way too much to be done, all the time.” I growled at the icon in front of me. Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, if I was remembering right.

“Harry, you know I would help you in any way that I could. But I know that there are thing you're not telling me. That you feel you can't tell me. That is your right, though I wish you trusted me enough to let me in. I would love to be able to help you, even if it was just advice. But perhaps there is someone who you could be completely open with? Someone who would be able to see to the heart of the problem?” He patted me on the shoulder. “I need to get the rest of the flowers for the chapel. Do you need any more polish?”

“Nah.” I picked up the half full bottle of wood polish and shook it.

“Be right back then.” He headed into the back of the church. I twirled the rag around and headed to the other side of the church. I did have someone to talk to. Nate. And I did talk to him, when we could get two minutes alone without John lurking in the background or one of the other guys interrupting us with some emergency. It was just that Nate insisted on our conversations being constructive, rather than just ranting, which felt good but didn't suggest a plan most of the time. And his advice was to keep working on the compromise, which so far involved a lot of John getting what he wanted and me waiting for the right time to bring up what I wanted again. The right time never seemed to come though. There was always something that made me hesitate. Something more important.

The votive candles gleamed red through the tinted glass, casting twisting shadows over the wall behind them. Something on the floor in front of the donation box on the other side of the aisle gleamed in a spark of ruby red light.

I bent over and peered at it. A coin. It looked old, blackened with age and use. Worn away on the edges, one side thinner than the other. It might even be an antique, collectible. I picked it up and spun the coin through the air. I played a couple of tricks with it, easy things that I remembered from my father. Walking it over the backs of my knuckles, making it disappear and pulling it out of thin air. It wasn't weighted right for the really cool tricks, and someone obviously meant to drop it in one of the donation boxes anyway. Why else bring something like this to the church?

Father Forthill had told me once that people donated all sorts of things. He'd found necklaces, rings, all sorts of jewelry. Someone had even donated some antique weaponry that their aunt had collected her entire life, though those hadn't been dropped in a donation box of course.

I spun the coin in the air, watching the play of light over it. The sunlight was oddly bright against the dirty surface and I stared at it as it spun, trying to figure out what was causing the effect when a sound reached me. Something faint, like a voice. I caught the coin and looked around, listening. There wasn't a service scheduled for another few hours, but people came in all the time to just pray. Except I hadn't heard any footsteps, or even one of the doors opening. There was no one in any of the pews, and I knew they couldn't have made it up to the choir loft without me seeing them.

“Hello?” Nothing but the quiet echo of my own voice.

“Harry?” Father Forthill called out from one of the storage rooms. I didn't jump at the sound of his voice, but it was close. I'd been concentrating so hard on trying to hear that phantom sound again that the solid reality of his voice was a bit of a shock. “Could you come give me a hand with these boxes?”

“Sure!” I dropped the coin into the donation box and headed to the back of the church.

~

Fic: The Life We Make 4a/?

[akelios]

I hummed as I worked, the song something I must have heard so long ago I'd forgotten what it was. There weren't any words to it, or at least none that I could recall. Just a light, floating melody. I moved with the beat without thinking about it, making my movements as I prepared the potions into a bizarre sort of dance. The quiet melody had popped into my head an hour ago and I just couldn't shake it. It helped fill up the lab, made it feel a little warmer around me. I liked it.

The potions I was brewing were simple ones, two of the first I'd ever learned. One to act as a pick me up, really useful for the nights I'd had to cram for tests or stay up all night writing that essay that I should have written a week before, but hadn't because I'd had to accompany John out of town. The other was a pain killer, basically. Nothing too strong, nothing that would knock you on your ass, but a little stronger and a little more long lasting than the usual pain killers. That one wasn't for me, but for the guys. I did my best to keep a supply of it on hand because you never knew when someone was going to be brought in, shot or stabbed, bleeding while we did triage and waited for the doctor to show up.

I gave the potions the attention that they needed, watching and waiting for the liquid to hit the boiling point so I could release the power I was holding in for them and make them potent. There was an afternoon storm brewing outside and it made my skin tingle with the energy that moved through the world in its wake. I had to be careful that I didn't get carried off on the rush of it and throw too much energy into the potions, so I did my best to push the electric thrill of the storm away from me, but it was hard.

Which is why the humming was nice, actually. It was soothing, drawing a tiny bit of my attention and energy away from the potions, just enough that I felt like I wouldn't blow the whole works up. There was a firm but quiet step in the hall outside my lab door and the subtle change of the flow of energy through the rooms let me know that someone was out there, waiting. The guys had learned to respect the bright red 'DO NOT DISTURB' sign that I put up when I was working. Explosions, even small ones, will do that.

I felt the potions hit the right point, a weird sensation where the tension that had been building in those beakers hit a high, hard plateau. It was just screaming for the last little bit to send it over the edge into completion and potency. I'd never felt anything like it, a need that was both external and internal as my magic seemed to lean toward the potential magic in the potions, like it wanted to be used. I let the magic flow out of me in a wonderful, nearly ecstatic rush and there was an explosion that was entirely metaphysical, a blow back of magic that whirled over me as the potions sparked and fizzed, bubbling over happily.

The outflow of energy left me boneless and pleasantly tired, like I'd just finished a work out or sex with John. There was an all over ache, but it was the good kind. I bottled the potions up quickly, making sure that they went into the correctly labeled bottles and then into their proper places on the shelves. Getting potions mixed up was another one of those things I wanted to prevent if at all possible. When I had that done and had double checked that the burners were turned off I finally crossed to the door and opened it.

Darnell stood out in the hall, his back against the wall opposite the door and his dark eyes tracing the runes that were carved into the wood of the door jamb and painted on the wall itself. I knew that when I was working magic inside the lab they glowed soft blue, the color of protection. They weren't the heavy wards I had on the rest of the house. These were actually meant to help me pull in and direct the natural flow of magic through the house. It made it easier to work the more complicated spells and helped keep me from being so drop dead exhausted when I tried them.

“You done?”

“Yeah.” I looked back at the lab. I'd need to clean up, but there wasn't anything that couldn't wait for a little while. None of the ingredients in those potions were toxic or dangerous in any way. “Something up?”

“There was a call for you. That guy down at the bar, Mac? He said that there's a woman at his bar he thinks you ought to talk to.”

“Did he say what it was about?” My pulse jumped a little, excited. It'd been three weeks since I'd stopped into Mac's and asked about the Three-Eye. The lead I'd gotten had turned out to be a dead end. Literally. One Mr. Frederic Vinacco had been dead for two months. He'd somehow managed to drown himself in his kitchen sink. Fairly freaky, but it was actually possible for it to have been an accident and not something from the spooky side of things. Technically. I had been in the apartment long after the police had cleared out. Someone had thrown black magic at the man, a sort of chaos spell. Not really strong, but it didn't need to be too strong. It just needed you to be unlucky.

“I asked, but he didn't seem to want to tell me. You want to call him back or head down there?”

“John and Nate are still downtown, right?” Darnell glanced at his watch.

“Assuming you didn't fry my watch, yeah. They'll be down there for another couple of hours at least. And,” He added, a bright flash of a grin crossing his face, “you happen to have the afternoon completely free. I checked your schedule too.”

“Uh-huh. And what are you supposed to be doing this afternoon?” I cut him a look out of the corner of my eye.

“Guard duty here at the house.” He shrugged and it failed to look as nonchalant as he wanted it to. Guard duty, when John was out of the house was boring. Honestly, it was pretty boring when John was at home, but with him gone there was even less of a chance of action and some of the guys chaffed at the certainty of inaction. The older, wiser guys didn't. They'd take peace and quiet over a gun fight any day.

“Poor you. Did Mac say how long this woman was going to hang around?”

“He said she'd wait for you, but if you weren't going to make it to at least give him a call.”

“All right. I need to go get cleaned up real quick and put on some nicer clothes.” I worked in old clothes so if they got ruined it wasn't a big deal. “Could you give Mac a call and let him know that I'll be there in half an hour?”

“No problem.”

~

Mac's was busy by the time we got there. Not the crowded after work level of busy, but more than half the tables were full and there was a nice steady buzz of conversation. That noise stuttered as I walked down the steps into the bar itself with Darnell following close behind me. The patrons looked us over quickly, with most of them recognizing me and giving me a quick smile or a nod of greeting. There were others though, people I didn't recognize whose eyes were drawn straight to the twisted knot work of my collar. They stared and then jerked their gazes away, hunching over their food and whispering with whoever their companion happened to be.

I waved at the old guys in the corner, Mr. Greene and Mr. Lucas. Mr. Lucas smiled and waved back while Mr. Greene knocked on the table to bring his friends attention back to the game. Mac was serving someone at the bar but he nodded at me when he saw me coming and then jerked his head toward a table in the back corner away from everyone else. There was a woman sitting there, alone, nursing a drink and staring off into space.

We headed over to her and she was so lost in her own head that she didn't notice us until I was standing right in front of her pulling out the chair. She jumped and made a small, surprised sound as the wood scraped over the floor and her hand smacked into her glass so hard she nearly knocked it over. Darnell reached out to steady it and she jumped again, her eyes too wide in her pale face.

“Ma'am? My name's Harry, and this is Darnell. Mac called me.”

She chewed on her lower lip and I resolved, again, to stop biting my own. It made her look so frightened, so indecisive. A bad habit.

“I'm sorry. I don't know why he called you. I mean- I need help and you're...” Her eyes, when I glanced at them, were a bright green that seemed out of place on her. Everything else about her was pale, drained. Even her hair, which should have been a lovely, vibrant blond seemed to have been leached of its natural vibrancy and color until it was a shadow of itself. “Forgive me, but you're a child.”

“I'm twenty-three, ma'am.” She gave me a smile that tried very hard not to be condescending.

“As I said. A child, really. I'm sorry Mr. McAnally called you down here but I don't think there's anything you could do to help me. Not really.” Her voice caught on the last word, wavering and I could practically feel the fear and sorrow that was eating at her. I was torn between wanting to leave, after all I had enough people who didn't want to have anything to do with me, and the urge to to help her, to make the pain that I saw in her face ease even just a little. Darnell solved the question by pulling out the chair between us and sitting down.

“Ma'am, you've clearly got something that's troubling you.” Darnell smiled and reached out slowly to touch the back of her hand. She didn't jump when he touched her, just continued to stare at their hands as if it was all happening to someone else. I sat down and waited to see what Darnell's plan was. “Harry here, I know he looks too young to know which end is up, but he's got a hell of a lot more on the ball than you think. At least tell us what your problem is.

“Maybe you're right and there's nothing we can do for you. If so, we'll apologize for wasting your time and leave you be. But maybe, maybe there is something we can do. If you don't at least give it a chance you'll never know.” She gnawed at her lip again for a long minute and then sighed, pulling her hand back from Darnell's to fall into her lap.

“Okay. Okay.” She sipped at her drink and then coughed, clearing her throat. “My name is Monica. And I- It's my husband. Victor. Victor Sells. He's been...different. Lately.” She frowned and shook her head. “No, that's not it. I mean it is. Victor has changed, but it's more than just a change, like how people change normally. Everyone changes, right? But Victor- It's almost as though he's become some other person. Not the man that I married, certainly.

“He lost his job a few months ago and that's when it started. He vanishes for days at a time and when he is at home...there's something wrong with him. In his eyes. I thought he might be on drugs, so I waited until he was gone one day, he says he's out looking for a job, but I don't think that's true. Once he was gone I went up into the attic. That's where he's been spending all of his time.” She stopped to take another drink. Her voice, when she started again was steadier, as if talking about it was somehow exorcising part of whatever was making her so afraid.

“There was a trunk. I opened it and there were...things in it. Animal parts. Books. The books were old, I think. I couldn't read them, so I'm not sure what they said, but- have you ever picked something up and just felt that it was wrong? That there was nothing good in it at all? That's what it was like. I picked up this one book and my hands went numb, cold, as if the book was somehow draining me!” Her voice rose to a sharp pitch and she almost visibly got a hold on herself as she took a few deep breaths. “I know it sounds crazy. I know it. But it's true. There's something wrong with my husband and I don't know what to do.”

“Have you tried the police?” I tapped a finger thoughtfully against the scarred surface of the table. It sounded like her husband could have gotten mixed up in something, sure. It could just be drugs and then the power of suggestion. Plenty of people, already hyped up because their spouse had changed on them, who found things that spoke of the public idea of black magic would freak themselves out. It didn't necessarily mean that her husband really was into something black.

“I did. But he's not- he hasn't done anything illegal, you see. Acting erratically is not, in itself, a crime. And I couldn't take anything from his chest. If he found out I'd been in there...” She shook, a little, and I felt a terrible certainty that even before her husband had become 'different' that things had not been well in Monica and Victor's home. “I just don't have any proof, you see, and I was...I spoke with a friend of mine. She knows a little about-” Monica waved her hand in a small circle. “- all of this sort of thing. She thought that there might be someone here who could help me. Who could bring my Victor back to me.” I wasn't at all sure that was really what was best. If I was right, and I was pretty sure I was, then it'd probably be better for Monica if hubby Victor went away and just never came back.

“Do you know where he is right now?”

“No. He's been gone for almost two weeks now. I think he suspects that I was up in the attic, but he can't prove it. I was so careful to put everything back you see. He came home one day and just took everything. All of the things from the attic, his clothes, everything. Victor hasn't been back, but he's called every other day so I can't even report him missing, because he keeps checking in. I just don't know where he is.” Monica gave a bitter little laugh. “Isn't that the same thing as missing?”

“You'd think so, right?” Darnell and I shared a look. “Do you have any idea where he might be staying? Friends? Family?”

She shook her head.

“No. Most of our friends, he's driven away. Some of them right after he was fired, because of the way he was acting. And then the rest of them later on. When he changed. Victor was never really very close to his family. I don't think he's spoken to them in more than ten years. None of them even came to our wedding.

“He might be down at the lake house. I wanted to sell it, when he first lost his job. It's not something we can really afford, now, but he refused. I went down there the other day and- it didn't look like anyone was living there, but I didn't go in.”

“Why not? It's your house too, right?”

“Yes.” She drew the word out and her eyes flickered in thought. “There's something...like with the book I told you about? Something about the house, now. It used to be a good place, a place for our family. The kids loved it there. But now...” Monica shook her head. “It's gone bad, if that makes any sense?”

“Sure. Places absorb the energy of events that happen in or on them. That's where you get haunted houses, or areas that have a reputation for spooky happenings. If your husband really is into something dark and he's using the house to practice in, then it's going to take all that on.” I pulled out a little notebook and pencil I'd thrown into my pocket as we left the house. “What's the address?”

Fic: The Life We Make 5a/

[akelios]

Warnings: Non-con (this is for the whole fic, I just like to remind every so often since it contains mind control that makes it seem consensual from Harry's pov), mentions of spousal abuse and child abuse (no graphic descriptions)

Kinks (this section): orgasm denial, spanking, light breath play, bondage, submission, possessiveness, double penetration

Pairings (this section): John/Harry, John/Harry/Nate (sort of)
-

Darnell and I sat in the car for twenty minutes or so until the near silent rumble of a powerful engine and the crackle of the the gravel on the driveway announced Nate's arrival. I stayed in the backseat, lying down with my legs folded up uncomfortably to fit; my eyes closed against sunlight that drew everything into too sharp lines. My head ache had faded, mostly. It had left me enervated, tingling. A strange combination of sick and buzzing. My heart was beating too hard and too fast; my breathing faster than anything that had happened warranted.

I could hear Darnell and Nate talking right outside the car, their voices loud enough to be heard as a steady rise and fall of incomprehensible noise. A few minutes after Nate arrived the car door opened beside my head and I turned to squint at the man standing in the opening.

“You doing okay in here?” Nate. I closed my eyes again, resumed trying to get my breathing under control, to concentrate and override my body the way I'd been taught. It hadn't worked in years, not since John had taken me apart after that first fight, but that was no reason to stop trying. “Harry?”

“I'm fine.” Nate snorted and pressed the inside of his wrist against my forehead. I shoved at his arm and sat up, facing away from him. “Stop that.”

“You're not hurt, right? So it's just nerves.” Nate crouched on the edge of the seat behind me. I felt the car settle beneath his weight. His hand, a massive, heavy heat settled on my back and started to rub in small circle. Trying to be soothing. It wasn't soothing at all. I leaned away and he let me.

“I've seen dead bodies before. I'm fine.”

“Darnell says you had some sort of attack up at the house.”

I opened my eyes and turned, looking into Nate's eyes for a second before dropping my gaze.

“All the residual black magic triggered the collar. That's all it was.” How could I tell Nate that I'd gotten so unreasonably angry I'd started to attack my friend? He'd tell John, of course, and John would have to do something about it. I didn't want to see the disappointment on John's face, feel it inside of me. I didn't want John to feel he had to cut me off from my magic again. I couldn't go back to that, even for a little while.

“Darnell's going to drive you back to the house. John'll be home later.” He didn't say that John was mad or that he was going to want to talk. He didn't have to. We both knew it. I'd screwed up and gotten caught stretching the rules. I'd pay for it.

“What's going to happen? We can't just leave the body here.”

“We won't. The boys and I are going to take a look around, make sure that there's nothing here to point to you. An anonymous call and we'll let the cops do all the heavy lifting for us.” Nate shook his head and patted me gently on the shoulder. “We'll catch this asshole before they do Harry. Don't worry about it.”

~

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” John's voice was calm, easy going. It didn't match what he was feeling at all. He could, if he wanted, block the emotions that came through the link between us. It wasn't perfect but it worked. He wasn't trying to block anything, or mute it. John wanted me to know how unhappy he was with me. Disappointed. Angry. The worry mixed in just made the rest of it worse.

“You wanted me to help out the local community. I was helping out. It just happened to also be a lead on the guy dealing bad drugs.”

“I want you to be the face of our organization to the locals. That involves a little face time, a few little spells. It does not involve chasing after an armed and clearly dangerous man on your own.”

“Armed? Danger- I had no idea that this was going to pan out! For all I knew this was some guy passed out drunk in the middle of a bunch of fake magic books at his summer house.” I didn't need to be able to feel John inside my head to know that he didn't believe me. That it wouldn't have mattered even if it had been the complete truth.

“You know the rules. You know that you aren't supposed to deviate from your schedule without permission.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. I fought not to stare at the floor and squirm like a school kid. I could feel his will tightening around me and I knew what was coming.

John would tighten his control again. I remembered the hot, welcome rage I'd felt earlier. Maybe he should.

“I thought I was doing what you wanted!”

“You were using what I'd asked you to do as an excuse to do what you wanted to do. Thereby endangering yourself and Darnell. What would you have done if Sells had been there? He could have shot you. Killed you. What would I do without you? Did you even stop to think about that? Would the backlash from your death kill me?”

“No! You know it doesn't work that way. It'd be stupid-” John sliced his hand through the air, cutting me off.

“It doesn't work that way when both parties in the bond are wizards. Who's to say it might not be different with me? Even if you're right, do you have any idea how much it would hurt me to lose you?”

I did shuffle uncomfortably at that. His fear was a choking weight in my throat.

“John. I don't...I didn't think. I'm sorry. But I really thought I was doing the right thing. I did. And no one got hurt.”

“I know. And that's why I'm going to give you a chance to apologize. I don't want to go back to running every second of your life Harry. I don't think we need that. Do you?” I shook my head, imagining the cell that stood vacant beneath the stairs. “Take an hour. Think about what you think is an appropriate punishment.”

I went down to my lab and worked on carving a staff. It was tedious, tricky work and not something that I'd ever been allowed to do before. Only wizards were allowed to carry staves, but Eb had let me watch him work on his and he'd explained the theory behind them, how they worked and what needed to go into them. I should have been able to concentrate on the work, let my mind run on automatic and come up with the answer that would satisfy John without me having to think about it.

I couldn't get into the work. I couldn't stop seeing that hand reaching out from the dirt or seeing Monica's hollow, desperate eyes. The love and the fear that lived there, permanently tangled together. John's anger and my own guilt for having taken advantage of the freedom he had given me. I could have gotten Darnell killed. I could have hurt John. I hadn't meant to, but that wouldn't have stopped it if things had gone differently.

After the fourth time I screwed up the same sigil I gave it up. I knew what I needed to do.

John was waiting for me in his office. He'd known I was coming, no matter that it was fifteen minutes ahead of the deadline.

“Harry.”

“John. I-” I closed and locked the door behind me. “I'm sorry. I was wrong.”

He set down his pen and turned his chair to the side. I knelt at his feet and rested my forehead on his thigh. “Tell me what you want.”

“I don't know.” I blushed as he ran his hand down the back of my neck, fingers driving the collar into my flesh before continuing down the line of my spine. It was a gesture of nearly pure possession. “Whatever you want. What you think is best.”

“We can do that.” His hand squeezed carefully at the base of my neck and then he released me. “Hands on your thighs.” I shifted on my knees until the position was more comfortable, my butt on my heels. My hands were a light weight against my legs, the heat radiating slowly through my jeans. “Now be still. Be quiet. I need to finish this and then we'll take care of you.” I focused my vision on a spot on the rug. There was this one flower, a rose, I thought, that didn't quite match the others in the pattern. It was too bright, a little too large. It stood out and drew your attention to it.

I settled back on my heels to wait, tapping into the distracted calm that John was feeling. John turned back to his paperwork and the room became still and silent except for the sound of our breathing and the scratch of his pen across the paper every so often. I held my position and tried to drift into myself, to find the quiet place inside. It wasn't working of course, any more than losing myself in working on my staff had worked earlier.

My thoughts chased one another as I sat there. Monica, and how I'd screwed up. I'd wanted to help her. Bring her husband back to her. That was never going to happen now. I'd as good as killed him. John would hunt him down and that would be the end of it. Children without a father. He was a warlock, a killer. He was still their father. Maybe he could have been saved, if the Council had still been around. If he wasn't too damaged. Like me.

I felt the knots of the collar beneath my fingers a second before John's hand slapped down onto my wrist.

“Ten.” He leaned over to guide my hand back to my leg. I clenched my fingers into the muscle there, concentrated on the scrape of the rough fabric beneath my finger tips, and brought my eyes back to the rose.

I started to think about the Sells children. Would they have magic like their father? How many children were there? I hadn't even bothered to ask her. If I really cared, I'd have asked. So why hadn't I? Did I just not care? I should care. I really should. A normal person would care. Then again, I wasn't normal. I was...me. A monstrous freak. That was why I'd-

“Stop that.” John's hand on my head, his fingers tangling and pulling, drawing my head up. “I can feel you, remember? What are you thinking about?” His voice slipped inside of me and I found the words spilling out of me, like I knew they would. It felt good.

“I thought I was going to help her. Help her family. They're not going to have a father any more and it's my fault.” John scraped his nails against my scalp and I arched into it, my skin tingling at the little hint of pain.

“Didn't you tell me that Mrs. Sells looked as though she was being abused? I thought you said that there were bruises on her wrists.”

“I think so. I think I saw them. But what if I was wrong? What if they...played a little rough sometimes? Like we do.”

“Do you think that's what happened?”

“No.” I ducked my head down a little and rolled my eyes to look at the rose again. “She was scared, and I think she'd been scared for a long time.” The rose swam in my vision, the colors wavering a little, flickering almost as though it was made of flame. “She reminded me of me. When I first came here. Only it was worse, because she really did have something to be afraid of.”

John's hand stilled in my hair and then he let go, starting a slow petting motion. There was a pulsing warmth inside of me, something that would grow and grow until it threatened to choke me with the intensity of it. It was happiness, a sort of contentment. I didn't deserve it. Not right now. There was still one more thing that had to be said. I had to be sure John understood what I'd done.

“We're taking away their father. Do you- they'll hate me for it.”

“Harry. I know this is hard for you to understand, but some families are better off without certain members. Mr. Sells was abusive, yes?”

“I think so.”

“He is certainly a black wizard. A true warlock. Tell me, what do you think he would have done to his children, eventually? What did Justin do to you and Elaine? You're focusing on your own father. On the love that he gave you. Not all fathers are like that. I believe, and I want you to believe it too, Harry, that Victor Sells is far closer to being like Justin than he ever could be to being like your father.

“He'd hurt them, if he hasn't hurt them already. We're saving them from that.”

“We're killing him.”

“Yes. To protect the innocent. To protect the people I have sworn to protect. It's a good thing.” 'You're good for helping me do this', he didn't say, but I felt it. An obvious, heavy push through the link between us. I let my eyes close and let the thought crash into me. “We will get through this and it will be better. You'll feel better once your punishment is out of the way, won't you?

“Get yourself hard.” He didn't have to add the rest. That I wasn't allowed to touch. I knew that. That was a fact of life, like breathing. Touch when John said, and only then. I'd hated it, years ago. The thought that he owned me, especially that deeply had gnawed at me. I'd been so young then. I hadn't understood how good it was. How freeing it was to know that John was in control, that he knew what I needed before I did.

I closed my eyes and slid my hands up my thighs, letting memories flicker through my vision. John, his hands gripping my hips so tightly that I had bruises for a week as he sucked my balls into his mouth, teeth scraping over them as I yelped and fought not to squirm. The slow, steady stretching burn as he worked me open on his fingers, the rough music of his voice as he told me what it looked like. He described the impossible delicacy of my hole, how it looked far too tiny to take anything at all. Until he started to touch it, to tease it with one slick finger. Then, then it would twitch and try to swallow that digit, hungry. John's voice telling me about how he was going to get his entire hand in me one day, peel me open layer by layer until there was nothing left, no resistance, no strength. And then he would fuck me with his fist, claiming my body through sheer unstoppable force.

One hand clenched tight on my upper thigh and I let out a small moan and jerked my hips forward. I was hard, my jeans too small now, too tight so that they caged me, held me back. I wanted to feel the zipper slide down, hear the metallic grinding of it and know that any second I would feel the cold air blow over it, followed by hot flesh, squeezing and jerking across the thin skin, driving me higher. But I didn't. I lifted my hands and laced them behind my head. Even with my eyes still closed I knew how it looked. A blatant invitation for John to touch, to take and keep taking until there was nothing left but my need for him to take me again.

I heard his chair roll back and lost the faint hint of warmth that had been his presence at my side.

“Go upstairs and wait. Get out what you think you'll want.”

I was at the door before he spoke again.

“Remember, you earned ten. Choose well.”

~

I lost track of time waiting for John. I could feel him, a low humming beneath my skin. Every so often, randomly, he would send me a thought. John didn't have to be anywhere near me to drive me out of my mind. My knees had gone numb by the time he came into the room. I'd laid out what I wanted him to use and knelt behind them, waiting. My erection had gone past hard and ready to a low, dull throbbing with every beat of my heart. I only had to look at what was waiting for me and my balls tightened, electricity tingling up my spine.

The feeling of the air across my body was a tease, a million hands ghosting over every inch of my skin. Once I had touched the leather in front of me and then brought my fingers to my lips, rolling the taste around over my tongue. I nearly came then and there, but John's control snapped into place and shoved the lustwantnowpleasefinally down and away until it was back in its place, needing and yearning for that last touch, the thing that would make it perfect and let me come, white out even the thoughts of John and sex and leave a stunning, glorious silence.

Fic: The Life We Make 6a/?

[akelios]

“Are you feeling alright?”

John's voice, still sleep roughened despite the fact that we'd gotten up an hour ago and were sitting down to breakfast, brought my head up from my deep inspection of the pattern on the tablecloth. He sat across from me, legs stretched out beneath the table. Nate, in his usual place to my right looked between the two of us and sighed, vanishing behind his newspaper once more. “Harry?”

“Sorry. I'm fine. Just a little tired I guess.” A sound that reminded me suspiciously of a choked off laugh came from behind the newspaper shield and I flicked my fingers at the back of the paper. Nate shook it out and didn't respond to my little taunt.

“What are your plans for the day?”

“Um...nothing much. I'm going down to St. Mary's to help Father Forthill do an inventory of the emergency supplies he keeps there. Nothing strenuous or exciting.”

“Mmm. Nathan will go with you.” My eyes widened and I shook my head a little before I had time to think about it.

“What? No. No, I don't think so. I don't need a babysitter to go sit in a church for two hours. You need Nate with you.” I sure as hell didn't need to be spending any more time alone with Nate. It was giving my subconscious ideas. Dangerous, terrible ideas. John and Nate were both giving me a look now. I started to duck my head and caught myself. I straightened up in my chair and met John's gaze. Sort of.

“I'm taking Tommy and Darnell with me today. Nathan will accompany you or you will not go. Sells is out there somewhere and it is probable that he knows we've discovered his lair. Even if he has not caught on that we know who he is it is obvious that his drug dealing is a step in some larger plan. Most likely aimed at removing me from control. You will not be left vulnerable.”

“Then I'm not going.”

“Very well. Nate will stay here with you then.” He turned to smile a little at Nate. “It will give you some extra time to work on your research.” Nate laughed.

“Yeah. And we all know how much I love researching for my footnotes.” The scary part was he wasn't joking. He really did love researching the most obscure things. Ordinarily, I even liked helping him. Nate always kept up a steady patter of conversation as we worked, teaching me about his passion. He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. “Maybe you could help me with that?”

I pictured that for a second. Together in Nate's office, a cozy little room. He'd be in his comfy computer chair and I'd have pulled in one of the chairs from the next room over. We'd be leaning over the desk, heads nearly touching as we read. Then we'd both reach for a pen or another sticky note and our fingers would touch, the faint scrape of skin against skin and then-

Stars and stones. I shook myself off, mentally, and glared down at my grapefruit. I wished it was something crunchier so I could take a bite and make a lot of noise. Drown out the traitor inside my head.

“I don't think so. If John's going to stick you with me no matter what, I'd rather not let Father Forthill down. If it's okay with you?” I felt bad for dragging Nate out when he'd clearly enjoyed the idea of getting in some extra work on his thesis, but being in close quarters with him didn't seem like a good idea. A church should be safe though. I mean, really. I couldn't think of a place less likely to encourage thoughts about sex.

“Of course. I'll just make you help me later to make up for it.” I didn't miss the look that passed between Nate and John, I just chose to ignore it. I knew I was acting strangely, but I couldn't help it. Everything felt weird, as if every word, every action all had meanings that I'd never considered before. I had to get it under control. Get myself under control.

~

“So then this woman comes in. Nice old lady, and she's got her grandson with her. Well, the guy who came in earlier, the indigent they found frozen under the bridge? He was her son. Of course the Old Man is out back, trying to sew some womans ear back onto her head and I've got to take these two back and let them see the body.” Nate shook his head. “She goes all quiet, and then she starts sobbing. Her grandson, this guy's son is trying to comfort her, trying to lead her away. I mean, hell. Kid couldn't have been more than sixteen, you know? Trying to be strong even though he's just lost his father too. Only she's not having any of it. She slaps the poor kid and starts screaming at him, telling him to shut up and leave her alone.”

Nate pulled into a parking space a few feet from the service entrance of the church and turned the car off. We sat there listening to the engine tick over and start to cool down.

“I don't get it.” Nate got out of the car and I followed him. The day was cool, a bit overcast and leaves and debris skittered across the asphalt around us.

“The point is, grief makes people do insane shit. It's the chemicals your brain releases, yeah. But there's more to it than that. If you look at different cultures and make a cross study of the reactions of people to similar tragedies or losses, their reactions, how they deal with death, are heavily influenced by their culture.”

“Bull shit. I know plenty of people who mourn openly and loudly, and plenty who keep it to themselves. And they're all Americans.”

“But what's their background culture? America is kind of a mixed bag. There're things that define American culture as American, but this isn't one of them. I think, though it's a broad generalization, that if you take a closer look at the parent culture that each individuals family comes from that my theory will hold sound.”

“I think you should stick to antique English literature and philosophy.” I rang the bell and we waited. The wariness I'd been feeling all morning had worn off on the drive over here. Nate was still Nate, and I was still me. So I'd had a weird dream, okay a weird sex dream, and Nate had been in it. Or maybe he hadn't. Maybe it had just been some entirely fictional, very large guy and my mind had dropped Nate's face on him to point out just how wrong it was for me to be fantasizing about anyone but John. Either way, it didn't make any difference in real, waking life. I was with John and there could never be anyone else. I didn't want there to ever be anyone else.

Stress made people do crazy things and my dream was just more proof of that.

I'd put it almost entirely out of my mind and been able to act normally around Nate, which was great. More than almost anything else, I didn't want to lose Nate's friendship, the ease we had with one another. The other guys were okay, but without Nate...I'd be very alone. John was John. I loved him, couldn't imagine my life without him, but he wasn't a friend. He was John. Too large and too important for the word friend. He was the center of my universe. And I didn't want to think about what would happen if John found out about the dream. I wasn't sure what he would do.

John had never been jealous of me, but he was possessive. So it was good that I was getting things back into their right places. I would hate to come between John and Nate, even a little bit. Nate caught sight of the stupid grin I could feel on my face and he poked me in the shoulder with one blunt fingertip. I punched him on the upper arm, lightly. Nate swung a gentle, slow slap at the back of my head and I grabbed at his arm, laughing. Nate caught my wrists and the fight, such as it was, was on.

Which is when the door swung open and Father Forthill poked his head out. We froze. I was half suspended over the hard bulge of Nate's arm, my hands reaching for his too short hair. Father Forthill cocked his head to one side and frowned.

“Harry? Do you need any help?”

“Ah, with this guy? Hell no.” I squirmed and Nate set me back down on my feet. I straightened up and proceeded to tower over both of my companions. “'Scuse me. Heck no. Father Forthill, this is Nathan Hendricks. Nate, this is Father Anthony Forthill.”

“I figured.” I didn't cringe at the heavy accent that Nate put on, but it was a close thing. He'd developed this stereotypical thug persona a few years back so he didn't have to keep silent in every single meeting. It was effective, but it reminded me of letting a four year old paint over a Caravaggio or something. A crime against humanity. “The dog collar's kind of a give away.”

“And I would recognize you anywhere, Mr. Hendricks. Harry talks about you constantly.” Father Forthill stepped back out of the doorway. “Please, come in. I'm sorry it took me so long to get to the door, but I was with someone.” We walked into the church and the door shut behind us. I paused a second to lock the door as well. The church had been robbed once, middle of the day, and ever since the priests had been extra cautious about keeping the doors to the back of the church locked.

Everything that had been stolen had been returned within the week. Mysteriously. Though the thieves had never been caught or turned themselves in. I had it on good authority that both of them were living new lives far, far away from Chicago. In a small town in Alaska. It gave them plenty of time to reflect on their poor life choices. Stealing from a church. Hells bells but some people had no honor.

“Are we interrupting something important? We can wait, or come back another day.” Father Forthill shook his head as he went down the hall.

“No, no. Michael is an old friend and we weren't really getting anywhere anyway. A rather circular and hypothetical discussion.” Father Forthill led us into a storage room that was empty of everything except for cots, folded up and placed neatly along the walls, out of the way.

There was a man kneeling in the middle of the floor, snapping the locks closed on a long rifle case. He turned his head at the sound of our steps and I could see that he had brilliant blue eyes, snapping and intelligent. The lines that appeared as his face crinkled into a smile added depth to an already handsome face.

“Father.” The man inclined his head toward Father Forthill as he rose and then turned his attention to Nate and I. He was tall, at least six foot and some change, and under the loose workman's clothes I recognized a well muscled figure. Michael moved with an unconscious grace and an obvious sense of self-assurance. “Michael Carpenter.” He held out his hand.

Nathan, his eyes squinted down somehow so that it looked as if they were naturally smaller in his face than they were, grunted and gave Michael a bone crunching handshake. It didn't seem to phase the man. When Nate released him he turned to me. “And you are?”

“Harry.” I didn't engage in a pissing contest. Even if I couldn't beat this Mr. Carpenter in mean strength, I could crush him in half a dozen different ways before he could blink. I didn't have anything to prove here. “Nice to meet you. The guy doing a Cujo impersonation over there is Nate. Don't mind him, he very rarely ever really bites anyone anymore.” I pulled my hand out of his grip. “Not since he graduated top of his class at obedience school.”

“Harry...Dresden?”

“Yeah.” I knew my tone was suspicious, but I didn't try to change it. My mind ran through the possible places he could have found out my name. The locals? No. They were too frightened, too close to one another to start telling tales to mundanes. And I knew that Michael didn't have an ounce of magical talent anywhere in his body. So that wasn't a real likely possibility. The most likely place was the one that didn't raise my paranoia hackles.

“Father Forthill's mentioned you several times, over dinner. I'm very glad to finally get a chance to meet you.” Michael smiled and it was genuine. I smiled back while Nate looked dour and disapproving. “From what I hear, you're one of the most dedicated volunteers the Father has ever had.” I laughed and blushed a bit.

“Well, it's kind of become a habit.” I glanced over at Father Forthill and he smiled. “Helping around the church is really interesting. And he feeds me sometimes too.”

“He does that.” Michael slid the strap of the rifle case over his shoulder and shifted it until it lay comfortably. “Truth be told, I've been trying to get him to extend an invitation to you. My wife, Charity and I would love to have you and a friend over for dinner one night. To thank you for helping out around here.” He sighed and gave a smile that was both rueful and resigned. A sort of 'what are you going to do?' look. “My family and I help out as much as we can, but there's always more work than there are willing hands.”

“I...” I looked over at Nate. He was still doing his dumb thug impression and gave me no help at all. “I'll have to ask.” I bit the inside of my cheek. That sounded terrible. Who the hell would a grown man have to ask about dinner? No one. “I mean, check about a good day and everything.”

“Of course. Here,” He pulled a business card from one pocket and handed it to me. It was relatively plain, just M & C Carpenter, Inc. embossed on the face along an address and a phone number. “That's my office number there. Give me a call when you know what will work best and we'll work something out.” He turned back to Father Forthill. “Father. Thank you for your help. I'll be in touch.”

“Of course. Though, if you could wait a moment?” Father Fortill turned to me. “Harry, have you seen anyone suspicious around the church lately? Or noticed anything out of the ordinary?”

“No. Why? Is something missing?” He and Michael exchanged a look.

“Not missing, no. A few weeks ago I found a very old coin in one of the donation boxes. I'm trying to track down the original owner, to make certain that they intended to donate it. It appears to be very valuable.”

I could feel that ancient looking coin walking across the backs of my knuckles, the light reacting weirdly to the dull patina that covered it.

“I don't suppose you saw anyone bring it in, or drop it?”

“No.” The word came out without going through the intermediary of my brain. It came from deep inside of me, somewhere I didn't recognize existed until that moment. “I don't think so anyway. Can I see it?”

“I'm afraid I've sent it away to be locked up. But I'm sure you'd remember something like this. It was quite dirty and worn, ancient as I said, with a clear mark on one side as if someone had written in the dirt covering it.”

“Sorry. I don't remember seeing anything even remotely antique looking.” I could see the coin clearly in my minds eye, blackened with age and dirt, thinned out from fingers rubbing across one side of it over and over again. It couldn't be what Father Forthill was looking for though. It was...different. Yes. Different. Not something that Father Forthill needed to worry about, and certainly not something that Michael Carpenter needed to hear about.

Father Forthill sighed and Michael nodded. I thought they both looked relieved.

“It was nice to meet you Harry. Nate. I look forward to seeing you again.” He nodded at the both of us and then he was gone.

“Right then.” Father Forthill tugged at his clerical collar, pulling the stiff white strip loose and popping the first two buttons on his shirt open. “If you boys are ready? I've got about two tons of donated food and clothing to go through.”

~

Fic: Hound Days 1a/1

[akelios]

Characters: Harry, Lea, Mother Summer, Mother Winter

Note: This one's all forestgreen's fault. I was talking about this AU idea (where Harry went back to Lea after killing Justin and she did turn him into a hound for a while, then he was raised by the sidhe) I had for one of the prompts (the DP with Donar/Harry/Erlking & Mab & Marcone watching, in case it makes any difference) and forest said something about puppy!Harry meeting the Mothers. And this happened. So. All forest's fault. Like so many things. :D

Note 2: Also forest's faultsuggestion - Harry is a Scottish Deerhound
http://www.dogcastradio.com/upload/PN023432.jpg

Note 3: Excessively, inexcusably fluffy and lacking in plotty things
-

I nudged Ginger's belly with my nose, trying to get her to get up and play with me. She opened one eye and raised her head from the ground to look at me. Ginger spoke quietly, with fond exasperation in her tone.

“You are not as cute as you think you are puppy. Go annoy someone else.”

I whined, trying the cute and pathetic route. She huffed and lay back down, her ear flopping with the movement. I crawled backwards out of her den, knocking my head on the edge of the doorway when I tried to stand up just a little too soon.

The other hounds were all napping too, as I looked around the exercise yard. I growled a little as I wandered around the line of the fence, looking though the wooden slats at the world outside. My godmother had been right; being a hound was fun, most of the time. Easier too. I ran, I played, I chased things that smelled interesting. I learned from the rest of the pack how to actually hunt. I rarely remembered Justin or Elaine. They were gone, and things that were gone were unimportant. And it sure as hell had thrown the creepy guys in the cloaks off of my trail. But the others in the pack were all fully grown, and not as enthusiastic about having to entertain a puppy as Lea and Glenmael were.

With both of them off doing sidhe things, I was left to my own limited devices. Chasing a ball was less fun when you had to roll it yourself, and the giant butterflies had gotten wise and were avoiding flying through the yard. I found the wide spot in the fence, the one facing the path through Lea's demesne in the Nevernever and dropped to my belly, my nose sticking out through the gap. The wind looked stronger out there, rustling the branches of the apple trees that filled the yard and lined the road against one another, making a soft kind of music.

I lay there and let the breeze ruffle my fur, the longer hairs that had just started growing in tugged gently against my skin. The coolness of the dirt beneath my belly felt good. I yawned, baring my teeth to the empty road and let my eyes start to close. Maybe the others had the right idea. A nap would be nice.

Something woke me up a few minutes later. Less than an hour, though time was a fuzzy concept now. The breeze was still coming from the same direction and the sun had only moved a little. So it hadn't been long. I didn't move except for my ears pricking up, opening up so that I could hear better. The something turned out to be a sound; a fast, steady badumbadumbadum in two slightly varied tones, accompanied by the whooshcreak of wooden wheels. Horses drawing a carriage. Not Lea's. The horses were wrong, and her wheels had an extra groan, a little whump on the back right wheel from where it had been patched, to them that these didn't have. And Glenmael drove a lot faster. Strangers.

My muscles tensed and I got my feet and my legs under me, ready to jump up and start sounding the alarm if I needed to. Strangers didn't come to Lea's. None of the others stirred. Did that mean that this was someone who came by all the time? I shoved my head into the gap farther, the wood creaking around me. I got my head far enough out that I could see the path without anything blocking my sight.

The horses appeared first, both variations of pale done in the shades of gray my vision had become. One looked healthy, the other looked dead. They ran together in spite of that, strong and steady. I inhaled, taking in their scents. The healthy looking one smelled great; fresh grass under a hot sun, something moist and growing. Something I wanted to roll in so I could carry that interesting scent around with me. The other one smelled great too; rotting slowly in the cold air. I itched to roll around in that one too. Scents were great, better than sight for identifying things.

They pulled a black carriage, driverless, behind them. It was black and smelled like a combination of the two horses, only stronger. Maybe the sunny, dirt warm scent was a little stronger. It was hard to tell from this far away. As I watched, waiting for the carriage or the horses to do something threatening, an arm reached out from the window in the door and plucked one of Lea's apples from the branch as the carriage rushed by.

I forgot to howl as my jaw dropped open in shock. The carriage was gone, dust still settling in its wake by the time I got to my feet. Someone had stolen one of Lea's apples. Someone had stolen from the Leanansidhe. That was- no one did that! Even Queen Mab, when she'd come over to meet me had asked if she could have one. Not that Lea would have told her no, but it was the way things were done.

And these yahoos had just taken one! I growled at them, my paws digging into the dirt. That could not be allowed! They had just insulted my godmother! I inhaled deeply, making sure to get their scent and really fix it in my mind, then I rushed back to Ginger's burrow. I didn't bother crawling in this time, just stood outside and yelled for her, my nose down into the entrance to make sure she couldn't ignore me.

“Ginger! Ginger! Giiingeeeerrrrr!”

“Shut! Up!” A vise clamped down on the end of my nose and I yelped, freezing. I could feel Ginger's growl in my bones. She shook her head, her teeth scraping over my muzzle and drawing a burning line of pain along the top and the bottom. I whined and tucked my tail, backing away as fast as I could when Ginger released me. “Go to sleep, pup! It's too hot out for your silliness.”

Okay. Okay. I sat outside of Ginger's burrow and touched my front paws to my nose in turn. They came away a little wet, but nothing to cry about. I whined anyway. It stung, and it was embarrassing to be treated like an unruly little kid. I was a puppy, sure, but there really was something going on. Someone had stolen from Lea! It was our job to protect her things.

Fine. If Ginger wouldn't help, none of the others would. She was head of the pack. So that left me. I ran back over to the gap and started digging, the earth hard packed and tough to get through at first, then looser as I got deeper. It took me no time at all to make a hole big enough for me to crawl under the fence.

I dropped to the ground and crawled, the dirt collapsing a little on me as my back legs kicked. The hole on the other side of the fence wasn't quite big enough and I had to dig at it a little more, sneezing dirt out of my nose as I went.

On the other side of the fence I stood and shook myself off, felt the dirt scattering around me. I panted, happy and a little excited. I was outside. I hadn't been outside without Lea since I'd arrived, before she'd turned me into a hound. It was so big, bigger than I remembered. Sharper, too. Everything came to me loud and clear, the sounds and scents touching my brain and telling me all about themselves. I gave a quiet little yip of excitement and lunged to my right and then to my left, chasing invisible enemies.

A crow cried out from the trees by the road and I forced myself to get back to what I was supposed to be doing. The carriage person had stolen from Lea. I was going to make them regret it. If I didn't get moving soon, I might lose the trail. I hadn't paid enough attention when Ginger and Fred were giving the tracking lessons to track a really old scent.

With one last look back at the yard, none of the others had come out, I kicked some dirt back at them and took off. The road was rough and gravelly beneath my paws as I stepped onto it and I stopped, the fur on the back of my neck rising. This might be a bad idea. It was the Nevernever, not Iowa. How would I find my way back after I'd gotten the apple back from the thief? The crow screamed again and I jumped, crouching low and growling up at it. It flapped its wings and cackled, a strange bird laugh. I barked at it, once. The crow hopped to a lower branch and pooped, cackling some more. Oh, hey. Good idea.

I lifted my leg along the side of the road, right beside the tree that marked the entrance to Lea's lands. Once I was done I turned to sniff it. Yep. It was strong enough I shouldn't miss it when I came back. All I had to do was leave a trail, like breadcrumbs, only better.

With my nose right above the dirt of the road I could pick up the combined scents that made up the horses and the carriage easily. I growled, planted my feet and kicked up a little more dirt. Then I started running along the road, following the apple thief.

I stopped every so often, when it felt right, to make another mark. The snow along either side of the road held scents really well. At some point, the snow started to thin out, with chunks of grass and little flowers starting to break through. I was leaving Winter, or maybe on the border between Winter and Summer. If I wandered into Summer, I could be in real trouble. It made me slow down and move more cautiously. The snow never melted entirely away though, so I kept on going. The crow, the one who had mocked me back at Lea's, followed. Sometimes it flew ahead, calling back and egging me on. If it would just fly a little lower, I'd teach it not to make fun of me.

Re: Fic: Hound Days 1b/1

[akelios]

Eventually, I came to a wood. Not like the one around Lea's place. That one was filled with all sorts of interesting animals and the homes of Glenmael's people, the ones who owed fealty to Lea. This was darker. Mist hung thick on the ground, dragging the light down around me and holding in a heavy, wet scent. And there were no sounds except for my own heavy breathing and the flap of the crow's wings.

I marked a tree that wasn't too far off the road and then scrambled back up onto the safety of the gravel. For all that the forest sounded like it was empty, it didn't feel that way. I dropped down onto my haunches and caught my breath. My legs were shaking and my heart was hammering. Not scary fast, but I had been running for a really long time.

The crow landed on the road a few feet in front of me and cawed, tilting its head one way and then the other, looking at me with those beady black eyes. I growled and lunged. It wasn't a good lunge and the bird just hopped out of my reach, cackling. A second later it flapped off into the mist, still following the path of the road. I followed it, pacing along the edge of the road at a slow trot.

A little bit later light appeared through the mist. I slowed down even more, but kept moving forward. The light turned out to be coming from the open door of a small cabin sitting in a clearing in the woods. The road curved around the clearing and went on. I sniffed at the ground of the clearing, making sure to keep all my feet on the road itself. It smelled wet, a mix of swamp and really early spring thaw, where the earth was still mostly frozen. And it smelled like the carriage. That same mix of warm and cold things.

I put one paw on the ground and rested a little weight on it. The ground was spongy, but solid enough. I barked, quietly, and dove into the clearing, heading for that cabin and the thief. I charged over the open ground and through the doorway, skidding to a stop just inside, my teeth bared, legs braced to meet any attack.

“Oh my. Hello there.” My vision was filled with a long skirt. I looked up to see a little old lady bending over me, smiling. I backed up a step and growled. Laughter filled the cottage, though the lady leaning over me wasn't the one laughing.

“Listen to that! He's got spirit, doesn't he?”

“Hush. Look at the poor boy, he's terrified! How did you get here young man?”

“I'm not scared! I'm mad! You stole from my godmother. Give it back and I won't bite you!” I was shaking, but it wasn't fear. It was anger. Adrenaline. All that stuff. Not fear. It was just a little old lady. There wasn't anything to be afraid of.

“Stole-” The old woman sighed and stood straight. She was still tiny and stooped over. Her long hair whispered over the back of her dress as she turned. “That's why you insisted on taking the path through Winter.” A loud sniff filled the air. The little woman moved away from me, her body language unafraid, and I could see more of the cottage. There was another person in the cabin, this one covered with a huge cloak and sitting in a rocking chair. Another loud, cackling laugh came from the hood.

“It's mine by right. The Leanansidhe does not begrudge an old woman her pleasures.”

“It's not polite to just take things, Winter.”

“It's mine.” One wrinkled hand and arm appeared from the depths of the cloak and pointed at me. “Speaking of polite, we have a guest. Are you just going to leave him like that?”

The woman threw up her hands and said something to the ceiling in a low voice. I shivered as the words reached my ear. They didn't make any sense, but they hurt going in. A low whine rattled in my chest and I found myself lying on the floor, my paws up over my nose. I felt bad all of a sudden.

“See what you've done?” The creaking voice was closer now. I opened my eyes to see the person in the cloak kneeling beside me. That gnarled hand came down on the top of my head and a trickle of cold energy shot through me. Light, the reflection of a bright sun through a snowstorm blinded me. When my vision cleared, the world was in color again, all the smells gone. “There. Mmm. Handsome. The Leanansidhe always has had good taste.” A wrinkled finger touched my nose and came away with a little bit of blood, bright red. She raised her hand to the hood of the cloak and it vanished into the blackness. There was a wet sound and the hand emerged, clean. “Plenty of potential. I approve.”

“I'm certain the Leanansidhe will be thrilled.”

“She will be! It's so hard to find wizards of such potential nowdays. A definite coup.”

“Power is not everything.” The little woman knelt in front of me, beside her companion. I could see that her eyes were bright green now. “Hello there. I am Mother Summer, and this is Mother Winter.” The Mothers. I went cold. Hells bells. I'd just tried to attack the oldest, strongest sidhe in both courts. I was going to die.

“H-hello. I'm-” I had to cough and clear my throat. Talking as a hound was different from talking as a human. Everything was all moved around. “Harry Dresden, ma'am. Pleased to meet you. Both of you.” Summer smiled and Winter laughed some more. Well, they hadn't killed me yet. Maybe if I apologized? “I'm very sorry for just barging in here. I didn't realize who you were.”

“Youth. So sure of itself, rushing here and there.” Winter's voice was like glaciers crackling. Not unpleasant, but terrifying on a very deep level. Nature moving.

“Yes, yes. But he should not have been able to find us here. It doesn't work that way. How did you come to this cabin?”

“I followed the road, ma'am.” I thought. “And the crow.” I pushed myself up and sat, my legs folded in front of me. The cabin was warm enough that I didn't feel any chill against my naked skin. “There was a crow that kept egging me on.”

“A crow.” Summer turned to Winter. Winter shrugged, her cloak rising and falling. “Really.”

“There are plenty of crows in the Nevernever.”

“Crows that can lead one here? Winter.”

“Bah. I wanted to see the boy. You know why. Don't deny you wanted to get a look at him too.” Winter rose and walked slowly back over to her chair. “I did what was needful. As always. While you get to reap the benefits and look oh so sweet and charming.”

“The Leanansidhe will be worried. Send him out again to bring her here.” Summer turned her attention back to me. “While we wait, would you like some tea? Cookies?” My stomach growled and I blushed. “I'll take that as a yes. Come along. Your godmother will be here soon and soon enough.”

I got to my feet and stood as a human for the first time in...I didn't know how long it had been. It was strange, seeing everything from this angle now. I was taller than either of the Mothers, which felt wrong. Summer rested her hands on her hips and frowned.

“I don't know if we have any pants quite your size. We'll make do though!”

“Don't you dare put any pants on the boy!” Winter cackled under her hood. “He's comfortable. Aren't you Harry-boy?”

“Um. Yes, ma'am. It's not- I don't need any pants. Lea'll change me back as soon as she can, so I don't really need them.”

“You, stop encouraging him.” Summer wagged a finger at Winter. “And you. If you're going to be sitting around on my furniture, you're going to be wearing pants. There's something to be said for a little decorum you know. Putting everything on display is not always the best part of the evening.”

“As you like, ma'am.” I gave Mother Summer a small bow, and directed another at Mother Winter. Summer smiled, and Winter laughed.

“So polite. Perhaps we should keep him?”

“No. He belongs with Lea, for now.” Summer took my arm, her hands warm and started to lead me back to one corner of the cabin. “Now, let's see what we have for you.”

Lea appeared outside the door of the cabin in a rush of wind and rain a few hours later. Her green eyes were wide, almost glowing and the stupid crow flew in over her shoulder to land beside Mother Winter. I narrowed my eyes at the beast and bared my teeth at him. He cawed and flapped his wings at me once.

“Mother Winter. Mother Summer.” Lea dropped a deep curtsy to the Mothers, then rose, her boots never crossing the threshold of the cabin itself. “Harry.” I waved at her and stuffed the last bite of scone into my mouth.

“Lady Leanansidhe. We seem to have found something that belongs to you.” Summer patted my shoulder. I got up and brushed my hands down the front of the kilt-like thing Summer had found to fit me. It was surprisingly comfortable.

“So your servitor informed me. You have my thanks, Mothers, for taking my wayward charge in. If it pleases you, I will take him off of your hands. It will not happen again.”

“Oh, no. No. Little muse. We have found his company most invigorating. In fact, we insist that you bring our little Harry to visit at least once a moon.” Winter tapped one long fingernail against the wood of her armrest. Summer was already fussing at the table behind me, cleaning. It was like a tick with her. A crumb fell, and she cleaned. I was beginning to think she did it just to annoy Winter.

Lea hesitated, blinking. Then she smiled and dropped another curtsy. “As you like, Mothers. I am pleased that the boy did not embarrass me.” She made a beckoning gesture and I walked over to her side. Lea slid her arm around my waist and I looked at her. It was another shock. I was taller than Lea now. Not by a whole lot, but I could see the top of her head when I looked down. “If we may?”

“Yes, yes. Be gone. Do not forget. Once a moon, bring the boy here.”

I bowed to the Mothers again as Lea started to tug me out into the clearing. Winter's laughter followed us to the road.

“What were you thinking?” Lea stopped as soon as our feet were on the gravel and turned me around, examining me. I let her do it, the feeling of her soft hands on my skin wonderful. I remembered laying at her feet inside her house with her petting my fur. It was so peaceful when we sat like that. I closed my eyes and leaned into the touch.

“I thought they'd stolen from you. I didn't know who they were.”

“Silly boy. Everyone knows the Mothers' carriage.” She kissed the corner of my mouth. “Come along then.” Lea ran her fingers through my hair and the magic tingled through me, starting at my scalp and moving down. When it was done, I was back on all fours, my tail trying to wag and getting caught up in the fabric of the kilt thing. I wriggled out of it and yipped, running around Lea's legs happily as we started back for home.

Fic: The Merlin is a Creepy Bad Man 1/1

[akelios]

Pairing: The Merlin/Harry, implied Justin/Harry and omc/Harry

Warnings: Noncon, Underaged sex

Note: JFC, I don't know, okay? Don't ask me where this came from. It's wrong and evil and wrong. And probably not as good as it sounded in my head. *posts it anyway* End of story.
-
“Merlin, sir?” Peabody knocked at my open door and I waved him in. He scurried across the study floor and deposited a small stack of folders on the far corner of my desk. “The reports for the Wardens' activities in California, Japan and Canada.”

“Yes, yes. That will be all.”

“Sir.” Peabody cleared his throat. “They've brought in the warlock that killed Wizard DuMorne. They have him down in one of the cells.” He slid the top folder off of the stack and opened it in front of me. An Iowa state learners permit was paper clipped to the top. 'Harry Dresden'. I blinked and looked up at Peabody. “Thank you. That will be all.”

He bowed slightly and scurried back out of the room. I pulled the folder in close and flipped through the papers. Wizard DuMorne had been found murdered in his home a month prior. The home had been burned down and the Wardens had confirmed the use of magic in both the murder and the blaze meant to cover it up. They'd followed the trail of black magic to find Dresden at the end of it. The boy claimed to have been DuMorne's apprentice and that he had acted only in self defense.

Dresden. McCoy's daughter had turned up dead in a hospital under the name Dresden...had it been sixteen years ago? Seventeen? I looked at the photograph. It was poor, as those things tended to be. There was something about his jaw, maybe. I closed the folder and tapped my finger against it. I'd have to see the boy to be sure.

I made my way down to the holding cells through the lesser known and absolutely secret passages. The Warden on duty was a young one...Dumas, Dubois...

“Warden Durand.”

“Merlin.” The young man stood up straighter and saluted. “Can I help you sir?”

“I understand that we have a prisoner. I'm here to inspect him before the trial.”

“Yessir.” The Warden let me past the gateway and led me down the corridor to the cell at the very end. “Do you need me to stay with you, sir?”

“No. I will be quite alright on my own.” I waited until I heard the lock on the gate click behind him, then turned and opened the door of the cell. The wards snapped back into place behind me as I closed the solid wood door.

The warlock was sitting on the simple wooden bench that served as the only furniture in the room. His hands were bound behind his back with heavy iron shackles and the thick black hood rendered him featureless. A body without a soul. It was why we used them after all, apart from the safety issue. It was so much easier to do what we knew was right when we didn't have to look at the innocent faces some warlocks hid behind.

I watched him as I took the few steps across the room that brought me to his side. He turned his head a little, following my movements and he cringed with each noise. Afraid. A sensible reaction.

“You are Harry Dresden, correct?” He started at the sound of my voice, his shoulders jerking in a quick up and down motion. The Wardens, once he was taken into custody would not have spoken to him. It was policy.

“Y-yes. Sir.” His voice was dry. Young. They were always so young these days.

“I am going to remove the hood, boy. Do not make me regret it.” I found the buckle that held the collar of the hood tight and released it, yanking the cloth from over his head. He blinked in the comparatively bright lights of the cell, his eyes tearing up as they adjusted.

I grabbed his chin before he had time to get his mental footing and turned his head to the side and then the other way. Yes. His mother's jaw line, certainly. And McCoy's eyes. Vicious joy flashed to life in my chest. I released him and took the three steps that put my back against the stone wall opposite the warlock.

“Do you know where you are?”

“Uh. They said Edinburgh? Isn't that in Europe somewhere? I don't know. No one will talk to me.” He shifted on the bench. “Until you, sir. They said something about a trial. Are you my...like a lawyer?”

I laughed and confusion filled his face.

“Lawyer? No. No. I am your judge.” The boy went pale. “Here is what will happen, warlock. You will be dragged out of this cell with this hood over your head. Three of us will hear the evidence against you. You will not be allowed to speak. We will find you guilty of murdering your teacher using the same magic that he gave to you, and then you will be beheaded. All without any of us ever having to look at you.”

“What? But- that's not fair! Justin tried to enthrall me! He tried to kill me! I had-” I waved a hand and while his mouth continued to move, silence reigned. It took a second for the boy to realize that I had silenced him. Finally, he subsided, seeming to huddle in on himself.

“Fair has nothing to do with it. This is the way it is. However...” I let my voice trail off as though I were considering an option that I had not thought of before. The boy leaned forward, eager. His eyes were frightened, desperate. “Well. As I said, I am your judge. If you could convince me of your innocence...well.” I spread my robe, allowed the dark cloth to frame my body and draw his eyes to the crotch of my slacks. I saw the moment when it clicked, disgust and fear overlaying the understanding in his eyes. “I guess the question, boy, is how badly do you want to live?”

He hesitated for so long that I began to worry he wasn't going to make the move after all. That would have been disappointing, though something could still be made out of it. Then, with his eyes clenched tightly shut he stood. His movements were awkward; walking with your hands bound takes more practice than one might think. He made it to me and dropped to his knees, his eyes still shut.

I touched the top of his head and smiled down at him as I opened my slacks and pulled my erection free. The head brushed his cheek and he flinched, finally opening his eyes. I tightened my grip on his hair, refusing to let him pull away. The boy shook his head, tiny movements dictated by my hold on him, but he opened his mouth anyway and took me in.

He wasn't the best I'd ever had, but he made a valiant effort. After all, he thought he was buying his life. He had certainly done this before. Had DuMorne included this in his lessons? The boy was handsome enough, and complaint. Or had he traded what favors he had for food and shelter on the run? More pleasant thoughts. McCoy's flesh and blood as nothing more than a common street whore.

I took a firmer grasp of his head and fucked his mouth, taking what little control he thought he had away. The boy writhed and coughed around me, the movements and the image adding to my enjoyment. Nothing, however, could top the fact that it was McCoy's grandson on his knees for me.

The pleasure of that was more than enough. I came down the boy's throat, holding him pinned on me like a bug. He struggled to breathe, the shaking in his body transmitted to me through my hands and the frantic movements of his mouth and tongue against me.

Finally I pushed him away, let him collapse to the floor. The boy curled in, his knees up to his chest as he coughed and spat to clear his airway. I settled myself back into order, once more grateful that a wizards robe hid a multitude of sins and then I nudged the boy with the tip of my shoe.

“Back on the bench, if you please.”

I waited as he struggled back to his feet and dropped back onto the bench, his back against the cold stone wall. His eyes were wide and filled with an anger that he fought to hide. I smiled at him, my friendliest and most empty smile.

“Very good.” I wove my spell carefully, sliding it in past his defenses as I removed the spell holding him silent. The boy's eyes closed, his body collapsing to one side as the sleep facet of the spell took him. I replaced the hood, making certain that it was secure, then let myself out of the cell.

When he woke, he would have no memory of my visit. Assuming Peabody was his usual efficient self, the trial should be tomorrow. Plenty of time for McCoy to arrive. I did not want him to miss this.

I would vote to execute the warlock, of course. That was my enduring policy. No mercy. Watching McCoy scramble to save the boy would be satisfying, as would be blocking him at every chance. Either way the trial went, I would win. If it went as it should, I would get to watch McCoy see the last of his family killed in front of him. If McCoy managed to sway enough to his side, to take the boy as his apprentice, then I would have the memory of this little visit to warm me.

And what had been done once could be done again, after all. Independent reviews of the boys progress perhaps. Yes.

Re: Fic: The Merlin is a Creepy Bad Man 1/1

[(Anonymous)]

This left a bad taste in my mouth - the Merlin is just so creepy and evil. The fill however, was wondrous. Thank you for sharing!

Re: Fic: The Merlin is a Creepy Bad Man 1/1

[(Anonymous)]

This is awesome in a horrifying way. Poor Harry! You have to wonder if he'll forget forever. What would McCoy do if he found out?
Is this the meme's first Merlin/Harry? Really?

Re: OPEN PROMPT

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not entirely certain this goes here, but anyway...
Way back in Round Two, there was a prompt that wondered what would happen if, by some strange series of events, Harry replaced Mab, becoming the Queen/King of Winter. I got an image in mind, and decided to give it a go.
http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/258/9/6/winter_king_by_spiegel666-d49z462.jpg
The proportions are weird, and the perspective is weird, but I still sort of like it.

Fic: Shadow of a Blade 1a/1

[akelios]

Pairing: Marcone/Harry

Kinks: Possessiveness, knife play, marking, hint of blood play

Notes: Stupid title is stupid. And yet I must title all the things! This is a sort of follow up to 'Just Beyond the Shadows' and it got away from me.
-

Sergeant Murphy did not quite dare to draw her gun, though it was clear that she wanted to. I had the advantage of numbers however, and she was no fool.

“Marcone. Hand Harry over right now.” I had never seen anyone actually speak through their teeth before, their jaw completely unmoving. Sergeant Murphy made it look both eerie and natural. Perhaps she'd had a lot of practice.

My arms tightened around Harry, barely keeping him from sliding to the ground. I was strong, but Harry was large and ungainly. If this wasn't resolved quickly we would both wind up on the pavement.

“Sergeant. Please be reasonable here. How are you intending to get him back to his apartment? Tie him to the back of your motorcycle? I am not going to abduct or harm Dresden. He is injured and unconscious.” I gave her a reason she might believe from me. “Dresden was injured, in part, on my behalf. According to the Accords, I owe him a debt for his actions. All I wish to do is get him to safety, to satisfy my obligation.

“Tell me where to take him, and I will do so.”

There was only one place she would have me take him. His apartment, where she had access and I, so far as she knew, did not. I shifted my weight to feel the amulet slide over my skin. What the sergeant did not know about us could fill volumes. Sirens grew closer, making her decision for her. We had to leave and she could not take Harry from the scene on her own.

“His apartment. I'll follow you and if I even think you're pulling anything scumbag...” Sergeant Murphy didn't finish her threat, just turned on her heel and jumped onto her Harley, waiting.

“Mr. Hendricks.” He was at my side before I finished saying his name. Freed from having to keep his guard on Sergeant Murphy he took the bulk of Harry's weight from me and we carried him to the waiting car. We maneuvered Harry into the back seat with me and then we were gone, the engine surging to life beneath us and settling into a steady rumbling growl.

I knew the Sergeant was following us, I could see her single head light in the rear view mirror. A few patrol cars passed us, taking no notice and I settled into the seat, Harry's shoulders in my lap. He had curled up around me on the back seat, his legs too long for even this car to let him stretch out. I ran my hands over his body, checking the wounds.

Bruises, some cuts and scrapes. A long gash that would probably need stitches along the back of his rib cage. My fingers touched that wound lightly, drawn to it but not wanting to cause Harry pain from it. It's wrong, seeing the marks that someone else has placed on him. I want to erase them. Cover them with my marks.

He makes a sound, a small sigh of pain and I still, one hand beneath the tatters of his shirt at the small of his back. There are no bruises there that I can see. It might be the only unmarred part of him at the moment. I rub my thumb in small circles, soothing. Harry stills after a few seconds and the car is filled with silence once more.

There are so many bruises, so many cuts. None of them mine. It's wrong. Frustrating. I should be the only one to touch Harry, let alone leave a mark on him.

One of my knives is in my hand without a thought, the blade flicking open nearly silently. It shines against his skin, bright and cheerful. A surge of need hits me and I press the edge of the blade against the his pale skin, scrape the sweat away with it. It makes a soft, wet sound. I shiver, the edge trembling against his skin but not cutting. I would never cut him accidentally, without a thought. I care for him too much to hurt him carelessly.

The tip of my knife dimples his skin. I could start here. Just a small mark, nothing that would be noticed or identifiable by anyone but me. Not yet anyway. With all the other wounds, one more would go unremarked.

A little more pressure-

“No.” I look up, my attention drawn away from Harry. We're at a stop light and Mr. Hendricks is staring at me in the mirror. I meet his eyes for a second and then look away. One problem with knowing someone for so long is that they know you too well in the end. I can see myself in his eyes and it is not a flattering picture at the moment. “You do that, we're going to have a problem John.”

He knew me so well.

Without taking my eyes from his I lifted the knife and closed it. It was a lead weight in my pocket, unfulfilled promise and desire that pulled at me as I put it away and settled Harry more comfortably across my lap.

~

Harry lies stretched out on his tiny bed, head turned to one side so that he could look at me through the shaggy fall of his hair. I ran my palm over the taut curve of his back, my fingers playing in the valley of his spine. He sighed, a fraction of the tension going out of him with that breath. Harry's hands relaxed a bit from their strangle hold on the slats of the headboard.

I moved behind him and urged his legs further apart, dropping down far enough so that I could lap at his balls. Harry moaned and lost his grip on the headboard, one hand reaching under his own body for me. He loved it when I played with his balls, but it was almost too much feeling for him. He was too sensitive there and it tipped over quite easily into something like pain if I wasn't careful. I rolled my tongue around them one last time and swatted at Harry's hand.

“Keep your hands up.”

“This is- hells bells John.” Harry grumbled, but his hand returned to the headboard. I had wanted to tie him there, but Harry had balked at the idea harder than I'd ever seen before. He refused to discuss why, though it wasn't hard to guess at the general shape of the problem.

I touched the backs of his thighs, relishing the feeling of the muscles beneath his skin trembling and flexing under my hands. He was stretched from earlier, to the point where he was open and waiting to be filled again. I took him again, easy as breathing and he pushed back, taking me in faster than I had intended.

We moved together with the ease of long familiarity, though it was unusually slow and gentle for us. The bruises along his back screamed at me. I wanted to wipe them out, erase them. Only time would do that. I had to be content with leaving small marks of my own. The shape of my fingers in the hollows of his hips, the imprint of my teeth in the spare flesh of his chest or his thigh where no one could see it.

Harry made soft sounds and I thought he would have his eyes closed at this point, blocking out the world to focus on the way it felt to have me inside of him. The weight of my body partially covering him, not pinning him down but holding him against me. Wanting him.

I took one hand off of his hips and flipped back the fold of sheet closest to the wall. The knife I'd hidden there looked like an offering, something sacred; meant to be used only for this one purpose. The contrast of the black handle and the silver shine of the blade against the bright white cloth of the sheets was visually overwhelming. I dug my hands into his flesh and thrust harder, drawing a high whine from Harry as my angle changed. He clamped down on me, fought to meet me.

My eyes kept going back to the knife. I wasn't going to use it. I wasn't. It was a compromise. If Harry wouldn't let me tie him up, he certainly wouldn't let me do that. So I would never use it. But I wanted to. Compromise. It would be enough. It had to be.

I came with one hand on Harry and the other wrapped around the hilt of the knife. It would be enough.

~

“Wh're d'ng?” 'What are you doing?' I translated easily from Harry's muffled sleep speech into English. My finger continued to move down Harry's back, tracing the letters of my name one by one over the pale skin down the length of his spine. To be safe I was writing it in Russian, just in case he woke enough to figure out that the movements weren't meaningless wanderings.

“Saying my prayers.” I added a small flourish to the last letter, taking my finger across the last few knobs of his spine and over the rise of his ass.

Harry subsided with another mutter, dropping back into a deeper sleep.

Maybe a permanent marker? I could write small and if I did it quickly enough while he was asleep he would never know. The possibility that Sergeant Murphy would see it in the middle of having to help the mortician Butters the next time Harry was wounded was rather high though, and that explanation would be difficult. And most likely quite incendiary toward the end.

Worse than that was the knowledge that it would wash off after some time. It would be maddening to have him bear my name and watch it dissolve from his skin. Better that I should have to live with things the way they were now than to be so close to what I wanted and have to see it come undone.

The need to mark him was at its quietest, calm for the moment. Harry bore only the marks I'd left on him and I was as content as I could ever be.

~

It was an ugly wound and I remained certain that the scar it would leave behind once it healed would be twisted and brutish. The work of a creature bent on death and destruction. A permanent mark that I could not erase. Could never change into something else by my touch.

That knowledge burned inside of me.

Harry was on his couch, the fire turning the small room close to the point of claustrophobia with the heat. Harry had stripped down to nothing, even the bandages were gone so that the stitched and healing wound could get some air. My own clothing choked me, too tight, too heavy. I lived with it and went for the knife at my ankle. One of my throwing knives.

Firelight turned it yellow and orange before my shadow coated it in black. I wanted to see it as it should be; silver and red. Just a trickle, nothing dangerous. Nothing frightening. Except it would be of course. It always had been to everyone who I tried to make understand. They couldn't take it, couldn't understand that it wasn't about hurting them. It was about taking care of them. Making them mine in a way that couldn't be washed away, couldn't be ignored or destroyed.

'You do that, we're going to have a problem John.'

A small cut. Just a small one. No one would know but me and there would be no problem at all. It would be fine.

Fear fought with my desire. I didn't want to do it like this. This was not the dreamed of moment. Secretive, as if it were something shameful. It was a need that I had to meet. I had tried other ways and they were not enough. But I could not tell him. I couldn't ask him.

'Sane people don't want to cut up their lovers, Tony.'

I'd asked Phil, and it had ended us. The next time I heard from him he'd gotten himself moved to a new agency and it was always 'Agent Coulson' from then on, not the man I'd known. Of course, I'd long since ceased being the man he had known as well.

I had weighed my options long ago. I couldn't ask, and I couldn't hold myself back entirely any longer.

I looked down the length of the couch to Harry's face. He had his eyes closed, his breathing coming slow and even. The pain killer I'd given him to take must have kicked in while I was in the bathroom. I'd cleaned the blade in there, wiped it down with the alcohol wipes I'd found in the small first aid kit beneath the sink.

I had no will power left. Harry had worn me down, destroyed every last argument and defense I had built over the years.

It would be a tiny cut. I would know that it was mine, and that would have to be enough.

Harry's skin was hot beneath my palm. I stretched my fingers wide, pulled the skin taut. The tip of the knife was brilliant against his skin, a blade of light. Bright and pure. I had to take a breath to steady myself. I wanted this so badly. Had wanted it for so long it was unbelievable that I was going to have it even though it was a petty, stolen version of what I really wanted.

I kept the blade razor sharp. It parted the thin skin between my fingers as though it were paper. The cut was small, no longer than the nail on my pinky. I shivered and sighed, tension ticking down out of my body a notch. The blood welled up as I pulled my blade away from Harry's body. There was a small stain at the tip of the knife.

“Ow!” Harry's hand was around my wrist, his fingers digging in. “What the hell- John?”

“I-” My eyes moved back and forth between the wound, my wound and Harry's face. “You didn't take the pain killer.”

“No, I didn't. What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Nothing.” I couldn't think straight, couldn't stop that rising edge of panic. It was stupid to lie at this point. It served no purpose. Still, I couldn't bring myself to say it. There had to be something I could say, some way to play this off and salvage what I had.

“That's weird, because it sure as hell looks like you just cut me, John.” The way he said my name was like a curse. “Are you going to do it again?”

“No. It's done.” For now. Forever, most likely. Harry's fingers relaxed enough to let circulation begin to return to my hand. I pulled my wrist from his grip and returned my knife to its sheath.

Harry sat up and I moved back, away from the couch. I ended with my back against one of the bookshelves. He touched the cut, examining it. There was a little bit of blood, but it was mostly dried by this point. A small cut. Hardly anything at all, really. But it was real, and it was mine. Even the nervous, churning fear couldn't take away from the simple pleasure that knowledge brought me. Whatever else happened, I had finally gotten to mark Harry the way I needed to.

“Why?”

I met Harry's eyes and searched his face for the fear. The disgust and the rejection. He was closed off, too used to hiding himself for me to read him when he didn't want me to.

“It doesn't matter. It won't happen again.” Liar.

“I think it matters. You cut me. With a knife. When you thought I was unconscious. I think that's something we need to talk about.” I said nothing and Harry's closed gaze turned into a glare. “Talk, or get out. Take your pick.”

I nodded and held up my hand, asking for a moment. I would tell him, try to explain one more time.

~

Fic: Hound Days: Play Date 1/1

[akelios]

Continuation/sequel to this: http://dresden-kink.dreamwidth.org/2675.html?thread=2405235#cmt2405235

Not as cute or fluffy as that one though.

Pairing: implied Lea/Harry

Warnings: implied underaged sex, dubcon, possibly unwilling transformation of a human into an animal, hunting of an animal (no one gets killed)

Kinks: A tiny hint of bloodplay
-

The party moved on around me, the conversation rising and falling as steadily as the wind outside Lea's home. I flattened out more beneath the table and crawled forward another inch, freezing when the tiny fae in the corner froze and looked around. I shut my eyes and hoped that he thought I was still asleep. If he caught on to my ruse I would never catch Toot and I'd owe him a favor. I already owed Toot way too many favors and the little pixie was getting a swollen head about it all.

“Oh no, Lord Talos. I really must stop you there.”

“Truly, Lady Leanansidhe? You think that one of your hounds can catch my Ella?” I recognized the sound of Lea's steps coming closer, followed by one of the sidhe from Summer. Hounds and doe. A hunt? I snorted in Toot's direction and turned myself around under the table, giving up that hunt. If I didn't make the attempt there was no harm no foul. Those were the rules, when I could get Toot to remember them. If there was a hunt, I was going to fight to get Lea to let me join. I was faster than any of the other pups and a better tracker than anyone except for Ginger. I deserved the chance to make her proud.

“Most definitely. Harry?” Lea rapped on the top of the table with one knuckle and I jumped. I shouldn't have been surprised that she knew where I was. Godmother always kept track of me since that thing with the Mothers. I got my feet under me and padded out into the light, sitting by her feet without whining or wagging my tail. Well behaved, that was me. The perfect hound. So let me hunt! “My Harry can catch your precious Ella.”

“That sounds like a challenge, Lady.”

“Between us? It is always a challenge. Will you rise to it? Or has your Lady Queen forbidden you all forms of amusement?” Lea's scent changed a little, giving the truth to the hint in her voice that she and Talos had been involved at some point. I felt the familiar bubbling burn of jealousy; the same jealousy I'd felt every time some jock flirted with Elaine in high school and set my paw very gently on top of one of Lea's embroidered slippers. Whatever they might have had in the past, Lea was mine now.

“My Lady Queen is kind, Leanansidhe. Far kinder than any I have found in Winter.” Acid in the air. Bitterness. Mother Summer had been offering to teach me a charm to let me keep colored vision in my hound form. I kept turning her down because of the cost. The acuity of my sense of smell would be dulled and there was just so much more that I could learn with my nose than with my eyes.

People could lie with their faces and their bodies. Even the sidhe had a hard time lying with their scent.

“Then we have an accord. We shall have a test of our pets. My Harry against your Ella.”

“What stakes?”

Lea leaned into Talos, her hand caressing the smooth skin of his cheek above the beard he wore. I didn't growl, though I wanted to. Lea could touch him if she wanted and I didn't want to ruin my chances at this hunt.

~

I moved as quietly as I could through the woods, taking my time. She was in here, the doe I'd been set to hunt. Step one of the hunt was the sneaky portion; find her and flush her out. Step two was a lot more simple; run her down and pin her until Lea came to deliver the killing blow. That sounded a whole lot more fun than this creeping around part too.

The leaves beneath my paws were fresh fallen, new enough that they didn't make a sound as I walked over them. I avoided the small branches that had fallen down, things that would crackle and snap under my weight. Her scent was delicious even as just the trace that I was following.

Hot house flowers. Something thick and spicy; cinnamon, peppermint. A million other things I didn't have words for. And the heavy, heady musk of a large prey animal. Trembling and afraid. Aware that there was a predator out there, looking for her. It made the scent trail sharper. Easier to follow. The preys body turned into its own worst enemy.

A breeze blew through the trees, shaking them over head. The movement allowed a thick shaft of sunlight through and it shone off of something a dozen feet ahead of me. Fur, trying to blend into the low lying brush. Ella the doe. I laughed in my head and slid around to the right, circling her.

I could have taken her then and there but that wasn't the game. The sidhe lords and ladies were expecting a chase. I needed to put on a good show for them. Once I was in position I stepped, heavily and deliberately on a thick branch. It cracked, loud as a shot and the deer in front of me let out a noise like a scream.

It jumped up and was gone in a flash, faster than I'd thought it could be. I caught a good look at the white fur on its rump, the small tail up and panicked; then it was gone. My heart zinged, blood thundering through my body. I threw back my head and howled, joyful.

I didn't have to think about it. My body took over, every instinct telling me to run, to chase. Ella had a little bit of a lead on me, but that was okay. It was a contest, a battle of speed and skill. And I was better than the little doe. I was a trained predator and she was prey. There was no question who would win.

The trees parted on either side of me, my senses finding openings somehow before my eyes registered them. I broke out of the small wooded area right behind my prey, her hooves flashing in the sunlight. I could hear the sidhe calling out and laughing from their picnic on the hill. They were enjoying it. Good.

Ella was a good sized doe, lean and beautiful. As she turned, bounding to one side to rise over a small dip in the earth I caught sight of a pattern on her side. White against the slightly darker grey shading of her coat. It looked like a leaf, I thought. A strange thing to see on a deer, but then she was a sidhe deer. Maybe that was Lord Talos' mark?

As I leapt over a fallen tree I hoped that Lea didn't notice the mark on Ella and get ideas. I didn't think I'd look good running around with a flower design in my fur.

The ground was good beneath us; uneven, natural dips and rises, but solid. No boggy spots, no sprays of rock for us to lose our footing on. I let her pull ahead for a while, let her think that she was free. It was a show. I knew what Lea wanted, what they all wanted. The sidhe, at heart, were all predators and nothing made the take down sweeter than the tinge of hope just as it turned to a despairing realization that all was lost. That in spite of all your effort, all your cleverness, you were mortal. Frail and flawed in the face of their immortal strength.

I ran her down as slowly as I could, letting the joy and freedom of it carry me over the ground. It was what I imagined flying would feel like; weightless and terribly exciting. As she crested the last hill I could feel her hope rising; see it in the way she kicked in an extra burst of speed. I howled, the sound carrying over the open ground and echoing back in my own ears.

She was mine.

I stopped holding back. My heart pounded so hard and fast in my chest that it was dizzying. Euphoria and a base need to take down the deer burning in my veins. I wanted to feel her weight beneath me. I wanted to set my teeth into the soft skin over her throat and dig in. Feel the blood spurt up and out, spattering over my chest and muzzle. It would be hot and delicious. Life. It would pour over my tongue and down my throat with every beat of her heart until it sputtered out.

I flew over the ground, my paws hitting the earth silently even as her hooves tore up the ground in desperate furrows. There was a long beat, time slowed down as I ran almost side by side with her and then I was leaping. I hit her in the flank, my teeth sinking into the tender flesh just behind below her knee. I ripped out a chunk of flesh as she staggered and screamed a high, helpless scream.

We went down in a tangle of flesh and kicking legs. I couldn't hear anything but my own panting breath and the terrified sounds she was making. Her blood was just as wonderful as I'd imagined it would be; thick and delightful. I snarled in pleasure and slid carefully around her thrashing limbs, going for her throat.

“HOLD!”

My teeth were already denting the tender flesh of Ella's throat when Lea's voice came to me. I froze, blood dripping down my muzzle to stain the fur beneath my mouth. The sidhe arrived and Lea's hand came to rest on the back of my neck, fingers tracing the edge of the wide leather collar I'd worn just for the hunt.

“Good boy.” She snapped her fingers. “Release.”

I obeyed, though every part of me wanted to finish it. I'd run my prey down. I'd won. I was better and it was my prize! But Lea was Lea, and I had to obey her.

“You are certain we cannot kill the little thing? She did lose, after all.” Lea sounded as disappointed as I felt. I sat down and leaned against Lea's legs, panting happily.

“She belongs to my Lady.”

“Mmm. Perhaps you should think more carefully in the future, then, before betting something you do not own.” She ran her fingers over the top of my head, scratching right behind my ears. I whined happily. “Next time I will not be so generous.”

~

The night sky in Lea's section of the Nevernever was beautiful. The constellations kept changing, almost from one minute to the next.

I lay back on the soft grass, my head in her lap as she ran her fingers through my hair. It was soothing in human form or in hound form; a gentle, loving touch. The air was cool against my naked skin, cold where it blew over the half-dried blood that had remained covering my face and chest when Lea shifted me back to human. I turned my head so my sticky cheek rested against her soft, perfect skin.

“Lovely.” She purred, her nails scratching idly over my scalp. “You gave us a very good hunt today Harry. I'm proud of you.”

I smiled at that, moving my lips against her skin. My hand wrapped around one slender ankle, thumb dragging gently over the curve of it.

“I think you deserve a reward, godson.”

“Wasn't that- didn't I just get my reward?” I squeezed her ankle and licked my lips. They were clean, Lea had licked all the blood off of them earlier with tiny, teasing flicks of her tongue.

“No, darling. That was just fun.” A long moment of silence passed between us. “I know! How would you like to start your transfiguration lessons?”

I grinned. If I could master that, I could shift between hound and human form without Lea or Mother Winter.

“I'd like that a lot, godmother.”

Fic: A Tom and His Queen

[(Anonymous)]

Pairing: Female Harry/Mister. Warnings: Dubcon, Bestiality.

A/N- Because after reading Harry/Mouse I determined Mister needed some attention.

---

For the record, I would like it known that it was my den first. One of the windows had this handy little latch that when pressured, say by a healthy thirty pounds against the pane, would pop loose. After that it only took a shimmy and a shake and the below-ground cave was mine. It was a bit bare, yes, but I didn't need much. I've never been one of those tame cats, and they can argue all they like, but I've seen them shiver under the bridge. I've heard them cry at their human's doors. I've defended my territory with extreme prejudice against their fluffy inbred asses, and was not impressed.

Anyway, as I was saying, it was my den first. Then the elder that cleaned it brought her to see my home. Sadly, I was not present to defend my territory against the interloper. I'd had a little business to take care of across town, there was a beta with a shiny new collar trying to move up in rank, and wasn't able to get back until the furniture started showing up. Silly now that I think about it, but I should have realized the new female scent criss-crossing my floor meant a little more than spring cleaning and a bug spray. I didn't meet Mistress until much later, but her smell. It was so different, unique, with a little zing that had me, embarrassingly enough, purring before I realized what was happening.

But she was still an unknown wandering through the heart of my domain, and I could not let that pass. I may have stalked her. I may have warned off a few curious kittens with more force than necessary. I am not ashamed.

And then she broke the latch. She locked me out of my own den, and I was so far gone into a hissing rage I could have been mistaken for those crazed descendants of Bast that wander from town to town mewing out the end of days. (As much as I loathe to admit it dogs do divinity much better than us felines.) The sound attracted her, and she came out, her little log smoking in hand, smelling of anxiety and starlight, and I jumped right off the garbage tin and onto her chest. I scratched and clawed, she let out a most satisfying yelp, and before she could regain her equilibrium I used her back to spring board off and into my den. Once I was securely ensconced beneath one of the new cushioned chairs she had brought in I turned to survey my work.

I'd had enough weight that my leap caused her to land on her ass, and several thin, red, bleeding lines decorated her upper chest, arms, and face. Wobbly, she stood, and marched back inside.

She spent three hours trying to route me, but even with her renovations the den was mine and I knew more bolt holes than she could shake her funny glowing stick at. Eventually, she screeched something unintelligible and disappeared into the room I used to store my trophies -dead birds and such- within. When she didn't come out after several minutes, and I couldn't hear her moving around, I decided to get on with my own rest. When I awoke in that morning to the sound of a plate being slid across the cement floor -a peace offering- I decided I would tolerate her presence, her starlight and something else scent, a while longer.

I think she might have been lonely. We cats do not feel the need for companionship the way humans or dogs do, but I could understand the concept. I had felt, on rare occasion, the horrible burn of emptiness when a fresh young queen is ready and waiting and calling but some idiot had the gall to put up a wall between me and my prospective mate.

So, I accepted the sandwich. I enjoyed the coke, and after we got over the initial hesitancy I enjoyed the attention. But I was, am, by no means a tame cat. She opens the door for me. I go out when I want to. And no matter what that dumb-ass spaniel in 3B says she didn't name me. I'm not her cat. If anything she's my human. She calls me Mister, and that isn't a name. It's a Title. Mister. And, well, we are cohabiting so if I'm her Mister then she's my Mistress. And I made sure everyone else who mattered knew it, too. Most cats mark their humans sparingly, showing alliance and claim, but I made sure to do it Every. Damn. Day. Morning and evening, I wound between her legs, and butted against her calves so hard she almost fell over. Slept in her bed and breathed on her face until my own scent saturated her intoxicating aroma.

But it was worth it. No other cat would come within ten feet of her. Not without invitation. My invitation.

Then she brought home... Bob. I don't know exactly what Bob is. I don't particularly care, but he speaks Cat, or at least can read the hands-off signals I gave him, teeth bared and fur straight. If he was remained in the below-under, then I could care less what she did with him. At least, that was what I told myself. Until he left the skull-that-is-not-a-skull after wheedling my Mistress about something, and entered me. Tried to take control of me. Me. Mister. Tried. See the emphasis I'm making, here?

His little romp in my body did teach me something, though. The exact connotative and denotative meanings of the words Fuck that.

But I could tell he was embarrassed, and I was curious, so we came to an accord, and went on our little errand so my Mistress -Harry, Bob corrected pointlessly- could trade for more coke, and no I am not addicted. I just know what I like.

I liked carbonation. I liked ham dipped in mustard and pickle relish. I liked her. I liked her smell, still do, and the way she would run her hands down my spine and use candles instead of those bright bulbs. I liked the way she kept things simple. Natural. My den was still mine, and she dragged home rugs like I dragged home mice and birds, setting them out. Decorating. Making it... ours.

Bob could tell. Bob was intrigued. Bob whispered in my ear after we completed the mission and I roughed up a few stray toms that had gotten it into their heads I was becoming soft, and then we went and followed a different smell. Sex, no matter the species, is unmistakable. I slipped in and watched, though the lights were just as distracting as the women spinning and twirling on the raised platform. It reminded me of some courtship rituals I'd witnessed, but I somehow doubted there would be any egg making involved. Or, Bob gleefully pointed out, there would be egg making, but without the eggs.

Bob taught me a lot. He used every opportunity to get out of his tiny portable den, and into me. He was worried about her, he explained, about stress. Someone with a sharp stick was stalking her. There was something hanging over her head, a doom or whatever, and he wanted her to go out and get laid. Getting laid was apparently her biggest problem, as her being nervous all the time -I remembered her glowing sticks, big and little- just made her look guilty and up-to-something to the Morgan, who wanted to cut off her head.

I did not approve. If my Mistress had her head cut off, so too would be my coke flow. The coke must flow. And no, I don't stay up late just to hear her reading out of her paperbacks. Why?

The solution was clear, and Bob made it sound so reasonable. It was the next step in our relationship, after all, and while it was a little odd it was by no means ground breaking. I was just asserting my position, my dominance, in a way Mistress could understand.

When she came home one night bruised, fur everywhere, and barely standing, I decided to make my move. She washed the worst of the grime from her body in two minutes flat, fell on the bed, and passed out. I waited, and crept closer to her. She smelled different, but no less pleasant. Fire. Starlight. That special zing that was all her. I sniffed, letting my nose lead the way, and found it. But there was no mating scent, no pheromones wafting off telling me she was ready, and I almost didn't do it. But Bob had explained how humans were weird and different and had to... rev the engines? Well, I didn't need to understand the metaphors to get it done. I'm Mister. And that's all there is to it.

I nestled between her legs with my claws out the tiniest bit, pricking at her exposed skin, and she moved in her sleep, bare thighs retreating from me, spreading her open. I sniffed again. At her core, the scent was overwhelming, and I could not stop the purr that rumbled out as I licked her. I combed her fur back, lapping up what water hadn't soaked into the bed, and found her folds. Different. Very different from the queens I usually entertained, but she was mine and at that moment I didn't care. She tasted wonderful. Better than coke.

I kept licking, knowing she was dead to the world, and slowly her body relaxed. She shifted, and then... yes. Sex. Arousal. I shivered as it rolled over me, and I rubbed my face in her, encouraging the juices to flow. She let out a breath in her sleep, a little gasp, and shifted my attentions up to the little nub Bob had said was one of the most important parts of the human female. I braced my forepaws on her pelvis bones and lowered my head, lapping at it. A glance told me she might be waking up: my Mistress' face screwed into an expression of sleepy confusion as the rough comb of my tongue stimulated the nub. Her lips parted, her eyelids fluttered, and her arousal skyrocketed.

I watched, pleased, as her body melted beneath me, and climbed further onto her stomach as my own needs awoke. I'll admit, it was awkward at first. Lining everything up was a chore and a half, and when I managed it her eyes popped open with a scream. There had been resistance when I went in, but my hooks had taken care of it, and when she started squirming, one hand reaching out to grab me by the cuff, and I sunk my claws into the soft flesh of her belly, freezing her in place. Her eyes were wide, her chest heavy, and the faint scent of coppery blood mingled with the zing of her own energy. It ripple over me, teasing, and the body wants what the body wants.

Bob was right. She needed this.

A little moan that turned into pain filled his came out of her mouth as I finished up, and I continued my climb. Her body was flush, warm, and I could tell my fur was tickling her in all the right ways so I spread out to cover as much as possible. My forepaws kneaded her breasts, and they squished under my attentions, while I touched my nose to hers. I could taste salt. She had been crying. Unacceptable.

Slowly, as if asking permission, her arms wrapped around me, holding me close, and I snuggled down between her breasts, batting at her nipples. Each contact caused a spike in her arousal, and I knew we were getting there. I licked at the nap of her neck, whiskers tickling her chin, and her body bucked as she squeezed me close, a sense of completeness crashing out and causing all the lights on the street to flicker.

I am that good, and Harry hasn't stopped going to bed nude since.

So, yeah, Mistress -Harry- is mine. My Queen. I have to look out for what's mine, what could have tossed her around like that, but as a rule we cats don't fight another's battle. We aren't pack animals. Still, I may have persuaded a few weaker minions to keep tabs on her, to report when one of the foreigners were causing too much trouble and helping out by knocking over a box or jar or something equally noise making at just the right moment.

And then he showed up. The tiger in human clothing. Oh, I always knew he was around in an abstract sense, but he stuck to human things and as long as he didn't interfere with the politics of the Clowder I didn't concern myself with the Outfit. But then the tabby from fifteenth reported that he rolled up in his shiny black steed and bullied my Harry into it. His minions had been spotted following her. He was trying to poach what was mine. The Gentleman was messing around in Mister's territory, and I would not tolerate it.

I consider it a point of professional pride that he has yet to discover who has been fucking with his security. Some piss here, chewed wires there, and let us not forget the ever popular slashed tires.

But he doesn't bother my Harry anymore, not directly at least, so I count it as a win.

Fic: Hound Days: No Monsters 1/2

[akelios]

Characters: Harry Dresden, Malcolm Dresden, Lea, OCs, John Marcone
Warnings: Character Death, terrorizing and causing harm to a child
Notes: I swear I'll stop writing these. Very definitely not fluffy in spite of being kid!fic.
-

“Hi, Ms. Julie.” I grabbed the back of the front seat and pulled myself into the back seat, shoving my backpack and lunch box over to the far side of the car. “Where's my Dad?”

“He got a call to do some more work over at the retirement home. It's okay that I picked you up, right kiddo? You'll put up with coming to my house and eat some cookies?” Ms. Julie smiled over her shoulder at me as I pushed the seatbelt together until it clicked. The engine coughed back to life and she pulled out of the parking lot.

“I guess.” I grinned and kicked my feet a little. My sneakers bumped against the seat, making it bounce. Ms. Julie made her own cookies and they were a lot better than the ones Dad got from the store. She put chocolate peanut butter cups in the middle of them.

“That's mighty kind of you.” Ms. Julie reached back with one hand and ruffled my hair. I ducked, giggling.

We picked up Ms. Julie's kids and some groceries before heading back to her house.

I liked Ms. Julie and I liked her house. It wasn't like the little place my Dad and I were renting. Her house was a few houses down the street from ours. It was tall and old with lots of sweeps and curls of wood over the doors and windows. It had 'personality', as Ms. Julie said. I thought it looked like someplace that belonged in Dark Shadows. Add a few cobwebs and some graves out back and it could fit right in. It was cool.

“Okay guys. You get a half hour of tv and then homework.” Ms. Julie looked down at all of us, still smiling. She smiled a lot. Sometimes it looked real, other times it didn't. I thought she smiled because she didn't want people to ask her questions. No one asked you questions if you looked like you were happy.

“Yeah, Mom.”

“Yes, Ms. Julie.” I settled myself down on the beanbag chair. The crunch of the beans inside always made me happy for some reason. It was just a happy sound. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. I wiggled down into the bag just to make it crunch some more.

“Harry! Cut it out!” Toby kicked one of their toy cars in my direction. It rolled into my foot and I kicked it back at him.

“Sorry.” I took a bite of my peanut butter and banana sandwich and mushed it up before opening my mouth and sticking out my tongue.

“Goober.” Toby flapped his hand at me and started changing the channels. “Oh! Hey! Mysterious Mysteries is on!”

“Cool.” Dawn dropped to the floor beside me, long brown hair bouncing.

“What's 'Mysterious Mysteries'?”

Both of them turned to look at me.

“Really?”

“Well, he is still a baby and it's a scary show. He's probably not allowed to watch it.” Toby and Dawn exchanged a look. “Yeah. So you're going to have to leave the room, Harry.”

“I'm not a baby! And I- I can too watch it. I watch scary movies all the time. My Dad lets me stay up late and everything. I just haven't seen this one.” I folded my arms over my chest and tried to look grown up and not pouting. I didn't know what the show was about but I wanted to watch it.

They shared another long look. I hated when they did that.

“Well...if you're sure. But you can't cry or get scared. If you get scared and we get in trouble I'll pound you.” Toby smacked his fist into his open palm in illustration. I shook my head.

“I won't get scared. I never get scared!”

The show started out okay. Stories about aliens abducting people and probing them. I asked what 'probing' was. Toby thought it was when they stuck things in your nose and ears. Dawn rolled her eyes and told us we were both too young to know about probing. I thought that meant she didn't know either and just let it go.

The host came back on after the commercial, hands in his pockets as he walked around a doll in a glass box. It was kind of cute looking. Soft and floppy with red yarn hair and a painted on smile.

“A doll. Simple, cute, harmless. A child's toy and best friend.” The host leaned against the table, frowning. “Our last story of the evening is about a doll gone bad.”

It started out okay. A family with a little girl. Then the doll showed up. A present from the grandmother. And then everything went bad. Noises in empty rooms. The doll, Raggedy Ann, would move. I stopped eating my cookies the first time they showed the little doll scratching the neighbor with it's soft, pudgy hands. By the time the doll started choking the little girl in her bed Dawn and Toby had stopped talking and we were all staring at the tv.

I wanted to get up and leave the room. I didn't feel good. The back of my neck was tingly and I thought I was going to feel those little hands on my back any second. That's when she moved. When you had your back turned. None of the people living in the house ever saw her move. She snuck up on them, harmless until they weren't watching her.

“Hey guys. It's time- oh good Lord! Dawn Marie Tremmel! What are you watching?”

One of us yelped when Ms. Julie came into the room. I thought it was Toby, but it might have been me. We all jumped, wincing.

“'M-mysterious-”

“You know better than to watch that trash! Look at the tree of you. White as ghosts.” She stepped over us and flicked the tv off. “Dawn, Toby. Get up to your rooms and start on your homework. I don't want to hear a peep out of either of you until it's all done.” They scrambled to their feet and I could hear them running upstairs. I was still staring at the tv, at my own reflection in it. I did look scared, but I wasn't. It was just a tv show. Monsters weren't real.

“Monsters aren't real, Ms. Julie. My Dad says so.”

“Your dad's right. There aren't any monsters. But that doesn't mean we don't get scared sometimes.” She smiled at me again. The almost-real smile.

~

“DAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDDDD!” I could hear his feet hit the floor in his bedroom next door. He'd be here in a second. Any second.

My hands shook as I pulled the sheets up to my chin and scooted back into the corner. It was better with the walls on my sides. The closet door creaked again, opening a little wider.

“DADDY!”

“Christ Harry, what is it? What's wrong?”

“Monster! It's in the closet Daddy!”

“I thought we talked about this. There's no such thing as monsters.” Daddy turned on the light with a quick movement. The shadows went away, but not the feeling. I was still shaking and the closet door was still open. I'd closed it before I got into bed. I had.

“I know you said, but the closet door is open. I closed it. The monster in there opened it. It's going to come and get me.” I pulled the covers up higher. “It's going to eat me.”

Dad sighed and sat at the end of my bed. I watched the closet door behind him. As long as I kept looking, it wouldn't move. Like the doll. It would only move when no one saw it.

“Harry. There is nothing in that closet but your stinky clothes.” Dad patted my leg through the sheets. “Look.” He got up and opened the closet door all the way. I couldn't see the monster anymore, but the lights were on and we were both looking. So it was hiding. That's what they did. “You see any monsters in here?”

“Nooo...but-”

“No buts. How old are you again?”

“Six.” I sighed and fidgeted. Dad was watching me with the dark shadows under his eyes he got when he was working too much.

“That's right. Six. Old enough to be helping me out with the show, right?”

I nodded.

“And if you're old enough for that then you're old enough to remember that there aren't any real monsters. Not the kind that hide in closets or under beds.”

“But the door-”

“It's an old house Harry, and when they built it they didn't do such a good job.” He closed the door and then stomped on the floor. The door started to open behind him. “See? I did that by stepping on the floor too hard. It's just like the magic tricks in the show. Neat, but not scary. Nothing is ever going to hurt you.” Dad sat back down on my bed and I dove for him, tangled up in my sheets. He laughed and caught me, hugging me tight to his side. “You know I'm right, don't you?”

“Yes.” I wrapped my arms around his stomach. I didn't remind him that there hadn't been anyone in my room to step on the floor before when the door opened. “Can I sleep with you tonight?”

“Sure.” Dad rubbed his hand up and down my back. “Just for tonight though.”

~

“But Dad...”

“No.” Dad pulled my arms from his neck and I slid down to land in my bed. I looked over at the closed closet door really fast and then back to Dad. “You've been sleeping with me all week Harry. Enough is enough. You're a little octopus in bed kiddo and I need some sleep.”

“Check the closet.” I kicked at my sheets and the quilt until I could burrow under them. It made me feel a little better to have the layers between me and whatever might be hiding in my closet.

Dad flipped the light on in the closet and opened the door. Just my clothes and my suitcase. He moved my shirts back and forth on the bar, the plastic hangars clacking together quietly. Nothing.

“See?”

“Under the bed.”

Dad sighed and shut off the light, closing the door behind him. I made sure that I heard it click shut. Dad got down on the floor and looked under the bed. I could hear him patting the floor beneath me with his hand.

“No monsters down here.” He sat up, a little bit of dust on his cheek. I laughed and wiped at it. “Dust bunnies don't count. You ready for bed?”

“You're sure there aren't any monsters?”

“Positive.” He leaned forward and kissed me on the top of my head before I could get out of the way. I wiped at the wetness.

“Daaadddd...”

“Too big for kisses, huh? Then you're way too big for monsters. They wouldn't want to eat you anyway. Too skinny! Not enough meat!” Dad wrapped one hand around my arm and squeezed a little. “Nothing but skin and bones.”

“You promise there're no monsters. Pinky swear.” I held up my hand, pinky out. Dad, smiling, wrapped his pinky around mine and we shook.

“I promise you, there are no monsters. You're safe as can be.” With one last kiss Dad got up and started to leave the room.

“Dad?”

He froze, his hand on the light switch. “Yeah?”

“Hall light?”

“Hall light on, bedroom door open a crack. And I'll have my door open too so I can hear you if you need anything. Ready?”

I laid down and pulled the covers up to the bottom of my chin. I could see the closet door but I didn't stare at it. I didn't want Dad to see me staring. He'd know I was still scared and he really was tired. I could see it and I didn't want to bug him any more.

I listened to Dad's steps as he went into his room. He left the door open, like he promised. I turned my head to stare at the closet door. The monster was in there if it was anywhere. All I had to do was keep looking at it and the monster couldn't do anything. That was how it worked. I would just watch it all night and everything would be fine.

thump

I jumped, my eyes opening to stare into the dark room. It was completely dark. No light at all.

I'd fallen asleep and my bedroom door was closed.

My heart, already jumping in my chest started to go faster, making me sick to my stomach. I was hot and sweaty under the sheets. I'd fallen asleep.

The monster was in my room. I stared as hard as I could, trying to see it, but the room was too dark. It could hide in the dark.

I wanted to call my Dad. Monsters were scared of grownups. But my voice wouldn't work. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. It was dry, scratchy. Tears made my eyes sting. It was going to get me.

pat pat pat

Soft squishy sounds. Under the bed. It had made it all the way under the bed! If I got out it would grab my legs and yank me under and eat me there in that little dark space with the dust.

“Dad...” My voice came out tiny. The noises from under the bed stopped. It knew I was awake now and my Dad couldn't have heard me. I had a second where I thought I saw a round, white hand coming up over the edge of the bed. I jerked away and sat up, my legs getting tangled in the sheets. No more sounds came from under the bed.

I sat, waiting. Maybe me knowing that it was there would be enough. My clock ticked, invisible in the dark. I wrapped my arms around my knees and waited. Once the sun came up it would go away. That's how monsters worked, even this one. It was a rule.

Another big thump came from under me and the whole bed moved, lifting and scratching across the floor with a screech. I screamed, tears making my face hot and sticky.

“DADDY!” I made myself loud, louder than I'd ever yelled before. Silence filled the room after me and I thought the monster was waiting too. Waiting to see if my Dad was coming. There was nothing. No thump of his feet hitting the floor, no running steps or my door flying open.

Laughter came up from beneath the bed. It sounded like Dawn. A happy laugh. I shivered, my arms and legs aching.

“Daddy! Daddy Daddy Daddy!” The monster started to call out from under the bed too, still laughing.

“STOP IT!” I started yelling, trying to drown it out. “StopstopSTOP! Shut up! Go away! You're not REAL!”

More laughter. Deeper now. Not like Dawn at all.

“Oh, silly boy. I'm very real. And I'm going to get you. I'm going to eat you up and your Daddy can't save you. No one can.” A long pause. Now I could hear it breathing, a heavy rasp near the wall at my back. I scooted around on the bed so I could sit more in the middle. “Why don't you come down here? If you come to me I'll make it quick. Just snap your neck. One quick crack and it'll all be done.” Another pause and some wheezy laughter. “If you make me chase you I'll make it hurt. Take you apart a little at a time. Start with your toes.”

My toes curled in on themselves like I could feel its hands on me already.

I tried to think through the shaking and the cold tightness that was squeezing me. It wanted to kill me. It was a monster, so it was good at that. Even though I wasn't supposed to watch scary movies, I knew one thing for sure: monsters lied. I couldn't trust it.

Even if it wasn't lying it was still going to kill me. Dead was dead and it wasn't like tv where people died and got better.

If I stayed on the bed then it would come up and get me. If I got off the bed it would chase me and get me. It was fast. I remembered that from the show. And strong. It had lifted my bed. A scary feeling grabbed my chest and squeezed really hard. Daddy wasn't coming. So I needed to get to Daddy.

I had to run.

I didn't want to run. I really, really didn't want to run. As soon as my feet hit the floor it was going to grab me. But I had to or it would eat me anyway. I didn't have a choice.

The Morning News

[(Anonymous)]

Characters: Issac, Miria, Hendricks
Warnings: None.
Kinks: None.
Baccano! Crossover. My brain wouldn't let it go...


"Wow, look at her!" Miria exclaimed as she clung to Issac's arm. "She's huge! And some guy really rode her through downtown?"

"Indeed he did, my dear Miria." Issac responded solemnly as he tipped his new fedora back and gazed up at the massive structure. "Think of the History this beauty has witnessed, and to be subject to such disrespect..." He tutted, shaking his head.

"Then we must take her!" Miria exclaimed. She stepped over the red velvet marking off the recently re-opened dinosaur exhibit. "Poor thing needs a good, safe home. Issac!"

"Miria!"

The two linked hands and latched onto one of the large leg bones of the standing display. Together, they stroked the white fossil and gave sniffling cries: "Sue!"
---
"Upon this morning's opening of the Field Museum, it was discovered that the beloved Tyrannosaurus Rex, affectionately named Sue, is missing. Despite the increased security since last years vandalism, in which the front doors were blown off and Sue was discovered several miles away in a park, the culprits managed infiltrate the museum dressed as prohibition era gangsters.
"As you can see in this security footage, the two thieves appear to be wielding Tommy-guns firing paint-balls which were used to eliminate most of the cameras..."

Hendricks stared at the screen as the newscaster continued her commentary. He watched grainy tape of a blonde woman and a brunette man. They paused once, coats whirling, and stood back-to-back in an obvious pose for the last security camera, smiling brightly. Hendrick's turned his gaze back to his textbook, and sighed.

His cell phone beeped.

"Yes, Mr. Marcone?"

Christmas Poem

[(Anonymous)]

Characters: Santa Claus
Pairing: None. Warnings/Kinks: None.
Notes: Written for fun. Free Verse.


Dressed in the blood of his enemies,
Chariot faster than thought,
Little folk make up his armies,
Worshipers number - a lot.

He is Legend Incarnate,
A force of nature and belief,
Winter King, no lightweight,
He is Commander-and-Chief.

Santa Claus, Father Christmas
Shengdan Laoren, Papa Noel,
Kanakaloka, Saint Nicholas
True Name long lost to Winter's Hell.

He rules from his Icy Kingdom,
With charity and thought,
Queens sneer at the gifted freedom,
Their power-plays for naught.

[1/1] Grapes on a Vine

[(Anonymous)]

Characters: Nicodemus, Aurora, Elaine, (Harry, Tessa).
Warnings: Non-con, drugged, plotting, slight gore,past traumas,mental conditioning.
Summary: It's Nicodemus' turn to collect Summer's Tithe.

...

Dealing with the star children and their use to the world-ending was something that he and Tess had agreed on and worked on for quiet a few years. He was in the best position to deal with little Margaret’s spawn, so she was to take care of the other one; the Elaine. It was time for the Summer Court’s tithe and Tessa was busy with their home land. Her tenants for brief destruction made him want to cringe but in her short sightenedness, it was up to him to check on the Elaine.

The Summer Court’s hide away was quiet in ways that it normally wasn’t. All their own malevolency was carefully dulled by the sound of every buzzing bee, underneath every bramble. It was a perfect con for those innocent mortal that thought they were going with a better option. Had they paid any attention to the stories collected by a family of Fairy hating wizards, they would know that nearly all their wicked queens and hungry witches came from Summer.

It was Aurora who was waiting for him in the empty room under her blonde human disguise.

“Nicodemus. You will be gentle.” Now there was a surprise. Normally they would sell a spell, an enchantment, anything before one of their own people to their tithe. Aurora continued, “You get her for one time- no harm, no damage. She’s a...We need her skills.” He had heard whispers, of course, or the madness in the younger Fairy Queens. Maeve dancing in time and Aurora did the thinking.

“I will be as prudent as ever.” She nodded and the tree embedded on the stone wall slid open, a body falling out of it graceless and drunkenly stepping. It was the Elaine and she was dressed in the worst ways for modesty.

Some kind of pink cloth wrapped between her legs, swishing and swaying with every fumbled step. Heeled shoes made of the stems of a rose bush- with every impact the heels had to the sodden ground, seedlings spouted up and her chest was bare except for a few necklaces meant to distract from the burn scars around her collar bone. Most of them were still red and blistering. They looked like each wobble of her breasts would rip open the wounds.

“You would offer Hell damaged goods?” Aurora bit her lip and gave him a dark glare. The unnatural green in her yes was flickering behind the glamour.

Elaine was still fumbling towards them and he could see why now. Her eyes were blank. She was so far gone in her mind between the trauma of DuMorne, fairy enchantments, and undoubtedly drugged fruit that a soul gaze was near impossible. The queen made to move and stood on her alter.

“You have one hour with this Star Child. The tithe is repaid.” So she knew.

“You know and yet you let me- us, near her.” The queen stopped and nodded her head gracefully from the face of a youth.

“Perhaps it would all be for the best. Then the cruelty will end as well.” It was the closest anyone had come to getting confirmation of what the deranged little pixie was planning.

“And her?”

“...I am not unkind, Nicodemus Archelone. Do not mistake my necessary evil for it.” She left and sealed the doors. Elaine was there, on her knees, staring vacantly at his noose. Good. Someone with a role this important needed survival skills and self interest even without the will to do so.

He pulled the girl up by her nipples which had become erect in the cold air and the Elaine gasped and starting show the signs of pleasure without any decorum to stop her.

“Now Elaine, how about we do something for those scars? Because you know your Harry didn’t mean it. He wanted to save you. All of this is to save you.” It wasn’t an illusion. When he wiped his hands over her burn marks they were healed, all the way down to her sex. Her stuck to fingers in and petted her hair.

“Harry wanted this for you. He wanted you to be safe like this all the time.” It was time to lay the seeds of their plan. Aurora’s peculiarity meant nothing in the grand scheme of it all.