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Chapter Text

"I really think we should have called Murph." My Blue Beetle had, miracle of miracles, actually made it the entire way across Chicago without dying like road kill in a clanking smoking wreak. Hey at least I had one positive thing going so far tonight!

"I thought you were going to help me?" Dammit I felt like I was really letting Stu down now here.

"I am! Stars and Stones doesn't the fact that I'm wearing this lack of an outfit prove that already!" Did I mention that when he showed up at my apartment earlier to get ready for our little spy outing I had thought it was a handkerchief that he'd pulled out of his pocket. Yeah brief is not even the word here. How real hookers walked around without permanent cases of pneumonia's I'll never know. I know I'm getting a deadly chill just thinking about getting out of the car. I was going to turn into a Harricicle and be used to chill drinks if we didn't move things along here soon. 

" You didn't have to. It's not like I can't do a investigation on my own!" Oh Hells Bells the last thing I need is for him to do is go happily wandering into another dangerous supernatural situation like he's a take-out delivery order for sacrificial victim!

" Magic is dangerous Stu! Real magic, like the kind you were talking about looking for, is not something to mess around with! Even people who have experience in knowing what they're doing can get themselves seriously hurt or overgruesomely killed in cases like this! Things I can't talk about and that you mustn't know about either! And even worse it's also got someone like Marcone involved in it too."

"And that's why you want Lt. Murphy here as well?"

"Murphy's good person to have in your corner."

"Because he knows."

"Well yeah-."

"Because you told him."

"Uh-."

" I remember you telling me once that you don't really keep any secrets from him." Uh......can we go back to the part of this conversation that had made sense?

Stu was looking down at his hands instead of over in my direction. "What am I to you Harry? Really."

What? "What do you mean?" Seriously what? I wasn't really following him whatwith the subject jumping around all over the place like that.

"Harry, have you and Kynan Murphy ever kissed each other?"

?

"No." We hadn't.

"Never?"

"Never." Not like that.

"Not even once? Seriously? Not even a Almost Kiss or a Not Kiss?"

"A what?"

" Where the two people secretly desperate for eachothers' bods and are going to eventually get together stand with their faces close together and look like they're about to kiss but stop themselves sometimes staying standing really close for a meaningful amount of time."

"Huh well that's.....weird. No again," Cause sex... with Murphy. Eeeech no. This was getting more than a bit crazy. Next he'll say someone Marcone or even Cujo secretly want to make me their love bunny! Ugh, over half the things I'd fought would have had to have had the pathetically bad taste to be hankerin for some stretched skeleton romancing if that were true in anything that was actually meant to be real life.   

"Okay."

"Okay what?"

"Just okay."

"Oh, that's good."

"Yes."

Stars and Stones I'll never understand this 'couple talk' stuff!

"You said the shoes came from your godmother? So why did she think that you'd want to wear a wedding dress to go see Marcone in the first place anyway?"

Hells Bells I wished I'd never told him about that disastrous waste of time!

Especially when I don't think I'd be able to explain it in a way that won't make it come out sounding totally all wrong and a lot less innocent and understandable than the circumstances actually were.

That was also same reason I had not to tell him about that very different kind of  incident between Murph and I that we had back right after we first met and were still becoming friends were we really decided on who we were and who we'd be to each other.

And also what we wouldn't let destroy us.

Chapter Text

 Stu didn't say anything more for a few minutes after that.

Leaving me to not contemplate about fay godmothers who'd gone several times round the bend years ago after something took out a couple of sidhe courts while we were supposedly visiting there. Or frighteningly competent mob bosses who'd probably purr( like Mister does when he catches some poor mouse) from the bottom of their cold steel and compartmented soul at the chance to get me in their claws. Or about shrimpy police lieutenants who could and would put a roomful of riled up toughs down for the count. 

Kynan Murphy was a tiny blond Napoleon who stood at only nearly half my height, who had the looks people always imagine their teen idols should grow up keeping, and physical defense capabilities of a young bad tempered Yoda. 

We'd changed eachother's lives. He was one of my first real connections I made after becoming a wizard PI (the only one in the phonebook. Office hours nine to five... at least theoretically. No endless purses and such yadda yadda ). Well okay really ever in all actuality. He became my friend when by all rights he should have probably shot the crazy person caught breaking in at one of his crime scenes( that was me in case you didn't catch it). He did toss me out the first three times, right on my boney little ass, but he also listened to what I was saying. Good thing to couse it saved our lives later the same night. We bonded over the weirdness of the world and our mutual anger issues. He took the flack from his higher ups and the jeers of his so-called peers about me.

And I in turn did the same. In what had to be the dumbest suicidal defiance of the wizarding  laws ever recorded ( Hey I'm just good that way).

It had happened right after we had first started working together and had just finished up with a real nasty scene( and believe me you don't want to know what it had looked like). Both of us feeling the need to go do something to just help forget the whole episode. So we went drinking( he did most of the buying since my cash flow was no go).

We had just watched two former life-long friends and partners kill one another by literally tearing eachother apart four hours earlier when he'd looked up from his drink asking "Do you ever get the feeling that things that haven't even happened yet have already gone wrong before? Like we're living other people's failures?" And Hells Bells he'd been so damned melancholy saying it. And the scariest thing at the time was I had known exactly what he meant!

We'd both been drunk at the time but still. He wasn't supposed to be talking to me like that. We needed to keep a distance between us. Keep from getting to close and crossing boundaries that would surely get us both beheaded. I had known I needed to destroy that moment of wrongness.

So I reflexively naturally pulled out my big guns. My stupid mouth.

Nothing came out.

Stars and Stones, we had just come from seeing what secrets and lies coming between two people could do!

And Murphy's eyes. Looking at me so knowing, expectantly, and  completely miserably resigned. I'd seen beings who'd lived millions of years who's eyes hadn't been so anciently sad. He looked like some kind of tragic silently grieving angel ( one of the compassionate kinds not the self-righteous or self-absorbed snob variations).

Ghostly pain burned up through my hand and arm like the memory of magical fire while icy phantom blades seemed to prickle my spine serving to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up in well honed instinctive alarm at the weirdness.

So instead of protecting and saving both our lives my mouth lost it's mind and I found myself spilling all of my secrets, about me and about everything else I knew, out to Murphy ( thankfully we ended up relocating to my place before we got to the stuff that had Murph threatening to murder people from my past).

Afterwards there had been some embarrassingly puppy-like nuzzling/cuddling absurdness..... that we are never ever going to speak of cause it is completely unimportant and entirely forgotten about anyway!

Naturally the White Council took that as grounds for removing our heads from our bodies with very big swords.

You'll note I obviously got a reprieve on the whole 'off with their heads' ruling.( Good thing too since I doubt it would be a good look on either one of us).

They're still a little ticked about that.

Or maybe a lot.     

Morgan, my overenthusiastic would-be executioner, had probably cried and pouted for weeks after. He didn't really get over the idea of wanting me in separate pieces until after that whole Sells incident with the Third-Eye drug.

When I had my first run-in( make that dragged into a mobster's car) with Macone.

Who's place I probably should get to sneaking into.   

Chapter Text

Stepping out of the car proved interesting. I'd worn my own boots for the drive over but as soon as I was standing with both feet on the ground Lea's magic took effect switching( not transforming) my nice broken-in old cowboy boots for a couple of pillared pedestals.

Whoa! Stars and Stones I think I got a head rush from the insanely high elevation I've been shot up to here! And before you say anything, the reason I was letting Lea provide the crazy footwear even after her psychedelic trip into bridal gown obsession( I really should visit her more often I think maybe she might be lonely) was the very simple, if painful, discovery that ,without complex magical aid, me and heels don't mix any better than oil and water do. I had to look used to them and I also needed to be able to move in them normally. Hence faerie godmother costume provisions.

Well at least they were boots still.

Black, tall, high ones that went up the entire length to the tops of my legs and had looping chains of sparkly stuff wrapped around all over. But still boots. So there was the possibility that some parts of me weren't going to wind up like frozen tv dinners in all this.

This was all Stu's fault!

Hells Bells, why couldn't I play my part with nice warm clothing and my nice warm, not to mention bulletproof, floor-length duster! Okay yeah, I do actually know why....I just wished I we had come up with a better plan that didn't involve making me into a laughingstock. Nobody who looks at me would buy that people'd pay money to be with me a better bet is they're going to think I'm buying. Hopefully they don't ask for the money up front or whatever since I don't actually possess any pockets to actually turn out here! We're talking 'I've seen swimsuits that weren't this brief' territory here. Good or not it was completely wasted being on this living coatrack. But then I was only really truly interested in it making me look less Harry Dresden like enough to get past the bouncers or whatever since I'm pretty sure I've been banned from setting foot in any more of Marcone's establishments considering my tendency blow things up when exposed to the irritation of exposure to smug know-it-all crimelords. I know, its just a thing I have.

Like a reporter boyfriend with a tendency to think about nothing beyond getting his latest story....aw crap!

"Stu!" I hauled bootie. No way. We were not going to have a repeat of vampire shin-dig fiasco again! Nu Uh nope! I don't care if I do get into more than enough troubles all on my own! ( And huh is that what it is that attracts us to eachother- our common tendencies for biting off more than we can chew while simultaneously sticking a foot in a trap? ).

"Its my story Harry. Its my life."

Yeah and it could cost you your life! " Well you can't publish it if you're dead!" Stars and Stones, don't be stupid here Stu! " I'm the one doing this Stu. Not you. I'm the one here who can find the thing and deal with it. And I'm the one with the magic mojo. So please for once wait out here wouldja!"

For a frighteningly long moment it looked like the jerk was going to argue. Thankfully the moment passed. "Fine. But no skipping details! You're going to tell me everything after you get back!"

" Got it chief!" Thank the stars that's one disaster diverted!

"That's my girl reporter!"

Hey! I'm not Lois Lane! If anyone's that reckless busybody here it's him!

Shooing his back, as subtle as a mime in a slapstick performance might be exaggerating it only a bit, I approached the low, dark, angular building that took up a couple of blocks worth of space. Not one of Marcone's more subtle instances here either then.

Hells Bells, here's hoping I'll have headroom.

And just to be on the safe side I'm taking the back way in through the gardens. If I was a secret entrance that's were I'd hide. 

Chapter Text

So you know that part where the reason I had gotten all dressed up in stupid clothes was in order to hopefully fool the security checks?

Yeah well, it turned out the place didn't seem to have any. Sure there looked like there was some kind of Hosting/ Maître Dee Station inside the glass doors in the front but what I wanted was the hidden speak-easy the super secret rooms, the illegal gambling and prostitution den, some place were Vohnni'd hide stolen magical goods!

I knew this should be the right place since all the magical pointers were still locked on to it like heat seeking missiles on a nuclear furnace....Or me on a steak, oh Hells Bells were the smells coming from the kitchen ever good! My stomach ever the optimist rumbled like a passing jet. Hey wizarding happens to use a lot of energy from a person alright. It wasn't like I was starved or anything. I eat.....usually....somewhat regularly. Hells Bells it's not like I don't ever eat not with Murphy or Michael and Charity around ensuring that I'm doing so as their own joint hobby. Okay resisting the temptation of criminal cuisine here! It's not like I'm not used to it after all. Things that are tempting are the things you need to hold out against the strongest. Like anything that happens to do with Marcone....

Who's new sneaky security trick is having complicated art deco hobbit houses with no locatable back doors! Don't tell me I'm going to have to go through the front after all that!! Hmmm, I didn't detect any confusion or misdirection spells when I stepped onto the property. Only some weirdness with the wards. Somebody magically enhanced the naturally existing ones...only they weren't all that great at it since I went through without the slightest bit of resistance what-so-ever. That'll teach Marcone not to hire some shoddy third-rate practitioner. As opposed to a shabby expert practitioner like me.....wait what? Anyway it was sloppy work. And so much for her attempted sweet-talk trying to get me to sign myself over to her and her evil criminal empire if she's going to be so quick to turn around and seduce some other wizard! That'll teach that scumbag not to fall for the easy conquests that lay themselves at her feet happily surrendering themselves to that soft sultry voice,.... and those gently supportive hands, ...and bewitching money colored eyes....Er. Uh. Not that I care! I don't even want her interested in me! I'm glad she's moved past me!.....Oh shut up about it already!   

So after tromping through every foot of the garden. Where no I did not get distracted by the pretty night-time rainbows the lighting made in the fountain! I don't know what you're talking about! Besides, you can't prove it anyway!

And huh, would you look at that! They have local fantasy clubs' meetings and stuff held here? Cool! I  moved on but not before I snagged a couple pamphlets. I knew the Alphas would be interested in it too.

Finally I spotted a guy to tail back in. And if I hadn't been sure with him the woman with two barely clad girls, as well as an equally undressed boy, would have cinched it. Stars and Stones how does that work? And as to why everybody seemed to be arriving together with their 'dates' I haven't the foggiest after all aren't you supposed to go to the brothels first and then meet the something sweets there?

What do ya know, it turns out that Chicago's underground was operating underground. As in being in the basement!

Nearly blew my cover with someone taking a smoke break( but I was able to fool them with my quick brain...and even quicker feet) before I was final in and back on course.

A tad more sleuthing scored me Marcone's office- a place guaranteed to win awards in blankness of décor.

I started running into problems as soon as I realized I was going to have to figure out just how I was supposed to bend and twist to reach things in boots that high and two black band aid strips masquerading as a top and skirt. Even without possessing stuff to pop out I was in danger of popping out of my clothes!

I had just been tying to work out the gymnastics/ yoga move of searching a low lying drawer, that seemed to involve bending completely at the waist and sticking my ass strait up in the air( without getting too much of a wedgie from the damned dental-floss undies - because ouch!), when I heard the door handle turn...

And I went down like a radio tower which had too many support cables that had gotten snapped suddenly. I ended up an ungraceful sprawl on the floor and looking up at a group of people that of course included Marcone.

'Genteel' Giovoahnnia Marcone. There is also the unvoiced addition of 'Don' or 'Donna' as a title to the front of her name. And if you don't know what that means let me put it this way- Chicago's organized crime all call her 'Boss'.

To me though she looks more like she should be a athletics teacher. One of those former cheerleaders who was naturally and gracefully ageing very well. There was only a trace of grey in her black/brown hair making it appear more like deliberately added highlights rather than a sign of ageing. But she was someone who had fought, and killed, and schemed her way to the top of the criminal network and still keeps her edges sharp. She has more muscle than I do and she's as quick and deadly with a knife as with a gun. She's very like a royal kind of fay actually ( Stars and Stones even the 'Genteel' label is reminiscent of the fay's 'Lords and Ladies'). It's really no wonder she found herself a way to became the Baroness of a freeholding lordship in the magical society. More impressively, for some people anyway, is how much better she's been at keeping down the violence in the city than the police ever could have( much to Murphy's irritation) and had even managed to come in handy in face-offs with malicious magical makers attempting another apocalypse. I'd seen into her soul the first time we met ( I'm still mad at her for that if anyone cares) and as much as what I saw scared me it would be a lie for me to claim her as evil. A steel mind and a tiger soul inside an expensive business suite. You may think that sounds like a lot of other people but it's truer in this case.

Speaking of suites that's what she was standing above me wearing while I was busy being face to toe with the low charcoal colored shoes, with low heels like thumbtacks( or needles), that she had on. Oh that's so not fair! Why couldn't I have gotten something low like that! Though on second thought those heels really were too very thin I'd never be able to walk in them either! Wow she must really have good balance to go along with those great legs of hers......well she does they're all shapely and smooth, unlike my long sticks, a person can't help but note that she's built like a Superheroine or a Victoria's Secret model the unfairness of it all won't let you! Huh that reminds me did Lea ever tell me how I go about getting these suckers off at some point?

Being the expert multitasker that I am I didn't actually need to think before I open my mouth. Its a natural independent automatic function that I've just been blessed to be in the ownership of. And Marcone is one of the strongest triggers for setting it off. The second that no-good appears- instant full on snark.  Plus Marcone was looking particularly criminal like to me at that moment, even without the extras from the cast of a Humphrey Bogart noir, more suspiciously lawyer-ishy( like she had the first time she had me shoved, okay gently but firmly escorted, into the backseat of her black car) less the usual Bonny and Clyde, Great Gatsby, Haute Couture Minutely, Town& Country, or the hundreds of other ways I'd seen her look before( including casual blue-collar average........and tortured and half dead but we're so not going to go into that.... ever)

And the fucking bastard goes and kisses my hand of all things!

Whoa! Weeee! Nice save there Vohnni I really wasn't looking forward to my face painfully meeting the floor. In fact its something I like to avoid even though it doesn't always want to avoid me. When she also addressed me as dear I knew there was a problem. Hells Bells the last thing I needed was dealing with Marcone being under some spell!

Its always fun when I have to ask someone that..... No not really!

Yeah, still thinking spell here, cause I don't think she even answered. Did she answer? I really wasn't sure I was too busy being unable to stand up. That's it! These boots are coming off now! 

And then Vohnni went down on her knees in front of me.

Uh!

Hands. On. Legs. Marcone's hands on my legs! Uh, eep!

I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS! WHAT THE HELL AM I SAPPOSSED TO DO HERE?

So would you believe me if I told you I was just acting to confuse the onlookers? No? Damn!.....Okay so yeah I stood there and panicked like a confused clueless idiot. Only tougher! And stronger! ...Oh forget it. Just don't tell anyone!

Marcone's hands slowly glided down both my legs.

It felt rather nice really...kind of tickled.

A bit...mmm...mesmerizing.....  

Chapter Text

Balance.

I was taking respite in my own gardens. When I found myself contemplating of it as a rain droplet resting upon the leaf of a flower struck my muse.

Balance. There must be always some balance.

Tis where the royalty of my kind went amiss.

One can trick the living, erase the record, cheat every factor, yet still it can end all for naught.

Those foolish tales the mortals tell to scare themselves with horrors that never stay defeated by the sake of their maliciousness lie. For there to be that possibility is to also allow for the existence of its opposites and counterpoints as well.

Not to say there is always comprehendible measurings to it. No this for that.   

As the queens who ruled my kind played merry with to deride others.

In the end it was mostly themselves they fooled to their own detriment.

For in doing so their conduit as living embodiments twas corrupted foully. 

So through my godchild thee elements did withdraw their support breaking contribution and rebounding back against them.

Leaving behind nothing but a rare scattering of a race.

And I with my freedom.

Having only to suffer now the burden of being in possession of that bit of conscience and sentiment that Maggie and her child decided to foster upon me.  

And yes I was aware of happenings. There are always those who seek to cry foul of life insisting fate has wronged them, or more laughably has too been cheated, in needs to satisfy their justifications of their own selves and of their destines for revenge. 

My sweet little Harry has greater concerns that needs must be addressed. As like- think shouldest thou bridewear possess a hundred yards of trailings in the train or be it more? For it wouldst not do for it to be less than grandest in all the lands! As she be my godchild I must guarantee her wedding be thus.

Since mortals be peculiarly insistent on that partaking in such ceremonies must proceed the producing of offspring....   

Chapter Text

The building facing me was old.

Like seriously old. An early twenty-first century that sat on the corner of the street like forgotten storage trunk, that had belonged to a deceased grandparent, sitting in the back corner of someone's attic. Only here somebody had went and left behind something that was a little more lively, at least figuratively, than old undergarments after they died.

Interestingly enough everyone I'd talked to all had a pretty certain idea who the ghost haunting the place was.... too bad they couldn't seem to agree with eachother on it....or who had killed her....or even 'what' she had been exactly...

It was just another one of those type of cases.

Being the only wizard P.I. in the phonebook I get a lot of unusual cases, and prank calls, and even ones that end up crossing back and forth over the lines between the mortal and the magical worlds.

And this one was from the beginning obviously going to be messy. Good thing messy is my natural state of being. Also naturally it meant it was a pro-bono.

Actually it started out as something that I just so happened to have stumbled upon while doing a bit of legwork on another previous, and wonder of wonders, paying job.

And according to the information I'd gotten from Murphy the case I was digging up was a cold file nicknamed The Mobster's Cinderella Murders. Catchy title wasn't it? Someone sure had a flare for something to come up with a name like that for it.

But my sources from the magical side of things were of the opinion the deaths were of some obscurely rare fay beings in a sacrifice intended to try to ensure they and their powers would live on.

Yeah that made no sense to me either.

So I had spent an afternoon With the file from Murphy after she'd dropped it off at my office mostly concluding that a couple of pictures of the remains of a gun and a shoe in a heaping pile of charred ashes in the center of an otherwise untouched room, and a mostly blank report does not for easy research make. Stars and Stones the pictures themselves were the only physical evidence there even was a crime!

Well, the pictures, and half forgotten urban legends from denizens of both sides of the veil.

Faced with those dead ends I did what any smart investigator would do.

I went back to find the ghost.

My first sighting had been only of her shoes, looking a lot better than they had after being charbroiled, standing by themselves in a corner before fading as they walked away seemingly by themselves. If I had to guess I'd say that was probably where someone oh-so originally got the 'Cinderella' part from. They were a old-fashioned pair of shiny red hot glowing strappy type things with soles, that looked like those core samples geologists like showing off, much higher than any others I've ever seen before on anyone. And yes I would know that as a matter of fact. I am a detective after all. I'm supposed to be observant and notice details Stars and Stones its not like I could rattle off exact styles and designers' names, or even why shoes have designers, or anything. But fancy stuff is ...uh fancy and if the glitz isn't just glitter and cheap plastic rhinestones then it apparently fits the bill. Who says you can't learn anything important flipping through magazines at the checkout counter. Plus maybe a little of it might possibly be a tiny bit from hanging around John too much and all those vibes from the society pages crowd are wreaking havoc on my inborn good taste. ( And speaking of Marcone and being crowded I really needed to do something about the couple of human mastiffs doggin me before I went inside...like maybe tie their leashes to a lamppost and tell them to stay.)But not even the stilted shoes I'd seen on some of Johnny's employees and in a few other um places, (What! I'm not blushing you're just imagining things so stop it!) had anything that came near to matching this particular pair.

A good hint, stupid though it might seem, that the woman really had been a fey. Before she became the ghost.

John's muscle men tried to make with the secret service act when I moved to head into the place. I damn well nipped that in the bud strait off!" Oh no, bad hulks! You two stay out here and wait for me like good boys!" 

They didn't like being told that and tried to argue with me about it... even though they should have already known what a lost cause that was.

I left them to their arguing over who would be the one to make the call in like they thought it would be their execution or something. Wow some people can be such drama queens....

" Oh no, you're gonna tell Mr. Hendricks that the Boss' husband went into the haunted place without us!"  

Chapter Text

 I was dreaming of Harry.

That in and of itself was far from unusual. There had once been a time when my dreams were the only non-confrontational contact I had with him. And even in those that wild free treasure deserved nothing less than admiration and care not subjugation and objectification. I am not a good person. I am in fact a very bad man. I know my sins and acknowledge my failings- even if only to myself and a few most trusted souls. The world can be cruel and needs the necessary evils like myself as a barrier to protect the innocent from the unnecessary and truly evil. I desired to possess that beautiful pure goodness that was Harry Dresden from the moment I had laid eyes on him in person but to be in anyway the cause of even the barest dimming of that inner light inside my mortal angel of untamed nature and magic  would have been irredeemable atrocity. He was a wonder untouchable and unobtainable since to be captured and brought to anyone's heel would be to destroy his strong fierce nature snuff out that miraculous life inside leaving only a empty doll a hollow spiritless automation. I am not so much of a monster as to condone such wasteful depravity. I especially couldn't bear the thought of Harry so reduced. So for both our sakes I was forced to practice a severe amount of abstinence.

This did not prevent me from otherwise staking my claim on him to others out of the necessity of Harry's quite evident need for as many strong allies as possible against the enemies he seems to attract around every corner.

Watching him was like watching a small bird striking a windowpane. Worse he went from one false image to the next being battered by their illusion of peace and safety a false ideal even knowing they were mostly lies. but seeming to him as if they were all placed deliberately in order to batter him and bring him low even as he desperately strove to avoid the cruel poachers traps and snares laid out in wait for him. To him I was just another monster trying to trick him into his own destruction.

 I have made my opinions of poachers plus the dealers and buyers who finance the trade clearly known. They are some of the lowest form of scum  who are robbing the future inorder to produce pathetically trite petty displays of what they assume shows wealth, power, and privilege but in truth emphasizes their own lack of any true value and the uselessness and idiocy of their very existences. 

But like that injured wildlife Harry wouldn't trust my touch and had feared it even when I was helping him.

In the beginning it had seemed that my having him would only ever be in my dreams.

He is mine now. For as long as he'll have me. I'll remain his forever. Though our time together is drawing too quickly to it's close I will not forfeit even a second of what remains. I have already lived longer and found more peace and happiness than a man of my sort has any right to.  I was never one to fool myself otherwise no matter what those who seek to be in opposition of me otherwise tend to claim.

It's no longer necessary to dream. Having him in my life and in my arms is beyond anything imagination could have conceived.

With dusk settling into the evening I was content, still savoring my memory of that very morning with the sight of the sun's first rays rising to illuminate the most beautiful endless lines of horizon to ever exist comfortably snoring against my side, and looking forward to some after dinner relaxation with Harry once we were both home.  

 I will not blame age for my unintentional lapse into slumber for I have never found the unfortunately necessary chore of doing paperwork stimulating.

 Especially over five strait hours worth of it.... 

Chapter Text

I have never once considered Harry to be in any way a woman. He is entirely male as my frequent thorough exhaustive examinations of every perfectly wondrous inch of him give me every authority to be able to attest to the fact. And false stereotyping or gender discriminations were never vices I was foolish enough to succumb to... and another set of issues that are currently trying to be used against me once again by some shall we say intrusive parties...

But no matter.

The Harry, and it was undoubtedly Harry that rather prominent noir flavor and constant commentary was rather distinct, in this particular dream was apparently female. And narrating the scene while I only took in the images.

A illustrated card, Tarot, if I'm not mistaken, loomed large framing the image of her standing there dressed in sunlight and starlight white.

" The Bride and The Empress. Well more like 'The Beloved', 'The Bride', The World, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Empress, and The Mage all together cause apparently you have a ridiculously over the top interpretation of things. Queen/Lady/Knight/Maid/Page/Sage of the Wydfey and Courtfay of Nature Spring/ Summer/ Fall/ Winter/ Spirit/ Fire/Wind/ Water/ Stone.....Hells fucking Bells this is absurd! How about more like overwhelmed out of their depth chump stuck in someone's idiotic delusion.....!" 

First in a, rather distracting, chiffon strapless baby-doll mini-dress with a jewel encrusted band a the bustline. Which preceded to morph into a long gown with skirtings and veils that flowed down past her feet to puddle and pile in endless heaps of trailing garment trains that went on to disappear off in the distance like snow covering all the land in sight. The material then proceeded to darken to strong hued bright and rich colors of reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, purples, pinks, browns, and even greys and black with patterns of plants and animals, rocks and flames, water and clouds taking shape. The familiar pentacle was on her brow, instead of on her neck, above which sat a rather Art-Nouveau climatic masterpiece of a intricate crown shaped like a massive twisted tangle of vines, branches, and antlers.

Though I found the my focus glued more to her remarkably quite heavily pregnant state and the wedding ring shaped like a miniature model of Chicago encircling the correct finger on her left hand.

The always endearing flush of shy pink that stained her cheeks was also worthy of notice.

So like my own Harry. Fierce pride and satisfaction at my good fortune rose up in a particularly strong swell of emotion..

"Alright scumbag, enough with the gloating about it already!" That fiery temper was that same tone of outrage that was so entertaining to kiss away...

" Whoa! No slipping into sexual fantasies!"

The echo of gunfire had me spinning around in alarm as everything around me changed.

The female Harry passed by me stepping into the new setting. Soot covered and singed she was now barefooted while whatever kind of dress she had on was now an indistinguishable blackened tatter. She was half cradling one arm in a manner I knew meant Harry trying not to draw attention to a significant injury there. And there was blood. On her chest. On her face. In her hair. Dribbling from the corner of her mouth.

The sight of it infuriated me. I wanted nothing more than to obliterate whatever piece of garbage it was that that had dared to do such a thing to Harry.

She was the only thing moving as she glided through a scene that could have otherwise been a painted image of the dark interior of a quiet nightclub.

"It was the black velvet of latest night, you know. The club had wound down from being a social spotlight of happenings for the who's who that were in town to being a clandestine, insolated, private seclusion type thing for those who still remained tucked away behind curtains of shadows in silken secluded corners.

Loki, draped in emerald green was no longer up on stage playing sultry siren but slinking around up at the bar with Tony Stark and Bruce Banner discussing breakthrough ideas in magical and scientific mergers.

Lex Luthor was in a sheath dress entirely of layers of black diamonds ,worth several times more than the national debt, that sparkled brightly in complete contrast to the matte black of the pistol in her hand.

 Lois Lane was busy not coming to grips with witnessing Clark Kent being lovey-dovey over the business tycoon that her need to be self-righteous fuels her to villianize.

But none of them mattered at that moment.

Marcone had taken a guy down with the wicked sharp point of her shoe's thumbtack heel only a moment ago....While I had just gone and gotten myself murdered. And it all started when Marcone's phone rang-."

My office intercom jolted me to violent wakefulness.         

Chapter Text

The place was as quiet as a grave...heh, sorry I couldn't resist. But really it was completely silent in there. And before you start thinking it no it wasn't draped in shrouds of cobwebs, covered in layers of graffiti and grime, nor did it have things like broken floors and ceilings, focalized remains of destroyed furniture, alarming creaks and moans, or any of the other horror staples and renovation nightmares. This legendary money pit had in fact been after almost a century of neglect and avoidance been boughten  fixed up and worked on....only to be abandoned again uncompleted. By five different buyers in a row. That right there is enough for anyone to be able to tell there was something really wrong with it. Even old boxes in forgotten corners get brushed off and rummaged through occasionally before being deemed a impossible effort again.

Buyer number six, and the current owner, was someone I happen to know so I would have gotten around to doing this sooner or later anyway.

It was nearly finished. The deadline for it's opening was coming up pretty soon. And the workers were far enough ahead of their schedules, as strange and unbelievable as that sounds, that they had all been able to leave for the day hours ago. 

I was all alone in there....or at least I should have been- in the physical sense anyway.

Oh stars but this was oddly enough reminding me way to much of this one really weird dream I'd had....and that is never ever a good thing!

"Hello? Can you hear me? Is there anyone in here?" Yeah okay so calling for the ghost like that sounds a bit lame. But what else was I going to say? Stars and Stones it not like I can go around shaking a box of ghost-treats going 'Here, ghosty-ghosty! Come to Uncle Harry!' like it was a cat or something- that doesn't even work with my actual cat! He just ignores me even more deliberately in apparently an attempt to let the rest of the world know that there is no way he has any accossiation with the embarrassing crazy person.

Okay seriously if it suddenly starts to snow in here then I'm going to know I'm in reality actually asleep somewhere having that dream again....and I really don't want to because Hells fucking Bells it was...horrible.

In the beginning of it was just cold dead grey all around everyway you looked. Snow and ash. Hard and dry as dust. Laying undisturbed until my movements made it stir. Made it drift away from the bodies and uncovering them. Then there was color....blood red to be exact. John....John was there....and-and oh gods and goddesses, stars, bells, stones, and fucked-up hells John!..... It would have taken more than damned werewolves to do that kind of damage to a person....

The steady tapping sound there I didn't remember...Oh right I was at the haunted renovation project wasn't I? John is safe at home now probably , being very much alive, and I have no time to be spooked by bad visions when I have an appointment with a ghost!   

Chapter Text

The sounds of shoes clicking steadily closer echoed eerily in the vacant building. Unnaturally amplified by supernaturalism's sound effects department probably cause stones forbid anything gets missed on the checklist of dramatics. The only thing missing was the mood music. I would have hummed something just to make it all complete but with my tone deafness, and my luck, it would be the thing that spooks my phantom target back to it's hidey-hole where it would take forever to dig it out again. 

And no matter how relieved I was at having someone else's leftover traumatized ectoplasmic echo to take my mind off....uh other stuff so I wasn't standing there looking like I was some idiotically warped version of a terrorized damsel from some cheap gothic horror that some joker who doesn't recognized my steely stance and ....uh yeah we'll just move along skipping the part that makes me sound like I got traumatized by the awfulness in some itty-bitty dream shall we? Right! Okay!

So anyway next thing I knew there was this woman standing right in front of me.

Hells Bells! I hate it when they do that! Damn good way to get accidently fricasseed by me. I caught myself in time not to though. I would point this out as leading to a wonderful lowering of the current tension in the situation of the sudden confrontation.....except it didn't, at all.

 Especially since she was pointing a very big hand gun, from my perception anyway, at my head at the time.

Not that I wasn't sure I could have gotten a shield up or something before any shot hit or anything...pretty sure anyway....okay mostly...a bit. So the two of us just stood there looking at each other for a moment. Her at the tall scruffy guy in a full-length wild west cowboy style duster pointing a mismatched pair of sticks at her ( those naturally being my staff and my blasting rod in case you haven't already guessed that). Me at what just had to be some female mobster that could've just have stepped right off a movie screen. It was the charcoal pinstripe business suit combined with the gun that did it, in all honesty, there was just something about it that screamed 'organized crime' to me. She had long dark hair lightly touched with either grey or highlighting. A faintly Mediterranean coloring. Must have stood a little over six feet tall even without those metal-tipped shoes of hers, they were low pin-heeled things that you'd think should probably have been a real hassle to stand and walk in but she didn't seem to be having any issues with them, that had made such a dramatic sounding entrance for her already. So probably not our ghost. Or any ghost for that matter. Oops. Eyes that were a distractingly interesting shade of green.....

Stars and Stones! I knew those eyes!

Somebody made one of those 'Guess what? I'm behind you!' noises that obnoxious people use when they've got the drop on you. And Hells Bells damn do I ever hate hearing it! Cause you know I get it waaay to often. And sure enough I had a newcomer to the party towering over me from over my left shoulder positioned smartly in place were my former blind spot had been for our little Mexican stand-off and out of the other woman's direct line of fire. Oh these two were good or should I say bad. Now given that I'm six foot nine in my socks most people that I run into that are taller than me are either (A) Thugs or (B) Supernatural Beings. In this case my bet was firmly on thug....er make that supernatural thug given the whole hell of a lot of power I could sense coming off of her......and why the hell hadn't I been able to feel it before now? Oh well that's life- at least mine anyway.

Her dark hair was short and choppy, like some kind of anime character, near chin-length at her ears and angled sharply upward into a really short cut at the nape of her neck. Her skin was the same unrealistically fair as many kinds of fay, and almost as effortlessly alluring as her companion's honey gold tones, but her more shadowed but equally human eyes were dark. She had on one of those thick expensive overcoats, a dark charcoal colored one to match her buddy's shoes or something, with the sleeves rolled up all the way to the elbows, exposing skinny bare arms, and that cut off at the bottom above not only her bare feet but bare knees as well....which seemed rather strange but what do I know.

" So where were you going to claim Marcone suddenly gets a twin sister from?" 

Chapter Text

" And by Marcone you mean?" Vohnni's lip twitched and I couldn't imagine what she could find so entertaining about being threatened by some strange beanpole wizard, cause I was like seriously way taller and that was my job dammit, in some over-a-warped-rainbow looking glass place where the newspaper dates were uh lets say significantly worrisome... 

"Me."

I did not yelp. Sure the unexpected addition of someone else to our little impromptu get together was alarming. And stars didn't anyone ever teach that guy the dangerous no-no's  of sneaking up and startling people who had loaded guns in their hands! But don't worry since I'm a highly trained professional badass magical slayer of monsters after all so there were no accidental outbreaks of gunfire....and really it was more of a growl. 

" And I would appreciate it if you would cease pointing your guns at my husband." The newcomer was a big man not as in fat but nicely solidly muscled without being in steroids and bodybuilder territory( uh like the looming masses that just appeared in up behind him into view like mountains from a cloudbank... uh oh).  The strong supportive mature outdoorsy-tanned type that belongs in heroic dramas and family films. In casual clothes that had to cost a hundred times more than mine( okay five or six hundred) and a calm familiarness with a situation that involved people waving a bunch of weapons around that told me he probably wasn't Father Knows Best.     

"Of course." I watched Vohnni glance at and behind the only- looks- like- a- poster- guy- for- mature -dating-sites at the mountain topped with red hair at his back. Something in her expression changed causing her to relax and lower her own gun.

Wait what? Okay that's-! Really? Sure we were out numbered a bit but it wasn't like that was anything to make a big deal about. I know I never do. And sure Mr. Wizard was packing some major mojo but if I'd had any foci or better yet my full arsenal like he does and I mean exactly like he does cause he's got all...uh....wha-....you have got to be kidding-....oh Hells Bells seriously!

And what the hell did Citizen Cain over there mean by husband? What husband? Who's husband?

" Harry."

"What?!" Okay whoa wow stereo double speaker effect!...Oh.

Chapter Text

REMEMBER ME JOHN

I BET YOU THOUGHT YOU'D GOTTEN RID OF ME

I DON'T LET GO THAT EASY

YOU'RE MINE

I WILL HAVE YOU

EVEN IF I HAVE TO REMOVE YOUR LITTLE SPOUSE

Marcone,

You will cease your interfering my business immediately or I and notable suporters will be forced to take actions of our own.

                                                                  Mr. Marcone. You are foolishly meddling in that which is far beyond mere mortals such as you...

                          What a lovely little trinket he is

                           too good for he likes of you!

                          Johnny darling you nasty thing! You better give me your answer soon before I show you that my threats are not at all idle !

Chapter Text

Huh. Well this was different. And by that I mean a big WTF! Why do I always get landed with stuff that makes normal wizardry seem boring and tame! It should be like statisticly impossible or something shouldn't it?

"Giovoahnnia Marcone of Chicago... in the year two thousand fourteen." Which could have sounded even odder except that it showed she was aware that it wasn't exactly were she was now.

Okay so not just a simple double case of the old long lost never heard of twin sister thing then.

" John Marcone also of Chicago. It is now quite a few year after that. Over a century actually." John was smiling his friendly , totally smarmy,( no I will not embarrass myself by going weak in the knees at the sight of it when the damn thing isn't even directed at me) charming smile and shaking her hand like they were introducing themselves to eachother at the yacht club or something! And Ms. Marcone was looking back at us with the same analyzing gaze he was giving the ladies. Something inside me lurched a little. Sharp little ice crystals that had set up shop down there a week ago growing  a bit at John's admirations of.....oh this was so fucked up!   

"Time travel." The supposedly other me, but come on seriously the woman looked nothing like me, was practically vibrating with tension. I don't think she was even noticed the smooth golden toned hand the rich glowing color of expensive olive oil( and hey so that's what the term 'olive completion' comes from) wrapped around and eclipsed her clenched white smaller fist or the way she calmed at the other woman's touch.... 

" I think not. Or at least not only that. I can say for a fact that you're not in any of the public records I've examined."

"We're also too identical in more than just physical features if I'm not mistaken." The other Marcone, and stars does that feel weird to contemplate because one is usually more than enough, didn't exactly look pointedly at the other woman and me but somehow managed to wordlessly imply us in a much cooler and sophisticated way that I really wished I knew how Marcones had the abilities to even do that!

"This is all great you two can share mobster memories and all but Vohnni and I really need to get back through the improperly placed  time-tunnel of a wonderland looking-glass to take care of a bit of ruckus we happen to have been right in the middle of!" For some reason I had the urge to stick out my tongue at her like a five year old at that and I don't know why...

Oh waitaminute! I suddenly getting a really suspiciously bad feeling about where this is going.

"What was the date? Back in your own time I mean before you ended up here."

"October 1st."

" Yeah well I think I should warn you that by way too very stunning of a coincidence to believably buy which my life is full of that also happens to be the exact date of a murder that took place right here in this reality."  And the anniversary of it was only a few days away. Coincidence?.... Yeah right!

 " Well okay, for one thing we're not dead."

" Hey so it's not a perfect fit but I'd take a really good guess and say that you were about to be back there."

"It wasn't that big a deal just a bit of headbutting with Vohnni's cronies."

"They were most certainly not my anything Harry. And I really think right now it might be more prudent to gather more facts before we jump to any conclusions or dismiss potential threats here."

"Uh huh sure. Listen- Is that a wedding ring?" Do I really sound like that? Please tell me I don't sound like that!

"Hells Bells ! You're married! To who? Stu- ow dammit ! Let go of my arm and stop proving your scumbaggyness Vohnny!"

"I think Mr. Marcone has already informed us of that on his arrival Harry."

" Huh....what?"

" Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden-Marcone has such a pleasant ring to it I think."

" I still think you should have been the one taking my name instead." So I was still a bit miffed over that- I had a good reason since my name is a much nicer, not to mention HONESTER, one!..... I'm still not exactly clear on how the bastard tricked me into getting his way!

" What! .....NO! NO WAY! NOT EVEN IN THIS BACKWARDS UPSIDE DOWN WORLD COULD I EVER BE A MOBBOSS'  FREAKING MOLL! "

Wow that's the second woman this week to let me know I can't have John. Somehow her being me doesn't make it any better.

Chapter Text

This was not what we needed on top of everything else.

When the boys assigned to Harry that night called in to report a situation it was all I could do just to keep Johnny from running out there like mad bull. The recent threats were getting to him more than usual because this time some were specifically aimed at Harry as well.( Including one from someone who should, as far as John and I knew, be years gone as well as under thirty feet of water and a cement slab. )

When John first met the guy I'd thought he was some wild-eyed whack-job that Johnny shouldn't be in range of even if he turned out to be what he claimed, maybe especially then given what we had already encountered and known about at the time( my wife and Harry have subsequently added whole libraries worth of more information on the subject since then), and not some violently drug addicted mental case.

It was an ironic twist of karma that for the longest time after that first meeting between the two I got to be faced with the regret of all that effort I had put into patiently working to beneficially help curb Johnny's more reckless impulses on contacting something that catches his immediate interest. Being flirted with but denied (not in a leading-on manner or with real repulsion but more a innocent wariness)  had naturally only fueled the desire into a stronger obsession. If the guy hadn't been such a automatic challenge with those mixed messages or more so if he had fought John's proximity differently then the interest would have been destroyed. Instead I had to deal with aggression a hair's breath from turning into an embarrassing car sex romp that I would have needed purged from my horrified psyche. 

If they had just fucked eachother out of their systems in the beginning( preferably somewhere that I hadn't had to witness it) maybe it wouldn't have grown into something more serious and the rest of us would have been spared the mooning....And the pining...I'm not even going to into all the damned misunderstandings...and god the jealous bickering! It couldn't have just simply been lust or even better actual dislike- no instead they had to go and fall in complete and utterly ridicules love with eachother!

And now it looked like I was going to have to deal with two sets of them. Its possible I may have committed something truly atrocious in a past life that has resulted in having to deal with this headache. That's the only explanation I can come up with for the nonsense. John's just lucky I adore him like a brother or there is no way in hell I'd put up with this shit otherwise.

Namely two Dresdens eyeing eachother like a couple of feral curs despite their art-deco greyhound bookend appearances.

And I really don't want to bring up the subject of the fact that Miss Dresden doesn't look to be wearing much more than Ms. Marcone's coat cause I know I don't want to hear the reason for how that happened ( its Dresden, woman or not, things like public nudity tend to occur which means I get to call people to roust places like tailors and boutiques while John is busy admiring).

I'd really like to speculate, theorize, and study all the philosophical insights this encounter implies and could lead to but that should probably wait till we get someplace a lot more secure and private.

And to do that I'm going to have to figure out how to get Miss Dresden into the car without anybody throwing a fit....

I'm going to need another bottle of Tylenol.

Chapter Text

I could hear the angry squawking even before the muscle-bound ox reappeared carrying some half-naked bit of cheap trash who'd been making all the noise that he tossed into the back of the waiting car. 

The second whore left the big gorilla's side to get in unassisted but my eyes were on next person that had exited the door.

That two-faced, two-timing, man-slut! Going out and getting himself some old geezer sugerdaddy when he could have had a chance to be with me! Me! How could he have possibly turned down such a chance? Nobody turns me down ever! I'm gonna teach that little fucker a lesson he'll never forget cause no-one gets away with trying to disrespect me!

The stupid gun was slippery and uncomfortably heavy in my hand making me almost drop the sucker. I tried to hold it badass like so I would look cool like in the movies.

Ow! Shit, that hurts! Fuck it! I'll just wait to whip it out in their ugly faces!

Oh yeah, I can almost taste how good seeing the terror on their faces when they see- What the hell! There's someone else in the alley with me! Crap! Okay I can deal.

" Hey-!"  Holy SHIii-!

Chapter Text

Ugh, so much for not wussing out on the job.

I knew I'd feel more depressed and embarrassed about the whole thing later but right then I was just too busy being sick.

God! That had been the most horrible...My stomach rolled violently again before I could even finish the thought. Thankfully there was nothing more left to come up so I just huddled there heaving pathetically like a dying stray. Hopefully I'd managed to get far enough away from the crime scene not to contaminate any of the evidence or something. I was going to be getting enough mocking over this I didn't need any actual reprimands from it too.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the detectives arrive on site. The sun was only just starting to rise above the street-level eastern horizon....wait! The hell! ...Some kind of sickly colored fog-? 

" Hey rooky! First dead body huh?." Weird optical illusions were forgotten. " Looks like you'd better let the experienced adults handle it from here."

Okay I bristled. I mean co'mon seriously? I wasn't that green! Okay so maybe I was.. " Its really a bad one. All sliced up so you can't even tell what sex the vic was.-"

" Yeah these knife fights can get a bit grisly for those not used to 'em." the other detective reassured me in passing.

Honestly, in my opinion it had looked more like some wild animal had eaten someone....but what do I know.

Maybe I'm not cut out for this job after all........

"Holy Fucking Christ!"

Both detectives shot out of the alley.

One of them to find their own little puking spot. The other-

"Somebody get me Captain Murphy! We need SI over here now!"

Chapter Text

 Despite the inherent difficulties involved given that we had both an unstable unpredictable magical object and a barefoot Harry Dresden to contend with we still prudently quickly took the opportunity to make the necessary actions for removing ourselves to a safer location.  

Even Harry acknowledged that. About the mirror at least.

She still grumbled ungraciously, not so under her breath, but it was better than the fuss she's put up after having lost the arguments and been forced to allow herself to be carried to the car,  I took advantage of the vehicle's more confined space to slid into the seat beside her.

Where she fidgeted uncomfortably.

" Hells Bells! How can anyone willingly wear these things?" As painfully delightful as the worrisome squirming Harry ignorantly emphasized her newest complaint with was I was still struck by the little tidbit of information she probably didn't realize had also given away...

She had never worn a thong before? True Harry has what looks to be rather sensitive (soft, silky) skin and her preferred styles were more innocently modest ( cotton, typically printed with things like superheroes and fantasy characters which I can't help but wonder if I should be worried about). Plus some materials were less comfortable and certain variations in styles of thongs were more difficult for individual people to get used to than others. But Harry from the sound of it had never worn one before despite her alternating on- again off- again relationships with that godawful reporter( who'd clearly influenced Harry's latest disaster) and that damned Raith person....Thinking closer on it she's also never waxed before as far as I was aware. Which was understandable since I couldn't imagine her ever letting a stranger-

" Did you just growl?"  

Looking away from her in avoidance of the question, I most assuredly did not want to either answer or examine closely, my eyes met our driver's in the rearview mirror. Even with the strangeness of seeing it in the face of a man I knew that look it was one of Hendricks'  'Careful, you need to ease up here.' expressions she used to give me, back when we were just young street punks, and occasionally still does when she thinks I'm about to go too far....usually times that involve Harry Dresden. This other place is as unsettling in it's familiarity as it is in it's differences.

There was a rustling of heavy leather mixed with the clattering chimes of multitudes of tiny pieces of metal rebounding off each other that announced the other Harry Dresden joining us.

My Harry, and I do so like referring to her as such even if only in my inner thoughts, refocused her attention on a new subject. More specifically her glare. The foolish little idiot was no doubt about to very vocally launch into her criticisms over her alternate's perceived selling out to an enemy, and as interested as I myself was on the answer for possible future plans of my own insulting the life choices of potential allies was not the way to ensure a good working relationship, but thankfully her perchance for detrimental inappropriateness was curtailed by the distraction of another concern.

" Can I barrow you're lab? " She was now fidgeting with distracted unhappiness at her unusually bare wrists and fingers eyes glued longingly to her counterpart's collection of amorment in the form of rings and bracelets.  

" After dinner." 'John' Marcone intervened settling in next to 'his' Harry in very pointedly deliberate manner that included a possessive display of twining his husband's bejeweled fingers with his own.

Amusingly this prompted both Harrys to instant irritation.

Which lasted until the car was started and with no more than a low hum.....started upward.

Eliciting a shocked noise of startlement from my wizardess proving that she at least hadn't previously noted other vehicles on the street when they had done the same.

My own surprise came from the unanticipated feeling of having her suddenly press herself closer to me..... 

Chapter Text

I mean how on earth did a guy like that, of all people, end up snaring someone like John Marcone! Those must have been some pretty spectacular tricks in the sack....Nah, looked more like he'd been the 'holds out on giving up the goods till he gets a ring' type.

He's gotta have some kind of connections? That's the only thing that could explain a powerful man like Johnny putting up with crap like that and actually going along with it.

Hell of a scrawnily tiny little thing for all that ridicules height too. Johnny's a  'big man' in all the right ways( Yumm) how the hell could he take that- ? Yeah okay, I know the answer to that one. Johnny is his husband, all legal and shit, denying him fucking privileges would be dangerous mostly for being a sure fuck way for the crappie little whore to find himself with nuthin' booted totally out of the boss's life. And it doesn't take a friggin genius to know why Johnny would like it with him being all incredibly small and tight.....

I know because me I'm about as great of a hot lay that a guy could dream of. With a stunning killer figure and gigantic, round, perfectly shaped tits (C-cups!) that makes all men stare at and drool and all the other women are completely jealous sluts about.

You aren't the only tiny itty-bitty hole he's broken open and worn loose.

Or the first fuck toy his trouser-snake has stuffed  pumped so full  up

and swelled like a balloon. Too bad that's all you're good for cause I can

                                                                                give him everything you can't 

     I shoved the picture of the kid in with the letter. Then got the really great idea of adding another so I dug out a picture I had taken myself of my own hot bod, from neck to thighs, in my sexiest black, see-through, crotch-less bodysuit.

That'll get rid of that roadblock!                                                         

Chapter Text

Hells Bells, we literally flew to casa duh Mafioso!

I don't know how I'm going to be able to handle anymore kooky surprises from this alternate villain universe version of my life. Huh speaking, or whatever, of my should-be-wearing-a-evil-beard counterpart what was up with the sad-face and side-glance at his unfairly (while still being entirely non-magical) mesmerizing Don-Daddy? Did he loose the rolls of dirty money he had in his pockets or something? What gives?

" So, uh Lea is apparently going to be stopping by tomorrow afternoon for some reason or another of her's. She'll likely be there for dinner.....will you"

" No, not until later in the evening. I have a late appointment with my lawyers, that I've put off for too long, followed by some business with some acquaintances from out of town."

"Oh."

Okay now all three of the rest of us were staring at him. There was just no way, this guy was not a version of me!

John exchanged a worried look with Vohnni. Oh come on! What the hell is with that? Suddenly they're the dammed twin-team?

John shifted leaning over to look into the other Harry's down-turned face. "Harry, Is there a problem? Something wrong about tomorrow or your godmother?"

" Nope! No, not a thing! Well unless you count me getting to be the one to play host- which actually I totally do now that I mention it!"

"You know you'll do just fine."

" No you always think I do fine because you're evidently sappy over that kind of stuff! I know I'll mess it up!"

I may not do introspective but I am capable of being perceptive, otherwise my PI business would be even more in the hole than it already is, and I had no trouble seeing that there was trouble in this gangster paradise.

Oh My God I Can't Stand This! It's not like dealing with a warped version of my stupid Id at all! He looks like an bedraggled, abandoned, baby stray fuzzy animal! No a whole basket full of the deadly cute things (seriously a mad scientist or supervillain could rule the world if they figured out how to harness the powers of fluffy baby animals! Missus and Mouse are all the proof of that I need to confern that fact!)  Gah! I think I might want to hit Mr. Everything for doing this to me....I mean him! I don't know what I mean!

Oh! Except Godsdammed Johnny has a face even more like a crushed woobie! And my whatever-he-is isn't even noticing how he's looking at him!

Red Alert! Red Alert! What am I supposed to fucking do! Please! Zombies, demons, vampires, evil fay,.....Murphy after I almost get myself killed!....Uh maybe not that one! But anything else other than this!

While I was busy, er.... being respectful and unintrusive ?...

Vohnni had reached out a pampered but firm, callused, strong, freaking irritatingly refined hand ( and when did she remove those little prim white unfairly provocative, fancy, cotton, gloves of hers again?) and laid it comfortingly on the skinny man's knee...

HEY!!! What the hell? No, absolutely none of that shit!

That slimy jerk! How dare he attr- she turn her attacks on another me!

HOLY SHIT JOHNNY"S ABOUT TO KILL VOHNNI!!!! 

Chapter Text

OH HELL!

CRAP!

This was bad. Very, very bad.

The Boss. And right now that's what he was....Only it was the most basic savage monster/animal version.

And he was about to kill.

We won't even get into existential complexities and repercussions that killing essentially yourself when it involves other realities and dimensions might ensure...

I had to do something.

Fast.

So I did.

"Boss!."

And the car made a sudden Whthump!

Chapter Text

By Norn, what in Hel was that?

It had honestly sounded as though someone had dropped an Ice Giant from great hights onto the front lawn.

The entire house had been shaken to the foundations....We will need to look into rectifying that weakness.

Oh. Evidently it had been Nathan dropping the towncar onto the front lawn.

Humans.

Though considering the uniqueness of my charges I can't help but think that the Allfather truly is indeed punishing me for some crime...or many, of which I have not even been given awareness of, and therefor must endure all of this until I have paid for it or face the unendurable shame of failure.

That is unless these people don't destroy my mind for me with their madness first.

Speaking of that...

"All Security Personnel! Stand Down. I Repeat, Stand Down! Go Yellow. It was the boss and Dresden."

That will do it.

Now for some answers.

Chapter Text

Whoa!

Hells Bells what was all that?

I blink. I find that I'm sprawled on the floor in the backseat of the car with John really tightly wrapped around and very heavily( the man's got the weight of a whole lot of solid muscle on him so he isn't light) on top of me. For a second I wonder if I'm in a flashback of our third anniversary.....ah heah...

"We're home." Wow Hendricks is even in another growly mood like that time to. Even though this time it was clearly all on him since we were all just sitting in the back like good little passengers!

"So I see Mr. Hendricks." Johnny it looked like was still in a weird mood himself cause now he was looking at Cujo suspiciously....Okay maybe I can understand and agree with him there since the guy did practically crash the car unexpectedly for evidently no reason that's evident.

"Gotta go and check the anti-grav. Thing's been acting-up misinterpreting signals. Sets other things off at the wrong time." The red-head rumbled then was gone before John could say anything else.

Huh? Uh, car stuff. Not one of my stronger subjects. I'm just happy that we found a way to keep me from accidently inducing them to suicide by my mere presence. Johnny's more of a car person...

Oh and Vohnni Marcone too, which figures I guess, since she also looks like she understood that.

Under the shelter of Ms. Marcone's body ( and evidently even her hair was in on the protective act creating a smooth, somehow untangled, silk curtain attempting to conceal her temporary charge out of sight) eyes identical to mine peered over at me in echoed incomprehension.

And wow I may be still a bit shaken, rattled, and rolled but Ms. Mobsteress' hold on my counterpart would make a barnacle envious. Like she never wanted to let go of her wizard and there was nothing and nobody that could ever make her.....

Was she in love with her?....As much as John had been in love with me? Would theirs last?

If they got back to their own time and place and their lives was there somebody else who was the right gender and the right match waiting to come in and give that Marcone what that Dresden couldn't.......?

"Harry?" John's voice was all soft and concerned....loving. Pathetically I trembled harder. So embarrassed with my reasonless and unreasonable bought of weakness But I wanted. I needed. I burrowed against his familiar solid warmth and just breathed in the glorious John-ness. 

His hold tighted. Enfolding me like the protective rock-hard shell of a clam sealed around the gooshy slimey innards.

I don't know what the manner in which we got out of the car is called. John didn't actually carry me. I did my own walking...sort off...a little.....maybe...But we were rather tightly wrapped together and I couldn't even bring myself to do anything as useful for self-locomotion as removing my face from its perfect hiding place pressed against the comfortable nook of John's neck.....

I blame it all on my low blood sugar at the time. It had been a long day and we still hadn't had dinner yet so it makes perfect sense! 

 I was roused from fuzzy lala land and back to alertness under the insistent repeatedly bumping furry pressure that all pet owners everywhere recognize and have been trained to respond to and discovered that I was pretty much seated in my husband's lap while the man crouched down in the middle of our walkway( the idiot he's too old to be holding a spouse, especially one blessed with limbs designed to make a daddy-long-legs jealous, in such oddball ways- we must have looked like the stupidest thing ever) so that we were low enough for both my cat, as well as my dog, to be likewise able to easily reach me.   

As focused as I was on my duties to cuddle the furfaces I still caught sight of Hendricks with his wife over by the hood of the car. The silver of her suit complimented the deep sweeping curves of the mammoth,( clichély honestly why couldn't we something less melodramatic) black vehicle as she and Hendricks stood propped against one of the head-high 'wheel' arches like the lead actors in romantic scene from a noir film.

Except for the part where she looked rather like she wanted to chop someone's head off! Oh oh.

I watched her give him a rather consoling shoulder-pat...

Okaaay?

Stars, the problem with the car must really be serious. 

Mister, taking exception to my wandering focus, nipped my wrist not-exactly-gently and successfully brought my attention back to giving him his due worship.  

Chapter Text

Whoah!

Whatever it was I didn't do it!...At least I don't think I did? It didn't feel like-.

Uh, on another very important note- I seem to have a whole lot of very womanly femaleness laying on top of me! Of a distinctly Vohnni Marcone type....so um eep? Aaaad yup, there is also the faint suspicion of the sensation of something being different which knowing my bad luck means that those not- wide- enough- to- really- work- at- actually- doing-any-covering excuses for pieces of clothing had probably 'shifted' and were nolonger doing any sort of covering of anything what- so- ever at all anymore!

Hells Fucking Bells.

The only thing that had saved me from 'overexposure', as in like some really unattractive stripper at the end of her act, was the loaned coat of Vohnni's.

I heard Cujo rumble something about the....anti-gravity? Huh, I should guessed the future would have that, since it is a science fiction staple that even in our time people are wondering why we don't have it yet, and best of all really did sound like it actually wasn't my fault so whew!

I share a confused look with good ol mob sell-out me.

"Harry? You alright?" Vohnni again. Always too close. Too warm. Too there. Too dammed nice sounding!

I squirmed trying to dislodge the unwanted burden."Get off scumbag! You're really going to mess-up your 'genteel' rep pawing at me like this!"

" My apologies. I did not intend to take liberties. Only prevent you injury. Clearly a mistake." Ooooh cold, clipped, formal. That got her! Teach her to play being all caring and, and, nice at me! The damn criminal...

When I looked up from trying to finish untangling myself from the, admittedly hugely spacious, footwell (this wasn't a backseat it was a moving livingroom!) Vohnni had already smoothly extricated herself somehow without even wrinkling her suit since the stupid thing was still as pristine as when this mess started. And stood at the door...

With her hand out to me palm upwards in a gesture more in context to if we had traveled backwards in time instead of, non-directly, forewords. 

But the expression in those, stupidly distracting, old-money( and possibly at the moment also sparks of poison green) eyes was challenging smug superiority...

She was daring me.

Sure bet she was expecting me to decline and make myself look like a mannerless clodpole hick....more so than usual anyway.

Ha! I'd show her! I can do Miss Manners just fine! I can too!....I'm just more used to doing this stuff from the other end....You can stop laughing at me anytime now thank you.

So I gave her my hand...

Whoa, dizzy....I think that maybe I might have taken a bump to the head after all....either that or I'm coming down with a stupid cold at the worst time as usual!

Hells Bells I can't believe I just let Vohnni Marcone escort me from a car!

Heh, her hand looks like its swallowing mine. All perfectly balanced proportions and easy natural strength of form compared to what I've got which is more like a long leaf or feather stuck to the end of stick-arms. 

Did she just brush her thumb across the inside of my wrist?

Naaah, I'm pretty sure someone like her wouldn't consider now as appropriate for subtly threatening to slit someone's wrists or whatever along those lines she could have meant by making that kind of motion. Not even especially obnoxious irritants like little 'ol me......hopefully anyway.

Brushing away any thoughts of vague death threats, with the ease of too long practice, I moved to take in Mob Mansion.

Yup, that was a mansion all right. No doubts there. Big, red brick and white stone/concrete, tidy, mansion.

Impressive.... if a little blank. Oh it had 'character' all right! Very accurately descriptive character. The house didn't shout or scream- it stated. Firmly without room for anyone to argue. It let it be seen that it was strong with influence and a elegant public persona.

And that was all.

The rest was a strictly guarded shielded interior.

With a damn impressive set of wards!

I was distracted from those by the appearance of some very familiar looking piles of fur coming at me from the other side of the car.

Mouse and Mis- uh oops I'd bet its 'Mister' here!

Naturally neither one gave the fact that there were two Marcones, as well as two of me at the moment, so much as a second glance and just simply proceeded to demand pettings from everyone.

'Hey, fuzzybutts! How was your guys' day? As you can probably tell ours got a bit screwy." Mouse bumped..his...pony sized body sympathetically against mine giving my entire face a bath with that washcloth of a tongue until I was sputtering then trotted back busily- off to re-check on the other Harry I'd guess...   

I scooped up the comforting form of the mammoth cat( Hendricks swears Missus is a undersized cougar or whatever but its more likely she, and her male counterpart, were just really impressive examples of Maine Coon Cat mixed with European Wild Cat...or something). With my face pressed into the soft warm fluff, that thankfully seemed not to have gone dumpster-diving that day, I could feel a bit of the tension in my shoulders and back melt away.....

The dammed traitor then proceeded to purr even louder when Vohnni started seducing him by using her manicured nails on just the right spot under his jaw for the perfect chin-scratching!

Chapter Text

"Il mio amore, la mia luce, la mia anima eterna...

Harry, please sweetheart tell me what's wrong...

L' unico in cui MI SENTO come morire. Quello lo uccido. Dimmi cio di cui avente bisogno.....Tutto cio cui avete bisogno e la vostra..."  But he wouldn't talk to me. He only burrowed in closer in mute desperation, causing me in turn to tighten my own hold in an useless effort to somehow shield him from the unknown source of his pain, like he was trying to make himself disappear into my flesh. An idea that under other more pleasant circumstances and motivations I would have found more than enjoyable. But my Harry was in pain and distress which was something I could neither bear nor would ever allow to continue...

" Who has upset you?

Le tue lacrime sono la loro condauna a morte. Il mio ultimo dono prima io sono andato e si sono peris per me.-"

" Egli nonti capisco."  Nathan rumbled down from where he was standing over us.

Thankfully we were interrupted by the dog and the cat.

Chapter Text

I know I should not have allowed myself to enjoy the feel of her like that but I am neither a saint nor one to willingly pass up what opportunities, that the little leeway I could allow my restraint without it breaking and leaving all my chances ruined, that luck and fortune are kind enough to bestow on me in exception to my...abstaining .

No matter how strongly I would love to demonstrate the unmistakable differences between that incident and my truly getting overly familiar with her. I would show her what a real grope feels like. And what its like for her to be kissed and worshiped, as the glorious miracle that she is, with everything I have and all that I am.

Instead I kept her attention away from our counterparts'...private moment.

So we both were also advantageously present for the moment when the woman, who could be no less than this world's female version of Gard, opened the trunk and.....gave a startled sound rocking back a half-step.

Not an encouraging sign. 

The statuesque blond then sighed a word, a name to be precise, with the air of a person who'd discovered their workload had been tripled.

"Emrys."

Chapter Text

Gard was not a happy Valkyrie. In fact she looked pissed-off.

I wonder if the Gard at home is stomping around with the same glare on his face?

Er, never mind, I don't wanna know! One of them is bad enough! 

After a quick snapped clarification the rest of us made the silent unanimous agreement to let her continue her brooding in peace....and high-tailed it to the house!

Hells Freaking Bells! King Arthur's Merlin!

The Real-! The Actual-! Ghaaah! My brain was overloaded!

I had to....I needed to...!

"....-get ready for dinner."

Okay......Wait-! "What?"

"Dinner Harry. We're going to change clothes."

" Oh, that's nice." Seriously? I wanted to snicker at the absurdity of people thinking they needed to get dressed up just to eat a meal! " You do that. I'll just-."

"That included you as well Harry."

What! No! " But the mirror-!"

"- can wait."

" Nu-uh!"

"Yes it can."

" What if I say that I'm not hungry!"

"No one here would believe you."

"Why not!"

My stupid stomach then went and betrayed me by choosing that moment to growl as loudly as it could so that everyone could hear its complaints of emptiness.

So I got the pleasure of receiving two smug Marcone know- it- all  looks with a side of male-me sympathetic understanding!

" I suppose if you're really that attached to the outfit you have on.....but honestly the coat really-."

"NO!" Yikes....I'd almost forgotten about the whole being pretty much naked under there! I don't know how I could have but it happened. But now all I could focus on was the cool slipperiness of the inner lining brushing against places that should have had at least one other layer in between separating the two. I hugged the stupid loaner coat tighter as if it were some kind of priceless treasure they were trying to steal away from me.

Vohnni was looking down at me( Seriously how does she do that! I'm taller than her by like at lot!) way too much like she had that time at the Street Wolves place....like I was exhausted, injured, cornered prey that she was about to eat with savage bestial glee while being extra sure to take her slow sweet time going about it too! Uh oh. The tiger was sensing weakness and a possible opening for taking me down! 

" Fine, I'll wear the lousy clothes! Under protest. As a favor to you. " Ha! Take that! You can't trap me that easily! See, I don't owe you anything for it now you owe me! "Until I can get my hands on some that aren't stained by blood money and stinking of illegal crime anyway. Where do I go?"

" Second floor, left hallway, fourth door on the right is yours." The other criminal bastard was also looking like a smugly amused jerk of a Marcone. The damned poster boy for suave slimy evil scumbags!

Magical Male Mobster Moll had gotten all big-eyed. His glance darting between me and his master a couple of times before his lips pressed themselves together into a hard flat line. Huh? Wonder what that was about? Remembering who he used to be maybe? When he used to stand up against the bigger, badder, more powerful villains....Instead of...,stars and stones, letting them ....! What? Trick him? Seduce him? .....That is if he ever actually had been at all like me to start with.

Unsettled and with another simpler problem in urgent need of taking care of elsewhere.....I fled.

Chapter Text

I slammed the door behind me leaning back against it in slumping relief. Enjoying the euphoric rush of my victorious escape from near disaster( yeah yeah I know you know what happened but I'm trying regain some of my dammed dignity here! Stars and Stones allow a person at least some self respect!) I closed my eyes and just breathed for a bit....

In other words it took me a few moments to notice the room's set-up.

Uh, I think someone has taken the whole 'barony' thing a little too far!

It looked like I was inside a honest-to-deity European manor house! Kind of medieval/Tudor maybe? There were heavy wooden beams and whitewash(?) interspaced with dark paneling. The floor was a matching hardwood, waxed within an inch of its life, with some decretive rugs sparingly and in artistic tastefulness scattered about and under heavier furniture. The lights were shaped like flames that were in torches along the walls. There was even a tapestry!

I couldn't help snickering at it all I really couldn't! The light nearest me caught my eye as I did so. It......didn't flicker in the slightest at my proximity.....? Eh, I'd figure that out later. Right now it was getting late, so late that it would technically be tomorrow in only a hour and a half, and I wanted to get a crack( ha!) at Merlin's mirror( because Stars Stones and Bells it belonged to and had the actual magic of The REAL ORIGINAL MERLIN! Not one of the White Council rulers with the title of The Merlin but the true individual person!)! And if they were going to make me have to change clothes ( which okay I really agree with) and eat dinner first then it won't be my fault if I break the stupid water heater 'getting ready' before setting a speed eating world record or something!

With my course now planned I began my search for the bathroom. It was, as it turned out, through the door behind the tapestry. The bathroom was a frigging stone grotto! Only without the sharp stones, insects, moss, and molds- so basically like a fantasy version of one. With soaps, and towels, and you know bath stuff....

Finally taking off Vohnni's coat reveled that I had been right. The barely- able- to cover- even- my- non-existant- bust of a top was no-longer covering anything at all and was instead impersonating a belt on my upper waist! Ghaa! Stupid thing. Shedding the two pieces of nothing and the even more diabolical, not to mention less substantial, undies I eagerly dove under the spray of the warm waterfall/shower.

It eventually became obvious that the water heater was situated at a location in the house that was apparently far enough away not to be effected by my magical aura, or something, because the water stayed nice and warm. Something I wasn't used to but felt really nice anyway. Mmmmmm. What was even better was the part where I utterly ruined a couple of expensive looking washcloths getting the junk off my face! Petty? Me?

Clean and feeling better I wrapped up in a fluffy green towel returning to the bedroom in search of something to wear.

One look at what was lying there on the bed waiting for me....

 And then I was stomped out into the hallway.

" Where's Vohnni?" I spat at the unfortunate individual who'd had the bad luck to be out there at that moment. I knew she was somehow behind it all! Call it instinct if you want but I call it Marcone being sadistic! Thankfully who-ever-they-were didn't ask any questions and simply pointed at the door next to mine. Oh. Okay then! Spinning back around I advanced on my destination striding angrily up to it and yanking the door open.

"You und- eghk!" I wasn't even all the way through the door and everything cut out into a static jumble of blank confusion. Wow, that makes it sound like I got shot ,or stabbed, or something and I'm still not sure if it would have been better if I actually had been.

Vohnni was seated on the corner of the bed in her underclothes looking like a bombshell/dream-girl pin-up from an old-fashioned calendar. 

Urgk! Um....

Danger! Danger! Instinct blared like a emergency vehicles rushing to a burning docked oil tanker. She was half naked and yet for some reason she was frightening me without having to do a thing...

So I did what I always do when starting to feel panicked and cornered.

I got angry.

Wait... I was already angry.....What was I angry about again?

Oh Yeah!

" There is a dress in my room! A Dress!"

Chapter Text

I slipped the knife out of sight when I recognized Harry's preferred method of entering.

It seemed Marco was a matter for another time. Work tended to be impossible to focus on entirely anyway with Harry present. Plus it upsets her.

..

I must say her sudden arrival was even more of a pleasant surprise than usual in this instance.

Lord in Heaven! Honey, its a good thing for you that I've learned restraint. In my young punk days that towel would be hitting the floor and I'd have you already sprawled on your back beneath me on this bed as I sampled the delights you, likely unknowingly, have on offer there.

Unfortunately it would not be worth the price that the aftermath and repercussions would cost. My beautiful chaos butterfly is prone to fire storms.

There is also the unfortunate continued existences the reporter and the vampire in her life back home. Whatever her exact relationship is with either of them I do know that she would most likely view anything happening between her and I as being unfaithful.....

"- I mean what's so hard about just picking up a few pairs of jeans for me to sort through!"

I made a dismissive sound of disagreement at that bit of uttered foolishness. Harry's wardrobe was appalling in a way that had nothing to do with its humble level of poverty. "You'll just have to make do with things that will actually fit correctly for once."

"And just what makes you think they're going to do that?"

" I gave Mr. Hendricks your exact measurements."

"You what! You- Hey wait, how the hells do you know them?"

'Wouldn't you like to know.' I smirked.

She glared harder. "Stalker."

"Mmhmmm." I continued to enjoy view of acres of damp gorgeous flesh and gravity's slow sure victory over terrycloth. Harry continued on in her usual manner. Which mostly seemed guaranteed to put others under the misconception that she and I both had  humiliation and insult kinks....  

"...And now you've got me arguing with you about dumb things while standing around in nothing but a towel and thinking its an improvement over what had to have been the record for scantiest clothing-!"

"Hardly."

That derailed her. "Hardly what? What are you talking about?"

" Your earlier ensemble. Was far from the most miniscule one out there. I've worn less....I removed less from others who I took to my bed." My voice lowered husking with remembered pleasure. And present need.

Midnight eyes stared at me in near horrified shock going wider with confused incomprehension.

" There are pasties that don't fully conceal." Not that she probably really knew what one was- even if she had actually happened to have seen them on strippers before. "And some of my former lovers, both mistresses and catamites, have worn garments that were technically equal to  a couple of gossamer strands.... prior to being fucked. Repeatedly. And fucked hard. All night long...." I had gone too far. I knew it. And I knew I had to reign myself in. For her sake if not my own I needed her to leave immediately. " And unless you want to be thrown down and experience it for yourself right here and right now.. you will pull that towel back up and go get dressed!'

Chapter Text

Next thing I knew I was back in my room desperately wrestling the clothes, with badly shaking hands, in my scramble to get them on.

And if anyone so much as breathes the implication 'weakling' about it I'll heap you so full of curses that you'll wish I'd only killed you. Cause you're a dumbass if you think a mortal isn't a threat to someone magical. Probably also think that really smart people don't ever make mistakes (Ha! Assumptions like that are why egos can get people dead.)

Hells Bells what the stars had just happened?

Vohnni had-....!She'd-....! What-...?

Whaitaminute! What the hells am I doing? I'm acting like-!

That Sneaky. No Good, Lying, Jerk! Lousy criminal scumbag! Thinking she can threaten me! ...Well, okay she did threaten me...No way am I going to be some pansy ass wimp for Marcone to intimidate into obedience! Slimeball probably thinks she's gotten the upper hand on me now! WE'll see about that! She doesn't!... She can't! Not that, never that, I'd die first rather than be friggin owned! Gotta get out! Get loose of her! Get free!

I knew what I had to do. I was going to march right back in there and teach her a lesson on never ever threatening a wizard! I'd show her!

After I finished getting some clothes on first.

The plaid blue dress thing was like an over-sized shirt with the sleeves held partially rolled-up. Unfortunately there wasn't any pants so that I could use it as a actual shirt and instead had to wear it like a bad attempt to mimic those on-screen/ glossy-magazine sex-kittens lounging around in their boyfriend's button-up. The good news though was the glorious sight of a pair of worn leather cowboy boots that also waited! Thank stars, real shoes!

By then I had also really built up a head of steam over just how much that bastard of a woman had played me. Because seriously! Gossamer string clothing! On humans? Yeah right! Can't be done....right? And what was with saying she was doing the....uh, well you know! Because huh? Should have challenged that as soon as she said it that would have broken her damn mesmerizing attempt! Damn that tricky smooth talker and her stupid nasty non-magical controlling techniques ( DuMourn wasn't even this good and that was with the aid of magic) !

My hand was on the door and yanking it back open when I heard the voice in the hall.

"- scorched rug." Marcone. The male one I mean.

" She's rather upset with me at the moment." And Vohnni.

The door next to mine clicked shut cutting of their voices.

Okay, Mob Bosses meeting privately? Is bad.

So I did what any self-respecting investigator would have done under the circumstances.... 

I went over and pressed my ear to the door.

Well, okay yes it was an incredibly idiotic and moronically risky thing to do. I blame it on Vohnni. Her proximity and its criminal aura is apparently detrimental to my brain....what, it is too! We also won't mention how this kind of stuff usually ends in urban legends and the old-version faerie-tales.... 

Dumb door was thick making it hard to listen in instead of convieniently easedropper friendly.

John was talking but I could only make out a handful of the words." ....Wisconsin..." As in the state? Were they talking about the little girl being hidden secretly in the hospital there?

" ...Son.." Apparently not. What son? Who's son? Hells Bells does Johnny have a kid? Does his husband know?

"...Glory......Will..."

I jerked away from the door. Backing way away from it like if was the most horrible and disgusting of any slime-monster ever encountered.

That two-timing bastard!

Just when I thought I couldn't hate those damned Marcones any more than I already did!

The click of the door once again opening snapped me once again out of my daze.

Good thing too since I was standing right in the empty hallway like a sitting duck!

If I dove back into my room I wouldn't be able to get the door shut without it being noticed. And nothing says 'was spying on you and am now trying to hide it' like the next door over clicking shut as they're leaving!

So hoping to play it like I'd simply left my room and was heading downstairs I aimed my self for the stairs as swiftly as I could work the whole unhurried thing.

And it worked! I even managed to trot myself all the way to the bottom of the staircase before I ran into trouble. Or more precisely my counterpart.

Oof! Ow! Two giraffes colliding head on. We both went down in a ungainly sprawl of limbs. And for the record, if someone's making one, marble tile is hard. No cushy landing to be had there!

"Are you two okay?"

I looked up at the sound of the new voice. And if my face looked anything like the other Harry's we resembled a couple of wide-eyed baby birds, you know the tall ones cranes or ostriches or something, to a embarrassing degree as if the whole thing hadn't already been enough of a blow to the 'ol self-confidence.  

 Oh hey, it was Mr. Door Directions! I wonder what he does here? Skinny guy who looks like he spends more time at the salons than anywhere else( like Travolta's character in Saturday Night Fever only with lighter and curlier hair). He couldn't have been one of Marcone's thugs. Secretary maybe? Book-keeper? Personal Tailor?

" Nothing damaged but my pride so no big loss." My not-twin spoke at the same time I did making it weirdly echoing and not at all creepy/ annoying....

He held out a hand to help us both up...

"Marco." If that voice was a magnet then our eyes were hapless bits of steel.

My gaze was pulled to behind me and all the way back up to the top of the stairs. Where Johnny, Vohnni, and Hendricks were standing there, lined up practically shoulder to shoulder like some row of judges or other scarily official types, all stony-faced and evidently all around very not at all happy about something.

Now what? 

" I believe you need to have a word with Mr. Hendricks. Now."

Chapter Text

" Sorry Ma'am!" I stuffed another slice of warm bread in my mouth.

" And stop eating all the bread! Johnny and Harry still haven't eaten and we have guests to feed!"

Woops! About a quarter of the household staff actually lived on the grounds and not everybody's schedules followed the same timetable. I was on the third-shift security watch so the middle of the night was breakfast time for me. The guys at the top here were less routine. Plus they'd all been spending a lot of time at their offices this week so instead of sit-down meals together they'd mostly been drifting into the kitchen whenever they get back in and grabbing some quick stuff off the refreshments table just like everyone else.      

" And poor Harry's been looking like he's loosing weight again too! All skin and bones! Not good for the dear boy's heath at all that!" Ms. Mattie eyed the buffet table set with enough food to stuff a couple of college football teams with a glare that would have cowed a Drill Sargent. " Maybe I should whip-up another batch of brownies just to be safe."

Okay, now I really felt bad. Don Marcone's spouse was such a skinny little thing, in spite of being so tall and able to consume meals better than a horde of locusts, do to what some of the guys have speculated as some kind of rare chemical imbalance or something, he couldn't afford to be loosing any weight he did have.

Noises out in the hall evolved into voices as they got closer.

Mostly involving Harry and some woman demanding answers about Marco. Now seriously the only three people I know who can get away with doing something like that when it comes to the boss are Harry and Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks.....and some of the city's senior citizens cause you have to respect and admire people who despite the wear and tear have managed to put enough mileage behind them to push the average life- expectancy envelope.

"...-Marco's employment has just been terminated due to the revelation of a rather irreconcilable difference in opinions. I assure you nothing nefarious has been done to him. Mr. Hendricks merely escorted him to his vehicle and off the premises that he is no longer welcome near."

Oh yeah, I had sure seen how Mr. Hendricks had 'escorted' Marco past a few minutes earlier!

Something tall and skinny flashed by me that surprisingly enough wasn't Mr. Harry.

I gave the newly appeared strange woman a once over....no not that kind- a professional 'who's this?' threat assessment type thing. Cause boys and girls in this line of work either learn quickly to loose any gender biasness they have- or they quickly loose in a permanent way. Tall enough to be suffering gigantism syndrome, Scrawny enough to be a corpse or an anorexic. Jeeze. Moves like she can fight though and looks to have gotten into some tough ones that came fairly close to taking her out over the years judging by the scars. Light skin. Dark hair and eyes. Could possibly be a relative of Mr. Harry's?

The other stranger gave off more of the other kind of 'family' air ( though she also could have passed for Mr. Marcone's twin sister). This one had more obvious physical strength without being bulky. Just like Mrs. (Gard)Hendricks and Captain Murphy.  

 Harry and Mr. Marcone entered behind her...Whoa! Boss is feeling affectionate tonight. I really don't need to be seeing this. I mean its good and all but its too much like watching my parents make-out...uh, ew. Delete! Delete! Somebody tell me how to get a image erased from outa my head please!

I averted my eyes automatically. But mostly out of self-preservation of another sort. The boss tends to get.....uh 'prickly' about other people looking at his husband with what he thinks is too much interest. On other people the behavior could be called things like dangerously possessive. Not that Mr. Marcone has ever gotten violent or deadly insane with crazed jealousy fits....that I know of anyway. Though according to a lot of the older guys Harry's the only romantic partner John Marcone has every been so territorial over what with all the previous lays having been nothing but scatterings of brief casual flings.

The theatrically over-exaggerated sound of revulsion that the taller woman made would have done any ten year old proud. This was almost instantly followed by a surprised yelp as she jumped and turned wide shocked eyes on our other visitor for having done what I would have to guess was probably more than simply having innocently brushed by too closely.

"Try to behave like the adult you claim to be Harry. Before I make you prove it in another manner."

 Wait her name is Harry too? Is it like some kind of family tradition thing or something.

Mr. Marcone and Mr. Harry either didn't notice or didn't pay any attention to the exchange. At least not fully. The boss did take his eyes off from the spot, where the loose collar of his husband's grey sweater exposed a swath of bare skinned neck and shoulder, that he was intently focused on in order to cast them a slow, brief, glance from hooded eyes...

Okay, I think there might be too much sexual tension going on now for me to want to be in here any longer. Ms. Mattie had already vanished slipping away unnoticed.......probably to guard the door so nobody else accidently barges in.

" John... Stop trying to distract me...W-won't...work!"

" Sweetheart." Don Marcone growled. " You are. The one. Distracting me."

Right this is my cue to leave!

Oh Lord, those two woman are just standing there watching! I can't say anything! I'm too scared it would get me noticed! And that getting noticed by the boss by interrupting him now could only mean pissing him off and end up with me getting shot or knifed!

 I dropped all dignity and fled for safety. No I was not acting like a stupid wimp or an idiot! I was smart enough to know that I shouldn't be there! Didn't want to see any of that! And was not about to end up on my own boss's hit list! Seriously I wasn't kidding about the shot or knifed thing!

Just as I got the outer door closed behind me there was a horrible enraged shriek.

" HE KNOWS ABOUT BOB!"

Chapter Text

Great, Johnny was in one of his weird moods.

Just out of the blue he'll up and go all 'alpha male with testosterone overload' on some poor sap. Usually strangers and people he's not close to but now and then there had been a few 'old friends' its happened with too. Macho posturing at it's finest. Pecking order dynamics. High School social interaction stuff (that sometimes makes me relieved that I didn't get to experience it for myself) matured, if you want to call it that, into something right out of a wild nature documentary.

And people think I'm childish! Talk about totally unfair!

After the preceived challenger/threat to his position, and/or authority, or whatever dumb territorial paranoia thing it is that sets him off, is settled. Or he can be convinced to be distracted away from it by someone, like me, who's strong enough to deal with him like that and who he will (surprisingly) actually listen to. He then has a habit of proceeding then to turning into a combination of preening peacock and complete mushball on me.

Stars how I love my ridiculous crazy-man. So yeah that makes me a bit of a kooky sap too. I guess that's why we're such a good fit.

So he's being goofy and seductively sweet on me infront of our guests, the jerk, and I'm trying to stay focused on the big important magical business here and not on how mesmerizing I find his affection. Stars and Stones even the merest touch or slightest glance from him makes me feel like I'm greatest strongest person there ever was and the rarest most delicate treasure in existence both at the same time. Downright confusing. And it wasn't even about the sex, well okay it wasn't only about the actual sex- sex, as it turns out my big, bad, stone-cold, ruthless businessman has a (additional) kink for....actually I don't know what its called or even if there is a name for it( of course I could say that about a lot of other sexual things we do or that I've come across on the job but that's not the point here).

Lets just say that if I wasn't positive beyond a doubt that John was compleately and entirely as through and through vanilla mortal as they come, except for the whole Freeholding Baron thing, then I would be suspecting the guy of having some kind of rare bizarre telekinetic incubus abilities or something going on with him. In the right mood, like right now for instance, he sometimes likes to do this fondling-seductively- without- actually- physically- touching foreplay thing. Holding just far enough back to caress with nothing more than his eyes, and the warmth of the heat from his breath and closeness of his body. In bed he'll go on like that right up until the point where I can't stand it anylonger and somebody  ends up getting pinned to the bed. Then he'll more than likely go on to take the entire rest of the damn night being a torturously teseing bastard....um not that I'm the one who usually ends up being the one held down or anything...I'm the one who's usually demanding for getting to the frickin fucking part of the show already! That's got to mean I'm the more dominant male guy-guy like one in the relationship. Right? Okay unless you've ben listening to Bob's opinion on it. Which I seriously advise you that you really don't want to do. He tends to insist on being XXX-rated, or higher( is a higher sexual content warning rating than that actually even possible?), when focused on the subject of me and John. Because he's just that impossibly perverted. Even when it comes to silly pre-touching quirks.

Its just that up until recently it hadn't occurred to me that my husband's interest in indulging in that bit of quirky behavior might be fueled by needs that I couldn't fulfill....or that his needs were all being better satisfied elsewhere....

Hells Bells I'm a damn Private Detective! If there is one thing you get to know all about in my line of work its all the family lies and betrayals. Most of which usually involve someone cheating on their spouse. There's a well known fact that many people who are stepping out and having something extra on the side can actually become more affectionate seeming twords their legal marital partner.  And not always because the two-timing jerks feel guilty about the whole thing either.

And just like so many other blindly loyal weak suckers I just can't bring myself to accept the possibility that it could be happening...

John is even a kind of stereotypical perfect example, of more than one version, of the sort of guys prone to commiting adultery. He's good-looking and well knows it, we've been married for more than long enough for the glow to have faded for him quite a ways back, and his professional life-style gives him all the means and opportunities possible in which to indulge in that vice.  

There could be every reason in the world for me to believe that floozy. That John has been seeing those showgirls, strippers, and wives of the upper-crust urban elite and 'Family Men'....

But I'm a pathetic chump.  

"Harry?" John's concerned rumble yanked my attention to the worried green eyes hovering inches away from my own. 

Oops! While I was busy being lost in the hell that was my own mind I'd somehow gone and tripped some of Johnny's worry buttons. Yet another reason introspection was a bad idea and should be avoided like the plague.

"Yeah?"

John backed off a step and a Scooby-Do sized sandwich appeared out from somewhere practically bopping me on the chin. "Eat something. Please sweetheart."

I almost ended up utterly humiliating myself then cause the level of banked pain in his voice made me want to start balling like a big baby.

I took a big bit of my dinner instead.

As the warm yeasty softness touched my tongue my stomach roared to hard demanding life with so much painful angry need I almost thought it was going to crawl right up my throat and pounce on the food itself inorder to prevent me from depriving it for any longer.

Which reminded me..

Not pausing my attempts to beat the world's record for foot-long sub devowering I released one hand to fish around in my pocket for a few seconds before tossing the prize to the woman standing across from me with the dumb expression of a stunned mackerel frozen on her mirror familiar face.  

She snapped out of her unexplained daze in time to catch the shield bracelet in mid-air.

Hurridly, after first swallowing the food stuffed in my mouth and a drink of the soda John also passed to me, I explained. "Its a spare. I thought you might need something so that you're not stuck here running around compeatly naked." Er, somehow I don't think that came out sounding right.

"Thanks. But I don't think I'm the one we have to worry about nudity with here."

"Mores the pity." The more golden-toned woman lamented dryly giving her companion a pointedly deliberate slow once over.

" Ha ha, very cute Vohnni."

"Why thank you honey."

" Don't call me H- honey!" Her outraged shriek was silenced by Ms. Marcone smugly plopping a peeled banana into that unattractively gaping maw.

Oookay....Are we actually sure these two are really copies of us?

" If you're done playing with the food now can we finally go see Bob about the mirror-?"

The taller woman choked on her fruit.

Chapter Text

Yeawwzzzah!

Oh man this was so great I could barely hold myself in check until after I'd been 'awakened'!

" Bob."

"Whoohoo! Harry! Hubba Hubba Yeah! Its about time! Bring on the orgy!"

"Bob." Harry naturally automatically responded with the usual offended mortification he's pron to whenever I mention anything fun. " Bob!...BOB!-"

"- the hot, heavy, straining, moist, quivering bodies-!" I was laying it on thick I know. That was the point.

"BOB!" Whoa! Temper. Temper. Boy we really do need to get that connection with your beloved patched back up and fast! 

"What? Seriously! Empty Night Harry, there is enough sexual tension, possessive jealousy, protective rage, and seething longing, not to mention heartbroken despair blasting out of you four to think a supernova's went and gone off in here! For the sake of everybody's' health- get on with the healing sexual sating already! Or at least take the edge off with some kinky fooling around -preferably somewhere where I have a good seat! And if you need coaching or some ideas for new positions to try you know I'm more than eager to help you out-."

" This is a serious alternate reality breach happening here. Not porn."

"A talking skull." Ooh! Who woulda guessed a female Marcone made such a hotty of a femme fatal!

"A spirit of knowledge bound to a skull actually. I'm all about the intelligence and wisdom of the ages baby! But that doesn't stop me from also being a expert in the fine arts of physical love."

"You mean lewd lechery."  

"Harry! And oh yeah I have no trouble at all recognizing you there in that other bodatious bod. I'm hurt! Jeeze I'd forgotten what a prude were before you started getting regular plowings from your Italian stallion- or in your exact case it would be that hot mama over there you need. Whadda ya say lushious lady? whould you be willing to do us all a really pleasurable favor-?"

"Salt and Sky, that is enough! Shut up Bob or you are never ever going to see another of your romance novels or porn videos ever again! And I won't be buying you anymore new ones to replace them either!"

Harsh! And totally unfair. I'm only trying to help here after all.

Chapter Text

A spirit of knowledge. How..... tantalizing.

It, or shall we say 'he' since there does seem to be a name indicating a male self-identification, certainly knows how to rile Dresden if nothing else. Granted that is far from hard to do with the overexcitable  wizard. Miss Dresden is wearingly preferential to becoming both excitable and confrontational at the slightest provications. Such childish delight in being both difficult and obstinate is enough for me to feel inclined to turn her over my knee....unfortunatly that would never do except to muddy the lines further and the woman very obviously already has enough confused issues with desire and sex as it is. Though once I finally discover the perpetrators of this I have the feeling that I will be needing to take retaliatory actions to punish them for their unforgivable sin in hurting my Harry.

No, no matter what the spirit might hope I have no wish to share. Harry is mine. Or at least she could be if she would ever finally give me a sign that she was fully accepting of my approach. Seeing as this was Dresden that was going to be required to be a exactly specified flat-out statement from her- and even then I would still need to triple check for coercion and other outside influences.  

Though I have to admit that the idea of having two Harrys is a wonderful source of material for speculating on during moments of private fantasizing. Unfortunately in reality the effects of having double the amount of overly volatile, danger attracting, chaos inducing, magic user would be far more likely to be too much for any poor overly burdened world to safely endure.

Still Harry's male counterpart did have some fine qualities of his own.

His elegant way of tossing a magical scull into a cloth sack, in a effort to muffle its undaunted rhapsodizing on about sex acts, was a entertaining delight all on its own. The way he then stuck his own face in the opening and argued with it like a child with a teenaged older brother only made the whole spectacle even more mesmerizingly amusing.

Right up until a automatic side glance to continue keeping an eye on my own Harry reviled that not only had she wandered over a couple of feet to one of the cluttered workbenches but that the beet red blush caused by the public display of crudity( not that I hadn't heard far worse before) from the raunchy 'helper' had vanished. Replacing it unfortunately was ashen disgusted horror.

My own amusement evaporated instantly and I moved closer...

And spotted the cause of her sudden distress easily enough.

Every ounce of hope that coming to this reality had blazed up in my being with the discovery that our counterparts were together here.....died.

Peeking boldly out from its hiding place shoved, likely deliberately, in the very middle of the overloaded trash bin, where it would have been completely concealed as long as no one accidently disturbed the carefully stacked pile by for instance bumping into it, was a home made photo image of a overly busty blond woman outfitted and posed in a manner that I know was beyond the tolerable leeway of many legal porn industries' senses of decency.

Evidently Harry's counterpart was cheating on mine.    

Chapter Text

I was looking for a mallet. Something heavy and wicked to smash the evil Bob with. Or you know a black marker to fill in the missing villain beards all those guys should have been wearing. One or the other whichever came in reach first.

But I bumped the trashcan and got to see the creased and partly crumpled picture of Miss Porno instead. Yay me. Seriously my life...

And can I also say Ewww. Okay girls and boys interesting fact- the human body is not, in clearheaded close examination, the prettiest thing in the world. There are reasons that sculpters and painters tend to not bother with apsolutly all the tiniest details. And why airbrushing was invented. Lets face it most of the time people look better with clothes on.

By that I mean real clothes. Not whatever the hell this dame was sorta wearing.

Stars and Stones, who knew skin-tight black leather could look so...chunky?...bulky?... encumbersome? When it had big pieces cut out of certain places that included the spots that most prioritize in consealing. Oh and interesting fact - apparently a large round cut-out from dark heavy material inorder to expose a pale belly can make even a flat tummy look not the greatest. 

My counterpart was betraying Vohnni- I mean Vohnni's male counterpart and having a badly hidden affair behind his back? I know I've been accused of being lacking in self-preservation skills but this is moronic even for a anti-me!  Scary, dangerous, controlling crime lords do not take betrayals well! That's kind of one of the things they're really well known for as a matter of fact- their very bad reactions to the idea of it.  

 I wished I had my sister on hand since a  white court vamp would have had no trouble figuring out if that image was sappossed to be considered sexy or not. For all I know it was a attempt at a supervillain costume that had gone all wrong. Or a joke I'm not getting.That at least would make more sense than this.

There was a flash of color in my peripheral vision. Vohnni. Oh Hells Bells she's gonna- yup she saw it aaannnnd now she's going for one of her knives I know she has hidden on her somewhere under that embroidered tunic thingy she's wearing. Oh crap the last thing this mess needs is the scumbag loosing it over a some cheating spouses! Even if one of them is supposed to be some twisted version of me that would do such a thing.

The image blackened and curled under scorched as much as I was by Vohnni's glare-...

Oh wait, my mistake, the picture was on actual fire. Wisps of sharp stinging acid smoke drifting up from tiny racing flames....um I'm pretty sure that wasn't my doing.

An all too familiar looking cowboy boot( cause I literally have an identical pair at home) came down in pointed deliberateness to crush the burnt paper as if putting out a cigarette.

The other Harry, with an heavy air of coiled and just barely still restrained fury, had strode over and was now confronting us both in manner that was worryingly like a gunfighter in an old west shoot-out. 

Oh oh. I admit I know I have a bit of a temper and can be a little...impulsive at times but not like that!....And is that really how my goofy mug looks when I'm angry?

"I won't let you hurt him." The other me hissed in warning. Yes hissed not that he sounded like a real snake's hiss or anything but there was that same edge of a animal angry -warning sound in it. 

Uh, youwhatnowhuh?

Hurt who? Not Miss Leather and no Laces since she is apparently irrefutably female based on all uh 'visible evidence'. Johnny Marcone?

"Harry?"

Oh empty night talk about things going from bad to worse! John had noticed something was wrong. Okay yeah of course he would since he would have had to have been like completely blind and stupid no to and he's far from incompetent( in fact, as Vohnni's double,he'd be rather frightfully competent).

The (possibly)Murderous Man-Moll Harry was positioned directly between him and us but John came in like a sneaker-wave and nearly, but visibly pulled back from actually, engulfing and sweeping the taller man off his feet on entering our little secret circle. And I really couldn't help but be unpleasantly reminded of those scenes in crime noirs. You know the part where we find out that not only is the criminal kingpin psycho but is bat-shit nutzo possessively obsessed with the seductive 'allure fatal' ? Yeah well it felt like I had just tripped into 'that scene' and had gone and replaced the idiot who gets themselves 'made an example of'. Only in this case it wasn't clear which guy was in the role of crazed killer.

I couldn't look at Vohnni to see her reaction to all this.

For an endless moment the room held its breath in anticipation.

Only to be broken by a sound like an entire antique porcelain collection getting smashed by clumsy movers dropping a box of it 

Stars and Godsdammed Stones!

Not the explosion any of the four of us had been braced for at all.

And this time I knew for sure it wasn't me...or even, you know, 'me' who caused it either.

Is it still seven years bad luck when there hasn't been anything but epic misfortune going on anyway?

Chapter Text

This was really turning into a night for crashes.

"What was that? Harry? Harry! What's going on? Harry!"

" I'm right here Bob." I took a moment to ensure that our visitors from an evil AU weren't about to try any anythings on John the moment I had my back turned, then hurriedly went to retreave the scull from out of his confines so he could see. " But the mirror, um, broke."

"It broke?

" Yeah."

"Let me see!"

I took him over so he could get a look at the shattered mess the newly decorated my already constantly abused floor. It was merciful luck that the thing hadn't all out exploded... 

"Well?"

"Well what?"

" What do you mean what! What do you think about the fact that a magic mirror belonging to the most powerful wizard of all time just commited suicide on my workroom floor?"

"You're gonna need a broom?"

"Bob!"

" Well you are!....And its not really what I would call a magic mirror- more like it was a mirror with magic in it."  

I looked at the battered round disc. "Huh." Different.

And you know what else? It was really kind of oddly shaped now that I was looking at it more closely.

" The magic explains why the thing hasn't turned into a lump of flaking rusted green scrap a long time ago."

I set Bob back down on the closest table, where he had a good vantage point, and picked up an edge and took a peek at what had been behind the flat pane of glass. What I discovered there was interesting. It was not as flat as a mirror should be on the inside but more like a flattened shallow bowl. That made sense since bowls of water were what they used to use to see their reflections back in the Dark Ages when glass was mostly unavailable.

My dopplegeianger moved up to the other side poking at the backing. In my great maturity I refrained from swatting her away from the prize like the irritating pest she was....mostly...it was only some shooing away...really.

And she went and had the nerve to go and try to kick me!

The backing promptly broke off clattering to the floor to lay there with the rest of the mess looking remarkably like one of those sealing rings you get on a old twist-top bottle.

Thinking to protect the remainder of the thing from Miss Distruction I hefted it up.

"It's a shield."

Oh hey, when had Gard and Hendricks come in?

I peered down again at the round disc of metal I was holding tucked under my chin and against my upper body. It did look a lot like a shield that way. Not too heavy and a lot smaller than popular imagination would have it be. This didn't feel like a piece of armor for someone riding around in a tin-can wardrobe. 

There was a odd thoughtful sound from Bob. The lights in the scull's eye-sockets dimming with a slight haziness.

" You know, the guy now called Alexander the Great was claimed to have possessed the shield that had previously belonged to the one refered to as Achilles." My favorite spirit of knowledge sounded thoughtful now- his out of the blue information uttered in a soft almost uncomfortable manner. I felt my chest clench with a kind of unspecified worry  at the sound of it.

" It was legendarily said to have helped save his life in India after he got a lung completely skewered during a battle."

" How does that connect with Merlin?"

" Don't know- I mean, it doesn't. But if it did....It would have witnessed the death of Patroclus.- Achilles' love. And Hector after Achilles went off the deep end. Then Achilles. All of Troy....Followed by being with ol Alex when the guy lost his apparent real hotty of a BFF/other-half, that you can't convince me he wasn't also sexing, and when he too suspiciously bought it. Plus the chaos that followed that empire's collapse. Add the possibility of it being there witnessing nearly the same tragedy happening al over yet again when who is known as King Arthur went down with Camelot crumbling after....That's a lot of serious sadness to have absorbed."

" You're saying it might be cursed?" The Baroness Marcone was quicker than me on that one.

"No not cursed. It wasn't the cause of all the bad. Or influenced any events like some mind altering drug of ultimate bummerness. It was just...there."

" And now its here." John looked even more pensive. It made me wonder what kind of answers he was coming up with and exactly how much I wasn't going to want to hear them.

" Now its here."

" But what does that have to do with the whole 'Meet Your Its A Horrible Life' thing it did?" Somebody sounded ready to start throwing angry temper-tantrums. Honestly! Not like me at all no sir!...Uh, why're you giving me that look? Stop it!

" Oh, well, that I'd guess was caused by the magical effects of absorbing some of Merlin's tears."     

Chapter Text

Evidently, the continued presence of two Harry Dresdens in close proximity to eachother only decreases their already immature and aggressive natural mental states. It could be the result of some type of automatic safety measure that prevents against paradox induced mutual cancelations of both existences...but most likely it was only Dresden being herself.

And the Harry I know was not one to lean towards unfaithfulness. Exactly the opposite as a matter of fact. And while leeway for multiple variation must be acknowledged and taken into account for a separate alternate version of the wizard I don't get the impression of a man hiding a torrid affair. True this Harry 'could' be a far better actor and cunningly manipulative opportunist than the one I'm experienced with...but I highly doubt it. Harry Dresden might have, possible universal, bad taste but cheap overdone sleaze just doesn't fit. She was classy that way. If I could get her to come to me willingly I knew she would then stay mine. If only I could find the trick in which to get her to do so. And there was a trick. Harry had a aversion to being cooperative that could be diagnosed as pathological. (One day I will find the source behind that). Too deliberately antagonistical and too easy to rile. Given the close parallels in realities I felt it safe to feel reassured that my Harry didn't recognize the individual in the photograph any more than I did. I did take the opportunity to take note of the woman's face though- on the off chance it was someone I would one day have to deal with. 

I did however recognize the quick hushed conversation 'this' Hendricks had quietly had with 'this' Marcone. It was the same one I remember having with my second a few days ago involving a altercation an out-of-town guest had with a stripper.

Though I had not at that time also been in the middle of discovering that the most powerful sorcerer to ever live, the Merlin from the Arthurian Legends no less, was not only not as popular culture had him portrayed as, he was also a secret shame of the magical community that those in the upper power levels lived in fear of. 

Because he had evidently long ago gone violently insane.  

And also naturally,the last time anyone had seen him was due to the man revealing an unexpected interest in Harry.

Chapter Text

This was going to be tricky. Nobody here was not going to be happy with what I was about to say. Not even me. I wasn't sappossed to be telling anybody this information. I didn't even want to tell it. But I had to. In a ' my only safe option is to keep what I know to myself so now I'm dooming myself' way. And even worse, because the rest just wasn't bad enough on their own, the conversation had the possibility of drawing Merlin's very much unwanted attention to us and the fact that we'd been discussing subjects that he was known to be rather oversensitive about. Provoking Merlin had never been on my list of ways I'd like to die. Harry may've had a kink for enraged rough stuff but then again the kid never was exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer which is why I always had to look out for the silly doofus. 

" Michael Carpenter doesn't have the real Excalibur." Yeah way to wussy out I know- I was just working up to saying the hard stuff.... honest I was. " He has a magic sword yes. And it is as powerful and special as you thought. But not Excalibur. Excalibur, the real one, isn't so...sociable. Frankly anyone who says they've found or seen anything that was to do with Merlin, Excalibur, King Arthur, or Camelot has been lying or was tricked. It might even have been Merlin playing a  trick on them if it was one of his good days. But in reality Merlin is protectively  hypervigilant and overreactive in a way that makes dragons and mama bears look lax. And he really doesn't like it when people try to mess with his 'sleeping' charges." Was the magic getting stronger in here? I couldn't be sure but Empty Night it felt like it! Okay, gotta stay calm now here.

"Those old classic stories are really nothing more than a lame ass attempt to re-write overtop of the truth about what really happened. Well that and of course those bard guys in the middle ages wanted to get it on with hot, rich, married chicks because seriously who wouldn't..." I took in the expressions that comment got out of my listeners and sighed because talk about not valuing the important stuff in life here! Somebody save me from the lingering contaminations of the Victorian's prudishness! "Well anyway, It hid a truth that the wizarding community itself had buried and forgotten in the effort to not have to live life with a bunch of realities that they couldn't accept. Those who learned what really happened preferred to maintain the more comfortable fiction, or paid the price in being rejected, and passed the lies along to those they taught."

Harry was looking rather worried about my seriousness. Probably not sure what he should be expecting. He had good reason to worry.

" Do you know why the head of the White Council is called The Merlin?"

" Because he's the most powerful wizard alive?"

"Wrong! Don't you get it!. MERLIN is. Merlin is immortal. But he long ago made it very clear he wouldn't have anything to do with the entire lot of them. Unless by some off chance he suddenly up and decides to finally off them all....which you know, would be bad for everybody. He's pretty much hated, or at least seriously rejected, other wizards ever since Camelot fell. And they've all learned to be rightly terrified of him after they learned the real situation with him. The title is a mockery, a challenge, a way to replace the real person with the image of who they wanted him to be. Dumb move I know. Lucky for them he completely ignores it. He's been content to remain focused on waiting for his king to wake back up to bother with revenge. "

"Revenge for...?" I was totally overturning  things Harry thought were major truths about the magical world. 

" Killing Arthur and destroying Camelot. See, the true story evidently goes some thing like this:

 King Uther banned magic in Camelot right after Arthur's birth. And by banned I mean punishable by death to anyone who practiced it, were rumored to practice it, said a favorable thing about it, or had any none-hostile association with someone who'd been accused of it. Real racial extermination stuff. Arthur grew up to be a excellent fighter who viewed magic and all users of it as the enemy. Being Uther's heir, champion, and evidently all around head overseer of every-job- to- do- with -armed- men made him an ideal target for those opposed to Camelot's rule. Couse the fact that he was targeted more often than the sapposed 'evil ruler who'd caused all their grief' kinda underminded their claims of doing so for a greater good. Which brings me to the prophacies. There's where the trouble really started. Because Merlin was told that his destiny was at Arthur's side. He didn't find out until years later, when Arthur was dying of that also 'fated' death blow, that there was another one that the magical community had found and for the most part perfered to like much better- that magic would be freed with the end of the entire Pendragon line. Merlin was in the same age-group as Arthur. They were preteens when they met."

" They were outwardly a pair of preening brats both in awe of their own senses of right and rapidly growing abilities that were too quick to assume the wrong first impressions of one another and butt heads like juvenile goats. "The Valkyrie huffed with a oddly distant look in her eye. Hmmmm, sounded like there was some personal history there...

"Right. Then Merlin discovered his destiny and took a position in the royal household."

" He saved Arthur's life from an assassin and was rewarded with the placement of the Crown Prince's personal manservant. They both very quickly became caring and protective of one another. "

" Merlin appointed himself secret magical bodyguard and went attack-dog on those that threatened Arthur and/or Camelot. Meanwhile many of the magical communities went with their own ides of how things should be. There were those who thought it would work most in their favor if the Lady Morgana was on the throne; she naturally possessed powerful magical abilities of her own, she was a woman( and this fact was favored by some bigoted into believing that either this meant she would be weaker and easier to control than a man or alternately that her gender would mean that she was automatically considered better than any man ), and she was rumored to be Arthur's half-sister by one version of adulterous behavior or another on Uther's part."

" Uther was sterile. His pride is what made him assume he sired either one. In truth he doubted more the boy he'd demanded to be created by magic as being his and not the result of an act of cuckoldry in its own right." 

" Huh yeah, that makes sense. The unfaithful and the cheaters are the ones quicker to assume the same of others."

'Yeaoow! I feel a cat fight coming on!' The Harry's glared at eachother. Johnny's brow was lowered in a way that said he knew something was very obviously up and had caught the idea of the subject matter- and did not like it at all. Harry was going to have his hands very soon full with a bossy wise-guy wanting answers. Ooo, interrogation kink! Maybe they'll go at it in here where I can watch!

"So because the real Morgana and Arthur turned out to be too caring and protective of eachother she ended up having to be...uh, 'replaced' when her loyalty could not be freely swayed."

" That second Morgana was successful in fulfilling the prophacies of her being The High Priestess turned against her brother The High King."

" And since that shitty move did so well the idea was quick to be brought forth and used again after Lancelot died so that his replacement betrayed Arthur's trust in him and the queen and got Gueniveire exiled from Camelot- for a while anyway. She eventually returned but great damage had already been done."

" With silences, secrets, and lies Arthur was being destroyed." Yeah, that's nice and philosophical and all Miss Norselands but if you wanted to be the one telling this story you should have said so sooner.

" The final piece was of course Mordred. A boy that Merlin, Morgana, and Arthur had once rescued from Uther's executioners. Prophecized as Arthur's killer his hopeful belief in Arthur  bowing down to the superiority of magic's authority for the sake of a peaceful resolution got crushed against the force of Arthur's refusal to be bullied and blackmailed into submitting to a tyrannical subjugation and Merlin's hyper-stressed wary protectiveness and soul-weary accustumtion to disappointment and betrayals. The ideology of 'The Once and Future King' and 'The Greatest Magic User To Ever Live' making sacrifices for 'The Greater Good' turned a bit sour on him when he ended up being one of the sacrifices that didn't result in anything more than a continuation of the ongoing stalemate and Merlin's focus tightening even more closely on Arthur's well-being instead of placing it in with the rest of the world in a general sense of all around amniable regard for the continuation of life like he was intended to inorder to further benefit the future. "

" Finally that last battle happened. Mordred skewered Arthur as was planned and got killed himself. Merlin escaped the battlefield with his dying king. Only to somehow find out way too soon a lot more than he was ever sappossed to-."

" The Sidhe at Avalon. They had long wanted possession of Arthur. Thinking their desire was at last going to be successfully fulfilled they may have grown too boastful and smug when interacting with Merlin." 

"That could have done it. And while those guys were busy letting the cat out of the bag, a lot of victorious magic users, who had naturally kept themselves out of the battle, were triumphantly entering Camelot to spread the joy of the fall of Arthur and their return to prominence."

"Oh oh."

"Pretty much yeah."

" They expected their arrival to be a welcome and longed for relief. For the citizens to be overjoyed and reassured with the news of Arthur's death. Arthur was never claimed as perfect but he was a loving and caring devoted ruler that had done his best and he'd been adored for it."

" Yup. With Arthur gone the evidently self-deluded putzes trouped right into the castle and the throne-room. The queen was intended to acknowledge their higher authority. They reportedly origionally planned to let her rule the little kingdom for what need did any of them have for doing the work of governing- it was after all not the most important or prominent of positions in the new order of things. What they weren't expecting was continued loyalty to a dead man. The queen though screwed-up their plans and refused their kindness evidently to die vowing her continued and eternal fealty to the rulership of King Arthur instead."

"Many died resolute in remaining devoted to the service of The Once and Future King. Their spirits refusing the offers to be taken to Valhala."

"Camelot was destroyed completely. Though itself magical it had been a place feared for decades by magic users so the loss was not considered intolerable by the magical community. Besides they were too busy being exited over the prophecy having come to pass and the magic having been set free. Right up until they realized that all their manipulations and twistings of it had decided to turn around and bit them in the ass now as well. The magic was apparently let loose alright. Just as it was foretold it would be. But evidently that manipulative bit of stinging irony that likes to play havoc on these sorts of promised fates kept out the little matter of all that freed magic being Merlin's grief getting loose and running wild."

" Emrys is magic. Arthur was formed of magic. Facts unwise to overlook. Merlin's mourning severed even more of the ties that had held magic connected to this mortal world."

" By the time he'd calmed down the forces of magic in the world were left weaker than ever before. He'd also gone and stolen away the remains of Avalon, Camelot, his king, and the loyal people who'd been close to Arthur taking them and himself off to some secret hidden place where no-one else is ever allowed and then proceeded to go about mostly ignoring apsolutly everything to do with the rest of existence entirely when not messing with people when in a good mood or scaring the crap out of those who get near him when he's in one of his crazy psycho phases....at lest until Justin DuMourn's last attempt to break Harry."

Whoo, Johnny-boy! There really is no question at all as to why Harry calls you a tiger is there?' I liked that about the man. Calm and cold to balance Harry's hot and wild yet savage and primal to offset and protect Harry's sweetness. He can protect Harry while Harry protects him. Plus the guy perfectly built for looking hot wrapped around my favorite wizard.

"Who?" That's right Ms Mob probably doesn't know about that one yet.

"The disgusting evil piece of crap excuse for a wizard that adopted Harry." 

"I see. And this individual...?"

"Is dead."

" None of your-Hey, personal private information is not for the ears of creepy stalkeryish moffiosos!"  Hells' Bells she was like a freaking flashback to the sex drought years! Empty Night, I don't think I could survive it a seciond time! Dealing with Harry'd had me half convinced I'd die from the sheer frustration of it all!

"It isn't exactly a secret when its public record. Can we please get back to why Merlin of all people was at my trial!"

" Not the trial Harry. The part that came before."

" I don't remember." No Duh.

" We noticed. But the itty bitty little event during that incident that you honestly can't recall is the part where the Winter Queen and the Summer Queen showed up like a couple of prowling sharks that smelled blood in the water ta yank ya into their corner of the Never Never.-" If I'd possessed a body I'd have shuddered in remembered revulsion at the very thought of those two. " The part where whatever you did caused Emreys to not only show up but go and decide to yank all the power out of both courts entirely!"

"It was a thing not believed possible despite the previous fate of those villainous Sidhe of Avalon."

"The old hermit actually went and broke their connections to the very elements and the most basic of magical sources themselves. They were made up near entirely of magic but he had nature and magic reject them. He left them without any substance. They were left as nothing more than unraveling impressions of personality and the tattered remnants of destroyed mortal souls that unable to continue existing in such states simply snuffed out. Very, very dead in other words."

" Those courts are now destroyed forever." And how.

" Understandably this freaked out a lot of people in the magical communities who of course then wanted to know why even if they didn't have a how. " They still did. So did I. But I wasn't dumb enough to risk my hide, such as it was, for the information.

"Yeah, that would be nice to know. Along with why no one's ever bothered to tell me about any of all this before." Jeeze Harry! Whine some more why don't you! I'm telling you now aren't I?

"Never mind the mob moll, why wasn't I told!"  Ugh. Just for the record, Two Harrys are way worse than double the trouble!

"Calm down babalishious Harry, nobody came up with any answers so the whole thing was eventuality dropped and forgotten about."

"And yet now..."

"Now there's a set obvious of themes here-."

"Tragedy."

"Death."

"Murder."

"Crazy nutzo people?"

"The falling of empires."

"History repeating itself."

"Long-winded narration?"

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother trying....

Uhh, did anyone else notice that odd little brief magical surge that just happened?

No?

Good. It must have just been my imagination then.

NOT!

Man are we in for it!

"Harry! We've got trouble!"

Chapter Text

The British Isles Somewhere. One Week Previous.

In every body of water at which he looked he always saw Avalon. Every ocean. Every sea. Every lake, pond, and puddle. He only ever saw the reflection of that lake and that isle. That ghostly place that held his friends hidden away and kept secret from the rest of the world for the past too long centuries. 

The bouquets tumbled down over the railing. One by one spilling several handfuls of flowers that went slipping into the water to float in a jumbled riot of color on the murky surface.

His own reflection stared back up at him beside the clumped clusters of selected floral collections. For a moment the face was that of an old, old sad man. Before it blurred and changed with the pale skin becoming firm and smoothed of all its wrinkles and age spots and the scraggly snow-white hair going short and dark.

The image of the young man who was his own past self held eye-contact with him till he switched perspectives becoming the young man looking up out from the depths at his elderly body that was standing above in insolated grief and gazing mournfully over the waters. 

Finally he turned away from the tragic figure on land and got to making his way downward. The flowers following obediently behind like a trailing cloud.

Down he went. Through the depths. Into lands that were long ago lost, And even farther down to the waters of a lake dried up long ago and buried under the piled-up accumulations of centuries. Sure, this made apsolutly no sense and was all blatantly impossible according to the modern sense of reality and rules of science but this was Merlin's magic doing it all after all which tended to ignore little irritants like limits and laws anyway especially when it didn't matter to him the hows or whys of it only that that was accomplishing what it was. Because he made it so.

At last he reached a wall of a mountainous pale crystal. Which obediently became a cavern at his touch.

Inside was dry with the wet of the deep getting left behind at the entrance. Around him the irredecent rock continued to melt away at his presence. Melting away like ice before the touch of hot metal. The walls desolving into stalagmites that sunk down into raised biers topped by softly glowing stone effegies carved of something that was like the lightest palest marble/crystal/ mother-of-pearl/ ice/ solidified luminescence but was actually solidified magical powers. Globes of serene and gentle magical blue lights floated comfortingly all around the tomb keeping the cold darkness at bay and the inhabitants company when he couldn't be more with them.

After over a thousand years his path through them had developed into a sort of ritual. He greeted each person one by one in turn. Like he was crossing paths with them as everyone was going about their daily routines. Or, perhaps more accurately, like he was checking on their safety in hard learned response to Camelot's alarming and absurd peridiction to danger. As he'd gotten used to doing when they were alive...

Everybody got given flowers. And if they so happened to have petals beaded with salty water when laid down even though they'd been perfectly dry on entering the magic cave...well that  was just one of those unanswerable mysteries in the world.

His circular wanderings inevitably spiraled in tight to eventually finally lead him to the side of the central focus.

Which was Arthur.

Lying there as still and cold as he'd never been in life. Someone so golden and vibrantly alive wasn't meant to be reduced to this....stillness. Arthur was strength and action. Not some lifeless icon waiting for someone to come along and take up in order to use. Arthur's power...his specialness...his glory...his Arthur-ness....wasn't something that could be passed on or transfeered. And with it gone it left such a painful void in the world.

It was just so wrong to reach out to touch those strong hands and find chilled stone where warm callused flesh should be. So Merlin tried not to make too much actual contact or at least not think about it when he did which helped a little and hopefully kept him from loosing what last shreds of sanity he might still possess. He couldn't be entirely bonkers yet if he were still worried about going insane now could he? He really didn't want to have gone mad. Not in a bad way anyway.

" Sorry bout last time. Buggers get more persistant every attempt. But I won't let them have you. I promised I wouldn't fail you again and I won't." Skinny fingers traced the edge where the thick band of the wide circlet crown, resting mid-way between hairline and eyebrow-line, met marble forehead and started automatically brushing soothing patterns over the places that weighty metal had tended to press painfully against sensitive temples. " Right winners that lot too." There was a unexpected puff of air that left Merlin blinking rapidly and gazing with blank surprise at the small burst of flying soot which had replaced one or two of the older bouquets from among those that still lined the foot of the bier. "Oops...Well anyway don't you go giving a second thought to any of the rubbish they spouted on about alright? Because that's all it was just nasty lies that they had no right saying! You're a good man. A good King. The best! You were never any sort of abusive or whatnot! Not ever and no way no how could you have been! Granted you could be more than a bit pushy at times...and bossy...and pig-headed not to mention bound and determined to leap into every suicidal act of heroism you came across!...Er? But you were never that bad! You could have been far worse so easily! How dare they! Claiming things like that I was some sort of masochist with a martyr complex that allowed everybody under the sun to grind me into the dirt beneath their heels then whined and moaned about it! Naturally unfairly repressed and underminded due to my born superiority! What a bunch of horse hooey! That's no better than those blighters that were all for going on about me being some kind of over selfconfident putz!. What the Bloody hell s wrong with people! Thinking you deserved to be miserable because you were a better person than any of them could ever dream of being in their petty miserly narrow-minded- uhgg! Was funny at first what with all people could come up with about us even though not ever even having known at thing about any of it bur wild tales. But now it's gotten more than a bit old right. I can't wait till this is all over! Then non of this will have ever happened. That'll be good." He felt himself start to grin happily with the excitement of the idea. Right up until a metaphoric cloud put a right sudden damper on that bit of sunshine. "I hope you'll still like me. I haven't always been the nicest of personalities. Some have come to consider me a damn moral lesson for who not to be like. A-and I'm mostly certain your still the same you and haven't been changed or lost something or whatever else type of thing that would mean you coming back somehow wrong in some horrible way.... No it'll be all good. I won't let it be any other way. You'll see. Everything will be fine...." The prattling on trailed off after a bit being the same old same old and he was so tired of this...

With them unable to see it he was able to let himself quietly sink down to the ground under the weight of it all to huddle at the base of his king's resting place. Starting up almost immediately again with the chattering one-sided conversation his voice cheery and light-hearted at not in anyway at all like that of someone who was sitting there rocking himself and clutching at his own hair. But his friends didn't need to know that. No reason to have them worry. He was fine. He could do this. Everything was just fine. And once he was finished getting his latest little moment done and out of the way he could continue going about with things again with only a bit of hasty scrambling to make up the lost time he hadn't wanted to waste so.

The book he dug out of his worn canvas satchel was nice and thick. They were only partially through this one still. It would last them a while more...

Chapter Text

The house was just as town and country nice and peaceful as all the other ones on the quiet street. Right up until I started pounding loudly on the door and shouting for Dresden. No mob goons came running. Sure, that could have been because they've learned better than to mess with me during times I'm forceful like this. Or, if you want to subscribe to the possibility that I'm not some egotistical bullying knuckle-dragger then, because Harry's my friend and I'm usually getting him involved with craziness or getting sucked into his latest insanity which means nasty dangerous shit nearby and those with survival instincts need to be getting out of the way and outta the path of madness, chaos, and destruction( i.e. Harry and I). We're good at destruction. Harry epecially.

Harry's beloved on the other hand is far too acquainted with lowlife slimeballs for my liking. And oh damn what time is it now anyway? It is so past time for me to be in bed. My shift was supposed to be over two hours ago! I wanted nothing more than to be at home and asleep right now. And since I can't have that I was going to wake Harry so he could share in my misery. Not to mention help me with who or whatever had decided to leave concrete a clawed-up singed mess and some sewer- level gang leader as re-hacked-up kibble. Creep may have had a rap sheet but probably hadn't deserved that...or then again maybe the jerk had. Bastard reminded me too much about the kind of record my worst mistake of an ex-boyfriend could have worked up to if I hadn't first dumped his abusive ass when he started hitting me and then shot the shit-head when he tried fricken stalking me!....where was I? Oh yeah, not making assumptions that the slime-wad deserved slicing and dicing. My job is stopping there from being more killings. And I will do that. As soon as I get Harry to help me find out who or what the killer even is and how exactly to stop it.

Damn I hope it's not a dragon or something really hard to make sound sane when putting it in the reports. Coming up with new not insane sounding ways to say thing like 'tripped-out power-mad magic user' gets old fast and quickly develops into being a kind of chronic migraine.

"Dresden!" Am I going to have to bust this stupid door down? If Harry's making me stand out here being ignored, except by an owl sitting on some sort of stupid knight statue over by the tree-line, because godsdamned Johnny is being all lovey-dovey I am so going to-! 

The door vanished inward almost taking me with it. 

" Hells Bells! You're taller?"

Chapter Text

The pounding at the door only kinda woke me up. It doesn't count as being woken if you never asleep in the first place right? Right. So I'd been zombie impersonating my way toward the smell of more hot coffee when that well known grouping of Murphy-sounds had percolated into my awareness. It was after sunrise now and none of us had gone to bed yet. Not that I could sleep, okay actually I was ready to fall into a full-on hibernation, or possibly a coma, if I so much as stood still for more than thirty seconds, but there was no time for that - so coffee. Lots and lots of super- strong could-take- the -rust -off-a- junkyard-car coffee. Enough that we were all probably in serious danger of caffeine poisoning from overdosing on the stuff. So I reluctantly diverted from my set course  and answered the door.

I was right about it being Murphy. And yes as it turns out, in this reality Murph was a girl. Called it! Just like I'd guessed so yay me with the big bad PI skills. But wait a flipped- reality moment! Why was Girl- Murphy taller than my Murphy? Hell's Bells, she wasn't supposed to be taller? Why was she taller here? It went against the whole shorter thing this reality had going. Why were Murph and Marcone both taller in this evil world? Though if I'd been any taller my poor counterpart would be doubling for a skyscraper so that is something to be thankful for and yeah okay, if Murphy was any shorter we'd be hitting real physically detrimental range, if we weren't already, or possibly just hobbit territory. But there was some downward range left on the purely human scale. I was looking forward to a mini Murph! Just goes to show how much this reality didn't like me. As if the whole mob moll and cheating spouses thing wasn't enough proof.

The taller, female, futuristic version of my friend was no naive dummy here either. She went from looking grouchy and sleepy to stiffly alert and narrow-eyed suspicious the second she caught sight of me. Even before I opened my mouth and blurted out a top contender for 'sentences most likely to clue people in that something weird was up'. I was not the Harry she was expecting and she wasn't about to let her brain fool her into thinking the strangeness she was seeing was a trick of erred vision.

" If you so much as try to say you're Harry's sister, or cousin, I will shoot you on the spot."

"Wow someone needs to watch less 'Days of Our Lives' "

Chapter Text

He was cold. So very cold. Weary to the bone. Needed to rest. Why could he not rest? Where was he? Nowhere he knew. Nothing recognizable to be seen. The owl fluttering at his helmet was annoying. Strange behavior. Why was it doing that? Was that his quest? Someone was enchanting owls to attack Camelot's knights? He could not recall his orders... Where was his king?  Wait! No. He was seeking Merlin! Where was Merlin? Something was wrong... there had been pain. Pain and Merlin sounding scared and so angry...And then he had gone. The cold hurt. Must not sleep....