It was one of Harry’s milder entrances to my office. He stuck his head around the door and said cautiously, “So, you know you were saying I should spend some more time in Chicago?”
I did, in fact, know that I had said that. But the flakes of snow in his hair and the worrying blue tinge to his lips distracted me. It was a baking summer’s day outside, and it took a rather concerted effort to make Harry feel the cold these days. “Yes?” I managed after a moment’s pause.
“How about a week? I could... I could use somewhere to stay for a bit.”
“What happened to I’ll come and go as I please, scumbag?” Stupid of me, to challenge him when he was conceding ground, but I have a pathological desire to challenge his every breath.
“Maeve happened to it. I’m waiting for her to calm down a bit.”
I’m not entirely clear on all the irrational rules governing personal relationships, but I had a vague awareness that perhaps Harry’s pragmatism should offend me. That I should want him at my office door because he missed me, because he wanted to make me smile, not because he was lying low. I wasn’t offended. I was a little proud of him instead, at having the sense to retreat rather than launch himself straight into trouble. And it would be a lie to say I didn’t feel a quiet sense of satisfaction at the fact Harry came to me when he felt threatened. It was for convenience more than anything, there was no real protection I could offer him that he couldn’t provide himself, but my ego didn’t seem to know that.
“I’m happy to have you Harry. Though I expect to be working late tonight.”
“So’m I,” he muttered, finally shouldering his way past the door and into the office. A heavy looking gym bag hung from his right hand, and I winced at the knowledge that it held all his worldly goods. “Really late actually. Got an errand I won’t have finished til four.”
“That’s fine. Just make sure you knock to wake me.” We’d startled one another out of sleep before, and agreed to avoid doing so in future. “Do you want me to pick anything up for you?”
“Nah,” he said, “I grabbed all my stuff. Can I leave it with you? Don’t want to haul it around the... uh, the place I’ll be in until later.”
“Of course.” I left him to his secrets. He had so many after all.
“Cool,” he said and moved forward, striding around my desk on his long legs to drop the bag beside my chair. He stooped over it and addressed his belongings with something that sounded suspiciously like sleep tight.
“I’ll see you later,” he said, coming back up for a kiss. It was evidently intended to be a chaste brushing of lips, but I turned into it, tilting my head upward helpfully and opening up to him. “Mmm,” he said, appreciating the gesture but lingering only briefly before pulling away, “bye John.”
A bare twenty seconds after the door clicked shut behind Harry, the bag spoke to me. “Well now, that was worth waking up for.”
I went still. Harry wouldn’t endanger me deliberately, or at least, not in such an underhand fashion, but it was possible he might overlook something. He had acquaintances that were less forthright than himself.
The unexpectedly eloquent bag was within the protective circle subtly worked into the flooring surrounding my desk. It made the magical panic button I’d automatically moved my hand towards entirely redundant. I eyed the intercom instead. Gard was likely better equipped than I to deal with this, but any sudden move to summon her might provoke an attack.
“Who are you?” I asked, hand moving delicately into my jacket, palming the hilt of a knife. It had been a tell of mine, back in the day, when I could still afford to have one. Now it was simply caution rather than nerves. The steel of the blade would dissuade the fae, and the point would dissuade many others.
“A friend of Harry’s,” the bag said, and then it started to unzip itself. I drew the knife and stood, slowly. We hadn’t quite tipped into hostilities. Perhaps I could reason with it, whatever it was.
A skull rolled out of the bag. Its eye sockets flickered with orange fire.
I blinked. I’d seen a lot of human remains in my time, but they were usually more fleshy.
“I wasn’t aware he’d taken up necromancy. Now, who are you?”
“I’m not actually a skull, moron. What are you? Metaphysically illiterate?”
Not exactly, no, because I had the sense to answer with the same question, repeated for a third time. “Who are you?”
“Bob,” said the skull. “Which tells you nothing. Wrong question. And Harry thinks you’re so smart.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Bob. Now what are you?”
“A spirit of Air and Intellect. Harry’s spirit, to be exact, and I have business with you, John Marcone.” Its eyes flickered red. I decided it was a danger signal and dived for the intercom button. But it burst into an angry shower of sparks and I pulled my hand back abruptly. “Nah, I thought’d we’d have more of a tete-at-tete,” the skull continued. “Traditional for this kind of discussion, right? We can do without your babysitter.”
“And what discussion might that be?”
“The discussion about your intentions, Baron.”
“My... intentions.” Good grief. “He’s a grown wizard, spirit. Not your virgin daughter.”
The skull snorted. It was somewhat unsettling, from a being without nostrils. “I don’t care about his virtue. Hell, if he was less of a stick in the mud, I’d come along for the ride. I want to know what you want from him. Apart from his ass.”
His time. His attention and affection. His insolence and his ragged heroism. “That’s none of your concern.”
The red of Bob’s eye-fires darkened. “It is. This time it is. I never get to meet the jackasses that get their claws into him before they tear him up.”
“I haven’t harmed him.”
“Right. When he comes in limping, I don’t just see the bruises. I get to see the soul sickness too, all the raw edges of his aura- ”
“I haven’t harmed him, spirit.”
“You got him scared,” the skull pointed out. “Mad.”
“Everything makes him mad,” I said. And I’d been intimidated a time or two by his power myself, but I didn’t need to draw attention to that.
The skull chuckled. “True. But not the way you do, Marcone. Not all mad and confused.”
It knew altogether too much about us. I stepped away from it, planning to retreat towards the door.
“Stop,” it said. I ignored it. “Stop.” And then I did, feet frozen in place. Hostilities.
“You say you’re Harry’s spirit, and you’re concerned with my intentions. Have you considered his? He won’t thank you for threatening me.”
The spirit chuckled, mandible bouncing its skull around morbidly. “Hiding behind your boyfriend? You aren’t very good at this mobster thing, are you?”
“Best in Chicago,” I said. Something about the spirit, as hostile and irreverent as it was, put me in mind of Harry. Softened my responses somewhat, even when the thing had me fixed in place in my office.
“Hah. And anyway, Harry doesn’t even know Harry’s intentions. Like I said. Confused. But he’s not the only one, is he?” No. Dresden was a complication I could not afford. As an ally, or an employee, he’d be a quantifiable asset. As my... whatever he was, he made me spend too much time second guessing myself, tripping over his expectations and paranoia and my own darker impulses. But we were getting by. The city hadn’t suffered for it.
I didn’t answer it. I weighed my knife in my hand and wondered if flinging it at the skull would do me any good. I wondered if chipping the cranium would make Harry angry. He owned so little, after all, but he’d been carting this Bob around with him. Sleep tight he’d said, with quiet affection.
Oh. We were having the best friend talk.
“Shouldn’t you have threatened me with a nasty death if I hurt him?” I suggested in a bored tone.
“I’m getting there. Anyway, it’d be a bit more inventive than forfeiting your life. Your empire maybe, that might be fun. Your legacy.” The eyelights were flickering faster. I thought, perhaps, in amusement. I didn’t rise to the threat.
“Yea, even unto the seventh generation.” I toned. “Fine. Message received. Now release my feet. It’s beneath my dignity to start crying for help, but I will if you force me.”
“I could stop you,” it told me. “I could slip inside your head and take the wheel. I could make sure you never hurt him.”
“So you could. But then you would hurt him by doing so.”
“...huh,” the spirit said. “Is this a morality thing? It is, isn’t it?”
“A morality thing. And a consent thing and a trust thing. All of which Harry is rather keen on.”
“Bugger,” the skull said. “Every time.”
“If you’re willing to get back in the bag and go back to sleep, I can forget to mention this to Harry.”
The skull hummed and skittered around a little. “Not sleepy. Bedtime story?”
“I don’t have any reading material on hand.”
“You could tell me one.” The force holding me in place vanished. “Harry’s first time! Was he coy? Did he blush when he spread his legs for you?”
“Enough,” I snarled, and all of a sudden I’d made my way over to the skull and swept it up from the floor. Gard would have scolded me I’m sure, but I’ve discovered I have surprisingly good instincts for this kind of thing. “Sleep.”
In my hands, the eyelights flickered out. I stared into the empty sockets of the skull.
“You’d make a good paperweight,” I muttered childishly, but tucked it back away in the bag before zipping it closed. Harry got fidgety about people touching his stuff now he had so little of it. There was no point intentionally unsettling him. I didn’t need to share this particular discussion with him after all.
<3<3<3 Booooooob! \o/ This is fantastic, hands down.
“You could tell me one.” The force holding me in place vanished. “Harry’s first time! Was he coy? Did he blush when he spread his legs for you?”
“Enough,” I snarled, and all of a sudden I’d made my way over to the skull and swept it up from the floor. Gard would have scolded me I’m sure, but I’ve discovered I have surprisingly good instincts for this kind of thing. “Sleep.”
It's Dead Beat, and it's a biiiit more complicated than that, I think.
When Cowl was physically holding Bob, yes he had control of him. But Harry still seems to have priority ownership (likely because he got Bob through right of conquest when he killed Justin). The second Cowl let go of Bob, Bob was answering Harry's orders again.
Actually, it's also possible to interpret that scene as Bob playing double agent the entire time he's with Cowl, but I don't think that jives with the rest of the Bob canon...
Thank you - brain isn't firing right yet this morning. I knew that possession was 9/10s of the law, there. I just didn't remember how 'ownership' transferred.
(ION I apparently now have a Wysocki muse, and yes, it's taking me there.)
Yup, can see you've already talked Dead Beat with Luce, but I was aiming for John having control of Bob when he held him, which is why he immediately obeyed the command to sleep. And if John had actually understood the power he'd taken and wanted to claim ownership, he probably could, but he doesn't understand and doesn't want to make a claim anyways, as he's invested in respecting Harry's property/feelings.
...Harry would totally freak if he came back and Bob was sat on top of a pile of finance reports :-D
Finance reports? Slightly scary, but pfeh. It's the shipping manifests. Cause you know Bob could find places to streamline Marcone's processes, having centuries of observed expertise.
...oh my god, he would wouldn't he? He'd start helping, even in totally non-magical capacities and Harry would turn up and be all WTF WE AREN'T IN THE MAFIA D-:
But boss, you know I read anything you set my skull on. And these inefficiencies, they're just stupid! I mean, even the Medicis figured out how to avoid them. Besides, straightening this out makes Johnny boy more relaxed, so he can get you more relaxed. How is this not a good thing?
THIS WAS AWESOME. Oh my god, Bob forcing Marcone to stay and listen was freaky and awesome. The whole talk of taking over his mind and having it stopped by, "aw, man, that morality thing, I'm so bad at that" = creepy and brilliant.
And the reiteration that everything Harry has fits into a duffel bag hurts me deep. Oh, Harry. 8(
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
BOB is a scary motherfucker
Date: 2011-02-16 12:13 pm (UTC)Come on, have Bob threaten the Mafia Overlord.
Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 01:16 pm (UTC)I did, in fact, know that I had said that. But the flakes of snow in his hair and the worrying blue tinge to his lips distracted me. It was a baking summer’s day outside, and it took a rather concerted effort to make Harry feel the cold these days. “Yes?” I managed after a moment’s pause.
“How about a week? I could... I could use somewhere to stay for a bit.”
“What happened to I’ll come and go as I please, scumbag?” Stupid of me, to challenge him when he was conceding ground, but I have a pathological desire to challenge his every breath.
“Maeve happened to it. I’m waiting for her to calm down a bit.”
I’m not entirely clear on all the irrational rules governing personal relationships, but I had a vague awareness that perhaps Harry’s pragmatism should offend me. That I should want him at my office door because he missed me, because he wanted to make me smile, not because he was lying low. I wasn’t offended. I was a little proud of him instead, at having the sense to retreat rather than launch himself straight into trouble. And it would be a lie to say I didn’t feel a quiet sense of satisfaction at the fact Harry came to me when he felt threatened. It was for convenience more than anything, there was no real protection I could offer him that he couldn’t provide himself, but my ego didn’t seem to know that.
“I’m happy to have you Harry. Though I expect to be working late tonight.”
“So’m I,” he muttered, finally shouldering his way past the door and into the office. A heavy looking gym bag hung from his right hand, and I winced at the knowledge that it held all his worldly goods. “Really late actually. Got an errand I won’t have finished til four.”
“That’s fine. Just make sure you knock to wake me.” We’d startled one another out of sleep before, and agreed to avoid doing so in future. “Do you want me to pick anything up for you?”
“Nah,” he said, “I grabbed all my stuff. Can I leave it with you? Don’t want to haul it around the... uh, the place I’ll be in until later.”
“Of course.” I left him to his secrets. He had so many after all.
“Cool,” he said and moved forward, striding around my desk on his long legs to drop the bag beside my chair. He stooped over it and addressed his belongings with something that sounded suspiciously like sleep tight.
“I’ll see you later,” he said, coming back up for a kiss. It was evidently intended to be a chaste brushing of lips, but I turned into it, tilting my head upward helpfully and opening up to him. “Mmm,” he said, appreciating the gesture but lingering only briefly before pulling away, “bye John.”
A bare twenty seconds after the door clicked shut behind Harry, the bag spoke to me. “Well now, that was worth waking up for.”
I went still. Harry wouldn’t endanger me deliberately, or at least, not in such an underhand fashion, but it was possible he might overlook something. He had acquaintances that were less forthright than himself.
The unexpectedly eloquent bag was within the protective circle subtly worked into the flooring surrounding my desk. It made the magical panic button I’d automatically moved my hand towards entirely redundant. I eyed the intercom instead. Gard was likely better equipped than I to deal with this, but any sudden move to summon her might provoke an attack.
“Who are you?” I asked, hand moving delicately into my jacket, palming the hilt of a knife. It had been a tell of mine, back in the day, when I could still afford to have one. Now it was simply caution rather than nerves. The steel of the blade would dissuade the fae, and the point would dissuade many others.
“A friend of Harry’s,” the bag said, and then it started to unzip itself. I drew the knife and stood, slowly. We hadn’t quite tipped into hostilities. Perhaps I could reason with it, whatever it was.
A skull rolled out of the bag. Its eye sockets flickered with orange fire.
I blinked. I’d seen a lot of human remains in my time, but they were usually more fleshy.
“I wasn’t aware he’d taken up necromancy. Now, who are you?”
“I’m not actually a skull, moron. What are you? Metaphysically illiterate?”
Not exactly, no, because I had the sense to answer with the same question, repeated for a third time. “Who are you?”
“Bob,” said the skull. “Which tells you nothing. Wrong question. And Harry thinks you’re so smart.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Bob. Now what are you?”
“A spirit of Air and Intellect. Harry’s spirit, to be exact, and I have business with you, John Marcone.” Its eyes flickered red. I decided it was a danger signal and dived for the intercom button. But it burst into an angry shower of sparks and I pulled my hand back abruptly. “Nah, I thought’d we’d have more of a tete-at-tete,” the skull continued. “Traditional for this kind of discussion, right? We can do without your babysitter.”
“And what discussion might that be?”
“The discussion about your intentions, Baron.”
“My... intentions.” Good grief. “He’s a grown wizard, spirit. Not your virgin daughter.”
The skull snorted. It was somewhat unsettling, from a being without nostrils. “I don’t care about his virtue. Hell, if he was less of a stick in the mud, I’d come along for the ride. I want to know what you want from him. Apart from his ass.”
His time. His attention and affection. His insolence and his ragged heroism. “That’s none of your concern.”
The red of Bob’s eye-fires darkened. “It is. This time it is. I never get to meet the jackasses that get their claws into him before they tear him up.”
“I haven’t harmed him.”
“Right. When he comes in limping, I don’t just see the bruises. I get to see the soul sickness too, all the raw edges of his aura- ”
“I haven’t harmed him, spirit.”
“You got him scared,” the skull pointed out. “Mad.”
“Everything makes him mad,” I said. And I’d been intimidated a time or two by his power myself, but I didn’t need to draw attention to that.
The skull chuckled. “True. But not the way you do, Marcone. Not all mad and confused.”
It knew altogether too much about us. I stepped away from it, planning to retreat towards the door.
“Stop,” it said. I ignored it. “Stop.” And then I did, feet frozen in place. Hostilities.
“You say you’re Harry’s spirit, and you’re concerned with my intentions. Have you considered his? He won’t thank you for threatening me.”
The spirit chuckled, mandible bouncing its skull around morbidly. “Hiding behind your boyfriend? You aren’t very good at this mobster thing, are you?”
“Best in Chicago,” I said. Something about the spirit, as hostile and irreverent as it was, put me in mind of Harry. Softened my responses somewhat, even when the thing had me fixed in place in my office.
“Hah. And anyway, Harry doesn’t even know Harry’s intentions. Like I said. Confused. But he’s not the only one, is he?” No. Dresden was a complication I could not afford. As an ally, or an employee, he’d be a quantifiable asset. As my... whatever he was, he made me spend too much time second guessing myself, tripping over his expectations and paranoia and my own darker impulses. But we were getting by. The city hadn’t suffered for it.
I didn’t answer it. I weighed my knife in my hand and wondered if flinging it at the skull would do me any good. I wondered if chipping the cranium would make Harry angry. He owned so little, after all, but he’d been carting this Bob around with him. Sleep tight he’d said, with quiet affection.
Oh. We were having the best friend talk.
“Shouldn’t you have threatened me with a nasty death if I hurt him?” I suggested in a bored tone.
“I’m getting there. Anyway, it’d be a bit more inventive than forfeiting your life. Your empire maybe, that might be fun. Your legacy.” The eyelights were flickering faster. I thought, perhaps, in amusement. I didn’t rise to the threat.
“Yea, even unto the seventh generation.” I toned. “Fine. Message received. Now release my feet. It’s beneath my dignity to start crying for help, but I will if you force me.”
“I could stop you,” it told me. “I could slip inside your head and take the wheel. I could make sure you never hurt him.”
“So you could. But then you would hurt him by doing so.”
“...huh,” the spirit said. “Is this a morality thing? It is, isn’t it?”
“A morality thing. And a consent thing and a trust thing. All of which Harry is rather keen on.”
“Bugger,” the skull said. “Every time.”
“If you’re willing to get back in the bag and go back to sleep, I can forget to mention this to Harry.”
The skull hummed and skittered around a little. “Not sleepy. Bedtime story?”
“I don’t have any reading material on hand.”
“You could tell me one.” The force holding me in place vanished. “Harry’s first time! Was he coy? Did he blush when he spread his legs for you?”
“Enough,” I snarled, and all of a sudden I’d made my way over to the skull and swept it up from the floor. Gard would have scolded me I’m sure, but I’ve discovered I have surprisingly good instincts for this kind of thing. “Sleep.”
In my hands, the eyelights flickered out. I stared into the empty sockets of the skull.
“You’d make a good paperweight,” I muttered childishly, but tucked it back away in the bag before zipping it closed. Harry got fidgety about people touching his stuff now he had so little of it. There was no point intentionally unsettling him. I didn’t need to share this particular discussion with him after all.
Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 01:44 pm (UTC)Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 02:01 pm (UTC)Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 03:08 pm (UTC)Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 03:16 pm (UTC)“You could tell me one.” The force holding me in place vanished. “Harry’s first time! Was he coy? Did he blush when he spread his legs for you?”
“Enough,” I snarled, and all of a sudden I’d made my way over to the skull and swept it up from the floor. Gard would have scolded me I’m sure, but I’ve discovered I have surprisingly good instincts for this kind of thing. “Sleep.”
NO WAIT. KEEP TALKING.
Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 03:31 pm (UTC)Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 04:32 pm (UTC)Uh. recalling some of Harry's paranoia in (I want to say) Grave Peril, doesn't that now mean Bob's at John's beck and call?
And love the paperweight comment.
Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 04:44 pm (UTC)When Cowl was physically holding Bob, yes he had control of him. But Harry still seems to have priority ownership (likely because he got Bob through right of conquest when he killed Justin). The second Cowl let go of Bob, Bob was answering Harry's orders again.
Actually, it's also possible to interpret that scene as Bob playing double agent the entire time he's with Cowl, but I don't think that jives with the rest of the Bob canon...
Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 04:47 pm (UTC)(ION I apparently now have a Wysocki muse, and yes, it's taking me there.)
Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 04:48 pm (UTC)Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 04:49 pm (UTC)Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 04:51 pm (UTC)Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 07:53 pm (UTC)...Harry would totally freak if he came back and Bob was sat on top of a pile of finance reports :-D
Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 08:01 pm (UTC)Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 08:09 pm (UTC)Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 08:12 pm (UTC)(Not that I've pondered this. At all.)
Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 08:20 pm (UTC)"...yeah? So do you, boss."
*Splutters* "It's not the same."
(You should write this, you really should)
Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 08:21 pm (UTC)Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-03-04 04:38 pm (UTC)And the reiteration that everything Harry has fits into a duffel bag hurts me deep. Oh, Harry. 8(
Re: Filled 1/1
Date: 2011-05-16 08:57 pm (UTC)GREAT look at John's head. Well done. Very nice layering.