Harry and the characters of your choice all turn younger. Harry's now back to a 16 year old and everyone's age is relative to his. EX: If you chose Thomas, Thomas would be about 6 years older than Harry. If you chose Marcone, maybe about 10 years in difference?
Write how they try to solve this problem and try to go about their daily life. BTW, if Harry's power is lessen for becoming younger(but he still has a lot for someone his age), would he be able to control his magic much more easily?
Bonus if by reverting back to a 16 year old, he retains all his wounds from when he was 16 and doesn't realize his body and 16 year old mind is telling him he's tramatized. However, he's also his adult self, so he's really confused about why does he feels as if he's stuck in "fight or flight" response.
There was a sound like being trapped inside a bell and I could feel magic surge, twist, and run through me, through where Thomas and Kincaid were standing by the door. Even without looking, I could see it hit Gard where she run in, keeping her body in front of Marcone. It hit him too, then stopped, turning back on the doorway before it could reach Hendricks. I started to turn around and fell down before I could manage it. It was still working through me and it hurt.
Someone pulled me to my feet and I blinked at Kincaid. Thomas was still by the doorway, on his hands and knees and just passed him, I could se that Gard had caught Marcone as they fell to their knees and was holding them up.
"Get up, Dresden," Kincaid said. "What was--" and then he stopped and stared at me.
I stared back, searching for signs of what that spell had done. I could feel echoes of a change, but I didn't know what it was. Kincaid still looked the same. "I don't know," I said. "It felt like a shapechanging spell, but it doesn't seem to have done anything."
Kincaid was still staring at me and I had to stop myself from slamming him back and bringing a shield up between us, just to get him to stop staring like that. "What?" I said.
"You're not-- Is this what you looked like?" he said.
"Is what-- what are you--" And then I shut up, because over his shoulder, I could see Thomas getting to his feet and Gard helping Marcone to his. "Where they working on the fountain of youth or something?" I said, then looked down at myself. "Hell's Bells, how old do I look?"
Kincaid hesitated. "Hard to tell since I didn't know what you looked like back then. You're a little shorter than normal, but not much." He was still holding my arm like I might fall down again and I shrugged him off.
"I'd pretty much stopped growing by the time I was fifteen," I said. I held out my hands in front of me and my sleeves slid back. Thinner than I should be and I tried to remember when exactly I'd started filling out. After Eb had taken me in. Maybe even after that? I hadn't noticed at the time. "You don't look any different," I said. It came out more accusative than I'd meant it to.
"No?" Kincaid said, checking himself. "I feel pretty much the same."
"Or Ms Gard," Marcone said. "I'm assuming your starting point is just that much higher."
Right, obviously-- stupid of me not to realise. "We've all been knocked back the same amount of years, not to the same point, so since you and Gard have been round the block a few thousand times... And that's why Thomas looks like some college kid and Marcone looks like the wiseguy thug he probably was back then."
"Fuck," Marcone said, quietly, but with meaning. I wasn't the only one staring at him, because Marcone normally managed a little more control than that. It was weird. "How am I supposed to run the organisation if I look like some punk kid?"
"Not exactly a kid," Thomas said. "You're... hm, maybe mid-twenties? Late twenties?"
"Same difference," Marcone said. He inhaled, slow and deliberate. "Okay, I can work this if I have to, for a while, but we need to get this fixed. Dresden, how long?"
"I'm not one of your pet thugs, Marcone, don't try and order me about," I snapped out.
"My apologies, I thought you'd want this fixed as much as the rest of us." He looked me over and raised an eyebrow. "More."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I caught Thomas looking at me. "What?" I said, crossing my arms and hunching in.
He shook his head. "Sorry, it's just-- stars, Harry, there's nothing to you, is there? Did you eat at all when you were a teenager?"
"Sorry, we can't all be Tiger Beat dreamboats," I said, "Most people have this whole awkward adolescence thing, we don't just turn from cute kids to--" I stopped, partly because of the way everybody was looking at me, but mostly because I could hear myself speak. "I... didn't mean to say that," I said. "I think I'm just... stars and stones, I'm hungry," I realized.
I'd forgotten that, the way I could eat my way through two family feast pizzas and a box of chicken-wings and feel hungry again before I'd even finished licking the grease off my fingers. People joked about how much I ate now, but they'd never known me when I was growing and it felt like there wasn't enough food in the world to keep up with me. Definitely not enough in the house or-- I looked at my hands and tried to figure out how old exactly I was. Before I went to Eb's, definitely. They didn't have the calluses I'd pick up from working on the farm. I'd picked them up, then lost them when I moved to Chicago. Replaced them with others one, ones I'd picked up training with Michael or stirring pots while Bob called out instructions.
Thomas said there was nothing to me. I wasn't exactly bulky anyway, but I'd spent a lot of the last ten years running and fighting. I wasn't Mr Universe. On my best day, I wasn't even close to Thomas, but I was tough. I could lift a broadsword, I could run a marathon and live to regret it the next day. More than that, I had muscle-memory, I had hours of Murphy throwing me about on a training mat, teaching me how to fall so I could roll back up fighting, I had Michael teaching me how to stagger my punches and keep my hands up so I wasn't exposed.
Except I didn't have any of that right now. I could remember how to do it all intellectually, but the feeling of knowing it in my bones was gone. All those trained instincts, the responses that grew automatic, but they weren't any more.
I caught a glimpse of something in the corner of my eye and I jumped back. I didn't mean to, I didn't even plan on it, but I was two foot back and I had a shield up so fast, it must have felt like Kincaid had slammed his hand into a brick wall. Everyone was looking at me and I flushed, embarrassed. It was just Kincaid, reaching out to tap my shoulder or something, and bam, my shields had gone up.
"Sorry!" I said, as shocked as the rest of the them.
"A little jumpy, are we Dresden?" Kincaid said, cradling his hand.
"Just..." I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. My magic's..." I shook my head, wondering how to explain. I could feel it, the way it had been back then, all sudden surges and then even more sudden drops, but I still had all my memories, and I knew more paths for it to go down than I had back then. Except it wasn't exactly like that, because even though my head knew the paths, my magic didn't. "Uh, are you okay?"
He flexed his hand. "Nothing broken."
I resisted the urge to apologise again. "I can't do anything right now," I said. "I need to figure out..." I waved vaguely at myself. "Get a better handle on what I've got. I'll call if-- when I come with something."
Driving back home wasn't fun. I knew what to do, but I had to think about it. It was as bad as my first time behind the wheel-- worse, maybe, because I'd learned in rural Missouri and even at 3 a.m., Chicago had a lot more traffic on the road.
But I got home in one piece, opened the door and Mouse knocked me down. I blinked because I wasn't sure if he'd still recognise me. I had to smell different, right? But he sort of whuffled at me, and I dug my hands into his fur, letting myself fall back so I was lying down with approximately two tons of fuu dog in my lap. "Yeah, you still know who I am, don't you?" I said, ruffling his fur. "You're a good dog, aren't you, a good dog." I wasn't normally so sappy with him, but it felt pretty damn good to see him. Mouse didn't look at me strangely, Mouse didn't have hidden meanings. Mouse was Mouse, and apparantly to him, I was still Harry.
My intrigue is GIANT, I tell you what. I'm really, really enjoying this. Skittery!Harry and thug!John all that emotional turbulence. Thanks for writing and sharing!
I'm loving this so far, especially teen!Harry, young mafia!Marcone and college!Thomas. :D Poor Harry has to go through the worst parts of being a teen and wizard and his young body being all jumpy.
I slept badly. I do a lot anyway, but mostly for normal reasons-- bad dreams, woken up by something pulling on a leyline, sudden explosions, that sort of thing. This time, I just had trouble staying asleep. At one point, I think I was woken up by the sound of my own breathing, which is practically the definition of unfair.
Fortunately, I had access to coffee in amounts undreamed of when I was actually a teenager, so that helped. I ordered a couple of pizzas for breakfast and settled down with Bob to go over what happened and how we could fix it.
The pizzas came, the pizzas went, and at least temporarily full, I meditated for a couple of hours, trying to feel for the edges of my magic and get it back into place.
I debated phoning Molly to tell her lessons had been cancelled for the foreseeable, but after two hours sitting still, I needed to get outside, so I drove to the Carpenters.
I rang the bell and pushed my way past Michael when he opened it. "Yeah, I know, very funny, gosh Harry, you were skinny as a teenager. Any jokes about spots, puberty or my height will not be appreciated."
"Harry?" Michael said.
I stopped in the hallway and turned around. "Right. I probably should have said that first. It's me, there was a spell that went wrong. Or went right, I'm not really sure, and I'm temporarily, very temporarily," I emphasized, "in the body of a teenager. And no jokes about that either."
"Harry, my oldest is sixteen. Jokes about that really aren't funny when you've got kids that are still in their teens," Michael said. He looked at me and shook his head. "Didin't you eat at all when you were--"
"All the time!" I said, angry. "Seriously, everyone keeps acting like I was starving myself so I could fit into size zero jeans! I ate anything and everything, all the time! It just never stuck!" And from Michael's expression, I was overreacting again, which didn't make me feel any calmer. I took a few deep breaths anyway. "This just feels pretty strange," I said as an apology.
He nodded and then smiled. "Oh, Molly's going to get a kick out of this," he said.
Molly did. So did the rest of the kids, but Molly seemed to think that this made me younger than her and refused to listen when I said that mentally, I was still an elder and entitled of respect, and physically, I was pretty sure I was at least seventeen. Probably. They weren't the only ones that seemed to forget I wasn't actually a kid. Michael obviously caught himself telling me off a couple times, and Charity... well, I was never going to be one of Charity's favourite people, but she kept looking at me and frowning. Something about it was making her unhappy, but she didn't seem angry at me, so I tried to ignore it and go back to showing the kids card-tricks.
I was setting up the pack for one of the more complicated ones -you've got to get them in the right order for it to work- when Charity called out that dinner was ready. I figured that was my cue to leave, so I started to get my stuff together and bumped into Charity in the hallway.
This is the thing. It's not that I've never noticed before that Charity has, you know, a nice set. They're there, I've seen them, but I've never actually thought about them, because they belong to Charity, and Charity is married to Michael and-- well, they're so off-limits, I couldn't get to them through the Neverwhere.
Which is why the fact that I had to stop myself from staring at them now was really, really disturbing. I had to make myself look only at her face, not even her neck, because-- well, below that was dangerous, and not something I should be looking at or even thinking about, and I especially shouldn't be thinking about the fact that I could tell she was wearing a white bra because I could see the outline of it through her T-shirt, where it was a more opaque shade of white.
I could feel my face turning hot and I knew, I just knew, that she knew exactly what I'd trying and failing not to think about and it had confirmed every suspicion she'd ever had about me. "I'm sorry!"
"For what?" She said, frowning.
Maybe she hadn't figured it out? I bit my tongue before I blurted anything out. "Just generally sorry?" I said, hoping that would work. Oh, wait, I had an answer. "For coming over here unexpectedly," I said. Yeah, that made sense, that was polite. "And not calling first," I added, just to be safe.
"Harry," Charity said, but she didn't follow it up with anything.
"What?" I said, then ducked my head. "I mean, pardon?" And then I straightened up, because maybe I looked sixteen right now, but that didn't mean I was, and even I had been, Charity wasn't my guardian or anything.
She shook her head and frowned a little. I looked at Michael to see if this made any sense to him either, but he just shrugged a little. "Nothing," she said. "We're going to have dinner. If you help with the washing up afterwards, you can stay for it."
"Really?" I said, brightening up. "You might regret that. You've got no idea how much I ate when I was this age."
"I can guess," she said, but she pushed me at the table.
After dinner and washing up, it was pretty late and Michael offered me the spare room. Part of me wanted to go back to my own place, but
I felt my shields break and woke up, reaching around for something to throw.
"It's me!" I blinked and Molly was there, standing a few feet away from the bed. I put down the clock radio.
"Molly? Why are you..." I looked around. The lights had gone, but Molly had a nice little glowing sphere hovering in the air and I could see Michael and Charity standing in the doorway.
"Harry!" Molly said. She was looking at me, wide-eyed and terrified. "You were-- Harry, you were screaming," she said. "And I couldn't get to you because you had your shields up in your sleep. I had to break them." "I-- nightmare," I said. "I get them sometimes."
"Well so do I, but I don't make fucking shields in my sleep!"
"Molly, language," Michael and Charity said together, automatically. I couldn't read their expressions and I wondered what they'd heard, if I'd said anything I shouldn't have.
"It was just a bad dream," I said, pulling the covers up around me. "I'm sorry I woke you all up." I shivered, partly left-over adrenaline from the dream, partly the shock of having my shields broken. I was kind of proud that Molly was able to, but it was still disconcerting to feel it. I probably wouldn't be able to bring them back up for a few hours at least.
"Harry..." Michael started to say, then Charity put her hand on his arm and they had one of those silent conversations couples have.
"You didn't need to wake me up," I said. "I never did any real damage when I was asleep." Just the shields up, and once or twice, I'd woken to feel fire on the edges of my awareness, but it had never actually lit.
"Harry, you were screaming," Molly said, softer than before. "And..." she rubbed one of her upper arms. "You were whimpering too, sometimes. What--" she bit off the question.
"I don't remember," I said. "Just dreams." She looked pretty freaked out still, so I gave her a reassuring smile and hoped it worked better than it usually did. "It used to happen a lot, before I got better at self-control. And better at figuring out when I was dreaming."
She smiled back. It wasn't the most convincing thing I'd ever seen, but I was willing to let it go. "So is that something I've got to look forward to as well?"
I glanced back at Michael and Charity and made a reassuring gesture. "No, probably not." I tried to think about how Eb had described it, the first time it happened at his. "It's just force of habit, sort of? I'm used to-- I used to have my shields prepped a lot without realizing it. I didn't always know what my magic was doing, but you're a lot better than I was at that."
Eb had said he was amazed I hadn't burnt out long before the Council got me, but I still thought he was exaggerating.
"I'm probably not going to get back to sleep," I said. "I think I'll just head back."
"It's pitch black out there," Charity said. "You're not leaving the house now."
I felt a buzz of irritation and tried to push it down. "Really not a kid, Charity. I can go back to my own house if I want to."
She opened her mouth, but Michael got there first. "We're not saying you are, but it's late enough, you might as well stay until breakfast."
I wanted to. Aside from everything else, all I had left back at mine was the remaining slice of pizza-- no, I'd eaten that in the car coming here. But more than that, more than anything, I wanted to be back in my own apartment. I could feel the psychic scratches from where Molly had broken my shields-- not painful, but there-- and I wanted to be within my own walls and wards.
I kicked off the blanket and Michael sighed. "Fine, just... call us when you get there."
Wow, this is fascinating. Love how everyone's reactions are thrown off, especially Harry's. It has got to seriously suck for him to go through teenage hormones and PTSD all over again. I think "volatile" is going to be his middle name for a while.
I spent most of the day walking through my wards and reinforcing my magic. I know what you're thinking, that I should have been researching how to break the spell, but I needed to get back in touch with my magic and going over the wards and protections I'd set up was good for that. I could make my magic run over the paths I'd set up before, giving them a touch more oomph, and feel where it was slow to respond, where it wanted to barrel through and where it wanted to crawl.
Not that some people would see it that way. Marcone would probably just bitch about how i was wasting his time by making it harder for him to go back to being a high-class thug instead of some junior management one. Like he was in any position to tell me what to do, like he knew anything about magic. By the end of it, I almost wanted him to, rehearsing what I'd say if he even thought about asking me how I was getting on with turning us all back. I was smugly lining up my arguments when I felt Thomas at the door.
Thomas has free entry to the place, but for a second the newer wards hesitated. Thomas was my brother, was allowed in, but he was also something dangerous, and there was a second where both aspects of the spell -protection for me and mine, protection from danger- were in conflict before they let him in.
I waved him in. Thomas was dressed in his normal clothes and I felt a pang of jealousy that they still mostly fit. I'd had to put extra notches on my belt to get my jeans to stay up, but Thomas was wearing a T-shirt that clung to him just as much as it ever did. He looked younger, not quite jailbait, but like he could fake that if you asked nicely.
And he was bringing food. "Gifts from the good ladies at the salon," he said smugly, holding up a set of tupperware. "I think I appeal to their maternal instincts."
"Thank you, Mrs Robinson," I said, taking down a couple of plates down and unwrapping stuff. "They just give you this?"
I unwrapped what turned out to be a very expensive looking quiche of some kind and pulled out a jar of stuffed olives. Student food, right. "That's okay?" I asked. "With the feeding and everything? You can still just sip?"
Thomas shrugged. "Mostly. I-- you know, I didn't need it as much when I was younger. I was a lot less subtle, but then I didn't actually have to be, so I mostly didn't even try." He pushed his hair back from his head. "Or maybe it's worse, because it never really crossed my mind to bother doing it, you know? It felt like I needed it all, so I just... but it wasn't actually as strong as later."
I didn't know what else to say, so I nodded. "Like how spraining your ankle is the worst pain ever, until you break your leg," I offered.
Thomas grinned at me. "Pretty much." He hesitated, then said, "So Michael called me. Said you had a pretty bad nightmare?"
"He told me on you?" I said. "Seriously?"
Thomas shrugged. "I'm guessing you triggered some paternal instinct pretty hard."
"Hell's bells," I said, feeling embarrassment crawl up my skin. "It was just one bad dream."
"Not going to argue with you, little brother," he said. His smile wasn't a happy one. "I'm guessing the Carpenters have different standards of parenting than we're used to."
I rolled my eyes. "They acted like it was such a big deal! I'm not actually a kid, you know?"
"No, but you're not exactly yourself either," Thomas said.
I crossed my arms and stared at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He held his hands up in a don't-shoot-the-messenger gesture. "This spell, it's not just made us look younger. My body, my Hunger, they're telling me things they told me when I was this age for real, and you... You're acting like you're you, but you're reacting like you're..." he gestured at me. "Like you were, I guess."
"You didn't even know me back then," I said. "Neither did Michael or Charity or anyone, so you've got no idea how I used to--"
"No, but I can guess," Thomas said. He took a breath and I could feel him trying to calm down, trying to calm me down. "I'm not blaming you--"
"I haven't done anything wrong!" I said, and Thomas's eyes went pale and he made a calm-down gesture, reaching out to me--
--and I could feel it, my magic burning at my skin, wanting to be used, telling me that I could knock him, down, the door was just there, adrenaline running through me like this was a fight instead of just an argument with my brother. Something telling me that I couldn't let him touch me, everything I knew about White Vampires and how they could get into your mind running through my brain.
"I'm on edge," I said, carefully drawing my magic back without trying to show that I'd had it up. "My magic isn't reacting like it should, I'm hungry all the time, I spent yesterday evening trying not to think about Charity's bra and it's just putting me on edge," I said, emphasizing the last two words. Thomas's hand went out to touch my arm in comfort and I forced myself to let it. Reminded myself that Thomas was safe and that I liked human or nearly-human contact.
He pulled me in and gave me a quick hug, suitably manly with some back-patting and I let him, partly because it felt good and partly because pushing him away would make it a big deal. "Charity Carpenter's bra?" He said, pulling back, offering us both a polite way out of what was dangerously close to an emotional moment.
"Teenage hormones," I said, embarrassed. "It's not like I was doing it on purpose." I poked at one of the bags for something to look at and pulled out a jar of something. "Artichoke hearts? What do they think students eat these days!"
"We French, we 'ave very cosmopolitan tastes," Thomas said. "But I picked up some chicken-wings too."
Also, I can't help thinking sorry for Thomas. If the spell had gone back another couple of years, it might have been before the Hunger set in and maybe he could have magically reset things with Justine somehow. :-(
Hmm.... I suspect there's going to be a lot of petting action in the future.
I'm curious about how Marcone's day went. I suspect he has less control over himself than usual.
...On the other hand, for some reason, I keep imagining Gard being fascinated by Marcone's reactions and Hendricks pulling out Marcone's "Baby Pictures"(Ages 18-25) of before he was the Gentleman to compare. :D
It was nice, eating with Thomas. Odd, too, because it made me feel a little nostalgic for things I'd never had.
"You mind if I stay here tonight?" Thomas said. "I don't want to go back to the chateau until we get this fixed and my apartment's still being renovated." He held up a hand. "I promise not to wake you if you have any bad dreams," he added with a half-smile. He was being... well, there's no other way to put it. He was being charming. Not enough to be obvious, just enough to put a little more into his smile, like a bass-note low enough you almost can't hear it.
I had a sneaking suspicion he didn't know he was doing it. It wasn't the crushing power it was sometimes, not the kind of pull that twisted you up inside and made it so you couldn't think of anything else, more a sort of low level buzz ofyou like me, you like me. Maybe his own equivalent of my unconscious shields, or maybe just the White Court equivalent of feeling a little peckish.
"Sure. You still know where everything is?" I said, tidying up the wreckage of the food, putting the more useful jars and plastic containers to one side while I put the kettle on for hot water. I'd probably put Bob under the bed or in the bedside cabinet. I'd kept him in a rucksack and used it a pillow before, trusting him to wake me up before I did anything that would get me noticed or if anyone noticed me. It's not like the nightmares were a big deal. Everyone had bad dreams sometimes, right? But I couldn't afford to pour out energy into nothing while I was asleep, not if I wanted to be at my full strength tomorrow.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but I was impressed and dismayed by the kid I'd been in whole new ways. It was amazing that I hadn't burned out, that I could afford to waste power like this, defending against nothing and still have enough energy to get up the next day. It was mindboggling that I hadn't even noticed it at the time. I guess any tiredness, any of the hard-edged, empty-eyed feeling you get from doing too much, too often, got lost in everything else that had been happening at the time. I suppose I should have been grateful I hadn't gone back even further. Just a few years younger, and I wouldn't have been able to manage a shield at all. Even if my brain knew how, my body wouldn't have and I had a nasty suspicion I'd have turned myself inside out trying.
It occurred to me that if Thomas had gone back just a few more years, maybe I'd have seen him before he turned vamp. Maybe he would have got a second chance to make that choice. Maybe he and Justine...
I wondered if that had occurred to him too. I hoped not, but my brother wasn't an idiot.
Although-- hmm. There was something about the spell, about the way it had worked... "I need to speak to Kincaid," I said, reaching for the phone and glad when it cooperated. Thomas watched me, curious.
Kincaid picked up. "You don't feel any different," I said before he got a chance to speak.
"What?"
"You don't feel any different," I said, trying for patience. "From usual, right? The magic went through you, but it didn't make you feel younger, right?"
"No," Kincaid said after a moment. "Not exactly. It did do something, though. About twenty, twenty-five years ago, I busted my leg badly enough that it took over a decade to heal completely. That still hurts, but I don't feel younger. Like you said, the spell would have to turn back the clock centuries for me to notice the difference."
The kettle whistled at me and I took it over to the sink, adding enough cold water and detergent to it so I could clean the jars without burning my hands.
"Harry?"
I hadn't forgotten Thomas was there, exactly, but I jumped a little when he said my name.
Thomas was looking at me, waiting for an explanation. "Did you learn anything useful from Kincaid?"
"Just getting close to figuring out what the spell actually did," I said.
He waved at himself. "Isn't it obvious?"
"That's just the result, that's not what it actually did." I tried to figure out how to explain it. "It's like... okay, so say you want a blue rose. You can get a white rose, spray paint it blue. You can put blue dye in the water when you water it. You can, I don't know, add bluebell genes or look at it through blue glass, either way, blue rose. But the way you got it changes things."
"So you're figuring out what kind of blue rose we all are?" Thomas said, smiling a little.
Okay, so it wasn't the best metaphor in the world. I shrugged and went back to the dishes.
"Normally, you'd have asked me to help by now," Thomas said.
"You're terrible at it," I said.
"I grew up with servents," he said. "Servents who could use the dishwasher. But that's not the point. You have a genuine moral stance on it, that doing domestic chores will be good for me."
"I..." I looked at the sink, at the familiar bubbles of detergent and clear glass. "I used to like doing it, when I was living with Justin," I said. Like was the wrong word, but... "He didn't bother us when we were doing something like this." I had clear memories of it, me and Elaine cleaning out whatever pots and pans or knives had been in that day's lesson. It wasn't that it was fun, or exciting, like learning new spells, or those moments with Elaine that had been pure discovery. It had just been reliable, safe, because it was never worth Justin's time interrupting. "You're right," I said, dropping the jar I was holding back in the sink.
"About..."
"About me, about how I'm acting." Just putting it into words made it feel more true, made me feel less in control, and worse, everyone could see it. I could see Michael and Charity and Molly, how they'd looked at me, like I was breakable or worse, like I was in the process of breaking. It wasn't true, and it hadn't been true then. I'd got out of it in one piece, more or less. Sure, there was some damage, but that was life, and I hadn't--
I took another breath, forcing down the emotions and saw Thomas's eyes go silver. White Court vampires mostly feed off sex, but they can drain other emotions too. Fear, pain, joy. There was more than one reason why their thralls clung to them and I knew the appeal.
We both stepped back and politely ignored the way we were having to put ourselves back together.
"So..." Thomas said.
"So," I answered.
"Should I..." he gestured at the door and I shook my head.
"It's fine, I should..." I sighed. I didn't want to see Marcone. Even on a good day, his habit of acting like he was working out the best way to buy me grated on my nerves, but... "I need to see Marcone and Gard, test a theory. I'll probably be back for dinner, but if not, you know where the sheets are."
"Right," he nodded. "Call me if you're going to be back late."
"Everyone keeps asking me to do that," I said. "I promise I'll call if it looks like I'll be out past curfew."
Thomas shook his head sadly. "I just don't trust that Marcone boy. He's going to get you into trouble one of these days."
I got to Marcone's place and asked to see Hendricks, on the basis that whatever cover they'd got for Marcone, Hendricks would still be looming behind him. I didn't get more looks than usual from the random wiseguys and "associates" waiting for whatever Marcone decreed, but they were different. More dismissive, maybe, and--
--okay, so maybe it was just me, but I was aware of how I looked in a different way than I'd been as a kid; I was skinny as hell, on edge, and going to see a drugdealing scumlord kingpin. The only point in my favour is that I wasn't pretty enough for anyone to think I was there for anything worse. Not that I knew if Marcone or Hendricks went for that anyway.
Gard waved me into the office and she looked the same as ever. Maybe her hair was longer, but nothing obvious. Same as Kincaid, then.
Hendricks was sitting at the desk and Marcone was on a seat next to it, looking like he was taking notes. It was weird seeing them like that, because it seemed wrong -Hendricks should have been looming behind him, Marcone to sit in the big chair and give orders- and because part of me was seeing it like it actually was, and it looked normal. The boss's second in command giving orders to some junior boss, someone trusted enough to be allowed in to the circle, maybe being groomed for a higher position.
"Have a seat," Marcone said. He looked me over and I resisted the urge to shrink back in my coat or cross my arms and glare back at him. "Christ, Raith was right. You're nothing but skin and bones, are you?" he said, sounding faintly disgusted.
I stretched my fingers and let a little flare of power run over them. "There's more to me than that."
He leaned forwards and looked at my hands with interest. I had that same contradictory set of urges, to curl my hands back in my sleeve and avoid notice and to make something burn, make him back off. I didn't listen to either of them,instead turning to Hendricks and saying, "So how are you enjoying being in charge while the boss is what, on vacation? You wanna be careful, Marcone. Maybe he'll start getting ideas above his station." Which was ridiculous, and we all knew it, but Marcone's irritated expression was the only reason I'd said it in the first place. I counted it as a win.
"I'm officially at a meeting elsewhere, but answering my phone," Marcone said. "Fortunately, my people are equipped to cope if I'm unexpectedly absent."
That made sense. Marcone still sounded like himself, more or less. Maybe a touch less measured in his speech, but not anything you'd notice. "And you get to hang around and see how they act when you're not around, huh?"
Marcone raised an eyebrow. "Really, Harry, you think I don't know that already." His expression changed. "Besides, I look too much like myself," Marcone said, sounding disgusted. "The assumption is that I'm a nephew or something. My own younger brother."
"Or a bastard son," I offered helpfully.
He frowned at me, then sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I have seen some people doing some desperate calculations. And getting the wrong answer, judging by their reactions. So..."
"So?"
He looked irritated again and either I was better at this than I thought or he was just more susceptible now. "So I'm assuming you're here for a reason. You've found something out, I take it?"
I nodded. "Yeah, I think... so tell me, Marcone, how are you feeling?"
"you want me to talk to you about my feelings?" Marcone said in disbelief.
I nodded. "Just think of me as a therapist or a priest you wouldn't lie to."
"Frustrated, obviously," he said. "Irritated, but..." he shrugged. "Fine, I suppose. I have more energy than normal, but not an unreasonable amount. No loss of memory, so I'm obviously not actually the age I appear. Fine."
I leaned back in my chair, balancing on the back legs. "Okay, so magic likes a metaphor, okay? It's better at, oh, turning a mother into a maiden than just knocking off ten years. Or turning teacher into a highschool student, that sort of thing."
"Milestones rather than calendars," Marcone said, nodding.
"Ten points to the Mafia Kingpin. Princepin?" I said.
"Get on with it, Dresden," Marcone said.
"Tch, impatient, aren't we?" I grinned, because I thought it would probably annoy him more than anything else I did. "Okay, so it's not so weird that you dialed back to your twenties. Mature dignity to youthful vigour, very Shakespearean. It's not that strange that I'm sweet sixteen again-- slightly surprising that I'm not a little older or a little younger, a young man or an adolescent, but not totally weird, because those are sort of subject to interpretation. But Thomas..."I hesitated. "Thomas isn't different enough and it's really fucking weird, magically speaking, that Kincaid and Gard haven't changed."
"'Really fucking weird'" Marcone echoed. "Is that the technical term?"
"I'm dumbing it down for the non-specialist," I said. Marcone's expression suggested I was a trial he was learning how to bear. "Anyway, doing it like they did isn't impossible, obviously, but it's an awkward way of doing it."
"Really fucking weird," Marcone said, smiling slightly at me, like he was impressed. I felt my face go red and I was glad that I had so much experience avoiding looking anyone in the eyes.
"Right," I said, nodding and looking down. "So, uh. So theoretically, that's why we-- I haven't been able to make it snap it back into place. It's the wrong metaphor, you know? So for it to have worked-- they would have had to establish a base time and then referenced everything to that." I waved at him and almost knocked over a carafe of water on the desk. "Probably you. Like I said, maturity to youthful vigour. I think if we can flip you back to normal, we'll go back to."
He frowned. "You think that's what happened?"
I shrugged. "Don't know for sure. They could have used another base reference, but I didn't see animals back there. That's how I'd do it, chicken into egg. Or maybe not a chicken, maybe something like a parrot that lives longer, but you get my drift."
"I think I do," Marcone said. "But I was the last one through the door, so I don't see why--"
"Ah!" I said, holding one hand up like a pleased teacher. "But you were the last one through the door when it triggered. The rest of us were inside and fine." I smiled, because even when it's true, I rarely have the evidence for it, and said, "so this is all your fault. The fact I've blown practically my week's budget on food in two days, that's all on you."
"Mr Hendricks, can you arrange a suitable compensation for Dresden's food budget?" Marcone said, practically rolling his eyes. "And maybe throw in something extra so he can treat himself?" He smiled at my expression.
"I don't want your money," I said. "And for the record, it's even sketchier, you trying to buy me when I look like I'm sixteen than normal."
Marcone's expression went blank. "You overestimate your appeal in your current state."
I shrugged and started to get up. "Should I be insulted?"
"You should be--" Marcone bit back whatever he was going to say. "So when do you think you'll a solution?"
Good question. "Maybe a few days?" And then honesty forced me to add, "maybe longer, if I need to find someone else to power the spell. I have the know-how, but my control is..."
"Is imperfect at the best of times," Marcone said.
I now have a theory that the spell reset everyone to the age they were when they lost their virginity. That's a milestone! It totally works! And how awesome would it be that Marcone lost his later than the others? Come on now. 8D
Murphy was waiting when I got back. I was starting to get a bit suspicious about all that. I didn't need a babysitter, didn't need any of them hanging around me, but it kind of took the sting off to realize that even at this age, I was still more than a head taller than her. I had a sudden urge to just ruffle her hair or hold something above her and make her jump for it, but a tiny little voice more interested in my survival pointed out that she'd just drop me if I did.
She looked at me and shook her head. "That coat's hanging off you. You look like you're playing dress-up in your big brother's clothes," she said. "You know, I always thought you looked like you could do with a couple dozen good meals, but now... did you--"
"Not that skinny," I said, trying not to sound like I was whining. "Seriously, why does everyone keep saying that? I'm just, you know, growing in."
"Filling out?" She suggested, smirking a little, then turning serious. "So do you know how long you're going to be like this?"
"I'm working on it," I said, waving her in. We got to the kitchen and I fixed myself a sandwich from Thomas's leftovers, basically everything that was left between too slices of bread, then sat down at the table and took a bite. Murphy was staring at me and I felt a brief pang of guilt. "Uh, do you want some?" I said, then swallowed and tried again with less food in my mouth. "Sorry, I mean, do you want some? I could cut you off a bit."
She shook her head. "I'm good."
"Cool," I said, grinning and went back to finishing off my sandwich and wondering why I didn't do things like this more often. Ham was good, pastrami was good, salami and chorizo and roast chicken were good, obviously, they'd all be good together in a salad with cheese and those tomato and artichoke things Thomas had brought.
I finished and Murphy was shaking her head at me. "I've seen wolves-- hell, I've seen werewolves go through a meal slower than that." She smiled at me, one of the real ones she doesn't do anywhere near as much as she should. "You could give some of my cousins a run for their money."
"I don't know if I should be insulted, impressed or intimidated," I said.
"Big family," she said. "I know how much a teenage boy can eat." She shook her head again. "It's really hard not to treat you like you're the age you look," she said. "My mother would keep you in the kitchen for a week until she was sure you'd eaten enough."
"Did I ever mention how much I liked your mother?" I said.
"You've met her once, Harry," Murphy said.
I grinned at her. "Yeah, but she reminded me of you."
Murphy's fact twisted, her trying not to smile back and then giving up. "You're still a foot and a half taller than me and I just want to ruffle your hair. Harry, you're adorable,"
I gave her a disbelieving look. "I've been called a lot of things, but no-one ever called me that. Even Elaine drew the line at cute."
She leaned forwards over the table and ruffled my hair. I stopped myself flinching back and let her, and it was good. Nice, with Murphy smiling like that and hell, it wasn't look anything would make my hair look any worse than usual.
"Okay, enough with me pacifying your biological clock," I said, ignoring her flat look at that comment. "So I think I've got a rough idea of how the spell worked. I just need to crack down on a few more details.
I gave her the same background I'd given Marcone, then expanded on my theory. "It's the only thing that makes sense," I said. "The person that did the spell, he had it set for a group. He wanted it to work for all of them. He wanted to go back to when he was happiest," I said. "Wind back the clock to when he was, and then roll them back the same."
"That's kind of sad," she said.
"it's selfish," I said. "When he was happiest, not the rest of them." I gestured at myself. "Who'd wish being a teenager again on anyone? Just turn the clock back fifteen years, never mind if your kids were moody teens or your wife was secretly unhappy, just so long as you were."
"No, it took effort to do it like he did," I said. "He had to make the spell ignore everything but how it was for him." I struggled to put it into words. "Look, say it's your mom, right? And the happiest she was in her life was when she was, I dunno, twenty-five. Twenty-five, she's happily married, maybe she's got a kid. you're cute as a button and a world away from ever putting on a gun, maybe your dad's still in uniform..."
Murphy made a go-on gesture. "But would you really want to be two years-old for the rest of your life, just because that's when your mom was happiest? because that's part of what made your mom happiest?" I said. "Or maybe it was later, when she had all her kids and you were fifteen... trust me, Karrin, you don't want to be fifteen again just because someone was happiest when you were." I paused. "That came out a lot sleazier than I meant it."
She nodded and looked a little sad. "I think I know what you mean." Murphy had been married and divorced twice. She probably had a better idea than I did.
"So we need to find a couple things to break the spell," I said, happy to move us both past the awkward moment. "We need to know who was the trigger for the spell. Who was happy when they were the age they are now, when they were that age for real." I frowned and parsed the sentence. "Yeah, that makes sense. Obviously not me. Probably not Marcone or Gard. They don't feel different enough for it to have counted. Which leaves Marcone and Thomas."
"If it Thomas, wouldn't it be from before he turned?" Murphy said.
"Probably, but not necessarily." Even if you didn't know about being a White Court Vampire, growing up in the house of Madrigal Raith couldn't have been a barrel of laughs. Maybe it had been easier, after, in the time when he'd had an excuse for it all, something he could drown himself in, and before he'd grown up enough that he couldn't ignore everything that went with it.
Or maybe not. We didn't really talk about that stuff.
"I think you're right, though. It is more likely that it's Marcone. When I saw him--"
"You saw Marcone?" She said, her voice sharp.
"Yeah," I said.
She pursed her lips and looked at her hands for a second. "Look, I know you're not actually a kid, and maybe you don't need me to tell you this--"
"Never stopped you before," I said. "And you know I always need you to tell me when you think I'm being stupid. I don't promise I'll listen to you, but..."
She nodded. "I know. So Marcone wants you badly enough even at the best of times, and I'm guessing that right now, his self-control's not as strong as it usually is."
I felt my face turn red. "What-- hell's bells, Karrin, I'm not-- and Marcone's not the type to go for skinny teenagers, especially guy ones." I thought about the women I'd seen him with.
She nodded and looked impossible uncomfortable. "I'm not just talking about wanting to fu-- wanting to have sex with you, Harry. He wants to own you and..." she sighed. "Okay, you know you're not completely yourself right now, right? And Marcone is good at playing on people's instincts." She lowere her voice and sounded soft, kind. the way she did interviewing a victim. "You know the sort of thing he can offer, right?" Her voice went bitter. "To take care of you, protection, safety..." She shrugged. "He wants to give that to you anyway, and now especially, you look like you need it and Harry, you..." She spread her arms in a mute gesture of apology. "You look like you might want it. Not from him, just in general."
"I'm not that pathetic," I said.
"Jesus, Harry, that's not what I'm saying-- look, teenages don't make smart decisions a lot of them. You know that. They get in over their head, maybe get involved in something they shouldn't." She gave me a flat look that reminded me just how much I told her about my past. "And they maybe say yes to people they shouldn't." Her voice went soft again. "People aren't fairies, but there's still power in letting someone give you something. It's instinct or evolution, maybe. I've eaten enough bad stake-out takeout to know that eating together can be freaking bonding, whether you want it to or not."
"I'm not about to let him do any of that stuff," I said. I laughed, precisely because it wasn't funny. "Maybe my reactions are wrong now, but I've got a lot more experience and..." I thought about Elaine and Justin, about the Leanansidhe. "Trust me, I've got a lot more know-how on how to avoid traps and my instincts right now tell me I'd chew my own leg off before letting me get caught in one." I took another deep and tried a smile that I knew wouldn't fool either of us. "But it's all kind of moot, because we're going to fix this thing, and you can get back to worrying about me like normal. You're used to that."
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Fight or Flight?
(Anonymous) 2011-02-12 05:25 am (UTC)(link)Harry and the characters of your choice all turn younger. Harry's now back to a 16 year old and everyone's age is relative to his.
EX: If you chose Thomas, Thomas would be about 6 years older than Harry. If you chose Marcone, maybe about 10 years in difference?
Write how they try to solve this problem and try to go about their daily life. BTW, if Harry's power is lessen for becoming younger(but he still has a lot for someone his age), would he be able to control his magic much more easily?
Bonus if by reverting back to a 16 year old, he retains all his wounds from when he was 16 and doesn't realize his body and 16 year old mind is telling him he's tramatized. However, he's also his adult self, so he's really confused about why does he feels as if he's stuck in "fight or flight" response.
Re: Fight or Flight?
(Anonymous) 2011-02-25 09:00 pm (UTC)(link)Someone pulled me to my feet and I blinked at Kincaid. Thomas was still by the doorway, on his hands and knees and just passed him, I could se that Gard had caught Marcone as they fell to their knees and was holding them up.
"Get up, Dresden," Kincaid said. "What was--" and then he stopped and stared at me.
I stared back, searching for signs of what that spell had done. I could feel echoes of a change, but I didn't know what it was. Kincaid still looked the same. "I don't know," I said. "It felt like a shapechanging spell, but it doesn't seem to have done anything."
Kincaid was still staring at me and I had to stop myself from slamming him back and bringing a shield up between us, just to get him to stop staring like that. "What?" I said.
"You're not-- Is this what you looked like?" he said.
"Is what-- what are you--" And then I shut up, because over his shoulder, I could see Thomas getting to his feet and Gard helping Marcone to his. "Where they working on the fountain of youth or something?" I said, then looked down at myself. "Hell's Bells, how old do I look?"
Kincaid hesitated. "Hard to tell since I didn't know what you looked like back then. You're a little shorter than normal, but not much." He was still holding my arm like I might fall down again and I shrugged him off.
"I'd pretty much stopped growing by the time I was fifteen," I said. I held out my hands in front of me and my sleeves slid back. Thinner than I should be and I tried to remember when exactly I'd started filling out. After Eb had taken me in. Maybe even after that? I hadn't noticed at the time. "You don't look any different," I said. It came out more accusative than I'd meant it to.
"No?" Kincaid said, checking himself. "I feel pretty much the same."
"Or Ms Gard," Marcone said. "I'm assuming your starting point is just that much higher."
Right, obviously-- stupid of me not to realise. "We've all been knocked back the same amount of years, not to the same point, so since you and Gard have been round the block a few thousand times... And that's why Thomas looks like some college kid and Marcone looks like the wiseguy thug he probably was back then."
"Fuck," Marcone said, quietly, but with meaning. I wasn't the only one staring at him, because Marcone normally managed a little more control than that. It was weird. "How am I supposed to run the organisation if I look like some punk kid?"
"Not exactly a kid," Thomas said. "You're... hm, maybe mid-twenties? Late twenties?"
"Same difference," Marcone said. He inhaled, slow and deliberate. "Okay, I can work this if I have to, for a while, but we need to get this fixed. Dresden, how long?"
"I'm not one of your pet thugs, Marcone, don't try and order me about," I snapped out.
"My apologies, I thought you'd want this fixed as much as the rest of us." He looked me over and raised an eyebrow. "More."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I caught Thomas looking at me. "What?" I said, crossing my arms and hunching in.
He shook his head. "Sorry, it's just-- stars, Harry, there's nothing to you, is there? Did you eat at all when you were a teenager?"
"Sorry, we can't all be Tiger Beat dreamboats," I said, "Most people have this whole awkward adolescence thing, we don't just turn from cute kids to--" I stopped, partly because of the way everybody was looking at me, but mostly because I could hear myself speak. "I... didn't mean to say that," I said. "I think I'm just... stars and stones, I'm hungry," I realized.
I'd forgotten that, the way I could eat my way through two family feast pizzas and a box of chicken-wings and feel hungry again before I'd even finished licking the grease off my fingers. People joked about how much I ate now, but they'd never known me when I was growing and it felt like there wasn't enough food in the world to keep up with me. Definitely not enough in the house or-- I looked at my hands and tried to figure out how old exactly I was. Before I went to Eb's, definitely. They didn't have the calluses I'd pick up from working on the farm. I'd picked them up, then lost them when I moved to Chicago. Replaced them with others one, ones I'd picked up training with Michael or stirring pots while Bob called out instructions.
Thomas said there was nothing to me. I wasn't exactly bulky anyway, but I'd spent a lot of the last ten years running and fighting. I wasn't Mr Universe. On my best day, I wasn't even close to Thomas, but I was tough. I could lift a broadsword, I could run a marathon and live to regret it the next day. More than that, I had muscle-memory, I had hours of Murphy throwing me about on a training mat, teaching me how to fall so I could roll back up fighting, I had Michael teaching me how to stagger my punches and keep my hands up so I wasn't exposed.
Except I didn't have any of that right now. I could remember how to do it all intellectually, but the feeling of knowing it in my bones was gone. All those trained instincts, the responses that grew automatic, but they weren't any more.
I caught a glimpse of something in the corner of my eye and I jumped back. I didn't mean to, I didn't even plan on it, but I was two foot back and I had a shield up so fast, it must have felt like Kincaid had slammed his hand into a brick wall. Everyone was looking at me and I flushed, embarrassed. It was just Kincaid, reaching out to tap my shoulder or something, and bam, my shields had gone up.
"Sorry!" I said, as shocked as the rest of the them.
"A little jumpy, are we Dresden?" Kincaid said, cradling his hand.
"Just..." I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. My magic's..." I shook my head, wondering how to explain. I could feel it, the way it had been back then, all sudden surges and then even more sudden drops, but I still had all my memories, and I knew more paths for it to go down than I had back then. Except it wasn't exactly like that, because even though my head knew the paths, my magic didn't. "Uh, are you okay?"
He flexed his hand. "Nothing broken."
I resisted the urge to apologise again. "I can't do anything right now," I said. "I need to figure out..." I waved vaguely at myself. "Get a better handle on what I've got. I'll call if-- when I come with something."
Driving back home wasn't fun. I knew what to do, but I had to think about it. It was as bad as my first time behind the wheel-- worse, maybe, because I'd learned in rural Missouri and even at 3 a.m., Chicago had a lot more traffic on the road.
But I got home in one piece, opened the door and Mouse knocked me down. I blinked because I wasn't sure if he'd still recognise me. I had to smell different, right? But he sort of whuffled at me, and I dug my hands into his fur, letting myself fall back so I was lying down with approximately two tons of fuu dog in my lap. "Yeah, you still know who I am, don't you?" I said, ruffling his fur. "You're a good dog, aren't you, a good dog." I wasn't normally so sappy with him, but it felt pretty damn good to see him. Mouse didn't look at me strangely, Mouse didn't have hidden meanings. Mouse was Mouse, and apparantly to him, I was still Harry.
Re: Fight or Flight?
Re: Fight or Flight?
(Anonymous) 2011-02-25 10:15 pm (UTC)(link)More, please!
Re: Fight or Flight?
(Anonymous) 2011-02-26 12:47 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fight or Flight?
(Anonymous) 2011-02-26 03:12 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fight or Flight?
OP Here
(Anonymous) 2011-02-26 03:36 am (UTC)(link)Aw...Reading this makes me want to hug Harry and feed him until he looks like he preggy. :)
Can't wait for the next part! :D
Re: Fight or Flight?
Fight or Flight 2/
(Anonymous) 2011-02-26 03:03 pm (UTC)(link)I slept badly. I do a lot anyway, but mostly for normal reasons-- bad dreams, woken up by something pulling on a leyline, sudden explosions, that sort of thing. This time, I just had trouble staying asleep. At one point, I think I was woken up by the sound of my own breathing, which is practically the definition of unfair.
Fortunately, I had access to coffee in amounts undreamed of when I was actually a teenager, so that helped. I ordered a couple of pizzas for breakfast and settled down with Bob to go over what happened and how we could fix it.
The pizzas came, the pizzas went, and at least temporarily full, I meditated for a couple of hours, trying to feel for the edges of my magic and get it back into place.
I debated phoning Molly to tell her lessons had been cancelled for the foreseeable, but after two hours sitting still, I needed to get outside, so I drove to the Carpenters.
I rang the bell and pushed my way past Michael when he opened it. "Yeah, I know, very funny, gosh Harry, you were skinny as a teenager. Any jokes about spots, puberty or my height will not be appreciated."
"Harry?" Michael said.
I stopped in the hallway and turned around. "Right. I probably should have said that first. It's me, there was a spell that went wrong. Or went right, I'm not really sure, and I'm temporarily, very temporarily," I emphasized, "in the body of a teenager. And no jokes about that either."
"Harry, my oldest is sixteen. Jokes about that really aren't funny when you've got kids that are still in their teens," Michael said. He looked at me and shook his head. "Didin't you eat at all when you were--"
"All the time!" I said, angry. "Seriously, everyone keeps acting like I was starving myself so I could fit into size zero jeans! I ate anything and everything, all the time! It just never stuck!" And from Michael's expression, I was overreacting again, which didn't make me feel any calmer. I took a few deep breaths anyway. "This just feels pretty strange," I said as an apology.
He nodded and then smiled. "Oh, Molly's going to get a kick out of this," he said.
Molly did. So did the rest of the kids, but Molly seemed to think that this made me younger than her and refused to listen when I said that mentally, I was still an elder and entitled of respect, and physically, I was pretty sure I was at least seventeen. Probably. They weren't the only ones that seemed to forget I wasn't actually a kid. Michael obviously caught himself telling me off a couple times, and Charity... well, I was never going to be one of Charity's favourite people, but she kept looking at me and frowning. Something about it was making her unhappy, but she didn't seem angry at me, so I tried to ignore it and go back to showing the kids card-tricks.
I was setting up the pack for one of the more complicated ones -you've got to get them in the right order for it to work- when Charity called out that dinner was ready. I figured that was my cue to leave, so I started to get my stuff together and bumped into Charity in the hallway.
This is the thing. It's not that I've never noticed before that Charity has, you know, a nice set. They're there, I've seen them, but I've never actually thought about them, because they belong to Charity, and Charity is married to Michael and-- well, they're so off-limits, I couldn't get to them through the Neverwhere.
Which is why the fact that I had to stop myself from staring at them now was really, really disturbing. I had to make myself look only at her face, not even her neck, because-- well, below that was dangerous, and not something I should be looking at or even thinking about, and I especially shouldn't be thinking about the fact that I could tell she was wearing a white bra because I could see the outline of it through her T-shirt, where it was a more opaque shade of white.
I could feel my face turning hot and I knew, I just knew, that she knew exactly what I'd trying and failing not to think about and it had confirmed every suspicion she'd ever had about me. "I'm sorry!"
"For what?" She said, frowning.
Maybe she hadn't figured it out? I bit my tongue before I blurted anything out. "Just generally sorry?" I said, hoping that would work. Oh, wait, I had an answer. "For coming over here unexpectedly," I said. Yeah, that made sense, that was polite. "And not calling first," I added, just to be safe.
"Harry," Charity said, but she didn't follow it up with anything.
"What?" I said, then ducked my head. "I mean, pardon?" And then I straightened up, because maybe I looked sixteen right now, but that didn't mean I was, and even I had been, Charity wasn't my guardian or anything.
She shook her head and frowned a little. I looked at Michael to see if this made any sense to him either, but he just shrugged a little. "Nothing," she said. "We're going to have dinner. If you help with the washing up afterwards, you can stay for it."
"Really?" I said, brightening up. "You might regret that. You've got no idea how much I ate when I was this age."
"I can guess," she said, but she pushed me at the table.
After dinner and washing up, it was pretty late and Michael offered me the spare room. Part of me wanted to go back to my own place, but
I felt my shields break and woke up, reaching around for something to throw.
"It's me!" I blinked and Molly was there, standing a few feet away from the bed. I put down the clock radio.
"Molly? Why are you..." I looked around. The lights had gone, but Molly had a nice little glowing sphere hovering in the air and I could see Michael and Charity standing in the doorway.
"Harry!" Molly said. She was looking at me, wide-eyed and terrified. "You were-- Harry, you were screaming," she said. "And I couldn't get to you because you had your shields up in your sleep. I had to break them."
"I-- nightmare," I said. "I get them sometimes."
"Well so do I, but I don't make fucking shields in my sleep!"
"Molly, language," Michael and Charity said together, automatically. I couldn't read their expressions and I wondered what they'd heard, if I'd said anything I shouldn't have.
"It was just a bad dream," I said, pulling the covers up around me. "I'm sorry I woke you all up." I shivered, partly left-over adrenaline from the dream, partly the shock of having my shields broken. I was kind of proud that Molly was able to, but it was still disconcerting to feel it. I probably wouldn't be able to bring them back up for a few hours at least.
"Harry..." Michael started to say, then Charity put her hand on his arm and they had one of those silent conversations couples have.
"You didn't need to wake me up," I said. "I never did any real damage when I was asleep." Just the shields up, and once or twice, I'd woken to feel fire on the edges of my awareness, but it had never actually lit.
"Harry, you were screaming," Molly said, softer than before. "And..." she rubbed one of her upper arms. "You were whimpering too, sometimes. What--" she bit off the question.
"I don't remember," I said. "Just dreams." She looked pretty freaked out still, so I gave her a reassuring smile and hoped it worked better than it usually did. "It used to happen a lot, before I got better at self-control. And better at figuring out when I was dreaming."
She smiled back. It wasn't the most convincing thing I'd ever seen, but I was willing to let it go. "So is that something I've got to look forward to as well?"
I glanced back at Michael and Charity and made a reassuring gesture. "No, probably not." I tried to think about how Eb had described it, the first time it happened at his. "It's just force of habit, sort of? I'm used to-- I used to have my shields prepped a lot without realizing it. I didn't always know what my magic was doing, but you're a lot better than I was at that."
Eb had said he was amazed I hadn't burnt out long before the Council got me, but I still thought he was exaggerating.
"I'm probably not going to get back to sleep," I said. "I think I'll just head back."
"It's pitch black out there," Charity said. "You're not leaving the house now."
I felt a buzz of irritation and tried to push it down. "Really not a kid, Charity. I can go back to my own house if I want to."
She opened her mouth, but Michael got there first. "We're not saying you are, but it's late enough, you might as well stay until breakfast."
I wanted to. Aside from everything else, all I had left back at mine was the remaining slice of pizza-- no, I'd eaten that in the car coming here. But more than that, more than anything, I wanted to be back in my own apartment. I could feel the psychic scratches from where Molly had broken my shields-- not painful, but there-- and I wanted to be within my own walls and wards.
I kicked off the blanket and Michael sighed. "Fine, just... call us when you get there."
Re: Fight or Flight 2/
(Anonymous) 2011-02-26 03:14 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Fight or Flight 2/
\o/
Re: Fight or Flight 2/
(Anonymous) 2011-02-26 04:54 pm (UTC)(link)OP Here
(Anonymous) 2011-02-26 06:49 pm (UTC)(link)Nice. I suspect that not all of the frowns by Charity is b/c of something Harry did, but mostly b/c of how he's not taking care of himself very well.
Fight or Flight 3
(Anonymous) 2011-02-27 10:49 am (UTC)(link)I spent most of the day walking through my wards and reinforcing my magic. I know what you're thinking, that I should have been researching how to break the spell, but I needed to get back in touch with my magic and going over the wards and protections I'd set up was good for that. I could make my magic run over the paths I'd set up before, giving them a touch more oomph, and feel where it was slow to respond, where it wanted to barrel through and where it wanted to crawl.
Not that some people would see it that way. Marcone would probably just bitch about how i was wasting his time by making it harder for him to go back to being a high-class thug instead of some junior management one. Like he was in any position to tell me what to do, like he knew anything about magic. By the end of it, I almost wanted him to, rehearsing what I'd say if he even thought about asking me how I was getting on with turning us all back. I was smugly lining up my arguments when I felt Thomas at the door.
Thomas has free entry to the place, but for a second the newer wards hesitated. Thomas was my brother, was allowed in, but he was also something dangerous, and there was a second where both aspects of the spell -protection for me and mine, protection from danger- were in conflict before they let him in.
I waved him in. Thomas was dressed in his normal clothes and I felt a pang of jealousy that they still mostly fit. I'd had to put extra notches on my belt to get my jeans to stay up, but Thomas was wearing a T-shirt that clung to him just as much as it ever did. He looked younger, not quite jailbait, but like he could fake that if you asked nicely.
And he was bringing food. "Gifts from the good ladies at the salon," he said smugly, holding up a set of tupperware. "I think I appeal to their maternal instincts."
"Thank you, Mrs Robinson," I said, taking down a couple of plates down and unwrapping stuff. "They just give you this?"
Thomas shrugged. "Poor starving student," he said. "Je m'appelle Michel," Thomas said. "I am, 'ow you say, le neveu, the nephew of Tomas, 'ere to study at the université." He dropped back into his normal voice. "And my dear uncle is letting me work part-time at the salon until my loans come through."
I unwrapped what turned out to be a very expensive looking quiche of some kind and pulled out a jar of stuffed olives. Student food, right. "That's okay?" I asked. "With the feeding and everything? You can still just sip?"
Thomas shrugged. "Mostly. I-- you know, I didn't need it as much when I was younger. I was a lot less subtle, but then I didn't actually have to be, so I mostly didn't even try." He pushed his hair back from his head. "Or maybe it's worse, because it never really crossed my mind to bother doing it, you know? It felt like I needed it all, so I just... but it wasn't actually as strong as later."
I didn't know what else to say, so I nodded. "Like how spraining your ankle is the worst pain ever, until you break your leg," I offered.
Thomas grinned at me. "Pretty much." He hesitated, then said, "So Michael called me. Said you had a pretty bad nightmare?"
"He told me on you?" I said. "Seriously?"
Thomas shrugged. "I'm guessing you triggered some paternal instinct pretty hard."
"Hell's bells," I said, feeling embarrassment crawl up my skin. "It was just one bad dream."
"Not going to argue with you, little brother," he said. His smile wasn't a happy one. "I'm guessing the Carpenters have different standards of parenting than we're used to."
I rolled my eyes. "They acted like it was such a big deal! I'm not actually a kid, you know?"
"No, but you're not exactly yourself either," Thomas said.
I crossed my arms and stared at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He held his hands up in a don't-shoot-the-messenger gesture. "This spell, it's not just made us look younger. My body, my Hunger, they're telling me things they told me when I was this age for real, and you... You're acting like you're you, but you're reacting like you're..." he gestured at me. "Like you were, I guess."
"You didn't even know me back then," I said. "Neither did Michael or Charity or anyone, so you've got no idea how I used to--"
"No, but I can guess," Thomas said. He took a breath and I could feel him trying to calm down, trying to calm me down. "I'm not blaming you--"
"I haven't done anything wrong!" I said, and Thomas's eyes went pale and he made a calm-down gesture, reaching out to me--
--and I could feel it, my magic burning at my skin, wanting to be used, telling me that I could knock him, down, the door was just there, adrenaline running through me like this was a fight instead of just an argument with my brother. Something telling me that I couldn't let him touch me, everything I knew about White Vampires and how they could get into your mind running through my brain.
"I'm on edge," I said, carefully drawing my magic back without trying to show that I'd had it up. "My magic isn't reacting like it should, I'm hungry all the time, I spent yesterday evening trying not to think about Charity's bra and it's just putting me on edge," I said, emphasizing the last two words. Thomas's hand went out to touch my arm in comfort and I forced myself to let it. Reminded myself that Thomas was safe and that I liked human or nearly-human contact.
He pulled me in and gave me a quick hug, suitably manly with some back-patting and I let him, partly because it felt good and partly because pushing him away would make it a big deal. "Charity Carpenter's bra?" He said, pulling back, offering us both a polite way out of what was dangerously close to an emotional moment.
"Teenage hormones," I said, embarrassed. "It's not like I was doing it on purpose." I poked at one of the bags for something to look at and pulled out a jar of something. "Artichoke hearts? What do they think students eat these days!"
"We French, we 'ave very cosmopolitan tastes," Thomas said. "But I picked up some chicken-wings too."
Re: Fight or Flight 3
(Anonymous) 2011-02-27 05:49 pm (UTC)(link)Also, I can't help thinking sorry for Thomas. If the spell had gone back another couple of years, it might have been before the Hunger set in and maybe he could have magically reset things with Justine somehow. :-(
OP Here
(Anonymous) 2011-02-27 06:08 pm (UTC)(link)Hmm.... I suspect there's going to be a lot of petting action in the future.
I'm curious about how Marcone's day went. I suspect he has less control over himself than usual.
...On the other hand, for some reason, I keep imagining Gard being fascinated by Marcone's reactions and Hendricks pulling out Marcone's "Baby Pictures"(Ages 18-25) of before he was the Gentleman to compare. :D
Re: OP Here
(Anonymous) - 2011-02-28 01:07 (UTC) - ExpandFight or Flight 4
(Anonymous) 2011-03-01 03:36 pm (UTC)(link)It was nice, eating with Thomas. Odd, too, because it made me feel a little nostalgic for things I'd never had.
"You mind if I stay here tonight?" Thomas said. "I don't want to go back to the chateau until we get this fixed and my apartment's still being renovated." He held up a hand. "I promise not to wake you if you have any bad dreams," he added with a half-smile. He was being... well, there's no other way to put it. He was being charming. Not enough to be obvious, just enough to put a little more into his smile, like a bass-note low enough you almost can't hear it.
I had a sneaking suspicion he didn't know he was doing it. It wasn't the crushing power it was sometimes, not the kind of pull that twisted you up inside and made it so you couldn't think of anything else, more a sort of low level buzz ofyou like me, you like me. Maybe his own equivalent of my unconscious shields, or maybe just the White Court equivalent of feeling a little peckish.
"Sure. You still know where everything is?" I said, tidying up the wreckage of the food, putting the more useful jars and plastic containers to one side while I put the kettle on for hot water. I'd probably put Bob under the bed or in the bedside cabinet. I'd kept him in a rucksack and used it a pillow before, trusting him to wake me up before I did anything that would get me noticed or if anyone noticed me. It's not like the nightmares were a big deal. Everyone had bad dreams sometimes, right? But I couldn't afford to pour out energy into nothing while I was asleep, not if I wanted to be at my full strength tomorrow.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but I was impressed and dismayed by the kid I'd been in whole new ways. It was amazing that I hadn't burned out, that I could afford to waste power like this, defending against nothing and still have enough energy to get up the next day. It was mindboggling that I hadn't even noticed it at the time. I guess any tiredness, any of the hard-edged, empty-eyed feeling you get from doing too much, too often, got lost in everything else that had been happening at the time. I suppose I should have been grateful I hadn't gone back even further. Just a few years younger, and I wouldn't have been able to manage a shield at all. Even if my brain knew how, my body wouldn't have and I had a nasty suspicion I'd have turned myself inside out trying.
It occurred to me that if Thomas had gone back just a few more years, maybe I'd have seen him before he turned vamp. Maybe he would have got a second chance to make that choice. Maybe he and Justine...
I wondered if that had occurred to him too. I hoped not, but my brother wasn't an idiot.
Although-- hmm. There was something about the spell, about the way it had worked... "I need to speak to Kincaid," I said, reaching for the phone and glad when it cooperated. Thomas watched me, curious.
Kincaid picked up. "You don't feel any different," I said before he got a chance to speak.
"What?"
"You don't feel any different," I said, trying for patience. "From usual, right? The magic went through you, but it didn't make you feel younger, right?"
"No," Kincaid said after a moment. "Not exactly. It did do something, though. About twenty, twenty-five years ago, I busted my leg badly enough that it took over a decade to heal completely. That still hurts, but I don't feel younger. Like you said, the spell would have to turn back the clock centuries for me to notice the difference."
The kettle whistled at me and I took it over to the sink, adding enough cold water and detergent to it so I could clean the jars without burning my hands.
"Harry?"
I hadn't forgotten Thomas was there, exactly, but I jumped a little when he said my name.
Thomas was looking at me, waiting for an explanation. "Did you learn anything useful from Kincaid?"
"Just getting close to figuring out what the spell actually did," I said.
He waved at himself. "Isn't it obvious?"
"That's just the result, that's not what it actually did." I tried to figure out how to explain it. "It's like... okay, so say you want a blue rose. You can get a white rose, spray paint it blue. You can put blue dye in the water when you water it. You can, I don't know, add bluebell genes or look at it through blue glass, either way, blue rose. But the way you got it changes things."
"So you're figuring out what kind of blue rose we all are?" Thomas said, smiling a little.
Okay, so it wasn't the best metaphor in the world. I shrugged and went back to the dishes.
"Normally, you'd have asked me to help by now," Thomas said.
"You're terrible at it," I said.
"I grew up with servents," he said. "Servents who could use the dishwasher. But that's not the point. You have a genuine moral stance on it, that doing domestic chores will be good for me."
"I..." I looked at the sink, at the familiar bubbles of detergent and clear glass. "I used to like doing it, when I was living with Justin," I said. Like was the wrong word, but... "He didn't bother us when we were doing something like this." I had clear memories of it, me and Elaine cleaning out whatever pots and pans or knives had been in that day's lesson. It wasn't that it was fun, or exciting, like learning new spells, or those moments with Elaine that had been pure discovery. It had just been reliable, safe, because it was never worth Justin's time interrupting. "You're right," I said, dropping the jar I was holding back in the sink.
"About..."
"About me, about how I'm acting." Just putting it into words made it feel more true, made me feel less in control, and worse, everyone could see it. I could see Michael and Charity and Molly, how they'd looked at me, like I was breakable or worse, like I was in the process of breaking. It wasn't true, and it hadn't been true then. I'd got out of it in one piece, more or less. Sure, there was some damage, but that was life, and I hadn't--
I took another breath, forcing down the emotions and saw Thomas's eyes go silver. White Court vampires mostly feed off sex, but they can drain other emotions too. Fear, pain, joy. There was more than one reason why their thralls clung to them and I knew the appeal.
We both stepped back and politely ignored the way we were having to put ourselves back together.
"So..." Thomas said.
"So," I answered.
"Should I..." he gestured at the door and I shook my head.
"It's fine, I should..." I sighed. I didn't want to see Marcone. Even on a good day, his habit of acting like he was working out the best way to buy me grated on my nerves, but... "I need to see Marcone and Gard, test a theory. I'll probably be back for dinner, but if not, you know where the sheets are."
"Right," he nodded. "Call me if you're going to be back late."
"Everyone keeps asking me to do that," I said. "I promise I'll call if it looks like I'll be out past curfew."
Thomas shook his head sadly. "I just don't trust that Marcone boy. He's going to get you into trouble one of these days."
Re: Fight or Flight 4
(Anonymous) 2011-03-01 03:52 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Fight or Flight 4
(Anonymous) - 2011-03-01 16:03 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Fight or Flight 4
(Anonymous) 2011-03-04 04:17 am (UTC)(link)Fight or Flight 5
(Anonymous) 2011-03-05 03:59 pm (UTC)(link)I got to Marcone's place and asked to see Hendricks, on the basis that whatever cover they'd got for Marcone, Hendricks would still be looming behind him. I didn't get more looks than usual from the random wiseguys and "associates" waiting for whatever Marcone decreed, but they were different. More dismissive, maybe, and--
--okay, so maybe it was just me, but I was aware of how I looked in a different way than I'd been as a kid; I was skinny as hell, on edge, and going to see a drugdealing scumlord kingpin. The only point in my favour is that I wasn't pretty enough for anyone to think I was there for anything worse. Not that I knew if Marcone or Hendricks went for that anyway.
Gard waved me into the office and she looked the same as ever. Maybe her hair was longer, but nothing obvious. Same as Kincaid, then.
Hendricks was sitting at the desk and Marcone was on a seat next to it, looking like he was taking notes. It was weird seeing them like that, because it seemed wrong -Hendricks should have been looming behind him, Marcone to sit in the big chair and give orders- and because part of me was seeing it like it actually was, and it looked normal. The boss's second in command giving orders to some junior boss, someone trusted enough to be allowed in to the circle, maybe being groomed for a higher position.
"Have a seat," Marcone said. He looked me over and I resisted the urge to shrink back in my coat or cross my arms and glare back at him. "Christ, Raith was right. You're nothing but skin and bones, are you?" he said, sounding faintly disgusted.
I stretched my fingers and let a little flare of power run over them. "There's more to me than that."
He leaned forwards and looked at my hands with interest. I had that same contradictory set of urges, to curl my hands back in my sleeve and avoid notice and to make something burn, make him back off. I didn't listen to either of them,instead turning to Hendricks and saying, "So how are you enjoying being in charge while the boss is what, on vacation? You wanna be careful, Marcone. Maybe he'll start getting ideas above his station." Which was ridiculous, and we all knew it, but Marcone's irritated expression was the only reason I'd said it in the first place. I counted it as a win.
"I'm officially at a meeting elsewhere, but answering my phone," Marcone said. "Fortunately, my people are equipped to cope if I'm unexpectedly absent."
That made sense. Marcone still sounded like himself, more or less. Maybe a touch less measured in his speech, but not anything you'd notice. "And you get to hang around and see how they act when you're not around, huh?"
Marcone raised an eyebrow. "Really, Harry, you think I don't know that already." His expression changed. "Besides, I look too much like myself," Marcone said, sounding disgusted. "The assumption is that I'm a nephew or something. My own younger brother."
"Or a bastard son," I offered helpfully.
He frowned at me, then sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I have seen some people doing some desperate calculations. And getting the wrong answer, judging by their reactions. So..."
"So?"
He looked irritated again and either I was better at this than I thought or he was just more susceptible now. "So I'm assuming you're here for a reason. You've found something out, I take it?"
I nodded. "Yeah, I think... so tell me, Marcone, how are you feeling?"
"you want me to talk to you about my feelings?" Marcone said in disbelief.
I nodded. "Just think of me as a therapist or a priest you wouldn't lie to."
"Frustrated, obviously," he said. "Irritated, but..." he shrugged. "Fine, I suppose. I have more energy than normal, but not an unreasonable amount. No loss of memory, so I'm obviously not actually the age I appear. Fine."
I leaned back in my chair, balancing on the back legs. "Okay, so magic likes a metaphor, okay? It's better at, oh, turning a mother into a maiden than just knocking off ten years. Or turning teacher into a highschool student, that sort of thing."
"Milestones rather than calendars," Marcone said, nodding.
"Ten points to the Mafia Kingpin. Princepin?" I said.
"Get on with it, Dresden," Marcone said.
"Tch, impatient, aren't we?" I grinned, because I thought it would probably annoy him more than anything else I did. "Okay, so it's not so weird that you dialed back to your twenties. Mature dignity to youthful vigour, very Shakespearean. It's not that strange that I'm sweet sixteen again-- slightly surprising that I'm not a little older or a little younger, a young man or an adolescent, but not totally weird, because those are sort of subject to interpretation. But Thomas..."I hesitated. "Thomas isn't different enough and it's really fucking weird, magically speaking, that Kincaid and Gard haven't changed."
"'Really fucking weird'" Marcone echoed. "Is that the technical term?"
"I'm dumbing it down for the non-specialist," I said. Marcone's expression suggested I was a trial he was learning how to bear. "Anyway, doing it like they did isn't impossible, obviously, but it's an awkward way of doing it."
"Really fucking weird," Marcone said, smiling slightly at me, like he was impressed. I felt my face go red and I was glad that I had so much experience avoiding looking anyone in the eyes.
"Right," I said, nodding and looking down. "So, uh. So theoretically, that's why we-- I haven't been able to make it snap it back into place. It's the wrong metaphor, you know? So for it to have worked-- they would have had to establish a base time and then referenced everything to that." I waved at him and almost knocked over a carafe of water on the desk. "Probably you. Like I said, maturity to youthful vigour. I think if we can flip you back to normal, we'll go back to."
He frowned. "You think that's what happened?"
I shrugged. "Don't know for sure. They could have used another base reference, but I didn't see animals back there. That's how I'd do it, chicken into egg. Or maybe not a chicken, maybe something like a parrot that lives longer, but you get my drift."
"I think I do," Marcone said. "But I was the last one through the door, so I don't see why--"
"Ah!" I said, holding one hand up like a pleased teacher. "But you were the last one through the door when it triggered. The rest of us were inside and fine." I smiled, because even when it's true, I rarely have the evidence for it, and said, "so this is all your fault. The fact I've blown practically my week's budget on food in two days, that's all on you."
"Mr Hendricks, can you arrange a suitable compensation for Dresden's food budget?" Marcone said, practically rolling his eyes. "And maybe throw in something extra so he can treat himself?" He smiled at my expression.
"I don't want your money," I said. "And for the record, it's even sketchier, you trying to buy me when I look like I'm sixteen than normal."
Marcone's expression went blank. "You overestimate your appeal in your current state."
I shrugged and started to get up. "Should I be insulted?"
"You should be--" Marcone bit back whatever he was going to say. "So when do you think you'll a solution?"
Good question. "Maybe a few days?" And then honesty forced me to add, "maybe longer, if I need to find someone else to power the spell. I have the know-how, but my control is..."
"Is imperfect at the best of times," Marcone said.
Couldn't argue with that.
Re: Fight or Flight 5
(Anonymous) 2011-03-05 04:25 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Fight or Flight 5
Re: Fight or Flight 5
OP Here
(Anonymous) - 2011-03-06 01:26 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Fight or Flight 5
Re: Fight or Flight 5
(Anonymous) - 2011-03-06 08:35 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Fight or Flight 5
(Anonymous) - 2011-03-05 19:05 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Fight or Flight 5
Re: Fight or Flight 5
(Anonymous) - 2011-03-09 18:54 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Fight or Flight 5
(Anonymous) - 2011-03-10 19:55 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Fight or Flight 5
(Anonymous) - 2011-03-20 23:38 (UTC) - ExpandFight or Flight 6
(Anonymous) 2011-03-21 09:06 pm (UTC)(link)Murphy was waiting when I got back. I was starting to get a bit suspicious about all that. I didn't need a babysitter, didn't need any of them hanging around me, but it kind of took the sting off to realize that even at this age, I was still more than a head taller than her. I had a sudden urge to just ruffle her hair or hold something above her and make her jump for it, but a tiny little voice more interested in my survival pointed out that she'd just drop me if I did.
She looked at me and shook her head. "That coat's hanging off you. You look like you're playing dress-up in your big brother's clothes," she said. "You know, I always thought you looked like you could do with a couple dozen good meals, but now... did you--"
"Not that skinny," I said, trying not to sound like I was whining. "Seriously, why does everyone keep saying that? I'm just, you know, growing in."
"Filling out?" She suggested, smirking a little, then turning serious. "So do you know how long you're going to be like this?"
"I'm working on it," I said, waving her in. We got to the kitchen and I fixed myself a sandwich from Thomas's leftovers, basically everything that was left between too slices of bread, then sat down at the table and took a bite. Murphy was staring at me and I felt a brief pang of guilt. "Uh, do you want some?" I said, then swallowed and tried again with less food in my mouth. "Sorry, I mean, do you want some? I could cut you off a bit."
She shook her head. "I'm good."
"Cool," I said, grinning and went back to finishing off my sandwich and wondering why I didn't do things like this more often. Ham was good, pastrami was good, salami and chorizo and roast chicken were good, obviously, they'd all be good together in a salad with cheese and those tomato and artichoke things Thomas had brought.
I finished and Murphy was shaking her head at me. "I've seen wolves-- hell, I've seen werewolves go through a meal slower than that." She smiled at me, one of the real ones she doesn't do anywhere near as much as she should. "You could give some of my cousins a run for their money."
"I don't know if I should be insulted, impressed or intimidated," I said.
"Big family," she said. "I know how much a teenage boy can eat." She shook her head again. "It's really hard not to treat you like you're the age you look," she said. "My mother would keep you in the kitchen for a week until she was sure you'd eaten enough."
"Did I ever mention how much I liked your mother?" I said.
"You've met her once, Harry," Murphy said.
I grinned at her. "Yeah, but she reminded me of you."
Murphy's fact twisted, her trying not to smile back and then giving up. "You're still a foot and a half taller than me and I just want to ruffle your hair. Harry, you're adorable,"
I gave her a disbelieving look. "I've been called a lot of things, but no-one ever called me that. Even Elaine drew the line at cute."
She leaned forwards over the table and ruffled my hair. I stopped myself flinching back and let her, and it was good. Nice, with Murphy smiling like that and hell, it wasn't look anything would make my hair look any worse than usual.
"Okay, enough with me pacifying your biological clock," I said, ignoring her flat look at that comment. "So I think I've got a rough idea of how the spell worked. I just need to crack down on a few more details.
I gave her the same background I'd given Marcone, then expanded on my theory. "It's the only thing that makes sense," I said. "The person that did the spell, he had it set for a group. He wanted it to work for all of them. He wanted to go back to when he was happiest," I said. "Wind back the clock to when he was, and then roll them back the same."
"That's kind of sad," she said.
"it's selfish," I said. "When he was happiest, not the rest of them." I gestured at myself. "Who'd wish being a teenager again on anyone? Just turn the clock back fifteen years, never mind if your kids were moody teens or your wife was secretly unhappy, just so long as you were."
"No, it took effort to do it like he did," I said. "He had to make the spell ignore everything but how it was for him." I struggled to put it into words. "Look, say it's your mom, right? And the happiest she was in her life was when she was, I dunno, twenty-five. Twenty-five, she's happily married, maybe she's got a kid. you're cute as a button and a world away from ever putting on a gun, maybe your dad's still in uniform..."
Murphy made a go-on gesture. "But would you really want to be two years-old for the rest of your life, just because that's when your mom was happiest? because that's part of what made your mom happiest?" I said. "Or maybe it was later, when she had all her kids and you were fifteen... trust me, Karrin, you don't want to be fifteen again just because someone was happiest when you were." I paused. "That came out a lot sleazier than I meant it."
She nodded and looked a little sad. "I think I know what you mean." Murphy had been married and divorced twice. She probably had a better idea than I did.
"So we need to find a couple things to break the spell," I said, happy to move us both past the awkward moment. "We need to know who was the trigger for the spell. Who was happy when they were the age they are now, when they were that age for real." I frowned and parsed the sentence. "Yeah, that makes sense. Obviously not me. Probably not Marcone or Gard. They don't feel different enough for it to have counted. Which leaves Marcone and Thomas."
"If it Thomas, wouldn't it be from before he turned?" Murphy said.
"Probably, but not necessarily." Even if you didn't know about being a White Court Vampire, growing up in the house of Madrigal Raith couldn't have been a barrel of laughs. Maybe it had been easier, after, in the time when he'd had an excuse for it all, something he could drown himself in, and before he'd grown up enough that he couldn't ignore everything that went with it.
Or maybe not. We didn't really talk about that stuff.
"I think you're right, though. It is more likely that it's Marcone. When I saw him--"
"You saw Marcone?" She said, her voice sharp.
"Yeah," I said.
She pursed her lips and looked at her hands for a second. "Look, I know you're not actually a kid, and maybe you don't need me to tell you this--"
"Never stopped you before," I said. "And you know I always need you to tell me when you think I'm being stupid. I don't promise I'll listen to you, but..."
She nodded. "I know. So Marcone wants you badly enough even at the best of times, and I'm guessing that right now, his self-control's not as strong as it usually is."
I felt my face turn red. "What-- hell's bells, Karrin, I'm not-- and Marcone's not the type to go for skinny teenagers, especially guy ones." I thought about the women I'd seen him with.
She nodded and looked impossible uncomfortable. "I'm not just talking about wanting to fu-- wanting to have sex with you, Harry. He wants to own you and..." she sighed. "Okay, you know you're not completely yourself right now, right? And Marcone is good at playing on people's instincts." She lowere her voice and sounded soft, kind. the way she did interviewing a victim. "You know the sort of thing he can offer, right?" Her voice went bitter. "To take care of you, protection, safety..." She shrugged. "He wants to give that to you anyway, and now especially, you look like you need it and Harry, you..." She spread her arms in a mute gesture of apology. "You look like you might want it. Not from him, just in general."
"I'm not that pathetic," I said.
"Jesus, Harry, that's not what I'm saying-- look, teenages don't make smart decisions a lot of them. You know that. They get in over their head, maybe get involved in something they shouldn't." She gave me a flat look that reminded me just how much I told her about my past. "And they maybe say yes to people they shouldn't." Her voice went soft again. "People aren't fairies, but there's still power in letting someone give you something. It's instinct or evolution, maybe. I've eaten enough bad stake-out takeout to know that eating together can be freaking bonding, whether you want it to or not."
"I'm not about to let him do any of that stuff," I said. I laughed, precisely because it wasn't funny. "Maybe my reactions are wrong now, but I've got a lot more experience and..." I thought about Elaine and Justin, about the Leanansidhe. "Trust me, I've got a lot more know-how on how to avoid traps and my instincts right now tell me I'd chew my own leg off before letting me get caught in one." I took another deep and tried a smile that I knew wouldn't fool either of us. "But it's all kind of moot, because we're going to fix this thing, and you can get back to worrying about me like normal. You're used to that."
"Looking forward to it," she said.
Re: Fight or Flight 6
(Anonymous) - 2011-03-21 21:22 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Fight or Flight 6
(Anonymous) - 2011-03-21 21:45 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Fight or Flight 6
Re: Fight or Flight 6
Re: Fight or Flight 6
(Anonymous) - 2011-03-22 08:34 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Fight or Flight 6 <- should be Gard & Kincaid
(Anonymous) - 2011-03-22 10:24 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Fight or Flight 6