Dear OP: This does not include anybody actually giving in and fucking Harry. But I hope you kind of like it anyway?
Kincaid looked down and the piece of notepaper. Across the top of it said 'Reasons not to fuck Harry Dresden through nearest wall'.
Below that he had written: 1. Karrin might be pissed off. 2. But only if I break him. 3. ?
He was still staring at it several minutes later when Ivy drifted in to the room. Since puberty hit her with a vengeance, she had taken to moving around ghostlike in clouds of faded chiffon and Chantilly lace; as best Kincaid was able to determine, she had decided to milk the "creepy little girl" thing as long as possible by way of the Gothic Lolita look.
She paused, looking over Kincaid's shoulder at what he was writing. He grunted and covered it with a hand: they both knew it made no difference to what Ivy knew, but several years ago they had come to something of an agreement about pretending.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "It appears you haven't made very much progress on your list. Are you in need of assistance?" She smiled primly at his eloquent look in response. "I am a fourteen year old human female, yet possessed of almost unimaginable power. I have been expending a great deal of mental effort in reaffirming my conviction not to make unnecessary concessions to my awakening libido."
Kincaid squinted at her. "Uh, should I be giving you 'the talk' or something?" He'd never really figured it would be required, but this job had turned out to include a lot of things he hadn't expected.
Ivy rolled her eyes, and fluffed down into an armchair in a flounce of black lace. "Of course not. I merely wanted to make you aware that you were far from the first person to attempt such a list."
He laughed. "Yeah, I suppose throughout human history nearly everybody's descended to this level at least once, haven't they?"
"Yes, certainly," Ivy said, but then her eyes sparkled a bit. "Though I was referring specifically to such lists about Harry Dresden."
Kincaid felt a grin slowly stretching across his face. Of course he hadn't been the first. And somehow knowing there was at least another equally frustrated sod out there made him feel a lot better. He stretched out, dropped his pencil, and said, "Okay, you don't get to say something like that without sharing. Cough it up."
Ivy glanced up into thin air, and smiled slightly. "Which one?"
"What?"
"Which one would you like me to start with? For example, John Marcone maintains a decade-old, heavily encrypted database file, which requires its own designated data storage. It includes extensive cross-referencing, including dates, locations, and statistical and probabilistic simulations of a high degree of sophistication, as well as attached appendices and references including extensive surveillance files and a collection of scientific papers in the fields of biology, psychology and ethics."
She paused, then smiled. "Including Mr. Hendricks' latest. That's new. And delightful. He also keeps a shorter file on his personal organizer - at the moment an iPhone IV - which includes notes on items which need to be appended to the larger file. Right now, the most recent entries include 'car insurance recently redefined "act of God", did not budget for another rate increase', 'that T-shirt is utterly egregious, cannot fuck someone with such bad taste' and 'is a day ending in Y. Promised Hendricks.'"
Kincaid laughed uproariously. "Of course the creepy OCD bastard has a file like that. Okay, Ivy, you've officially made my day, I don't need you to recite the whole thing."
Ivy just grinned at him and continued. "Now, Karrin Murphy is considerably less well-organized in her personal life, but if you collate and concatenate everything she has ever written on the theme, it comes to nearly as much material, though with a much higher degree of redundancy. Among the most recently-repeated are 'it would take way too much work to train him up to standard', 'I need someone to visualize stabbing when I'm working on sword katas,' and 'suspicion always lands on the SO - much harder to get away with murdering him if I'm fucking him too.'
"Murphy's corpus also has a high degree of overlap with a list once made by Molly Carpenter, as well. I am particularly fond of the first three items, which are: '1. He's a controlling patronizing misogynistic bastard pig and I hate him. 2. Anyway I deserve better. 3. Also I bet he's really really lousy in bed, it would explain so much.'"
"...Ivy," Kincaid said. "How many of these lists are there?"
"Oh, lots!" she said brightly. "Although many of them are similar, it gets rather samey after awhile. A few of them stand out, though. Like the one Michael Carpenter used to carry around in his wallet that said only 'Charity would kill us both.' And then there's the two lines Charity Carpenter once wrote in the middle of a shopping list: '1. Michael would never go for that sort of thing. 2. It would take more than the two of us can give to fix what's wrong with Harry." She shrugged, and added, "Then she ended it with '3. Probably a lousy lay,' but I did say there was a lot of repetition. Knight Sanya's first list ended with 'If I gave in, would not be able to keep a secret from Carpenter family. Is not worth enduring the years of 'I told you so's.'"
"Both the Carpenters?" Kincaid said, impressed. He wouldn't have given them credit for that much creativity, although on reflection it was, well, fucking hot. He wondered in a moment of madness if Charity would consider making an exception for anyone other than Dresden...
"They do both have a great deal of admiration for him, and do not often have the opportunity to convince him of that fact. Although among admirers of Harry's I suspect Warden Ramirez meant his largely in jest," Ivy continued. "Or possibly was under a chemical influence when he wrote it - it contains long descriptions of his own predicted prowess and how Warden Dresden would be unable to survive the ecstasy, which would be a great loss for the White Council. Also that he is still holding out for the possibility of unicorns." She smirked. "And that Harry would probably be lousy in bed. Although I understand that despite the frequent repetition, that may be untrue. The lists made by Susan Rodriguez and Elaine Morgan, who are in the best positions to know for a fact, do not, though full of many responsible and well-considered arguments based mostly on practical and emotional concerns, include that particular item. Very much to the contrary, in fact." She raised her eyebrows.
"Okay, do Dresden and I have any mutual acquaintances who haven't had to talk themselves out of it?"
Ivy shrugged. "As many people have written, I believe 'there's just something about Dresden that makes you want to fuck him until he's begging for mercy.' Of course, I am only privy to the writings of humans. I cannot swear to the proclivities of any of our nonhuman acquaintances." She looked at him, sideways, "Was this of any help with your dilemma?"
And, yeah, oddly enough, it was. Kincaid's never been a guy to get tied up about the occasional casual fuck (or, at certain periods of his life, more than occasional), and there is just something about Dresden - Kincaid thinks it's the whole mouthy bottom thing he's got going on, he's practically daring everybody he meets to try to bring him to heel - but he's also old enough to know that sometimes a casual fuck isn't worth what you'd lose by it. So, you know, it's not like he's going to turn it down if the opportunity should arise, but he doesn't really need to talk himself out of doing something stupid any more. "Yeah," he told Ivy, "Thanks, you were a help." He stood up, dropping the abortive list into the rubbish bin, and ruffled her hair affectionately. "You're getting a lot better at that kind of thing, kid," he told her, and he could almost swear she blushed.
He didn't really think about it again until the next day, when he was doing some idle tidying and picked up a torn piece of paper that had drifted under Ivy's writing desk. It was her favorite purple notepaper, torn neatly in half. He didn't entirely mean to read it, but his eyes inadvertently skimmed it and caught on her assiduously neat glitter-pen handwriting. It was the very end of a list:
6. Despite his broad experience and very long life, he maintains some strangely anachronistic conceptions of 'honor', especially regarding women and dependents. 7. He will always, always see me first as a child.
He chuckled fondly to himself before he crumpled the page and dropped it in the rubbish to join his own effort. He supposed their conversation had gotten Ivy thinking - and even she wasn't immune to whatever it was about Dresden. She must have meant it about her awakening libido. It was hard to see her even now as anything but the little doll of a girl with an adult's world-weary knowledge, but yeah, when he thought about it, the curves were starting to get unmistakable. Well, there were worse people she could choose for a first crush, and she did seem to be thinking rationally about it.
It wasn't until he was lying in bed that night, considering sleep, that the first line in Ivy's list drifted across his mind's eye again, and it suddenly struck him that -- wide experience and notions of chivalry aside - Dresden hadn't lived a long life even by human standards, and the odds were growing exponentially against his making it to forty.
Which meant that Ivy's list couldn't have been about Dresden.
The thought of Kincaid dealing with his being Ivy's first crush interests me, too. Because it would be complex and probably highly angsty and messed up (which describes a lot of Dresden canon and is therefore strangely fitting).
Oh my god this is fucking hilarious, authoranon. :laughs forever and ever: I love Marcone's and Murphy's. And the fact that EVERYONE has a list about why fucking Harry is a bad idea. And the oddly meta-thing about why everyone wants to jump him. Because it's so true.
Oh *Ivy* <3. Navigating adolescence with a full awareness of the theory of what's happeningg to you not actually making it any easier.
I cackled at there is just something about Dresden - Kincaid thinks it's the whole mouthy bottom thing he's got going on, he's practically daring everybody he meets to try to bring him to heel. Explains so much!
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timeasmymeasure
Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 05:26 am (UTC)Kincaid looked down and the piece of notepaper. Across the top of it said 'Reasons not to fuck Harry Dresden through nearest wall'.
Below that he had written: 1. Karrin might be pissed off.
2. But only if I break him.
3. ?
He was still staring at it several minutes later when Ivy drifted in to the room. Since puberty hit her with a vengeance, she had taken to moving around ghostlike in clouds of faded chiffon and Chantilly lace; as best Kincaid was able to determine, she had decided to milk the "creepy little girl" thing as long as possible by way of the Gothic Lolita look.
She paused, looking over Kincaid's shoulder at what he was writing. He grunted and covered it with a hand: they both knew it made no difference to what Ivy knew, but several years ago they had come to something of an agreement about pretending.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "It appears you haven't made very much progress on your list. Are you in need of assistance?" She smiled primly at his eloquent look in response. "I am a fourteen year old human female, yet possessed of almost unimaginable power. I have been expending a great deal of mental effort in reaffirming my conviction not to make unnecessary concessions to my awakening libido."
Kincaid squinted at her. "Uh, should I be giving you 'the talk' or something?" He'd never really figured it would be required, but this job had turned out to include a lot of things he hadn't expected.
Ivy rolled her eyes, and fluffed down into an armchair in a flounce of black lace. "Of course not. I merely wanted to make you aware that you were far from the first person to attempt such a list."
He laughed. "Yeah, I suppose throughout human history nearly everybody's descended to this level at least once, haven't they?"
"Yes, certainly," Ivy said, but then her eyes sparkled a bit. "Though I was referring specifically to such lists about Harry Dresden."
Kincaid felt a grin slowly stretching across his face. Of course he hadn't been the first. And somehow knowing there was at least another equally frustrated sod out there made him feel a lot better. He stretched out, dropped his pencil, and said, "Okay, you don't get to say something like that without sharing. Cough it up."
Ivy glanced up into thin air, and smiled slightly. "Which one?"
"What?"
"Which one would you like me to start with? For example, John Marcone maintains a decade-old, heavily encrypted database file, which requires its own designated data storage. It includes extensive cross-referencing, including dates, locations, and statistical and probabilistic simulations of a high degree of sophistication, as well as attached appendices and references including extensive surveillance files and a collection of scientific papers in the fields of biology, psychology and ethics."
She paused, then smiled. "Including Mr. Hendricks' latest. That's new. And delightful. He also keeps a shorter file on his personal organizer - at the moment an iPhone IV - which includes notes on items which need to be appended to the larger file. Right now, the most recent entries include 'car insurance recently redefined "act of God", did not budget for another rate increase', 'that T-shirt is utterly egregious, cannot fuck someone with such bad taste' and 'is a day ending in Y. Promised Hendricks.'"
Kincaid laughed uproariously. "Of course the creepy OCD bastard has a file like that. Okay, Ivy, you've officially made my day, I don't need you to recite the whole thing."
Ivy just grinned at him and continued. "Now, Karrin Murphy is considerably less well-organized in her personal life, but if you collate and concatenate everything she has ever written on the theme, it comes to nearly as much material, though with a much higher degree of redundancy. Among the most recently-repeated are 'it would take way too much work to train him up to standard', 'I need someone to visualize stabbing when I'm working on sword katas,' and 'suspicion always lands on the SO - much harder to get away with murdering him if I'm fucking him too.'
"Murphy's corpus also has a high degree of overlap with a list once made by Molly Carpenter, as well. I am particularly fond of the first three items, which are: '1. He's a controlling patronizing misogynistic bastard pig and I hate him. 2. Anyway I deserve better. 3. Also I bet he's really really lousy in bed, it would explain so much.'"
"...Ivy," Kincaid said. "How many of these lists are there?"
"Oh, lots!" she said brightly. "Although many of them are similar, it gets rather samey after awhile. A few of them stand out, though. Like the one Michael Carpenter used to carry around in his wallet that said only 'Charity would kill us both.' And then there's the two lines Charity Carpenter once wrote in the middle of a shopping list: '1. Michael would never go for that sort of thing. 2. It would take more than the two of us can give to fix what's wrong with Harry." She shrugged, and added, "Then she ended it with '3. Probably a lousy lay,' but I did say there was a lot of repetition. Knight Sanya's first list ended with 'If I gave in, would not be able to keep a secret from Carpenter family. Is not worth enduring the years of 'I told you so's.'"
"Both the Carpenters?" Kincaid said, impressed. He wouldn't have given them credit for that much creativity, although on reflection it was, well, fucking hot. He wondered in a moment of madness if Charity would consider making an exception for anyone other than Dresden...
"They do both have a great deal of admiration for him, and do not often have the opportunity to convince him of that fact. Although among admirers of Harry's I suspect Warden Ramirez meant his largely in jest," Ivy continued. "Or possibly was under a chemical influence when he wrote it - it contains long descriptions of his own predicted prowess and how Warden Dresden would be unable to survive the ecstasy, which would be a great loss for the White Council. Also that he is still holding out for the possibility of unicorns." She smirked. "And that Harry would probably be lousy in bed. Although I understand that despite the frequent repetition, that may be untrue. The lists made by Susan Rodriguez and Elaine Morgan, who are in the best positions to know for a fact, do not, though full of many responsible and well-considered arguments based mostly on practical and emotional concerns, include that particular item. Very much to the contrary, in fact." She raised her eyebrows.
"Okay, do Dresden and I have any mutual acquaintances who haven't had to talk themselves out of it?"
Ivy shrugged. "As many people have written, I believe 'there's just something about Dresden that makes you want to fuck him until he's begging for mercy.' Of course, I am only privy to the writings of humans. I cannot swear to the proclivities of any of our nonhuman acquaintances." She looked at him, sideways, "Was this of any help with your dilemma?"
And, yeah, oddly enough, it was. Kincaid's never been a guy to get tied up about the occasional casual fuck (or, at certain periods of his life, more than occasional), and there is just something about Dresden - Kincaid thinks it's the whole mouthy bottom thing he's got going on, he's practically daring everybody he meets to try to bring him to heel - but he's also old enough to know that sometimes a casual fuck isn't worth what you'd lose by it. So, you know, it's not like he's going to turn it down if the opportunity should arise, but he doesn't really need to talk himself out of doing something stupid any more. "Yeah," he told Ivy, "Thanks, you were a help." He stood up, dropping the abortive list into the rubbish bin, and ruffled her hair affectionately. "You're getting a lot better at that kind of thing, kid," he told her, and he could almost swear she blushed.
He didn't really think about it again until the next day, when he was doing some idle tidying and picked up a torn piece of paper that had drifted under Ivy's writing desk. It was her favorite purple notepaper, torn neatly in half. He didn't entirely mean to read it, but his eyes inadvertently skimmed it and caught on her assiduously neat glitter-pen handwriting. It was the very end of a list:
6. Despite his broad experience and very long life, he maintains some strangely anachronistic conceptions of 'honor', especially regarding women and dependents.
7. He will always, always see me first as a child.
He chuckled fondly to himself before he crumpled the page and dropped it in the rubbish to join his own effort. He supposed their conversation had gotten Ivy thinking - and even she wasn't immune to whatever it was about Dresden. She must have meant it about her awakening libido. It was hard to see her even now as anything but the little doll of a girl with an adult's world-weary knowledge, but yeah, when he thought about it, the curves were starting to get unmistakable. Well, there were worse people she could choose for a first crush, and she did seem to be thinking rationally about it.
It wasn't until he was lying in bed that night, considering sleep, that the first line in Ivy's list drifted across his mind's eye again, and it suddenly struck him that -- wide experience and notions of chivalry aside - Dresden hadn't lived a long life even by human standards, and the odds were growing exponentially against his making it to forty.
Which meant that Ivy's list couldn't have been about Dresden.
Which meant.
Oh shit.
Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 05:37 am (UTC)Which meant that Ivy's list couldn't have been about Dresden.
Which meant.
Oh shit.
So in love with this. So in love. If you ever feel so compelled to write a sequel with Kincaid dealing with this, I would encourage such an endeavor.
Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-23 07:06 am (UTC)Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-03-06 10:51 am (UTC)OP Here
Date: 2011-02-18 05:41 am (UTC)How could I forget that Ivy has access to all the Harry's Lists ever. :D
Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 05:54 am (UTC)Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 06:19 am (UTC)So fucking much.
Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 06:24 am (UTC)Excellent job. :raucous applause:
Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 05:23 pm (UTC)Also that he is still holding out for the possibility of unicorns.
Because omg. :laughs and laughs:
Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 06:36 am (UTC)Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 07:15 am (UTC)Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 08:09 am (UTC)Clever, I really liked this!
Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 08:13 am (UTC)*breathes*
Author, I have so much love for you for this! You have apparently given lots of thought about everyone's reasons. And I *adore* the turn at the end!
Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 12:06 pm (UTC)Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 12:19 pm (UTC)I cackled at there is just something about Dresden - Kincaid thinks it's the whole mouthy bottom thing he's got going on, he's practically daring everybody he meets to try to bring him to heel. Explains so much!
Re: List Of Why He/She Should NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 12:53 pm (UTC)...OK, no, I'ma have to go with the last line. It manages to be both hilarious and a little bit hurty at the same time.
Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-02-18 06:34 pm (UTC)I nearly spit tea all over my keyboard. Oh, Carlos.
And the ending was all kinds of perfect.
Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2011-03-04 04:10 am (UTC)'is a day ending in Y. Promised Hendricks.'
I laughed out loud. :D
Re: List Of Why He/She Shouldn't NOT Fuck Harry Till He Begs For It
Date: 2013-10-05 09:49 pm (UTC)