Sequel to all these: http://scribe-protra.dreamwidth.org/306.html?thread=367154#cmt367154, http://scribe-protra.dreamwidth.org/306.html?thread=30002#cmt30002 and http://scribe-protra.dreamwidth.org306.html?thread=165682#cmt165682
Things had always been a little awkward between me and the Council in general. Between me and the specific people in the Council? Well, I always thought I should be admired for my self-restraint. But yeah. We made bad relations into an art form. It usually wasn’t so bad. We also mastered the art of evasion. Wizards are great at anything in that field: denial, evasion, secrets, etc. etc. etc. When you live as long as we do, I guess you need something to entertain yourself. Or maybe it had to do with the Sight and having certain things stored permanently in your memory. I tried not to think too hard on it.
Every now and then, though, they actually acted out their fantasies rather than just, well, fantasized them, and that was usually when I was called in front of them. Generally the goal was to try to cast me out or kill me. Gee, and people complained about their neighbors being passive-aggressive assholes. Wizards are among the few creatures who can passively-aggressively find a reason to cut your head off. Maybe when a diplomat dies, they were reincarnated as a wizard. Or maybe whenever a diplomat clapped their hands, a wizard was being a subtle passive-aggressive asshole. Explained why you always saw diplomats leading applauses. Nothing about them trying to be nice and everything about trying to get a wizard to kill someone.
It made sense in my head, okay?
Of course, my head was kind of hypothermic, which had to do with my current incredibly awkward situation, awkward to the point where I missed the less-than-passive-aggressive way Morgan would always try to find a reason to cut my head off before.
Yeah, I missed the days when Morgan would corner me in alleys and tell me I was bound to slip up so he could cut my head off. Too bad I can’t blame that on the hypothermia. I can blame it on Bob, though, so that helped make me feel a little better.
One bit of following Bob’s advice and a bad day for Morgan to play stalker later, and I knew how Morgan’s dick felt up my ass and that he cleaned up his partner after sex. Until then, I didn’t realize how much I preferred Morgan’s other sword.
Come on, there was no way that I was ignoring that pun.
“Dresden, why are you laughing?” Morgan demanded. He wrapped the blanket tighter around my shoulders, but that only made it so I pressed harder against his side…closer to both of his swords. I snickered harder. “Did you hit your head when you fell in the water? Dresden!”
If you paid attention in school when they were discussing witchhunts, you would notice a theme…besides naked orgies. The things they teach in school. Really. But if you get past the supposed orgies and doing magic skyclad, you would notice two popular ways they killed supposed warlocks: burning them and drowning them.
Purifying with the former and disabling their magic on the other.
This case led us to a witch hunter. Nice guy, really. Optimistic, intelligent, overall nice guy.
Eighth generation witch hunter. He apologized to me when he used a hidden explosive to knock me into the river. Called after me that it was for the good of my soul.
I hated it when bad guys knew how to use a wizard’s problems with technology against them. Insult to injury.
No, wait. The insult to this injury was Morgan diving into the river to save my skinny ass.
Or was it when Luccio announced that Morgan and I would go after this witch hunter before he killed any more apprentices?
Or maybe I was right all along and the Almighty hates me. I’m betting on that one.
Morgan’s sword poked my hip. I snorted and hid my face in the blanket, chortling a little.
Yeah, might have hit my head on a rock. Or it was hypothermia. It was difficult to tell at that moment.
Not sure where Morgan dragged us to. Just knew that it was warm and dry and it had a fire. It would have been cozy if I hadn’t been freezing with Morgan curled up against my side.
Curled up, sitting up straight with military precision, whatever, he was still pressed against my side, close enough that the sword that he had threatened me with for years was poking my hip.
I laughed into the blanket. Or maybe it was just hysteria making me laugh. Could you really blame me?
“Dresden!” There was a sharp sound, and then my cheek hurt. I stopped laughing and stared at Morgan in astonishment. Did he just slap me?
“Did you just slap me?”
Morgan pulled his hand back and calmly resettled the blanket around himself. “You were losing control,” he retorted calmly, “and I didn’t want to escape drowning to burn alive.”
I glanced at the fire, which looked much brighter than before. I coughed. Ah, oops?
I leaned forward, acting like I was moving closer to the fire rather than away from Morgan. “How long are we going to stay here, anyway?” I grumbled. My voice gave a little mid-sentence. Great. So not only was I huddling with someone I…someone I…someone who has been hunting me for years, but I sounded like a teenager while I did it. Just great.
He ignored that opening. Guess it was too obvious. “Stop moving,” he said testily. “We need to dry off before we do anything.”
Having apparently decided that I wasn’t concussed, just insane, Morgan went back to ignoring me. It was actually pretty impressive considering we were huddled under one small blanket in front of an even smaller fire in a house that was smaller than my apartment.
And his sword was poking my hip.
I coughed to hide my laugh and stared at the fire instead. It rose a little in response.
“Stop that,” Morgan snapped. “The air around us it too cold as it is.”
Because of course Morgan would save us from drowning to find the one cabin in a hundred-mile radius with only a fireplace for warmth. Or maybe that was just my luck. I was always told that I was special like that.
Like I mentioned earlier, wizards have mastered the art of evasion. Morgan went from being a stalker to completely vanishing from my life after the…incident. I was grateful, really. It made it easier not to think about it if I didn’t see him, and I guessed he thought the same. True, this apparently prompted Marcone to up his stalking, but I was always comforted that I was never alone, and it gave me a great excuse to strengthen the protections on my duster.
I scowled at the fire. Everything was just easier if we didn’t think about it. Luccio didn’t get it. Neither did Murphy or Thomas. They knew something had happened, and Luccio knew that the something had happened between Morgan and me.
Wizards were great at evasion, but more often than I liked, they hated it when they watched other wizards do it.
I pulled too far away from Morgan, and the blanket slipped out from around my shoulder. Before I even realized my shivering had increased, Morgan was dragging me back against his side. “Stop that, idiot! Are you trying to kill yourself?”
Why did everyone always ask me that?
I grunted and tried to squirm away from him. Note for future reference: getting exploded into a rushing river and then drowning with the current hurts. Just so you know. His hand squeezed one of the nicely forming bruises and I stopped squirming with a gasp.
“…idiot.” His hand lingered, and I remembered the feel of his hands on me. Most of that time was a drugged blur, but I remembered that.
I also remembered the regret on his face.
Fuck, but I missed hating him so easily.
His hand moved slower than I would have liked away from my arm to wrap the blanket more securely around my shoulders. I did my damnedest to ignore him, but the feel reminded me of something, when he had insisted on bandaging my back on one of the few times I didn’t wear my duster.
Not that my duster did a lot of good today. Morgan had pulled it off me earlier and had it draped near the fireplace.
Morgan had undressed me.
I couldn’t remember who had undressed me last time.
“Asshole,” I retorted, and my answer had a bit more heat than I intended. I didn’t regret it, though, even when I felt him stiffen.
We fell silent again, slowly drying in front of the fire. The thin blanket provided no warmth, only kept Morgan’s and my body heat trapped. What little body heat we had, anyway.
Every now and then I felt him shiver and then stop himself with that damned self-control of his. The same self-control he only seemed to lose around me.
I wrapped my arms tightly around myself and willed my body to warm up faster, for my clothes to just finish drying already.
Morgan didn’t seem to realize we were supposed to be locked in stoic, manly silence, because he spoke again. “I’m sorry.”
I snorted. “For what?” There was so much he could be sorry for. Sorry for hunting down a sixteen-year-old? Terrorizing him to the point that he had nightmares for years?
“…for raping you.”
Or for that.
I grunted. “Fuck or die. It’s what I get for using faerie ingredients in my potions.”
Just thinking about it made me want to kill Bob. Hammer. Skull. Boom.
“It was still rape,” Morgan said quietly. “And…I am sorry.”
My mind flickered briefly to another incident, years ago, and I flinched away from it before my memory could fully capture it. “You did it to save my life,” I said quietly, not wanting to hear myself speak. “So…just don’t bring it up again.”
So, of course, he kept talking. “I…achieved satisfaction from it. You had no choice. I --”
“Morgan,” I cut off. I didn’t look at him. I kept staring at the fire and tried not to accidentally burn the whole building down. “It wasn’t exactly something I would have chose --”
I felt him flinch. I didn’t think about it.
“--but you saved my life,” I plunged on. “Trust me, you have a lot to apologize for, but not that.”
Morgan fell quiet again. I tried not to think about it, but I couldn’t help it. That was the big thing. Magical beings have a different concept of sex -- especially of rape -- than vanilla mortals. Many magical creatures barely acknowledged consent as a whole, as they naturally steal it away. Fuck or die, which most mortals laugh at, is more common than I would like considering the mischievous attitude of many faeries toward sex.
But Morgan got off on it.
That fucked that strange morality of his more than fucking a supposed warlock.
“Besides,” I continued, the words falling out of my mouth, “I’m good enough to get you off drugged out of my mind. How many people could say that?”
When he laughed, I started, and the fire rose again. Morgan quickly calmed himself.
“You…” He shook his head, water droplets splashing my neck.
“Yeah,” I agreed, putting a note of cheer in my voice.
Morgan didn’t speak again. He just settled the blanket more securely around me, like he was afraid of it falling and leaving me to freeze to death. I leaned toward him a little, just to show him that I wasn’t afraid. Because I wasn’t. I was afraid of a lot, but my fear of him was finally beginning to die.
Our clothes were almost dry, and we would be able to leave soon, hopefully with no one finding out what had occurred. In the meantime…
“Hey, Morgan.”
“What, Dresden?”
“Is that your sword or are you just happy to see me?”
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timeasmymeasure
4th in a series?
Date: 2011-02-23 10:27 pm (UTC)Things had always been a little awkward between me and the Council in general. Between me and the specific people in the Council? Well, I always thought I should be admired for my self-restraint. But yeah. We made bad relations into an art form. It usually wasn’t so bad. We also mastered the art of evasion. Wizards are great at anything in that field: denial, evasion, secrets, etc. etc. etc. When you live as long as we do, I guess you need something to entertain yourself. Or maybe it had to do with the Sight and having certain things stored permanently in your memory. I tried not to think too hard on it.
Every now and then, though, they actually acted out their fantasies rather than just, well, fantasized them, and that was usually when I was called in front of them. Generally the goal was to try to cast me out or kill me. Gee, and people complained about their neighbors being passive-aggressive assholes. Wizards are among the few creatures who can passively-aggressively find a reason to cut your head off. Maybe when a diplomat dies, they were reincarnated as a wizard. Or maybe whenever a diplomat clapped their hands, a wizard was being a subtle passive-aggressive asshole. Explained why you always saw diplomats leading applauses. Nothing about them trying to be nice and everything about trying to get a wizard to kill someone.
It made sense in my head, okay?
Of course, my head was kind of hypothermic, which had to do with my current incredibly awkward situation, awkward to the point where I missed the less-than-passive-aggressive way Morgan would always try to find a reason to cut my head off before.
Yeah, I missed the days when Morgan would corner me in alleys and tell me I was bound to slip up so he could cut my head off. Too bad I can’t blame that on the hypothermia. I can blame it on Bob, though, so that helped make me feel a little better.
One bit of following Bob’s advice and a bad day for Morgan to play stalker later, and I knew how Morgan’s dick felt up my ass and that he cleaned up his partner after sex. Until then, I didn’t realize how much I preferred Morgan’s other sword.
Come on, there was no way that I was ignoring that pun.
“Dresden, why are you laughing?” Morgan demanded. He wrapped the blanket tighter around my shoulders, but that only made it so I pressed harder against his side…closer to both of his swords. I snickered harder. “Did you hit your head when you fell in the water? Dresden!”
If you paid attention in school when they were discussing witchhunts, you would notice a theme…besides naked orgies. The things they teach in school. Really. But if you get past the supposed orgies and doing magic skyclad, you would notice two popular ways they killed supposed warlocks: burning them and drowning them.
Purifying with the former and disabling their magic on the other.
This case led us to a witch hunter. Nice guy, really. Optimistic, intelligent, overall nice guy.
Eighth generation witch hunter. He apologized to me when he used a hidden explosive to knock me into the river. Called after me that it was for the good of my soul.
I hated it when bad guys knew how to use a wizard’s problems with technology against them. Insult to injury.
No, wait. The insult to this injury was Morgan diving into the river to save my skinny ass.
Or was it when Luccio announced that Morgan and I would go after this witch hunter before he killed any more apprentices?
Or maybe I was right all along and the Almighty hates me. I’m betting on that one.
Morgan’s sword poked my hip. I snorted and hid my face in the blanket, chortling a little.
Yeah, might have hit my head on a rock. Or it was hypothermia. It was difficult to tell at that moment.
Not sure where Morgan dragged us to. Just knew that it was warm and dry and it had a fire. It would have been cozy if I hadn’t been freezing with Morgan curled up against my side.
Curled up, sitting up straight with military precision, whatever, he was still pressed against my side, close enough that the sword that he had threatened me with for years was poking my hip.
I laughed into the blanket. Or maybe it was just hysteria making me laugh. Could you really blame me?
“Dresden!” There was a sharp sound, and then my cheek hurt. I stopped laughing and stared at Morgan in astonishment. Did he just slap me?
“Did you just slap me?”
Morgan pulled his hand back and calmly resettled the blanket around himself. “You were losing control,” he retorted calmly, “and I didn’t want to escape drowning to burn alive.”
I glanced at the fire, which looked much brighter than before. I coughed. Ah, oops?
I leaned forward, acting like I was moving closer to the fire rather than away from Morgan. “How long are we going to stay here, anyway?” I grumbled. My voice gave a little mid-sentence. Great. So not only was I huddling with someone I…someone I…someone who has been hunting me for years, but I sounded like a teenager while I did it. Just great.
He ignored that opening. Guess it was too obvious. “Stop moving,” he said testily. “We need to dry off before we do anything.”
Having apparently decided that I wasn’t concussed, just insane, Morgan went back to ignoring me. It was actually pretty impressive considering we were huddled under one small blanket in front of an even smaller fire in a house that was smaller than my apartment.
And his sword was poking my hip.
I coughed to hide my laugh and stared at the fire instead. It rose a little in response.
“Stop that,” Morgan snapped. “The air around us it too cold as it is.”
Because of course Morgan would save us from drowning to find the one cabin in a hundred-mile radius with only a fireplace for warmth. Or maybe that was just my luck. I was always told that I was special like that.
Like I mentioned earlier, wizards have mastered the art of evasion. Morgan went from being a stalker to completely vanishing from my life after the…incident. I was grateful, really. It made it easier not to think about it if I didn’t see him, and I guessed he thought the same. True, this apparently prompted Marcone to up his stalking, but I was always comforted that I was never alone, and it gave me a great excuse to strengthen the protections on my duster.
I scowled at the fire. Everything was just easier if we didn’t think about it. Luccio didn’t get it. Neither did Murphy or Thomas. They knew something had happened, and Luccio knew that the something had happened between Morgan and me.
Wizards were great at evasion, but more often than I liked, they hated it when they watched other wizards do it.
I pulled too far away from Morgan, and the blanket slipped out from around my shoulder. Before I even realized my shivering had increased, Morgan was dragging me back against his side. “Stop that, idiot! Are you trying to kill yourself?”
Why did everyone always ask me that?
I grunted and tried to squirm away from him. Note for future reference: getting exploded into a rushing river and then drowning with the current hurts. Just so you know. His hand squeezed one of the nicely forming bruises and I stopped squirming with a gasp.
“…idiot.” His hand lingered, and I remembered the feel of his hands on me. Most of that time was a drugged blur, but I remembered that.
I also remembered the regret on his face.
Fuck, but I missed hating him so easily.
His hand moved slower than I would have liked away from my arm to wrap the blanket more securely around my shoulders. I did my damnedest to ignore him, but the feel reminded me of something, when he had insisted on bandaging my back on one of the few times I didn’t wear my duster.
Not that my duster did a lot of good today. Morgan had pulled it off me earlier and had it draped near the fireplace.
Morgan had undressed me.
I couldn’t remember who had undressed me last time.
“Asshole,” I retorted, and my answer had a bit more heat than I intended. I didn’t regret it, though, even when I felt him stiffen.
We fell silent again, slowly drying in front of the fire. The thin blanket provided no warmth, only kept Morgan’s and my body heat trapped. What little body heat we had, anyway.
Every now and then I felt him shiver and then stop himself with that damned self-control of his. The same self-control he only seemed to lose around me.
I wrapped my arms tightly around myself and willed my body to warm up faster, for my clothes to just finish drying already.
Morgan didn’t seem to realize we were supposed to be locked in stoic, manly silence, because he spoke again. “I’m sorry.”
I snorted. “For what?” There was so much he could be sorry for. Sorry for hunting down a sixteen-year-old? Terrorizing him to the point that he had nightmares for years?
“…for raping you.”
Or for that.
I grunted. “Fuck or die. It’s what I get for using faerie ingredients in my potions.”
Just thinking about it made me want to kill Bob. Hammer. Skull. Boom.
“It was still rape,” Morgan said quietly. “And…I am sorry.”
My mind flickered briefly to another incident, years ago, and I flinched away from it before my memory could fully capture it. “You did it to save my life,” I said quietly, not wanting to hear myself speak. “So…just don’t bring it up again.”
So, of course, he kept talking. “I…achieved satisfaction from it. You had no choice. I --”
“Morgan,” I cut off. I didn’t look at him. I kept staring at the fire and tried not to accidentally burn the whole building down. “It wasn’t exactly something I would have chose --”
I felt him flinch. I didn’t think about it.
“--but you saved my life,” I plunged on. “Trust me, you have a lot to apologize for, but not that.”
Morgan fell quiet again. I tried not to think about it, but I couldn’t help it. That was the big thing. Magical beings have a different concept of sex -- especially of rape -- than vanilla mortals. Many magical creatures barely acknowledged consent as a whole, as they naturally steal it away. Fuck or die, which most mortals laugh at, is more common than I would like considering the mischievous attitude of many faeries toward sex.
But Morgan got off on it.
That fucked that strange morality of his more than fucking a supposed warlock.
“Besides,” I continued, the words falling out of my mouth, “I’m good enough to get you off drugged out of my mind. How many people could say that?”
When he laughed, I started, and the fire rose again. Morgan quickly calmed himself.
“You…” He shook his head, water droplets splashing my neck.
“Yeah,” I agreed, putting a note of cheer in my voice.
Morgan didn’t speak again. He just settled the blanket more securely around me, like he was afraid of it falling and leaving me to freeze to death. I leaned toward him a little, just to show him that I wasn’t afraid. Because I wasn’t. I was afraid of a lot, but my fear of him was finally beginning to die.
Our clothes were almost dry, and we would be able to leave soon, hopefully with no one finding out what had occurred. In the meantime…
“Hey, Morgan.”
“What, Dresden?”
“Is that your sword or are you just happy to see me?”
The extra bruises were worth it.
Re: 4th in a series?
Date: 2011-02-23 10:55 pm (UTC)Re: 4th in a series?
Date: 2011-02-23 11:15 pm (UTC)Re: 4th in a series?
Date: 2011-02-23 11:22 pm (UTC)(Of course my head is now stuck here:
I like swords!
Welcome to Corneria!
...yes, I am a complete nerd)
Re: 4th in a series?
Date: 2011-02-24 03:23 am (UTC)