[Not part of the ongoing verse. And yes, I am cheating on my next promised fill with something fluffy and much more lighthearted. I'd apologize, but you'd know I'm not really sorry.]
When it happened, it was entirely unexpected. Which, well, no comment.
Harry was due at eight that night. John started cooking just after seven – braised beef, mashed potatoes, roasted asparagus. He’d cooked more in the past three months than in the past decade, and he was getting pretty good, if he said so himself. Harry, when quizzed, made incoherently delighted noises over whatever was put in front of him, but John didn’t take that to heart. This was a guy who sponged up calories like a growing teenager; his dog was more discriminating.
Gard had made exactly one smirking comment about the fastest way to a man’s heart. John did not appreciate kitch greeting card nonsense applied to him. To them.
It was inaccurate, anyway. Harry had an artisan’s appreciation for the homemade and the hand-crafted. And John liked giving him things and watching him enjoy them. Food was perhaps the only area where Harry permitted him that pleasure without a hell of a fight, even now.
Not that the fighting wasn’t also a pleasure, in its own way. A good thing, too, since they did it a lot, in between – and often during -- dinner out on the back deck and a warm afternoon on the lake and even the theater, once or twice. They were good at arguing with each other. They’d better be, by now. The tension between them had aged beautifully, mellowing into a warm piquancy. With fire underneath, of course. But that would never change.
It had been a good three months. John had applied himself to the business of courtship, and he thought, on the whole, he was executing it with more than competence. He was making Harry Dresden happy. Not a means. Just an end.
It wasn’t hard to do these days, to be fair. There was a lightness to Harry since he’d escaped the Winter Queen. A new lease on life, something like that. He smiled more, bit less. And he kissed John with open curiosity, playful and oddly sweet.
Or, more recently, with clinging urgency. John had patience to burn for Harry Dresden, as demonstrated frequently and often. He’d been celibate for various periods before, from boredom or business or necessity, and he had no problem with Harry’s insistence on keeping them around – what was it? Hendricks had been laughing pretty hard through the entire ten second conversation, but John was pretty sure he’d said second base.
Except two weeks ago, a good night kiss had blazed suddenly out of control. They’d tripped sideways against the deck doors, clinched together, Harry’s hands up the back of John’s jacket. John had palmed the spare curve of his ass, squeezing until Harry hitched against him, groaning into their locked mouths.
It had been physically painful when Harry had pulled away that time, flushed and dazed, muttering disjointedly about how he needed to go. John’s only consolation was that it looked like it had been just as painful for Harry.
That, and the series of transparently edgy cracks Harry had made since then about cheerleaders and putting out too soon, and that appalling thing about cows and milk.
Like most things Harry did, it was absurd yet . . . affecting. John didn’t understand it, whether it was fear of sex or just venerating it into a position of ridiculous over-importance. They’d been more intimate the first time they’d met, from some perspectives.
Still. It mattered to Harry, and that made it matter to John. If Harry valued their first sexual encounter so highly, then John could too. Because if this was not merely physical to Harry, not just animal satisfaction, than there was a lot more on offer. A lot more to win, if John played his cards right.
It was always good policy to give Harry a cushion of tardiness, and John had planned the meal accordingly. But by 8:20, he’d moved past tolerance to irritated concern.
Also, the asparagus was going to go soggy if left out much longer.
John’s cell rang two seconds after he put his hand on it to call Hendricks.
“Sooo,” Harry said through a crackle of static. “Funny thing happened on the way over.”
“Where are you?”
Hiss, crackle. “—same pier we used with your boat, you remember. And my car is—“ mumble mumble.
John suppressed the urge to shake his iPhone. “I can pick you up.”
“Thanks,” Harry said, and faded out again. “—so bring towels,” John caught, before the line went dead.
He left dinner to stay warm on the stovetop, and drove himself. It was a quick trip, this late on a Monday night, and not far to go. He didn’t immediately see Harry when he pulled into the deserted parking lot, but then a lean shadow detached itself from a brick wall. Harry strode into the light, long legs eating up the distance. John reached across to unlock the passenger door for him.
But Harry just leaned down, folding himself nearly in half to get his head into the Lexus.
“. . . Ah,” John said, eyeing him. “Towels.”
Harry was sopping wet, head-to-toe. His coat looked like it weighed a ton. There was a spray of glossy green leaves tilted rakishly over the crown of his head, and one cheek was smeared with mud.
“Would you believe me if I said I was kidnapped by teenaged nymphs?” Harry said. There was a shiver of laughter in his voice.
“You? Absolutely.” John retrieved a towel from the back seat and passed it out to him. There were another five back there, along with a first-aid kit, a flare gun, and an assault rifle. Standard Dresden date survival kit, more or less.
Harry rubbed himself down vigorously, wringing out his clothes. John passed him more towels as needed, and finally Harry gave the rest up as a lost cause and slid damply into the passenger seat.
“Is that a . . . crown?” John said, eyeing the leaves still in his hair with fascination.
“Yeah, so I think I just got elected the nymph Pope or something,” Harry said. “I’m a little fuzzy on the details. Hey, you missed the turn.”
“You can shower at my place,’ John said. “I’m sure I have something that you can wear while I wash your clothes.”
“All right,” Harry said with surprising equanimity. It was explained a moment later when he added, “I’m pretty hungry, anyway.”
“Mercenary,” John said.
“You like it, I know you do,” Harry said. He delivered a flirtatious wink in the mirror, clownishly overdoing it. Then he proceeded to tell an improbably hilarious story of how he’d just gotten rolled for a magical favor by a pack of squealing adolescent nymphs. The whole thing sounded suspiciously like a sleepover prank gone way out-of-hand.
There was a guest suite on the ground floor, but John took Harry up to his own third floor bedroom instead.
“Just leave your clothes here,” he said, gesturing Harry into the dressing room. “I’ll put them in the wash and get you something else.”
He was consumed with purely practical thoughts for the next few minutes. He couldn’t do much for Harry’s leather coat except lay it out flat to dry. He did empty the pockets, though, confirming once and for all that Harry was a packrat and very, very strange. The loose ammunition was messy if explicable, but eight handkerchiefs? A dozen tiny plastic bags with pebbles or specks of dirt or just road garbage in them? A doll-sized plastic teacup?
John set everything aside on the dressing room counter and brought the clothes downstairs. Harry’s boots might be a loss. They would probably dry all right, but John suspected the mossy, vaguely metallic smell of the lake would linger.
He put the clothes in to wash, measured out detergent. He was bemused by the unfamiliar ritual. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done his own laundry, let alone someone else’s. Oddly pleasing, really.
He checked that the food was still warm, and opened a bottle of wine. Then he hurried back upstairs and dug out a pair of yoga pants and a plain black t-shirt. Neither would fit very well, but they would do. He left them in the dressing room. The shower was still running in the connected bathroom; John could hear Harry humming to himself over vigorous splashing. He spared a thought for his water heater, but it was three floors down in the basement, after all, and replaceable.
He was out in the bedroom staring at his shoe rack when the shower turned off. He seemed to own only black dress shoes and steel-toed boots. He suspected there was probably a pair of old sneakers around somewhere, but nothing would fit. John was deciding whether to send someone out for shoes when he heard Harry moving around in the dressing room. Hmm. Harry was illogically more accepting of impractical or silly gifts; this might trip his reflexive refusal to be bought, being pragmatic and quantifiable.
“Dinner’s ready whenever you are,” John called to him. “Your clothes will be done in an hour, though I’m not sure about your shoes . . .”
There was a quiet footstep behind him, and John turned. The domestic prattle dried up on his lips.
“Or we could just skip dinner,” Harry said, in a husky voice John had never heard before. He was standing tall in the dressing room door, a few strands of hair curling damply over his forehead. He was wearing nothing but a low-slung towel, one finger negligently hooked to hold it up.
It was like being sucker-punched by lust; it hit so hard it hurt. John's mouth went dry, his vision narrowed.
“Um,” Harry said, pose of brazen confidence cracking. “If . . . if you want to?”
It was embarrassing to discover you could be all but drooling over a guy who was actually that dumb.
John wrenched himself out of temporary paralysis. He took three long steps and pulled Harry’s head down. Their mouths touched; the crackle was nearly palpable. John turned them, walking Harry backwards. Harry shuffled along, his mouth still slanted over John’s, clawing at his back.
John drew away. They were both already breathless, and Harry’s towel was slipping, slipping . . .
“I want,” John said, barely recognizing his own voice. Then he lifted Harry around the waste – it was like he hadn’t eaten in weeks, for God’s sake -- and tossed him across the bed. He waited long enough to watch Harry sprawl gracelessly out, his eyes widening as he took John’s point. Then he came down over Harry with his full weight, his hands everywhere at once.
Oh domesticity with a mafioso and a wizard. I love this fandom. And the taking it slow thing! I love that. Because Harry died and got out from under Mab, so it is like a new lease on life. He's not always running out of time or being controlled, so he can go his own speed and-- eeee yes.
I have, have this Pavlovian thing, when I see tellnooneyourname I automatically think okay this is completed because I've actually never had the pleasure of actually following a story by you WIP: I've always got there a little too late. So when I saw, there's no more, I went so D: that I surprised myself. This is beautiful. Absolutely. I love John. Love love love. So much.
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timeasmymeasure
Fill (1/2?)
Date: 2011-03-06 08:42 pm (UTC)When it happened, it was entirely unexpected. Which, well, no comment.
Harry was due at eight that night. John started cooking just after seven – braised beef, mashed potatoes, roasted asparagus. He’d cooked more in the past three months than in the past decade, and he was getting pretty good, if he said so himself. Harry, when quizzed, made incoherently delighted noises over whatever was put in front of him, but John didn’t take that to heart. This was a guy who sponged up calories like a growing teenager; his dog was more discriminating.
Gard had made exactly one smirking comment about the fastest way to a man’s heart. John did not appreciate kitch greeting card nonsense applied to him. To them.
It was inaccurate, anyway. Harry had an artisan’s appreciation for the homemade and the hand-crafted. And John liked giving him things and watching him enjoy them. Food was perhaps the only area where Harry permitted him that pleasure without a hell of a fight, even now.
Not that the fighting wasn’t also a pleasure, in its own way. A good thing, too, since they did it a lot, in between – and often during -- dinner out on the back deck and a warm afternoon on the lake and even the theater, once or twice. They were good at arguing with each other. They’d better be, by now. The tension between them had aged beautifully, mellowing into a warm piquancy. With fire underneath, of course. But that would never change.
It had been a good three months. John had applied himself to the business of courtship, and he thought, on the whole, he was executing it with more than competence. He was making Harry Dresden happy. Not a means. Just an end.
It wasn’t hard to do these days, to be fair. There was a lightness to Harry since he’d escaped the Winter Queen. A new lease on life, something like that. He smiled more, bit less. And he kissed John with open curiosity, playful and oddly sweet.
Or, more recently, with clinging urgency. John had patience to burn for Harry Dresden, as demonstrated frequently and often. He’d been celibate for various periods before, from boredom or business or necessity, and he had no problem with Harry’s insistence on keeping them around – what was it? Hendricks had been laughing pretty hard through the entire ten second conversation, but John was pretty sure he’d said second base.
Except two weeks ago, a good night kiss had blazed suddenly out of control. They’d tripped sideways against the deck doors, clinched together, Harry’s hands up the back of John’s jacket. John had palmed the spare curve of his ass, squeezing until Harry hitched against him, groaning into their locked mouths.
It had been physically painful when Harry had pulled away that time, flushed and dazed, muttering disjointedly about how he needed to go. John’s only consolation was that it looked like it had been just as painful for Harry.
That, and the series of transparently edgy cracks Harry had made since then about cheerleaders and putting out too soon, and that appalling thing about cows and milk.
Like most things Harry did, it was absurd yet . . . affecting. John didn’t understand it, whether it was fear of sex or just venerating it into a position of ridiculous over-importance. They’d been more intimate the first time they’d met, from some perspectives.
Still. It mattered to Harry, and that made it matter to John. If Harry valued their first sexual encounter so highly, then John could too. Because if this was not merely physical to Harry, not just animal satisfaction, than there was a lot more on offer. A lot more to win, if John played his cards right.
It was always good policy to give Harry a cushion of tardiness, and John had planned the meal accordingly. But by 8:20, he’d moved past tolerance to irritated concern.
Also, the asparagus was going to go soggy if left out much longer.
John’s cell rang two seconds after he put his hand on it to call Hendricks.
“Sooo,” Harry said through a crackle of static. “Funny thing happened on the way over.”
“Where are you?”
Hiss, crackle. “—same pier we used with your boat, you remember. And my car is—“ mumble mumble.
John suppressed the urge to shake his iPhone. “I can pick you up.”
“Thanks,” Harry said, and faded out again. “—so bring towels,” John caught, before the line went dead.
He left dinner to stay warm on the stovetop, and drove himself. It was a quick trip, this late on a Monday night, and not far to go. He didn’t immediately see Harry when he pulled into the deserted parking lot, but then a lean shadow detached itself from a brick wall. Harry strode into the light, long legs eating up the distance. John reached across to unlock the passenger door for him.
But Harry just leaned down, folding himself nearly in half to get his head into the Lexus.
“. . . Ah,” John said, eyeing him. “Towels.”
Harry was sopping wet, head-to-toe. His coat looked like it weighed a ton. There was a spray of glossy green leaves tilted rakishly over the crown of his head, and one cheek was smeared with mud.
“Would you believe me if I said I was kidnapped by teenaged nymphs?” Harry said. There was a shiver of laughter in his voice.
“You? Absolutely.” John retrieved a towel from the back seat and passed it out to him. There were another five back there, along with a first-aid kit, a flare gun, and an assault rifle. Standard Dresden date survival kit, more or less.
Harry rubbed himself down vigorously, wringing out his clothes. John passed him more towels as needed, and finally Harry gave the rest up as a lost cause and slid damply into the passenger seat.
“Is that a . . . crown?” John said, eyeing the leaves still in his hair with fascination.
“Yeah, so I think I just got elected the nymph Pope or something,” Harry said. “I’m a little fuzzy on the details. Hey, you missed the turn.”
“You can shower at my place,’ John said. “I’m sure I have something that you can wear while I wash your clothes.”
“All right,” Harry said with surprising equanimity. It was explained a moment later when he added, “I’m pretty hungry, anyway.”
“Mercenary,” John said.
“You like it, I know you do,” Harry said. He delivered a flirtatious wink in the mirror, clownishly overdoing it. Then he proceeded to tell an improbably hilarious story of how he’d just gotten rolled for a magical favor by a pack of squealing adolescent nymphs. The whole thing sounded suspiciously like a sleepover prank gone way out-of-hand.
There was a guest suite on the ground floor, but John took Harry up to his own third floor bedroom instead.
“Just leave your clothes here,” he said, gesturing Harry into the dressing room. “I’ll put them in the wash and get you something else.”
He was consumed with purely practical thoughts for the next few minutes. He couldn’t do much for Harry’s leather coat except lay it out flat to dry. He did empty the pockets, though, confirming once and for all that Harry was a packrat and very, very strange. The loose ammunition was messy if explicable, but eight handkerchiefs? A dozen tiny plastic bags with pebbles or specks of dirt or just road garbage in them? A doll-sized plastic teacup?
John set everything aside on the dressing room counter and brought the clothes downstairs. Harry’s boots might be a loss. They would probably dry all right, but John suspected the mossy, vaguely metallic smell of the lake would linger.
He put the clothes in to wash, measured out detergent. He was bemused by the unfamiliar ritual. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done his own laundry, let alone someone else’s. Oddly pleasing, really.
He checked that the food was still warm, and opened a bottle of wine. Then he hurried back upstairs and dug out a pair of yoga pants and a plain black t-shirt. Neither would fit very well, but they would do. He left them in the dressing room. The shower was still running in the connected bathroom; John could hear Harry humming to himself over vigorous splashing. He spared a thought for his water heater, but it was three floors down in the basement, after all, and replaceable.
He was out in the bedroom staring at his shoe rack when the shower turned off. He seemed to own only black dress shoes and steel-toed boots. He suspected there was probably a pair of old sneakers around somewhere, but nothing would fit. John was deciding whether to send someone out for shoes when he heard Harry moving around in the dressing room. Hmm. Harry was illogically more accepting of impractical or silly gifts; this might trip his reflexive refusal to be bought, being pragmatic and quantifiable.
“Dinner’s ready whenever you are,” John called to him. “Your clothes will be done in an hour, though I’m not sure about your shoes . . .”
There was a quiet footstep behind him, and John turned. The domestic prattle dried up on his lips.
“Or we could just skip dinner,” Harry said, in a husky voice John had never heard before. He was standing tall in the dressing room door, a few strands of hair curling damply over his forehead. He was wearing nothing but a low-slung towel, one finger negligently hooked to hold it up.
It was like being sucker-punched by lust; it hit so hard it hurt. John's mouth went dry, his vision narrowed.
“Um,” Harry said, pose of brazen confidence cracking. “If . . . if you want to?”
It was embarrassing to discover you could be all but drooling over a guy who was actually that dumb.
John wrenched himself out of temporary paralysis. He took three long steps and pulled Harry’s head down. Their mouths touched; the crackle was nearly palpable. John turned them, walking Harry backwards. Harry shuffled along, his mouth still slanted over John’s, clawing at his back.
John drew away. They were both already breathless, and Harry’s towel was slipping, slipping . . .
“I want,” John said, barely recognizing his own voice. Then he lifted Harry around the waste – it was like he hadn’t eaten in weeks, for God’s sake -- and tossed him across the bed. He waited long enough to watch Harry sprawl gracelessly out, his eyes widening as he took John’s point. Then he came down over Harry with his full weight, his hands everywhere at once.
Re: Fill (1/2?)
Date: 2011-03-06 09:14 pm (UTC)Re: Fill (1/2?)
Date: 2011-03-06 09:25 pm (UTC)Re: Fill (1/2?)
Date: 2011-03-06 11:42 pm (UTC)Re: Fill (1/2?)
Date: 2011-03-07 05:03 am (UTC)YES. YES HE WAS.
The overwhelming lust in the face of a somewhat snarky internal monologue is pressing all of my buttons, authornon beloved.
Re: Fill (1/2?)
Date: 2011-03-07 12:44 pm (UTC)