darktrent182

TITLE: Poker Face
DISCLAIMER: The Dresden Files doesn't belong to me – the TV series belongs to Lionsgate, and the characters themselves were created by Jim Butcher. Written for entertainment purposes, no money made, please don't sue, yadda.
FANDOM: The Dresden Files
PAIRING: Harry/Bob UST
WORD COUNT: 3,285
RATING: PG-13/R.
WARNINGS: Mentions of violence. Minor spoilers from the TV series and the books.
SUMMARY: A few weeks after the events in "Head Case", Harry and Bob finally have a chat.
PRAISE BE: An amazing amount of thanks goes out to

shiplizard,

beachkid, and

gehayi for their beta-reading, encouragement, and questions. Thank you very much!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is an installment in the Forged series.

***

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

After dealing with a demon hopping from body to body, killing its previous host in the process, the rest of the week actually seemed kind of ordinary. A brand new bride came by the office the next day, asking for me to find her lost wedding ring. On Saturday, it was a guy looking for his pet snake.

Despite the ordinary rest of the week, I'd managed to stretch my shoestring of a budget to cover lunch for me and Murph. She was still rattled, even a few days later. Having been one of the last hosts the demon had had, she'd gotten a good dose of the demon targeting her worst fears -- namely, about her daughter getting hurt. But looking at her across the diner table, sipping at her Diet Coke, she seemed to be getting better at weathering these kinds of things now, like someone hunching into their coat in the middle of a blizzard, unable to get warm, but still trudging onward. She hadn't realized how much danger she'd been in -- hell's bells, I hadn't known it at the time -- so I figured that ignorance was bliss in Murphy's case, and listened to her tell me about the weekend she had planned with Anna.

When she'd demanded to know when she'd be able to make an arrest, I did what I usually do. I assured her that it wasn't going to be a problem for her anymore, and deliberately didn't tell her anything else. As much I as hated myself for keeping her in the dark, I told myself that she didn't need me to bring more fear into her life.

It's something I tell myself a lot with regard to Murphy.

Just as typically as my lunch with Murphy had been, Morgan had been a bit tougher to track down. It had taken another week and a few phone calls, but pretty soon, Morgan and I had faced each other down in an alley. We glared at each other without meeting each other's gazes -- it's possible to do when you're really motivated. We circled each other, barked at each other like two dogs on opposite sides of a chain-link fence, and when he was finished growling at me that he'd catch me next time when I used black magic, we went our separate ways. The only sign I could see that the demon was still bothering him was how his eyes would glance around every once in a while, as if to make sure the darkness wouldn't creep back into view.

Morgan had been hit pretty hard. I mean, the demon that had put a mind-whammy on Murphy had made him drop a building on himself. Of course, he'd just gotten out with a few scratches, but he had new scars now, and they showed to somebody who knew what having scars was like.

I had been the demon's last victim, and it had gotten me pretty good, using my own best friend against me.

I entered my combination house-and-home-office through the back door, and locked the door behind me.

The place was quiet.

This wasn't really unusual. It was always quiet, since it's just me living there with Bob, and Bob doesn't make that much noise anyway.

I tried to tell myself that the quiet wasn't creepy, it wasn't unnatural. Just normal, everyday quiet. I headed for the storefront and flipped the sign over to show I was open for business. If I was going to have a chance of paying my landlord this month, I was going to need more business.

Not creepy. Not unnatural. Just quiet.

"Harry?"

I looked away from the front door to see Bob walk through the wall from the lab, looking at me curiously.

"Were you able to contact Morgan?" he asked. He sounded polite. Distant.

I nodded, trying not to think of how much his tone bothered me. "Yeah. He seems to be okay. Back to Wardening, at least."

Bob arched an eyebrow. "I presume he held a sword to your throat and accused you of something new?"

I shrugged. "It's Morgan. If he actually started being nice to me, then I'd worry."

Bob snorted. "It would appear there are no after-effects of what the demon did to either he or Lieutenant Murphy." The look he gave me, however, said that he was still worried about one Harry Dresden, and how he was faring.

"Other than a pretty intense psychic mauling?" I asked. "I didn't get a chance to peek into their heads to see if the demon did the same amount of damage as he did to me, but it's pretty good bet they're going to be feeling it a while."

"I told you, Harry," Bob said evenly, "they only suffered the effects of the demon's influence for a few hours. You fell asleep three times. Ergo, you're more likely to have suffered more damage than they did."

"Okay, Bob," I snapped, "what do you want? Huh?"

Bob drew himself up, the pale skin of his exposed throat contrasting with the blues in his suit, which managed to bring out his eyes somehow. I kept my mind very firmly on the conversation, and not on what a nice picture Bob made. Those kinds of thoughts weren't going to help right now, no matter how much I might want to indulge in them.

"Harry, you need to shore up your mental defenses," he declared.

I groaned. "Bob, we've already had this conversation. I told you I had it covered."

"You do not have it covered," Bob snapped. "All you've been doing since the demon's disappearance has been to run around town, trying to track down Lieutenant Murphy and Morgan in order to see if they've weathered the storm, and if you haven't been doing that, you've been haring off, picking up whatever stray job you could."

"It's called investigative work, Bob," I said, trying to hold onto my patience with both hands. It kept slipping out of my grip, though. "You're the one who's always bitching to me about the rent being due."

"Mostly because you have a habit of involving yourself in struggles between good and evil that aren't going to pay well other than the gratitude of a few, beleaguered, young souls who will look up at you with wide, innocent eyes." Bob snorted. He folded his arms, and stared at me without flinching. Since he's a ghost, he doesn't have to worry about entering a soulgaze with me, and I've always taken advantage of that to look into his blue-green eyes. "Harry."

I knew what he was going to say. I just knew it. However, it didn't mean I had to like it. I glared at him.

"Bob, we don't need to have this discussion. Seriously. We don't."

Bob's eyes narrowed. "You've been out at all hours of the night, Harry. I barely see you around here unless you need to shower."

I bristled. "Excuse me? Since when are you my keeper?"

"Since a demon decided that you would prove a useful font of information before it killed you," Bob snarled. "Really, Harry. You have all of the survival instinct of a fruit fly."

I nearly ordered him to get in his skull. I wanted to, I could feel the words just behind my teeth, ready to lash out at him in a command he couldn't disobey. But the last time I'd been this pissed off at him and had ordered him to get in his skull, I'd accidentally left him trapped for a month, with no way of getting back out until I summoned him again. It had been a while since I'd messed up that badly, but I didn't want a repeat of the experience.

I knew that I could order him in, and he'd stay in there, but the realization that I was going to do it because I was losing the argument we'd gotten into was like a sharp slap across my face.

Whatever I was feeling, whatever I wanted to do, I wasn't going to deprive Bob of a chance to vent at me, especially since I'd done some pretty stupid stuff when dealing with the demon.

Growling to myself, I reached out and flipped the sign over, stomping into my lab and closing the door shut behind me so that a random passerby wouldn't see me arguing with Bob and get the wrong idea. I needed the business, but apparently, Bob needed to get this out first.

"All right, Bob, out with it," I sighed, motioning to him to get on with it. "You're obviously still pissed off about something, and you're not going to give me a moment's peace until you let it out."

Bob, who had emerged from the wall glaring at me, drew himself up haughtily again. "Why, Harry, what ever do you mean?" he asked coolly, his eyes like lasers on me.

I slammed down a hand on the top of my lab table, making a few of the beakers jump and making the heel of my hand throb painfully. "Stop bullshitting me, Bob! Out with it!"

He glanced at the table, and then back at me with a look that was both annoyed and resigned. "This is precisely it."

I closed my eyes and counted to ten. When I opened them again, I glared at Bob and resisted the urge to order him in his skull. "What," I said slowly, enunciating each word, "are you talking about?"

In an ordinary argument, Bob would pull out both guns and start firing, looking angry and sexy at the same time as only he can. Instead, it was almost like he took a literal step back, uncertainty on his face. He took a moment before I could see him metaphorically girding his loins for battle, and man, was I trying not to follow that train of thought to a lovely conclusion right now.

"Harry," Bob said slowly, looking at me directly. "I need to ask you something before this conversation continues any further."

I frowned, feeling more uncertain myself. "Um, okay. Shoot."

The conversation I'd been dreading had finally started. I'd been anticipating having to hash this out at some point ever since my jerk of a subconscious had done the deed, so to speak. But I hadn't really expected for it to come up like this. I tried to mentally prepare myself for one hell of a lot of embarrassment and not-looking at Bob.

"Do you fully intend on following this path, wherever it may lead?" he asked. It sounded deadly serious.

"Well," I said, not sure how to phrase it. The way he'd phrased that made me think of his curse, and just how badly I could abuse it. Just the thought of it started to make me feel sick. "I guess that would depend on you."

Bob's face grew even more tense. "Harry, I am not in a position to stop you, but I can urge you, as a mentor and a friend, nothing good can come of pursuing Dark magic. I would have thought, if nothing else, my own experience with it would have served as a sufficient warning to you, but perhaps it hasn't."

"Dark magic?" I blurted out. "What?"

Bob blinked, looking confused. "You mean... when your subconscious aspect kissed me, it didn't mean you desired darker power?"

Part of me wanted to laugh out loud. Apparently, all of my running around for clients had given Bob the wrong idea. Instead, I felt my cheeks burst into flame. "Um. No, Bob. It didn't mean I wanted to become a warlock."

"Then what in the world did it mean?" Bob asked, bewildered.

That was the question of the ages, wasn't it? Did I tell Bob the truth, after more than twenty years of following his advice of keeping silent? Or did I finally tell him, and risk losing the one friend I still had left?

"Harry?" he asked, confusion turning to concern.

"I..." If I bullshitted him now, he'd know it. You can't spend years with someone and not learn something about them. And that kind of knowing was a two-way street. But... how do you tell someone a secret that you've kept inside you for so long?

Bob kept watching me. "Are you all right?" he asked, frowning a little.

"Yeah," I managed. "Just... gimme a minute, okay?"

Bob nodded slowly, still curious and confused. Hell's bells, I wanted to tell him something innocent, something that wouldn't set me up to lose something more precious to me than anything else.

I sat down on the lab table stool and rubbed my hands over my face. I dug the heels of my palms into my eyes, and breathed deeply. When I exhaled, I said, very softly, "I'm in love with you."

There was a long, painful silence, and then I heard Bob clear his throat. "I'm sorry?" he asked. He sounded pretty surprised. Hell, I was surprised I actually got it out.

"Please don't make me say it again, Bob," I muttered, running my hands through my hair and Not Opening my eyes. I didn't want to see pity on his face. I really didn't.

"Does it pain you that much to say?" he murmured back to me, and Hell's bells, all kinds of memories came back to me in a flood. Him lecturing me, him standing behind me, looking over my shoulder and whispering in my ear, him bitching about the rent, and asking just how dishy some client's legs were, and I just wanted this conversation to be over.

I gritted my teeth and tried to push them back. It would've been nice to take refuge in Memory Lane, but this was here and now, and hiding from it wasn't going to help. I wasn't the kind of guy that ran and hid when trouble was coming. I met it head-on.

"I don't know, Bob," I said, as evenly as I could. "I've never said it out loud before."

"I'm... sorry," Bob murmured, and I could feel my eyes stinging. Crap. "I had not realized you were in such pain."

"You weren't supposed to know," I said, and it was as though I had reached down deep, to a place that couldn't feel pain, that was as calm as a deep lake. "I was tucking it away, like you suggested. It would've worked if my subconscious hadn't decided to--" I had to stop myself. My throat was getting raw, and I was not about to break down and start crying.

"Tuck it away?" Bob said, confused at first, but I could almost feel the moment when realization hit. "Wait a minute, you mean that potion you were brewing when you were...?"

"Fifteen," I gritted out, feeling my cheeks get hot again, and wishing like hell they weren't. "Can we not talk about that? Please?"

A stunned silence followed, and when Bob spoke again, I could tell he was standing in front of me. "Harry."

"Yeah, Bob?" I asked, my voice almost maniacally conversational as I stared down at the lab table, noticing the knicks in the surface.

"Should I limit my interactions with you?" he asked, his voice quieter. "Remain in the lab more often?"

It made me lift my head and answer more sharply than I meant to. "No!" At Bob's surprised look, I shook my head. "No. Bob, look. It's just a stupid crush that got out of hand. I don't want anything from you, I swear. I just... I need you as a friend, Bob. I'm sorry that it came out like this, and I didn't want to make things awkward, but I can't keep doing what I'm doing alone."

Bob looked at me for a long moment, and I couldn't tell what was going on behind his eyes. It was scary as hell, but I just sat there, watching him, hoping that I hadn't just fucked up the best friendship I've ever had.

"A stupid crush, Harry?" he asked softly. "How is any emotion stupid, let alone love?"

I cleared my throat, and found that I couldn't look him in the eye. "Are we going to be able to put this behind us and just get back to the way things were?"

"That isn't an answer to my question, Harry," Bob said gently.

"Well, maybe I don't want to answer it," I shot back. I don't do well when I'm scared, because when I'm scared, I get angry, and I end up wanting to pound the hell out of whatever's scaring me. And since this wasn't a situation where I could pound away at a monster with everything I had to get rid of the fear... well, it wasn't going to be pretty. "Can we please just move past this already? Pretend that I didn't say anything? Please?"

"Harry--"

"Bob," I blurted out, cutting him off because I knew the rejection was coming. I knew it was coming, and the sad thing was, it was going to be gentle. Bob was going to be flattered, and I wanted to stop it with everything that I had. Maybe I didn't want confirmation that a crush that had turned into love over the past twenty years had been a pipe dream. Maybe, if I heard it, it was just going to replay again and again in my mind, and keep me from being able to sleep soundly. Hell, maybe I was just a selfish bastard, and I didn't want things to change between us, and hearing the words out loud would be too much. "You don't need to say anything."

"I don't?" Bob asked gently.

"You don't." I breathed in deeply, not looking at him. "I know."

Bob gave me another of those looks I couldn't decipher before after a few hours passed, he asked, "Do you?"

I gritted my teeth and dropped my face into my hands. If he wasn't going to get to say them, he was going to make me say them, and that felt like I was twisting the knife in my own gut.

"You're flattered," I grated out, "but you've always thought of me as your student, maybe even a son you never had. It would be inappropriate, and no, there's no possibility of it ever happening between us, even if I managed to find some way to bring you back to life without necromancy."

After a few minutes, I breathed in and out a few times, trying to grab what scraps of dignity I had left. I lifted my face out of my hands and deliberately ignored my burning eyes. It was probably some container I hadn't closed all the way, and whatever was in it was making my eyes itch.

Bob stared at me, his face solemn. He didn't look satisfied that I understood what he'd wanted to tell me himself, or annoyed that I'd put words in his mouth. He just looked a little sad. "Harry...."

I shook my head, getting up from the stool and not looking at him. "I need to open up the shop, get some business." I caught his eye for a moment, and managed a too-sharp half-smile. It felt like acid was rolling around in my stomach. "Rent's due soon."

Bob looked at me, and then he nodded once. "In ten days, to be precise."

"Better pound the pavement, then," I said, and then left the lab.

When I closed the heavy steel door behind me, it was deathly silent.

END

This way to the prequel, Head Case.

This way to the sequel, Missing Persons.