darktrent182 | FIC: Head Case (4/4) [The Dresden Files]

The dream, when it started, was bright.

Not bright as in cheerful rolling hills and rainbows. It was as though I were in the middle of a nuclear blast, the light so intensely bright I could see it through my eyelids. I opened my eyes to find myself in my house, standing in the office, watching as a vague shape approach the front door. It opened with a small click, and then I was facing Ancient Mai.

Ancient Mai is... well, she's ancient. Hell, I've seen some strong evidence that she's not even human, really. The last time I'd spent longer than an interrogation session with her, she'd been badly hurt, and she ended up dragging my house to the Other Side. Two Wardens died, trying to figure out what the hell was going on and why, and it really says something about a person when their reaction to two deaths is, "Good."

Ancient Mai walked inside the office, her footsteps slow and measured. The threshold didn't make her blink, and when the wards hit her about six inches further in, she walked through them like tissue paper, favoring me with a long, steady look with dark brown eyes. I tried to look away from them, but somehow, in the part of my mind that knew I was dreaming, I kept her gaze.

"Dresden."

"Ancient Mai," I said. "What can I do for you?" Who says I can't be polite?

"You're going to hand over the skull of Hrothbert of Bainbridge," she said. "Now."

I narrowed my eyes. "Why?"

"Your guardianship has ended," she said calmly, as if she weren't preparing to rip my guts out.

"No," I corrected her, "I meant, why should I just hand Bob over to you?"

She snorted. "There is a new threat to the city, and it's attacking people, Dresden." She walked in, her dark robes flashing gold as they swished around her legs. "Or has that escaped your notice?"

I felt my hands clench into white-knuckled fists. "Here I thought it was Beatles-mania gone horribly wrong."

Ancient Mai reached out with one hand, stroking the head of a dragon statue I kept on my desk, her eyes intent. "Regardless of what it is, an artifact of such power needs to be safe, and you've already proved your inability to protect the skull from being stolen."

I could feel my teeth start to crack, I was clenching my jaw so hard. "She had inside information."

"Hrothbert of Bainbridge can be misused." She looked back at me, her eyes like growing pools of blackness. "Immediate removal is the only way to be sure that the skull won't be used against us."

"That he won't be used against you, you mean," I spat. "You're not going anywhere with him."

"I'm not?" Her lips curled into a cruel smile. She reached toward the desk blotter. Something blurred in her hands, and then she was holding Bob's skull, the carved symbols standing out against the yellowed bone.

I growled, and stalked toward her, my hand reaching out to Bob's skull. "He's safe here, dammit. Put him down!"

She arched one eyebrow at me and asked, "How do you know the ghost isn't already in danger, Dresden?" She held up the skull in her hands, holding it up like something she'd dug up from her backyard and discovered was worth a fortune. Then she turned her dark gaze on me.

"What the hell is he in danger from here?" I demanded. "I've got stronger wards now, and if you don't put him down, I'll be more than willing to show you how I deal with would-be thieves."

"And what if you were under investigation, Dresden?" she asked coolly, tucking the skull under her arm in one smooth motion, looking at me steadily. "You have a history of Dark magic. You've attacked people before."

Images of Murphy, writhing on the floor as I used a voodoo doll on Boone, flashed in my mind.

"You've killed."

Her face was replaced by my uncle, grabbing at his chest, his tie askew, his mouth open.

"Why," she asked, "shouldn't we come after you?"

I woke up. On any other morning -- or whatever time it actually was, my sleep schedule was getting turned around faster than usual -- I would've bolted upright and panted harder than if I had run a marathon. This time, though, it felt like I was swimming against a strong undercurrent, hands grasping at air uselessly while I tried to surface from my dreams. After what felt like a lifetime of staring at the inside of my eyelids, I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. Despite how long it took me to wake up, Mm heart beat triple-time in my chest, the noise pounding in my ears. I forced myself to resist the urge to shout for Bob.

I threw off the covers and got out of bed, hunting down a pair of jeans that weren't too dirty and a fresh shirt.

"Harry?"

I turned around quickly, my heart flying into my throat. When I saw Bob staring at me, I breathed deeply, barely noticing a buzzing against my skin. "Bob. Hell's bells, don't scare me like that."

Bob's eyebrows lifted in a curious look, but he only asked, "I take it you didn't sleep well?"

I sighed and shook my head. "Not really. And before you ask, I dreamt that Mai thought I was responsible for the attacks."

Bob nodded once. "She does usually think of you whenever something questionable is happening. I'm sure you remember... the Blackstaff coming to visit after my resurrection and subsequent death?"

I scowled, trying not to think about it. "We need to get back to work. Have you found anything while I was asleep?"

Bob shook his head. "Nothing useful, I'm afraid, though I wonder if perhaps the attacks have been perpetrated by a series of elementals."

"Elementals?" I frowned, heading down the stairs to the first floor. "I thought we'd already knocked that off the list of likely suspects. Why are you thinking it's elementals now?"

Bob appeared next to me in a blur of black, roiling smoke and kept pace with me as I headed for the bathroom. "If you think of the methods of attack. The first was killed by water, the second by fire, and you could think of the building Morgan was inside of as earth."

I stopped walking, shooting Bob a skeptical glance. "If there's an elements theme going, the next attack is going to use air?"

"If such an attack hasn't been made already," Bob corrected me. "Air is an easily hidden element, which makes your force attacks slightly more effective than your fire magic in combat. The attack itself could have been someone who jumped off a building, or was hit by something moving very quickly, or even something as simple as suffocation."

I winced. "Great." I reached the bathroom, and just as I put my hand on the door to push it open, I stopped.

Bob frowned at me. "What is it?"

"What if there's another pattern?" I asked, turning to look at him.

"Such as?" he asked.

I turned around and headed for the lab instead, my T-shirt and jeans over one shoulder. When I got inside, I closed the door behind me with some effort, lit the candles with a muttered word, and turned to find Bob worrying at his pinky ring with a thumb, his lips pursed.

"Where's my box of maps of Chicago?" I demanded, glancing around the room.

"Bottom shelf, metal cabinet, green suitcase," Bob replied immediately frowning at me. "What's going on?"

"The attacks might have another similarity," I said on auto-pilot, diving for the suitcase and wrenching it out. Tossing it on top of my lab table, I undid the clasps and opened it. A cloud of dust made me sneeze, but after a few yellowed maps of the United States and the Eastern Seaboard, I found a brochure of Chicago, a few years old. Unfolding it, I laid it out as flat as I could, grabbing a stubby golf pencil from nearby. Bob blinked, walking over to look at the map over my shoulder, and it was a sign of how distracted I was that I didn't try to soak in the moment of near-closeness while I could.

"Okay," I said, "the first attack was at the old steel mill," I marked the map. "The second--"

"At the diner," Bob answered, pointing at a spot northeast of the first mark. "Both fatalities."

I added little Fs to the map. "Next, the building came down on Morgan over here..." I marked the map again, and then I straightened.

Bob frowned at the map, and then shook his head. "I don't believe the attacks were meant to be a circle."

"Maybe whoever killed Sloane meant to kill them somewhere else?" I guessed.

Bob shook his head. "If the first murder was supposed to be the first point of the circle, the killer would have had to murder someone here." He pointed to a spot in the middle of Lake Michigan, close to the southern coast. "The circle would have been useless."

I sighed and shook my head. "Dammit."

Bob frowned, and then looked at me. "Have you noticed any similarities between the attacks? Something to connect the victims somehow? Perhaps the attacker left some sort of calling card, or some residual evidence?"

Residual evidence. Residue. I frowned. "Buzzing."

"Hmm?" Bob asked, eyebrows lifting.

"There was a... buzzing at each of the crime scenes," I said slowly. "Like Ronald Jones--"

Suddenly, it felt like a gorilla had jumped on my back, weighing me down while it held jars of bees over my ears.

"Harry?" Bob frowned. "Are you all right?"

I was about to tell him that I was fine, but the buzzing got louder, the weight heavier. "Stars..." I murmured. "I feel tired...."

Bob's eyes narrowed, and he watched me as I sat down on the stool, cradling my suddenly aching head in both hands. "Perhaps you should go rest, Harry," he suggested.

I snorted as best I could. "Tried that, remember?"

"Do it again."

The way he said it made me turn around to look at him. He stared at me without expression....

It was the same way he'd stared at the dragon when it had assumed its true form in my living room.

I felt an icy chill run down my spine. "Bob?"

He shook his head, taking a step forward until I had to look up at him. "Go to sleep, Harry."

Another uncomfortable memory gripped me, this time of the two of us in the Morningway estate, in the dead of night, just after Bob had grabbed the front of my shirt. I had been so surprised and terrified when he'd grabbed me that I hadn't been able to say anything. His order to me then had been every bit as scary as it was now. This time, I didn't know if I was in a dream, and I was going to wake up, or if I was going to go to sleep and never wake up at all.

"What're you doing?" I asked, almost whispering.

"I think I might have an idea, but if I'm right, you'll need your full strength," Bob said, his face solemn. "Go."

"Bob--" I said, ready to protest. I'm not a damsel-in-distress, and he knew that. He knew that I'd want to be a part of the solution, not someone who didn't know what the hell was going on.

He shook his head. "Harry, for once in your life, you need to trust me. Please."

I looked up into his blue-green eyes, watched him watch me, and then I remembered that while Bob had been pretty damn convincing as Justin's henchman, he'd also been watching out for me the whole time that he'd been alive. Everything he'd done, he'd done to try to stop Justin, to keep me safe. Something in his eyes told me that it was time to trust him again.

I sighed heavily. "Okay."

Bob nodded back, turning away from me and making a beeline to a specific bookshelf, bending down and shoving his head into the second row from the bottom.

And after what was a grand total of maybe fifteen minutes awake, I was headed upstairs to my bed, my feet feeling like they weighed twenty pounds each, exhaustion washing over me as I caught sight of my bed, and without another word, I landed face first into my pillow.

Have you ever gone to sleep and woken up after about an hour, and then when you tried to go back to sleep, you woke up again an hour later? Over and over again until you give up and get out of bed? You feel even more tired and achy than you were before you went to sleep that first time, and you know that you need more sleep, but you need to stay awake too? The past day or so had felt like that.

Well, not only like that, but instead of having to fight against a current to regain consciousness, my brain had to trudge its way through what felt like molasses. It almost sucked me back down into dark dreams, but I caught myself just in time and slogged forward, reaching for consciousness but feeling it just inches away. Somehow, I leapt for it, and whatever had slowed me down let go, like a kid letting go of a rubber band to shoot it across the room.

I opened my eyes to see that darkness was creeping into the sunlight. I sat up in bed after a few tries, one hand cradling my splitting skull. "Bob?"

A familiar fiery ember appeared, swirling in quick, tight circles of black smoke to reveal Bob, his dark red clothes making him seem paler somehow, his hair almost brighter. "Harry?"

I looked up at him, and then... I felt it again. The creepy-crawly sensation running across my skin, my ears buzzing.

Bob must have noticed the moment I realized something was rotten in the state of Illinois, because he narrowed his eyes at me. "Is something the matter?" he asked lightly.

I narrowed my eyes back at him, throwing off the covers and getting out of bed. When I straightened, he hadn't moved.

"Where's Bob?" I demanded.

Bob blinked, and gave me an innocent look that I didn't believe for a second. "Whyever would you think that I'm not Bob?"

"My skin is crawling, and Bob can't do that," I said. "What the hell are you?"

Not-Bob arched an eyebrow. "I see I've been underestimating you, Dresden," he purred, his voice low and rich in a way that felt like velvet against my skin. "Shame on me."

I glanced around quickly, trying to remember where I'd left my wand. Unfortunately, I couldn't see it, and summoning it to me wasn't really an option, not with my lack of control. "I bet you say that to all of your victims."

"Actually, no," he admitted. "But with only Warden Morgan's opinion of you, you could see why I would misstep."

"I'm going to ask you one last time," I said slowly, "What. Are. You."

"Does it matter?" Not-Bob shrugged. "You've discovered that I'm not what I appear to be, and as a result, you've become a threat to me."

"What do you want?" I demanded.

"Useful information," he said simply. "None of which you possess."

As cliché as it was going to sound, I had to stall this thing. Bob had gotten an idea of what I was up against before I'd gone to sleep -- that much, I was sure of -- but he hadn't made an appearance yet. I needed to give him more time. "You were behind the attacks, weren't you?"

The not-Bob creature nodded once. "I was, and still am." He smiled a little, just a quirk of the lips that made my heart twinge a little in my chest.

"You wanna tell me all about it?" I asked. "You tell me about the attacks, I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Deal?"

It was strange to see a confused look on Bob's face, and then a callous, almost evil-sounding chuckle. "I've already gleaned from you what I need, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden."

I shivered. The thing, whatever it was, had almost said my Name right. "Sure, but what good's information if you don't know how to use it?"

Another evil-sounding laugh, this time mingling with the buzzing against my skin and accentuating it uncomfortably. "It will be a shame to kill you, Dresden, but I have little time."

"How are you going to do it?" I asked. "Make me jump off the roof of my own building?"

He shook his head. "I've already technically used the wind attack already, although you were able to save Lieutenant Murphy from being hit by the car."

Pieces started falling into place. "You were the one implanting fears into Morgan and Murphy."

"And the two wizards who are now deceased, yes," the creature said, a bit impatiently.

"Applegate was a wizard?" I frowned.

Not-Bob nodded. "I used his energies to enter Chicago undetected, and when he was of no more use to me, I ensured that the hallucinations he saw were dangerous to him, and that he defended himself adequately. He seemed to think that he was in a desert, without food or water." He smiled a little, looking malevolent and proud.

"So he drank too much," I said slowly. "But why didn't you die with him?"

"Why do you think, Dresden?" he asked me, and God, it was like being a teenager all over again, Bob asking me questions so that I would come up with the answers on my own instead of him giving them to me.

"You'd already hitched a ride in someone else," I said, realization dawning. "In one of the Wardens who came to take Applegate into custody."

"You really aren't as simple as the Wardens assume you to be," the creature nodded approvingly.

"What about the Warden in the diner?" I asked.

Bob gave me a confused look. "Who?"

"The one who set himself on fire," I growled.

"Oh, he was rather delightful," Bob said, smiling blissfully. "As a child, he lived in some structure known as a tenement house. There were cockroaches that would crawl all over him as he slept." He grinned, and I felt my stomach twist with revulsion at that gleeful look on his face. "It's a simple thing to nudge someone, to use their own fears against them."

"So you jumped into Morgan," I said.

"He actually made the building collapse on itself," Not-Bob pointed out helpfully, as if he were helping me in the lab. "Unfortunately, he wasn't as strong with earth magic as I thought he would be, or there would have been more devastation." He paused and then looked at me patiently. "Are you quite finished stalling for time? I need to transfer to a new host and leave you to your death."

I snorted. "And how do you think you're going to get a new host, buddy? I'm not going to help you, not when I know that you're just going to kill me."

Not-Bob smiled at me, and then nodded once. "Go downstairs to the phone, Harry."

There wasn't a tone of command in his voice, or even a breath of power, but I found myself heading down the staircase, holding onto the railing until I got to the phone in my kitchen, the buzzing noise ringing in my ears and crawling up and down my arms like an army of ants. There was a blur in the air, and then I saw the not-Bob appear in front of me, his eyebrows raised in a modest expression.

"How the hell did you do that?" I snarled.

"Don't you know?" he asked, sounding almost surprised by the question. "Each time you've fallen asleep, you've left yourself vulnerable to me." He smirked. "You are my pawn, to do with as I will."

If this had been a wet dream, and I were twenty years younger, that voice would've revved all kinds of engines. As it was, it felt like someone's fist was squeezing around my heart. "Fuck you."

"Ah, but that's the trouble, isn't it?" he asked lightly, moving in until we were standing too close for comfort. Unlike Bob's usually chilly aura brushing against mine, this felt... warm. Alive. I shivered. "You want that, and yet, it terrifies you to say a single..." His eyes drifted from mine to rest on my lips. "...word."

I clenched my teeth, hard, and snarled back, "If you're going to kill me, get it over with already."

"In due time," he murmured.

"Harry!" came Bob's voice, sharp and worried. "Don't let it touch you!"

"Wasn't planning on it, Bob," I said, but the thing wasn't moving.

"What if he were, warlock?" the creature asked, turning to look at Bob. "You know what I am."

Bob's cheeks flushed, and he bared his crooked teeth in an animalistic snarl. He closed the distance in a swirl of smoke and fire, and then there were pale, smooth, strong hands grabbing fistfuls of the impostor's suit jacket, yanking him away from me. For the first time since I'd seen it, the creature's eyes widened in shock. It tried to break free from Bob's grip, but Bob was too strong. The thing shoved Bob away from it, causing his jacket to tear, leaving scraps of dark fabric behind in Bob's clenched hands.

With a vicious curse, Bob hauled off and socked the impostor in the jaw.

It backpedaled quickly, as though Bob's punch had knocked it wildly off-balance, and then it glanced at me before suddenly grinning at Bob.

And then it slammed right into me, literally melting into my chest.

I staggered, off-balance from the roar of buzzing that suddenly sounded in my ears. I caught myself on a kitchen counter, my head spinning.

"Harry!" Bob said, blue-green eyes wide with fear. "Are you all right?"

"No..." I said woozily.

And then everything went black.

***

When I woke up, I was still exhausted, but this time, I had the brand new discomfort of silver shackles encasing my hands, and silver chains draped over me. I tried to move, but the buzzing sensation that I'd been feeling for the last few days resounded in my head, as if someone had shoved a hornet's nest in there and locked the door.

Well, that wasn't good.

I looked around, and found that, instead of being inside of my combination house/office, I was in the mental landscape I'd been in before when my subconscious had wanted to have a chat with me. This time, though, a light shone from over head, shining just enough to reveal that not only was I chained, but also contained in a magical circle. I could feel one edge of the circle near the top of my head, the power buzzing angrily enough to duke it out with the buzzing already in my ears and making me wince.

As if this weren't bad enough, not too far away from the magical circle I was trapped in, there was a rough-hewn tunnel, etched into the darkness itself, the light of the outside world shining inside gently enough to show that I wasn't alone.

A long, serpentine creature with blue-green eyes coiled and slithered, making its way around my prison, the scales rasping against each other in a loud, echoing hiss. Its attention wasn't focused on me, fortunately, but on a patch of darkness that was just outside of the range of the tunnel.

"Get the hell away from him," I heard a voice snarl, and with a start, I realized it was mine.

Somewhere, in the middle of all that blackness, was my subconscious. And he sounded pissed. Hell, I was pissed myself at the situation, but my subconscious doesn't have my sense of restraint.

"Fuego!" my subconscious shouted, and a lance of white-hot fire leapt from the shadows, slamming into the scales of the thing's lower half. It roared, sounding annoyed, and lashed out with an arm tipped with three claws, each longer than my legs. There was the sound of someone rolling, a muttered curse, and then--

Pain. White-hot and furious erupted in my head. I grunted, squeezing my eyes shut and wanting to scream. Dimly, I was aware of the sound of nails ripping fabric, and then I sagged onto the floor.

I opened my eyes in time to see a silhouette stumble in through the tunnel, looking around quickly, light catching on pale hair. "Harry?"

Stars and stones.

Bob.

My subconscious saw the strike aimed at Bob before Bob did, because he shouted a warning, and grabbed him seconds before claws missed and dug new furrows into the landscape. The scream stuck in my throat, and I barely let out a whimper.

"Bob, no time, help me save him," my subconscious said quickly.

"Harry, I can barely see--" Bob said before I heard, "Ignus lumina!"

Two ribbons of flame flew out of the darkness, but instead of striking at the snake like I'd expected, hundreds of candles burst to life, the flames lighting them as they flew by.

And when I turned to see Bob and my subconscious standing next to each other, my double wearing a black leather duster and a goatee, Bob in his usual suit (a blue one that brought out his eyes), my double was staring at Bob in utter amazement. Bob looked a bit stunned himself.

Of course, that's when the snake struck.

Now that I could see it a bit more clearly, the snake was more like half-snake, half-lizard, its two forearms with large paws and the long, wicked-looking claws that I saw not moments before. Its head looked almost like a dragon's, the long wispy mustache fluttering in a non-existent breeze. It roared and struck, claws flashing in the firelight, aiming at my two would-be rescuers.

"Scatter!" my double shouted, throwing Bob to one side before bobbing and weaving in the opposite direction, long legs eating up the distance. The claws missed again, and this time, I knew what was causing my pain.

The claws didn't just rip into the landscape, the snake-thing twisted them out, adding a new level of pain to my already aching head. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to wall away the pain. But how could I? This was pain coming from inside of my freaking head. Mind over matter might actually work sometimes, but it doesn't help with head injuries all that often, I've discovered.

"Harry!" Bob shouted at my double, eyes focused on the creature. "Can you free yourself?"

My double glanced at me, and then at Bob. "What do you think I've been trying to do for the past couple of days, play canasta?"

Bob frowned, raising his arms in front of him. If I hadn't known he'd lived in Medieval England, I would've sworn he'd learned that stance from a martial art. "Very well. You'll distract him, and I'll free your other self."

It seemed a bit stupid to me to broadcast our plan where our reptilian friend could hear it, but my vocal chords really weren't up for much at the moment. I lay inside the circle like a limp noodle, the buzzing slowly dying down in my ears.

Subconscious Harry shook his head quickly, and then glanced at me again. "Ready?"

Bob nodded once, watching the serpent slither toward him, the scales hissing. "Ready."

Somehow, I could see my double's lips count up to three, and then he shouted, "Now!"

Bob stretched out his hands, his right hand in front of him and the other towards the tunnel. As I watched, he barked, "Fulgur gladius!"

A lance of lightning streaked from the daylight beyond the tunnel, into Bob's outstretched hand, danced across his skin, and then out his right hand, his finger pointed at the serpent. It smacked the thing right between the eyes, causing it to writhe and jump, its tail lashing against the floor, its roars closer to shrieks of pain. The floor shook, and I saw my double race towards me, teeth bared. At the last moment, the tail caught my subconscious right in the torso and flung him across the landscape. He landed with a loud curse a good distance away.

I turned my head a little to see Bob, and he'd... changed. His hair gleaned almost silver in the candlelight, his eyes flashing. His crooked teeth were bared as he stared down the serpent, and he wore robes of the finest velvet, looking almost like liquid midnight wrapped around his body, emphasizing long limbs and muscle, the fabric rustling with each motion.

He was dark poetry in motion, and I didn't want to look away.

As I watched and my double recovered from getting hit by a few hundred pounds of snake-tail, Bob was casting spells at the thing, alternating hands, his concentration never wavering. One, two, three, four, he didn't even look like he was breaking a sweat. Unfortunately, the spells weren't having too much of an effect on the scaly pain in the ass.

"Harry!" Bob snapped. "Stop dawdling and help me!"

My double ran faster, taking a wide circle behind the serpent and holding both hands outstretched as he took a flying leap. When he came down, he was wielding a heavy oak staff, which slammed right into the snake-lizard's spine with a sharp crack. The lizard roared, and whipped around to snap its jaws at my double, but he got out of the way too fast for it.

Bob took the opportunity to bow his head and close his eyes, his expression one of deep concentration. He reached out in front of him, his fists resting against each other, thumbs aligned. He murmured quickly under his breath, and gritted his teeth, drawing his hands apart.

Gleaming silver light shone, almost too intense to look at directly, but from what I could see in Bob's face, he was grinning like a madman. When he was finished, he held aloft a broadsword made of silver light.

I know what you're thinking, but Bob's never seen Star Wars. Whatever this was he'd constructed inside my mind, it rang like a bell before he got a better grip on it.

He shouted something guttural and angry, and in the light of the blade he'd created, I could see an animal light in his eyes that reminded me that, once upon a time, Bob had been a wizard in Medieval England, complete with raids on villages and war and death.

The first strike of the sword cleaved a sizzling silver-white arc of energy through the creature's torso, just under its arms, and it screamed loud enough to make the world shake. My head ringing, my ears buzzing, I tried to take deep breaths and remind myself that now was not a good time to notice how sexy Bob looked as an avenging angel, my very own knight in shimmering velvet robes.

My double took the brand-new sword in stride, jumping off the creature's back in order to keep it distracted. Bob shouted instructions to my double, which I didn't catch but after a few minutes, I could see what they were doing. As Subconscious Harry kept it occupied with spells and occasional whacks from the staff, Bob was climbing onto its back, running up the length of its spine. I thought that the serpent was going to send him flying like it had my double, but each time the lizard-thing twisted and bucked, Bob would grab one of the spines and hang on until the other me got its attention again.

At one point, the lizard finally grabbed the staff out of my double's hands and snapped it with its teeth, shattering it to splinters out of sheer frustration before lashing forward with its claws again. Just as the claws were about to snap over my double's leg, there was a slash of brilliant silver white light, and then the creature was toppling over, black blood spurting in a gory fountain from a wound in the back of its neck. It shrieked, twisting and writhing in agony as Bob hopped from back of its neck, dusting himself off as the creature gave its final death throes. My double looked like he wanted to finish the job Bob had started, but my mentor shook his head, black blood striping across his face and speckling his hair.

The creature finally gasped, shook once in an all-body shudder, and went still.

Bob and Subconscious Harry both turned to the corpse, and Bob moved closer to it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing," my subconscious demanded.

Bob raised an eyebrow. "We need to find out who sent this demon, and why."

"Demon?" my double asked, looking at the corpse.

Bob nodded. "Demon. It's what I wanted to research while you -- or rather, your conscious aspect -- were sleeping." He moved closer to the body, which had begun to steam, and kicked it firmly with one foot, rolling its head onto its side.

I missed what happened next, but both of them stepped back and stared at the air above the head before trading a look.

A bit fed up with the chained-to-a-rock bit, I cleared my throat. "Guys? A little help, if you don't mind."

Bob started, turning toward me and about to hurry over when my subconscious stopped him.

"Hey, hang on a sec," he said, and the bottom fell out of my stomach, which was an uncomfortable sensation while lying on the floor.

Bob turned to him, looking concerned. "Yes?"

Subconscious Harry, who's really a bit of a jerk, moved in closer to Bob, sliding an arm around Bob's waist.

"Harry?" Bob asked, looking curious and confused. "Were you injured?"

My double shook his head silently.

"Are you all right?" Bob murmured, looking him over as best he could while my double held onto him.

"I'm fine," he said, and I could see it from where I was laying down. There was a hungry yearning in his eyes, almost savage in its intensity. But while he stared at Bob like he wanted to devour him, he held Bob close, as though he never wanted to let go. I saw the moment he reached a decision.

No, I thought to myself, no, you dumb son of a bitch, don't do it, don't ruin it--

My double dipped Bob a la most love scenes in old movies, and even some romance novel covers, and kissed him deeply, right where I could see it.

Being the captive audience I was, I couldn't break it up if I wanted to, but seeing my subconscious, complete with evil-me goatee and black leather duster, kissing the man I'd been in love with for more than twenty years... it was beautiful. The play of light and dark features speckled here and there with black blood, Bob cuddled close and protected in my double's arms, it was like watching my favorite dreams being played out right in front of me.

Despite the fact that it should've been me kissing him, and not my subconscious, I tried to remember every inch, every detail of that kiss, so that I could bring out the memory to enjoy whenever I was having a rough day. I had a feeling I was going to need it.

The kiss ended after about three hours or so, and my evil, son-of-a-bitch, two-timing double righted Bob and stepped back. As much as I didn't want to do it, I looked at Bob.

Landed fish didn't even begin to describe what Bob looked like. Shock, fear, worry, and concern chased themselves across his face, and while he was wrestling with the problem, my double did something that, in retrospect, I could understand.

He grabbed the front of Bob's robes, spun him around roughly, planted one black boot against Bob's ass, and shoved him toward the daylight tunnel. Bob let out a yelp, and disappeared into the bright light. Then my double turned to me. He smirked as he scuffed a toe across the circle, breaking it and letting the energy escape out of the tunnel in a bright red ribbon of light and sound.

"Why the hell did you do that?" I demanded.

"What?" my subconscious asked with a shrug. He waved a hand dismissively, and the chains draped over me dissolved. "Don't tell me that you haven't wanted to do that for years."

"There's a difference between me kissing him, and you kissing him," I spluttered, righting myself and shaking my hands. The manacles encasing them puffed into silver smoke and wafted away as if they'd never existed in the first place. Who says I don't make things easy for myself?

"Are you stupid?" my double asked. "I am you, and if I may say so, that kiss was damn good."

"Don't even," I snarled.

My subconscious self helped me to my feet, and said, "You do realize there's a reason that demon got under our defenses so easily, right?"

"And you're going to tell me what it is, right?" I asked, rolling my eyes.

"You were willing to believe that Bob would say every single thing that demon said to you." He snorted. "It's been twenty years, you idiot. I'm kind of sick of the whole unrequited love thing. I'm not giving anything else a chance to tear apart what defenses we have left because you're a big girl. Bob will leave, just like everyone else has left, and it'll be back to the two of us. I'd like for us to have a relationship with someone where you can actually trust them to stick around, but at this point, I'm in favor of defense."

"That's a bit mercenary, don't you think?" I asked.

He snorted. "I want to get laid, and I want to make sure whoever I'm fucking doesn't try to kill me."

"Good point," I said, remembering Tara stealing Bob's skull with a wince. Eager for a change in subject, I motioned to the tunnel and asked, "Okay, so how're we gonna fix that?"

He shook his head. "I'll take care of most of it, but we need to get our mental defenses up."

I nodded slowly before turning back to him. "All right."

"Do you have any more stupid questions?" he asked quickly. "No? Good. Then wake up."

I opened my eyes, and found myself flat on my back on the kitchen floor. No matter how fun that might sound, it was a pain in the ass. And the back. And anywhere else that had landed on the floor before my trip inside my mind.

I sat up gingerly, wincing, and then it hit me.

My subconscious had kissed Bob.

Even if I could think of some plausible explanation as to why it had happened, my subconscious still jumped Bob's bones as best he could, and there was no mistaking that kiss. Not even Bob could've passed it off as over-enthusiastic hero-worship of a student for his teacher, or whatever.

No matter how I sliced it, I knew one thing for certain. After twenty years of unrequited love, I'd been unexpectedly outed by my jerk of a subconscious, and if I was lucky, I'd still have a friend by the end of this mess. Bob was finally going to have to turn me down flat, and I was going to have to take it like a man.

I leaned over gingerly, aiming a glance around the room, and vaguely wondering why Bob wasn't around, but I soon realized that I really didn't want him to be around. I didn't want to have to sit through his awkward apologies, and have to listen to him be flattered by the attention, but really, Harry--

I cut myself off before I could fill in Bob's half of the dialogue. With a sigh, I stood up and brushed myself off, gently checking for any bumps or bruises that I might have picked up while laid out on the floor by a serpent in my head. Finding nothing that ached more than anything else, and no signs of bleeding, I weighed my options.

A, I could present myself to Bob, weather the death of twenty years of love and lust and more than a little hopelessness, and try to continue to live life as normally as possible.

Or B, I could head out, check on Morgan and Murphy, see if there were any long-lasting effects that the demon might have left behind as souvenirs of the encounter. Of course, I thought to myself in a voice that sounded uncomfortably like my subconscious, the demon tended to prefer not to leave witnesses, so it was quite possible that Morgan and Murphy were going to pull through just fine. They didn't need me around to check on them and play nanny, especially since Morgan was a Warden of the High Council, and he had more than enough underlings to play nanny for him. Probably prettier people than me, at any rate.

Murphy, on the other hand, had dealt with the supernatural a whole bunch of times. Some times were worse than others, and she's had more than her fair share of battle scars to show for it, but it didn't mean that she needed more of them.

I looked down the hallway, and for once, I didn't pick at the scab that hurt too much to poke.

Instead, I took a deep breath, grabbed my hoodie, and walked out the door, feeling like a coward every step of the way.

END

***

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For any interested in rereading, here are the links to the previous three parts.

Part One.
Part Two.
Part Three.

This way to the prequel, Vignette - The First Spring Cleaning.

This way to the sequel, Poker Face.

And if you're just plain lost, this way to the table of contents.