FIC: Seeing Things [The Dresden Files]
Oct. 9th, 2008 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darktrent182TITLE: Seeing Things
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: 9,819
RATING: PG-13/R, but I'll go with R to be sure.
WARNINGS: Mentions of violence, minor character death. Minor spoilers from the TV series and the books. Spoilers especially for Dead Beat and Fool Moon.
SUMMARY: Harry and Bob deal with Bob's first day of mortality.
PRAISE BE:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beachkid, gehayi, and shiplizard continue to be the beta-readers who make these fics even better than they were before. Thank you!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is an installment in the Forged series.
***
I woke up on the couch. For once, I didn't mind.
In my experience, waking up on the couch never bodes well. I'm too tall, so my legs hurt from having to fold myself in thirds in order to fit. My back always manages to find a hidden spring, so there's that to contend with. And no matter how comfortable I was the night before, my neck usually has a crick in it when I wake up.
Now, I've never actually had the chance to be sentenced to the couch by an irate significant other. My relationships somehow never reached that point. But when Ancient Mai had brought my former teacher and unrequited love back to mortality the day before, I figured I could deal with the stiff neck.
I got up from the couch, rolling my neck to try to loosen it up a little. It didn't do much good. Mister gave me a disapproving look, and I filled up his food bowl before looking around the kitchen for something vaguely edible. Breakfast usually wasn't a big thing for me -- either some instant coffee or a Coke, since my coffeemaker had gone the way of the dodo months ago, and I hadn't been able to buy a new one.
But, again, there was Bob to consider, and I wanted his first morning alive to be pleasant.
Surprisingly enough, I didn't do too bad in the way of food. I unearthed a box of pancake mix from a cupboard, found an egg and the milk, and went to work.
It had taken me about half an hour of cooking before I realized that it was nearly eleven and I still hadn't seen any sign of Bob. Don't get me wrong -- I can sleep in just as well as anybody, especially if I've been injured and I've had to save the world at least once. But Bob -- after a short argument complete with a sleepy glare on his part, and folded arms on mine -- had crashed on my bed before dinner and hadn't surfaced once during the night. I checked on him periodically to make sure he hadn't died, of course, but after seeing him laying on my bed, wrapped in my sheets and looking relaxed, I had to force myself to go back downstairs. Bob needed the downtime, I told myself, not someone staring at him while he slept.
After flipping the last pancake onto a plate and turning off the stove, I looked up at my loft bedroom and debated my options. I could always yell that breakfast was ready, but if he was still asleep and he still needed it, I'd have one grumpy wizard on my hands who might not take to pancakes. On the other hand, what if something had happened since the last time I'd checked on him? It would've been ironic as Hell, though -- Ancient Mai brings Bob back to life, only for Bob to die of old age.
I found myself looking at Bob's old skull where it was perched on my coffee table. It was still covered in carved symbols and sigils, though I hadn't expected for that to change. Bob had a brand new skull in his head, and what had once been his prison had inadvertently become my new, morbid teddy bear. For years, I had thought of the skull as Bob's home, or at least a part of him. It had been the only part of him that I could actually touch, and after I'd become his guardian, I'd gotten into the habit of carrying the thing around with me. If nothing else, it made a handy paperweight.
As I stared at it, I realized that was what it had become now: a really morbid paperweight. It was possible the thing hadn't degraded overnight because of preservation spells, but other than that, there was no soul being bound to it, no reason for it to keep existing other than because it had once been someone's prison. There wasn't any good reason that I needed to keep it around, except on the off-chance that Bob ended up dying in my arms again before his curse had been broken once and for all, and there was no way in Hell that was going to happen. Not if I had anything to say about it.
I forced myself to look up the stairs again. Bob was alive and currently sleeping in my bed, not sitting inside his skull or walking through walls. "Bob?" I yelled.
After a minute of silence, I frowned and mounted the stairs. "Bob?"
When I reached the top step, I could see Bob, lying on his back in my bed, staring up at the ceiling as if it held the secrets of the universe.
"Bob?" I asked, pitching my voice lower.
Blue-green eyes blinked, and then he turned his head to shoot me a startled look. "Harry. Good morning."
I nodded, watching him. "Hi, Bob." I frowned. "You okay?"
He blinked again, and nodded. "Perfectly fine..." His voice trailed off, and as I watched, his eyes slipped shut and he snuggled into my bed, his lips parting. I couldn't see anything below his collar bone, but I told myself that it was a good thing. A very good thing.
I cleared my throat, and Bob jumped, his eyes snapping open. "You sure?" I asked, my voice getting a bit husky.
It's not everyday that you see the guy you've been in love with for years nuzzling your pillow.
Bob cleared his throat in return, sitting up and looking like it was a real fight to get out of bed. Seeing the way his hand was petting the dark blue flannel, I couldn't really blame him. The sheets were soft.
Bob finally managed to get himself out of bed, bare-chested from the night before. Now that I could actually see him in the full light of day, I was surprised to find that underneath the dress suits he habitually wore as a ghost, he was... different. He was still recognizably Bob, but his shoulders were wider, his biceps bigger than I'd expected. His forearms were still strong and defined, but now there was a long scar I hadn't seen before, waxy and almost painful to look at. There was another that started on the right side of his chest, trailing down his strong torso to a stomach that looked thicker than the build he had as a ghost.
He looked human. And that was sexier than anything I'd imagined.
"Harry?"
I blinked. Bob sounded like he'd said my name more than once. He confirmed this by giving me his patented patient look.
"Would it be all right if I borrowed some clothes?" he asked. "At least until we can afford to go shopping?"
Oh. I glanced down at his chest, and then told myself that it would be a very good idea for Bob to not walk around the house half-naked. My libido would've beaten my rational mind unconscious after an hour. "Um. Sure." Soul of wit, that was me.
Bob smiled as he nodded. "Thank you."
My mouth went dry as I watched him walk across my bedroom to the chest of drawers, and I could feel my jeans getting tighter than they had a few minutes ago.
Okay, make that two minutes.
I cleared my throat and tried not to watch the way Bob's dress slacks stretched over his ass. "I made pancakes."
Bob paused, and looked over his pale shoulder, grey eyebrows lifting. "Pancakes?"
I nodded, and had difficulty swallowing. "They're downstairs." Of course, they were. I left them in the kitchen. Who knew if Mister had decided to forgo kibble and stretch his culinary horizons by wolfing down the unprotected pancakes. "So. You can... yeah." I motioned vaguely at him to finish getting dressed, and deciding discretion was the better part of not embarrassing myself further in front of Bob, I turned and nearly fell down the stairs.
I served both of us, setting out the maple syrup in case Bob was feeling adventurous. When I discovered Bob's hand in the silverware drawer as I was about to get some clean knives, I jumped about a foot. When I turned around, Bob blinked at me.
He was wearing one of my older T-shirts, one that had shrunk in the wash a while ago and I'd forgotten to give to Goodwill. Since Bob was shorter than I was, it was long enough, but considering that he had a more muscular chest than I did, the fabric stretched across the lines and curves enticingly, even as the T-shirt itself proudly declared itself to be from the Hard Rock Cafe in Berlin.
I was tempted to bang my head against the countertop until I passed out. It would've been more merciful than standing this close to him and wanting to rip that shirt off.
"Harry, are you all right?" he asked, sounding concerned.
"Yeah," I managed, wishing that Bob would back up before I did something extremely stupid. "Just... surprised." That wasn't the half of it.
Bob frowned at me without meeting my eyes, and then nodded slowly. "All right," he murmured, and after getting a knife for himself, he sat down at the table.
I checked in the fridge for a Coke to make sure I didn't stare at Bob. He didn't need me staring at him while he tried pancakes for the first time. I heard a pleasantly surprised hum that made me poke my head up and look at Bob.
He was sitting at the table, his hands on the top of the table on either side of the plate of pancakes, rubbing slowly. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his lips parted. I stared, surprised and more than a little turned on before I asked, "Bob?"
Bob jumped in his seat, his eyes flying open like they had upstairs. "Yes?"
"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked. At his curious look, I cleared my throat and elaborated, "You keep... rubbing things."
"I do?" he asked in a voice that sounded far more innocent than anything I could've managed.
I nodded, resisting the urge to glare at him.
Bob looked embarrassed, his cheeks reddening. "Well, this is the first time that I've actually had a chance to experience new tactile sensations," he said, trying to sound reasonable.
I frowned. "What about the last time you were alive?"
He shook his head, his hands still resting on either side of his plate. "Justin's double was more concerned with bringing his creator back to life than allowing me time to get reacquainted to life myself. After I rendered you unconscious, it was only a few hours later that the confrontation at the city morgue occurred." He eyed his stack of pancakes, and cut a small corner of the top, misshapen pancake. He took a bite, closing his eyes as he chewed slowly. He sat back in his chair and for a long minute, I thought that Bob had stopped breathing.
"Bob?"
Bob blinked his eyes open. "Yes?"
"How is it?" I asked, curious.
He blinked at me again, and when I nodded at the pancake stack, he said, "Oh! The pancakes." He looked down at the stack before looking at me again. "They're very... sweet, aren't they?"
"Try 'em with the syrup," I suggested. "They're even better that way."
Bob smiled a little. "I think I'll refrain for now. Thank you for making breakfast."
I nodded, ducking back into the fridge for the wayward Coke to make sure I wasn't blushing. "No problem."
Bob zoned out a few more times during breakfast, once when I got him a cup of instant coffee (which he liked), and a few more times when he ran his hands across my battle-scarred cutting board and one of the cabinet doors. He always looked slightly embarrassed when I caught him, and I stopped myself two seconds before I kissed his cheek.
"Okay, now that we're both fed and more awake," I asked, wondering how Bob was going to react to this line of questioning, "mind if I ask you some more questions about what happened yesterday?"
Bob's shoulders tensed a little, but he turned on the faucet and slid his plate underneath the tap. He stopped for a moment, and then ran his hand under the water, rubbing his fingers together as he stared single-mindedly at the running water.
Instead of drawing attention to it, I eased the faucet from cold to about lukewarm, and watched Bob's face.
It took a moment or two, but when the water changed temperature, I knew by the look on Bob's face. His eyelids slid to a half-mast that made me shift a little where I stood, and he turned his fingers so that the water hit his index finger, and then spilled over onto his middle finger, all the way to his pinky.
"How's it feel?" I almost whispered, trying not to spook him.
He said something rapturous in what I could only assume was Old English. I stared at his lips as he licked them.
His eyes shot open a second later, and he jerked his hand away with a yelp. I turned off the water and turned to Bob. "You okay?"
Bob nodded, still looking a bit dazed. "Yes... I'm fine. The water just got too warm, that's all." He blinked and glanced up at my eyes. "You said you had questions for me?"
I nodded. "Yeah. You can try out the couch, if you want. I don't know how the leather will feel from the leather you would've been used to...."
He nodded, eying the couch critically before making his way over and sitting down. He looked surprised at sinking into the cushion, but when he got used to it, he wriggled a little into the couch, and very carefully laid a hand on the cushion next to him. He stroked it a few times, trying not to look like he was on the verge of zoning out again, and looked up at me.
"What did you wish to know?" Bob asked.
Where did I want to start? "Yesterday, you said that the sword--"
"Wyrmgastbona," Bob corrected me. He nodded for me to continue.
"Wyrmgastbona," I said, tripping over a syllable, "The sword. What was so special about it? When did you enchant it? Hell's bells, why did you enchant it?"
Bob frowned. "I thought I explained this yesterday, Harry."
"Yeah, but how did a sword bring you back to life? Can you get brought back by anything that has your magic in it somehow?" I asked.
Bob shrugged, looking a bit uncertain. "Well, when Justin's double brought me back to life, he showed me the arrow that pierced Winfred's heart, and informed me that 'lost love' for life itself was the way to bring me back from the dead. The arrow had Winifred's magic embedded in the shaft, and when it came into contact with my soul, it made me mortal."
"So, you loved Winifred enough that she was your life," I said with a nod. I could understand that, at least a little. "But a sword? Did you and Winifred make it together, or something?"
Bob shook his head. "No. From what I've gathered since my return to mortality last year, anything that represents a passion for life, whether it be a person or a symbol of something I felt strongly, or even passionately, about would suffice."
"But a sword?" I prompted.
"The sword..." Bob said slowly, and I mentally braced myself. The way he was deliberately not even looking at my face made me think of when he'd told me why he'd been sentenced to spend eternity in his skull. Despite what you may think, I hadn't learned about Bob's turning to necromancy to bring the love of his life back from the dead until last year. "I created the sword years before I met Winifred."
I blinked, feeling a bit annoyed. I'd been expecting another dark confession of the soul, and all he'd told me was that he'd made it before he'd met Winifred? I shook my head, shoving the annoyance as far away from me as possible. Realization dawned about a minute later. "You said it had a small reputation as a dragon-slayer."
Bob nodded.
"The wizard in the village had been you," I said, confident in my identification. "And what you had to help you 'persuade' the dragon to get out of town was the sword."
Another nod.
"Bob, I don't get it." I shook my head. "What's so important about this sword you helped create?" Another question hit me just then, and I tacked it on. "And how did it end up in Mai's hands?"
Bob didn't answer immediately. Instead, he leaned back more solidly against the couch, his hands rubbing along the folds as if to feel each square inch of leather. After a long silence, he said, "You're already aware that Mai is a dragon."
I nodded, nonplussed by the non sequitur. "Um. Yeah."
He glanced up at my face. "If I am the wizard in the story that I told you, who do you think was the dragon?"
Ice ran through my veins. "You went toe-to-toe with Mai when you were still alive? And you won?"
Bob looked hurt. "You needn't sound so shocked, Harry. Mai, fortunately, wasn't as skilled as she has become in recent years."
"But how did she end up with the sword?" I frowned. "It's not like you were just going to hand it over to her."
Bob snorted. "Give me a little more credit than that." He shook his head. "When I was brought before the Council to answer for my crimes of necromancy, she was there to present evidence. I have no doubt that after my execution, she decided to take first pick over my belongings and keep whatever she wished."
"And because you'd hurt her with that sword," I finished for him, "she'd want to make sure no one else could use it against her."
Bob nodded. "Exactly. Now, when my skull was taken from you, did you call anyone from the High Council to report the theft?"
I was a bit thrown off by the question. "Yeah. Remember Ebenezar?" Bob blinked at me and nodded. "He said he had friends on the Senior Council."
Bob blinked again, and his puzzled expression slowly changed into a victorious smirk. "You brilliant man," he purred. I shifted, trying not to think of how sexy that had sounded just now. "This is turning out better than I had expected."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Mai was relying on two things when she took me," Bob said. "The first being that your relationship with the High Council would be strained enough that if you were to report my skull having been forcibly taken from you a second time in as many years, the Council could declare that you were an unfit guardian, and remove me from your care."
I hadn't thought of that, but now that it had been pointed out to me, I shivered. "And the second?"
"The second being that, with the wards in place in Mai's lab, you wouldn't be able to find me in time before she could lock me away in some dungeon and keep me as a secret weapon against her enemies." He frowned. "By the by, how did you find me?"
I shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. "When you killed Justin permanently, you used the magic you sucked out of me to do it. Since the magic went right through Justin before it came back to me, I had a bit of your magic and Justin's inside me."
Bob's frown turned curious. "That wouldn't have aided you in a tracking spell."
"It did if I used the little crystal tracking skull in the brew," I pointed out.
Bob's eyes widened. "You didn't."
I frowned, trying not to feel a bit hurt by his reaction. "Of course I did. I was going to get you back safe and sound. What's wrong with that?"
"Harry, that crystal skull had been made by one of the Senior Council in the sixteenth century," Bob explained, his voice low. "It was a priceless artifact."
"And anybody who got their hands on it had a way of finding you," I said. "I didn't mind getting rid of it."
Bob leaned back on the couch, his back settling into it, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes. "Oh, Harry."
"If you think I'm apologizing," I said lightly, "you better think again."
Bob stopped rubbing his nose and looked up at me. "It's not a matter of apologizing, though that wouldn't be a terrible idea," he said. "It's the fact that if the High Council discovered you destroyed a priceless artifact for use in a spell, they're not going to look favorably on you."
"Hate to burst your bubble," I said, "but the High Council doesn't look too favorably on me already. I don't think something like that is really going to make that much of a difference."
"It will if it means deciding how to deal with my rather unusual circumstances," Bob replied. "Blackstaff McCoy already knows that we're allies, and he'd no doubt have communicated this to the Senior Council after the first incident when I was returned to life."
"Ah, but I called Ebenezar to tell him that Mai stole you from me," I said. "Since we're friends, he'd actually put in a good word for me, and he wouldn't know that you'd been brought back to life unless Mai told the Senior Council, and I'm betting she wouldn't do that, because she'd want to be able to use you without the Council interfering."
Bob frowned. "How did you know Mai was the culprit?"
"My razor-sharp instincts," I said, tapping the side of my head.
"Your subconscious yelled at you, I presume?" Bob pursed his lips in a way that showed he was trying not to smile.
I cleared my throat self-consciously. "You're here now, aren't you?" I asked.
"I am," Bob acknowledged with a nod. "And for that, I thank you." He sighed, and leaned back further on the couch, tilting his head back to reveal the long line of his pale throat. I tried to swallow quietly, but I wasn't sure how well I succeeded. "Harry, do you truly think that Blackstaff McCoy will fight for my cause in this instance?"
I was surprised by the question. "I don't see why not. You didn't engineer the theft, and you didn't bring yourself back to life. None of the laws of magic were broken when you were resurrected, and Mai has to have made her share of enemies on the High Council."
Bob tilted his head down to give me a long stare. "She is more likely to have acquaintances and allies than enemies, Harry."
"And you know this how?" I asked, finding myself curious.
"Have you ever stopped to think of why a dragon would concern itself with human politics?" Bob asked, his voice unconsciously slipping into lecture mode.
I stopped for a minute, and then shook my head. "Not really. Maybe she was bored?"
Bob shook his head. "Even I myself am not sure as to her motives. As for her history, I've only been able to piece together a few things."
"Like what?" I asked.
"She had difficulty getting the High Council to trust her motives when she first encountered them, for one," Bob said. "Since she had been used to the reputation dragons enjoyed in the Eastern cultures, she had been surprised by how much the West feared and reviled them. As such, she had to prove herself to them in some way."
I had a feeling I knew where this was going, but I still asked, "How'd she do it?"
Bob shrugged, looking nonchalant and relaxed, but he bit the corner of his lip. "Wizards who break the laws of magic for whatever reason are always good bargaining tools, or so I've witnessed over the years." He glanced at me. "Mind you, it's only a theory."
"But one that makes a hell of a lot of sense," I growled. I could feel myself getting angry. "First she gets into a fight with you, and years down the line when she's having trouble getting the wizards to like her, she just hands you over to them on a silver platter?" I demanded.
Bob's eyes hardened, and he narrowed his eyes at me. "Stop."
I shook my head. I reached for my hoody, where I had left it draped on the staircase leading up to my room. "That bitch," I growled. "I'll kill her."
"No, you won't," Bob snapped, getting up from the couch and following me, his legs eating up the floor before his hand landed on my arm. "Harry, she is more than nine hundred years old. Even if you were to weaken her somehow, she would only use it to her advantage." He glared at me without looking me in the eye. "Do you really want to give her the chance to hold something over you?"
I glared back at him, our gazes definitely not meeting. "Stars and stones, Bob, how can you be so calm about her screwing you over, and then trying to use you now?" I demanded.
"You're forgetting that I've had a lot of time to think about my situation," he snarled. "Now, if you're quite finished with your tantrum, I would suggest you sit down so that we can come up with a plan of attack. Mai is sure to use your reporting the theft of my skull to the Council somehow."
I yanked my arm out of his grip, still furious about the whole situation. Bob wasn't exactly helping, though. "Oh, so now my telling Ebenezar about you getting kidnapped was a bad move? Would you make up your freaking mind?"
Bob sighed angrily. "Harry, you need to stop and listen to me, please. What we need to do right now is think of how to counter Mai's moves before she makes them, not to go charging in like a bull in a china shop and try to bring the world down around Mai's ears. There was a reason she wanted me alive, and while we may have managed to stymie her, it won't last. She won't stand for it."
I kept glaring at him. I wanted to be angry at Mai, and at Bob for trying to stop me, but I couldn't. The words were starting to sink in, and it was a much better plan than hopping in the Jeep and driving out to Mai's house so that I could set the whole place on fire. It would also be less tiring, and there was also the fact that I hadn't had time to go and pick up my Jeep from where I'd left it when this mess started in the first place.
I felt Bob's hands, warm and heavy on my shoulders. "Harry," he said, his voice low, "I appreciate that you want to fight for my honor, but sometimes discretion truly is the better part of valor, and I would be sorely disappointed if Mai were to kill you."
"I could take her," I muttered.
I had been trying to make a smart-ass remark, but Bob took it seriously. "No, Harry. You can't."
I met his eyes for a split second, and then I sighed. "You're probably right."
Bob smiled, and at this range, it was deadly, and getting deadlier by the second. "Quite possibly." He let go of my shoulders after a long moment, his fingers reluctant to let go until the last minute, and he backed away from me. "Perhaps we should adjourn to the lab, so as to ensure we won't be interrupted?"
I nodded. "Good idea."
I didn't think about what I'd just said until about a minute later, when Bob was settling onto my one lab stool, his hands running over what bare surface of my lab table there was for him to touch. I stared at him for a long minute before I reminded myself very sternly that ogling my unrequited love who had let me know in no uncertain terms that he didn't feel the same way towards me was a Bad Thing. Especially since he was wearing one of my old shirts that showed off his chest amazingly well.
"All right," I said, trying to cover for the silence, "so what kind of idea did you have for dealing with Mai? You said that Murph and I already stopped her from taking you prisoner the second you were alive."
Bob nodded, grabbing one of my stubby golf pencils and unearthing a piece of blank paper from where a few of my thicker tomes had been resting on top of the pile. "Quite right, but knowing her, she'll have a few more tricks up her sleeve."
I frowned, leaning my hip against the corner of my lab table since Bob had taken the only chair in the room. "What was it that you agreed to, anyway? You said that you'd make her another sword, but how are you going to do that?"
"It was part of the deal I struck with Mai," Bob said, not looking up from the paper he'd been scribbling on. "I would be given access to a forge near sufficient ley lines, provided the material I would need, that sort of thing."
"Wait a minute," I said, "a forge?"
Bob shot me a vaguely irritated look. "Really, Harry, how could I be expected to make a sword if I don't have a forge to make it with?"
"I thought you--" I managed to stop myself before I looked like an even bigger idiot than I already was. "No, never mind."
Bob raised an eyebrow at me. "I would've thought it was obvious, actually. If I'm not part of the forging of the sword, how could I expect for my magic to blend with the metal properly and create the effect I want?"
"Good point," I said quickly, wanting to avoid looking stupid in front of my former teacher, while my mind reeled. Bob hadn't just enchanted the sword, he'd literally made it from scratch. Whatever questions I had, however, I would have to ask them later, when neither of us were in danger of having a dragon breathing down our necks. "Now, what exactly was the deal you hammered out with Mai? Now that you're not in immediate danger of getting shoved into some dark hole somewhere and tossed the occasional crumb to work with, we could probably see what the High Council can do for you." I suddenly realized what I said and sighed. "I can't believe I just said that."
"Neither can I," Bob said dryly. "That was a terrible way to change the subject."
"Did it work?" I asked hopefully.
Bob snorted. "Not especially. Why you would assume something as backwards as that is beyond me."
Irritation showed up to rub my skin the wrong way. "Gee, Bob, maybe it's because I've never heard of making a magic sword from scratch before," I drawled. "Could be that my teacher didn't bother to mention anything about it when he was teaching me, but that's just a thought."
Bob frowned. "Why would I have mentioned it? Blacksmithing is an outdated trade, and even if I had been alive, your uncle would never have allowed you to learn such a skill." He snorted. "He probably feared that you could have turned it against him more easily than anything else."
I mentally shied away from my uncle while still concentrating on the whole Bob-as-a-blacksmith idea. "You could have mentioned that you knew how to do it, at least," I pointed out.
"To what end?" Bob asked curiously. "I wasn't in a position to do more than tell you stories about making swords, and those aren't particularly interesting unless you were in the trade as well."
"Bob, before today, I didn't know there was a trade," I said.
"You never heard of it when you were out traveling?" Bob asked.
I shook my head, not looking at him. "I wasn't trying that hard to find another teacher," I admitted.
There was a long pause, and when I glanced at Bob, he looked curious and surprised. "And why not?" he asked finally.
"Because I already had one," I said simply.
"One who wasn't even alive, Harry," Bob said in a low tone. "While your loyalty is touching, you shouldn't have let it get in the way of advancing in your magical training. You needed someone who could teach you through hands-on training, and I couldn't do that for you."
"Yeah, well, I had other things on my mind that I was dealing with, so looking for someone to replace you wouldn't have worked out that well anyway," I said firmly. "Now, what was the deal you and Mai came up with? She used the sword on you, and in return, you made another sword for her? Did she say what kind of sword she wanted, or why?"
Bob watched me for a while, blue-green eyes intent until he seemed to have come to a decision. "She asked for another dragon-slayer, and no, she didn't say why she wanted it. I assume it's to kill another dragon."
"What was so special about the sword she used to bring you back?" I asked. "Yeah, it was the sword you used on her, but you could've used any sword, right? Why would she have that one?"
"You must understand, Harry, I was the first person to actually injure her. If it had been possible, I would have killed her myself that day," Bob replied, and for some reason, I was suddenly struck by just how dangerous Bob must have been. He had been my age when he'd forged a magical sword designed to kill dragons, and it had worked. Talk about humbling. "And even if destroying the weapon which had hurt her so long ago weren't enough, I'm sure she felt a certain amount of smugness when she destroyed what had been my magnum opus before I turned to the Darker arts."
"Your great work?" I asked, confused. I knew I had translated the Latin correctly, but I hadn't thought about wizards having magnum opii before. Magnum opuses? It was something like that. Bob always corrected me on my conjugation, but it never stuck.
Bob nodded, leaning back on the stool as best he could without tipping over. "Yes. It had a number of spells woven into the blade, half of which I can't remember off the top of my head." He glanced up at me with a rueful smile. "It had been a work of art."
"When did you meet Winifred?" I asked, wondering if he would answer or not.
"A few years after my encounter with Mai, I believe," Bob said slowly. His smile had disappeared, replaced by a nostalgia that didn't look pleasant. "It's one of the times in my life when I can't remember details too clearly, so I try not to."
Open mouth, insert foot. Bob never talked about his past much when I was his student, and he had been just as close-mouthed when I was his guardian than before, so asking him questions about Winifred was probably poking at old wounds. "Sorry," I muttered sheepishly.
He shook his head. "You weren't responsible for my memory loss, Harry." He frowned, and I could see him mentally switching gears. "Mai wanted to keep me in the forge until her replacement sword was finished, and from what she had said to me while we were negotiating, she hinted at the possibility of more weaponry to be made for her personal use."
I frowned. "She wouldn't have been able to keep you a secret forever," I protested. "I mean, even if I hadn't gone to anyone on the High Council about your kidnapping, I would've tangled with her sooner or later."
"And then your death would have been ruled as self-defense," Bob half-snapped, "and with Mai's reputation among the Council, I daresay she wouldn't have found herself under the Doom of Damocles."
I bristled. "Hey, don't forget that I've managed to stay alive this long."
"By sheer dumb luck, yes," Bob said, a sneer in his voice. "I would rather there be more planning involved in my defense, and less heart-stopping terror when I try to ascertain whether or not you survived a fight against a dragon that is at least as old as I am, if not older."
"Either way," I said firmly, trying to cut him off before he could get into a rhythm, "she wouldn't have been able to keep you a secret forever. She wanted a sword from you, so she's probably going against another dragon, and she wanted some kind of protection." I frowned when something occurred to me. "If that sword had been your masterpiece, why would she have used it on you so that you could make another one?"
"Oh, I don't know," Bob said in a deceptively mild tone, looking nonchalant. "I might have mentioned that such magic degrades over time, and if she had been trying to use it on her real opponent like she had on the snake in Undertown, she would've found it... less than effective, shall we say?" He raised both eyebrows at me and somehow managed to look innocent and incredibly evil at the same time.
There's a reason I've been in love with the man for a little more than twenty years.
I nodded, trying to look serious and not succeeding. "Enchanting items is dicey at best. You never know when it's going to crap out on you."
Bob nodded solemnly. "Indeed."
We traded a grin before Bob said, "You do realize it's going to be difficult, don't you? I already have the reputation of being a necromancer with the power to drive masters to madness, and Mai used my capture and execution to ingratiate herself with the High Council of my time."
I nodded, my smile slipping. "I know."
"You also know that you don't have to do this," Bob said, his voice gentle. "You don't have to side with me."
I snorted. "I'll assume that you forgot that I have nearly as shitty a reputation as you do among the Council."
"Your uncle's death was an accident," he said. "I knew exactly what I was doing when I brought Winifred back to life."
"I had the voodoo doll in my hands," I reminded him. "And I really didn't give a damn if Justin was hurt or killed at that point."
Bob pursed his lips, and then asked me suddenly, "When did you think of the idea to use the voodoo doll on Justin? Before that night?"
I blinked. "I didn't even know he had my father's ring before then, or the voodoo doll, for that matter."
Bob nodded, steepling his fingers and propping his elbows on the table as he glanced at me. "All right, so after you discovered the voodoo doll. What were you thinking of when you used it on him?"
I felt my shoulders tensing up. "I don't know."
"Were you thinking of getting revenge for your father's murder? Did you want to interrogate your uncle to discover why he'd done such a thing?"
"I guess..." I said slowly, but Bob kept going as if I hadn't said anything.
"Perhaps you wanted to watch him as he writhed under your control," Bob suggested, his eyes like lasers zeroing in on me. "Press the ring to the doll's chest, and watch as your uncle struggled for breath, feeling his frantically beating heart in his chest like a caged bird trying to escape a cat."
I shook my head. "It wasn't like that."
"It wasn't?" he asked mildly, the intense look replaced with mild curiosity. "Then you have your answer."
I snorted. "It wasn't that simple, Bob."
"It never is," he said. "But... there are times when it can be." He looked away from me to examine his fingernails. "When you've deliberately set out to murder someone, you'll understand the difference. The only trouble is that the High Council didn't know what you were thinking the night your uncle died."
It took a moment for what he said to actually register in my mind, but when it did, I stopped cold. There were times when I could forget the fact that Bob had hurt other people before. When he first told me about necromancy, I had figured that breaking the Fifth Law of Magic, the one about not bringing people back from the dead, was such an important one that Bob had been used as an example to any other would-be necromancers. A few months after dealing with Sharon, I'd found out the hard way just how Bob had brought his lover back to life. He'd died to protect me, sure, but it had been a sobering experience to nearly die because of something Bob had done.
Trying to imagine Bob bringing Winifred back not once, but several times from the way he'd said it when he told me about it... it was hard. I'd gotten so used to him being my teacher, my friend, the man I'd had a crush on and eventually fell in love with. It sounds cheesy, but I couldn't imagine him planning to murder someone, despite the fact that he'd murdered my uncle right in front of me. I could say that he'd done it to protect me, and I'd be right, but the look on his face when he'd done it.... I recognized that look, that sense of unimaginable power at my fingertips.
I've done black magic before. It's not pretty.
Seeing the look on Bob's face, the easy way that he talked about ending people's lives-- I wanted to shake him. I wanted to yell at him, do something.
And then I realized that I could.
I reached out and grabbed his hand, my palm right on top of the fingernails he'd been idly examining. It was a weird grip, but I could feel warm skin and small, trimmed fingernails.
Bob jerked his gaze up to meet mine, and I didn't look away fast enough.
Society has raised people to look each other in the eye when they're talking to each other, but imagine walking up to someone and staring them straight in the eye without ever looking away. Even if Miss Manners says it's polite, it's disconcerting as hell. Now, because wizards have trained themselves to look at the world from angles that your regular joe has never fathomed before, meeting someone's gaze for longer than a minute triggers what's known as a soulgaze. When a wizard looks someone in the eye, he can see their soul laid bare, but they can also see his in return. No stone is left unturned, no secret left unseen. It's also something neither of them can ever forget. They can try to put it out of their minds, but if something reminds them of it, or they think back to the incident, the details are just as clear as if it had happened moments ago.
Let's just say that I don't look people in the eye very often.
The soulgaze I shared with Bob was... intense. Most soulgazes are, but this was a guy I'd been in love with for a little over twenty years. It kind of makes the experience a little different than if it were someone involved with a case.
For a second, I'd thought that everything had gone pitch black, but then I saw two lovers standing in a clearing, dressed in clothes that Ren Faire aficionados would have killed for. One of them was obviously a younger Bob, complete with dark, curly hair. The woman in his arms was a little shorter than him, with brown hair and large brown eyes. As I watched, they murmured to each other, smiling and holding each other close. Finally, as Bob leaned down to kiss her, I could see his lips start to smoke, and as the kiss continued, Bob literally caught fire, his hair turning white, his clothes and body blackening.
The immolation must have taken only seconds to complete, but it felt like a lifetime went by before his skeleton had charred into so much ash. The woman who'd been kissing him closed her eyes, a look of wonder and joy on her face as her hair was caught in a gentle breeze. As I watched, the ashes that Bob had disintegrated into started to glow, kicked up by the breeze until they swirled around her like a black tornado.
It reminded me of the black smoke that he'd used whenever he disappeared into his skull.
Movement out of the corner of my eye drew my attention to people walking out of the trees, staring at the woman and the swirling cloud of ashes. As they got closer, I saw that they ranged from just barely in their twenties to old men and women. There were more than twenty-five people standing around them, because that was when I had lost count.
The woman's wild joy ended sharply as an arrow thudded into her chest with sharp finality. Her eyes widened, and she fell to the ground, the wet grass soaking her dress. The burning embers stopped for a moment, and then swirled around the arrow, as if not sure what to make of it before the arrow disintegrated. Then the ashes began to circle around the dead woman, faster and faster until they set fire to the grass around her. The fire grew larger and hotter as I watched, and it engulfed the onlookers in seconds.
The woman on the ground opened her eyes once, and then closed them again with a wavering sigh.
The ashes swirled around her, burning hot and bright before growing dim, and as they grew dim, the air around me grew dimmer until all I could see was black.
It wasn't the darkness of black magic. It was emptiness. Loneliness. Despair.
Somewhere in the darkness, very far away from where I was standing, I could see a small spark start to glow.
And then Bob jerked his eyes away from mine.
"Harry," he began, but I let go of his hand.
"Sorry," I muttered.
Hell's bells, I'd been such an idiot. That spark had been hope and love, a literal light in the darkness of his soul. Bob was the kind of man who would kill to protect those he loved, who would die to ensure that who he loved would live on. What blew me away was that he wouldn't stop at killing someone or dying himself to do it.
People give themselves over to the Black for a variety of reasons. Usually, they think it's because black magic will give them unimaginable power, or that it's the only way to get what they want. Most of the time, when people use it for the first time, they want more. Black magic feeds off of the darker emotions -- fear, hatred, despair -- and when you open the door, it doesn't stop with just walking inside. It moves right in, makes itself at home, and consumes you until there's nothing left.
Sometimes, people think they can flirt with dark power, and when they get what they want, they'll be able to pull themselves back in time. Those guys usually end up becoming the most dangerous kinds of dark wizards, because they don't realize that they've become evil until they'd already murdered countless innocent people and were wondering why they didn't feel more bothered by the idea of eating babies, or whatever.
The whole point is that you don't give yourself over to the Black because your lover was murdered, and you missed her.
Bob did it because when Winifred died, there had been nothing else for him. He didn't give a damn about the consequences, and he was smart enough not to get caught until over twenty-five people had been murdered. She had been the love of his life, and I knew that he would mourn her until he was allowed to see her again on the other side.
I knew he loved me. That tiny spark at the end of the soulgaze had been the hope I'd given him. But, now that I knew just how deeply Bob had felt for Winifred, trying to compare how he felt about me to that would be apples and oranges.
Bob had killed my uncle to save my life, and he'd died to make sure that Justin had disintegrated right in front of me. He'd broken laws of magic in order to keep me safe, but I knew that Bob would never throw himself into the Black for me without hesitation. Part of me was glad that he never would, because it scared the hell out of me to know that he went that far for Winifred. Some of those faceless victims had been ripped apart by the fire before they'd finally died.
"Harry," Bob said again, his voice sounding choked. I looked at him, only to find his eyes shining with tears as he looked at me. "Wait, please."
I heard the phone ring in the other room, and I stopped myself from breathing a sigh of relief. Saved by the telephone. "Sorry. Have to get that." Without waiting for him to respond, I left the lab and headed for the kitchen phone. "Dresden."
"Hoss, good," Ebenezar grunted, his voice louder than usual. Damn phone. I winced, and held it a little away from my ear. "The Council's assembling, and they should be there in a few days."
"The Council?" I said intelligently.
I heard Ebenezar sigh over the line. "Didn't you just call me yesterday saying that Mai stole Hrothbert's skull from you?"
"Bob," I corrected him.
"What?"
I blinked, and then realized what I'd said. "Um, never mind. Yes, I did call, and it's okay now. Bob's back."
"Hoss," Ebenezar said slowly. "What happened?"
I winced. He only ever pushed if it was important, and summoning the entire High Council counted. "Mai brought him back to life, and I took him home with me."
There was silence on the end of the line.
"Um, Ebenezar?" I asked, a bit worried.
"Hell's bells, Harry," Ebenezar swore. "You don't do things in half measures, do you?"
"What?" I asked, a bit nervous. "Look, Ancient Mai was the one who--"
"Made Bob mortal," Ebenezar finished for me. "I know. You just said. I meant your habit of getting into trouble. How's Bob doing?"
I blinked. It seemed an odd question for him to ask. "Um, he's okay."
"Can I speak with him?" he asked.
I blinked again. "What?"
"Damn phones," Ebenezar muttered before raising his voice. "I said I want to speak with him! Put him on the phone!"
I winced, and then turned toward the lab. Bob was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, watching me curiously. His cheeks didn't seem as flushed as they were a minute ago, and any trace of potential tears was gone. He shot me a puzzled frown.
"Phone for you," I said, offering him the phone.
Looking completely bewildered, Bob stared at the phone before taking it and holding it up to his ear. "This is Bob." His eyes met mine, shooting me a curious look. Now that we'd soulgazed, we wouldn't have to worry about it happening again. One per customer, and it's something that I wouldn't be able to forget until the day I died.
I waited for Ebenezar's reply, but when I didn't hear anything, I mouthed, "Did the line disconnect?"
Bob shook his head, and then narrowed his eyes, listening to Ebenezar. "If you could hold on a moment?" He turned to me. "I need paper. Quickly."
If someone had told me that there would be a day I'd be looking for paper and a pencil so that Bob could jot down notes, I would've laughed in their face. It would've been a sad laugh that hurt inside, but I would've still laughed. As it was, I ducked into the lab and got some spare paper that wasn't completely covered with sigils and math and one of my golf pencils, and came back. He nodded, leaned a hip against the counter closest to the phone, and took down notes, all the while nodding and making affirmative grunts. There were a few times when he started to ask a question, but he never got more than a few words out before Ebenezar cut him off again. Since he didn't look annoyed at the interruptions, I assumed that whatever Ebenezar was telling him, he was interested in enough not to let annoyance distract him. There were a few times when his eyebrows jumped up, and he looked mildly surprised, but he didn't do anything else besides make a surprised grunt. When he was finished, he asked, "Do you wish to speak to Harry again?"
He paused, and then held the phone out to me. "Here."
I took the phone from him. "It's me."
"All right, now I've given Bob some details that'll help him out when you two are in front of the Council. Mai's a tricky customer, but since she started this mess by stealing Bob's skull away from you, you should be okay on that front."
I nodded on auto-pilot. "What's going to happen to Bob?"
"If you play your cards right, Bob won't get stuck back in his skull right away," Ebenezar grunted. "With all the trouble that's going on with Luccio right now, he might be able to stay mortal for a while."
"Luccio?" I frowned. I had met the Captain of the Wardens once, and that had been when the disciples of a necromancer named Kemmler had been duking it out to take his place. The fact that they'd been using Chicago as their wrestling ring while they did it hadn't sat too well with me, and the Wardens weren't all that pleased either. During the fracas, Captain Luccio had her body possessed by a disciple known as the Corpsetaker, and when I had killed the Corpsetaker in her body, she'd been left in the loaner permanently.
"What happened to her?"
"I already told Bob about it, he can explain," Ebenezar said. "I still have some calls to make, but when I find out anything else that can help you, I'll let you know."
I blinked, a bit surprised by the lack of explanation. I was doing a lot of blinking today. At least my eyes wouldn't get dried out. "Okay, sir. Thanks." The phone clicked, and I shot Bob a curious frown. "What happened to Luccio?"
While I had been talking to Ebenezar, Bob had sat himself down at the kitchen table and was reading over his notes, eyes narrowed. As he answered, he didn't look up from the paper. "Apparently, when she tried to return to her work of forging swords for the recently-trained Wardens, she was unable to do the job properly. Most likely due to the level of power her new body has, compared with her old one."
I winced. "Great. I blow the whistle on Mai kidnapping you, and it's going to turn into an inquisition because I accidentally killed the High Council blacksmith's body."
"Bladesmith," Bob corrected me mildly, "but that's neither here nor there."
I walked around the table so that I could read over Bob's shoulder. "What did Ebenezar tell you?"
"Quite a bit, actually," Bob answered cryptically, but he obligingly held up the paper so that I could see what he'd written. It was a strange role reversal, but one that I didn't mind. While intellectually, I was positive that Bob saw me as no more than an adopted son, I could still feel his physical presence brush against my aura with a small thrill of excitement. The tingle of his magic in his aura stroking against mine, almost melding with it, felt warm and comfortable in a way that surprised me.
I shook my head. Concentrate, Harry.
The paper, filled with my cramped writing in the margins and Bob's neater handwriting in the middle, didn't say too much. There were a few things that didn't make much sense, like "psychology" and what looked like a formula. "Stipend" made my eyebrows lift, but Bob set the paper back down on the table. He looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at me.
"Are we going to talk about the soulgaze at some point?" he asked.
I frowned, a bit nonplussed by the question. "Do we need to? We're wizards, we had one, it finished."
Bob sighed, looking annoyed. "Soulgazes are never that simple, Harry."
I snorted. "How many people have you soulgazed before?"
"Quite a few," he murmured, his eyes narrow. "We're going to have to talk about it at some point."
"Why?" I asked. I righted myself and leaned against one of the counters, folding my arms across my chest. Defensive? Sure. But this was one conversation I could live without.
"I beg your pardon?" Bob asked, looking confused.
"I asked why," I said. "Why do we need to talk about it?"
Bob frowned. "Aren't you the least bit curious what I saw?"
"Nope," I said quickly. I didn't want to think about what kind of soul could make seasoned law enforcement shout that they didn't believe in Hell. People fainting, or going pale, I could deal with. But when someone dangerous enough to give me nightmares for weeks was scared of what he saw inside of me, I figured it was better not to know what was lurking in the darker parts of my soul.
"You don't believe that," Bob protested.
"Try me," I said, walking over to pour myself a glass of water and drinking half of it in one go.
Bob stood up to stand next to me. "Harry."
"Still not interested," I said, looking over at him. "Don't you have a Council meeting to prepare for?"
Bob narrowed his eyes at me. "This isn't the last we're going to speak on the subject, Harry. After the meeting with the High Council concerning my employment, we're going to talk about this."
I nodded. "Sure, Bob. Whatever you say."
Bob stared at me for a long moment, and then sighed heavily. "You're an infuriating man, Harry."
I Spocked an eyebrow at him, and smirked. "I know."
END
***
This way to the prequel, Finders Keepers.
This way to the sequel, Plain Sight.
And if you're just plain lost, here's the table of contents.
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: 9,819
RATING: PG-13/R, but I'll go with R to be sure.
WARNINGS: Mentions of violence, minor character death. Minor spoilers from the TV series and the books. Spoilers especially for Dead Beat and Fool Moon.
SUMMARY: Harry and Bob deal with Bob's first day of mortality.
PRAISE BE:
beachkid, gehayi, and shiplizard continue to be the beta-readers who make these fics even better than they were before. Thank you!AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is an installment in the Forged series.
***
I woke up on the couch. For once, I didn't mind.
In my experience, waking up on the couch never bodes well. I'm too tall, so my legs hurt from having to fold myself in thirds in order to fit. My back always manages to find a hidden spring, so there's that to contend with. And no matter how comfortable I was the night before, my neck usually has a crick in it when I wake up.
Now, I've never actually had the chance to be sentenced to the couch by an irate significant other. My relationships somehow never reached that point. But when Ancient Mai had brought my former teacher and unrequited love back to mortality the day before, I figured I could deal with the stiff neck.
I got up from the couch, rolling my neck to try to loosen it up a little. It didn't do much good. Mister gave me a disapproving look, and I filled up his food bowl before looking around the kitchen for something vaguely edible. Breakfast usually wasn't a big thing for me -- either some instant coffee or a Coke, since my coffeemaker had gone the way of the dodo months ago, and I hadn't been able to buy a new one.
But, again, there was Bob to consider, and I wanted his first morning alive to be pleasant.
Surprisingly enough, I didn't do too bad in the way of food. I unearthed a box of pancake mix from a cupboard, found an egg and the milk, and went to work.
It had taken me about half an hour of cooking before I realized that it was nearly eleven and I still hadn't seen any sign of Bob. Don't get me wrong -- I can sleep in just as well as anybody, especially if I've been injured and I've had to save the world at least once. But Bob -- after a short argument complete with a sleepy glare on his part, and folded arms on mine -- had crashed on my bed before dinner and hadn't surfaced once during the night. I checked on him periodically to make sure he hadn't died, of course, but after seeing him laying on my bed, wrapped in my sheets and looking relaxed, I had to force myself to go back downstairs. Bob needed the downtime, I told myself, not someone staring at him while he slept.
After flipping the last pancake onto a plate and turning off the stove, I looked up at my loft bedroom and debated my options. I could always yell that breakfast was ready, but if he was still asleep and he still needed it, I'd have one grumpy wizard on my hands who might not take to pancakes. On the other hand, what if something had happened since the last time I'd checked on him? It would've been ironic as Hell, though -- Ancient Mai brings Bob back to life, only for Bob to die of old age.
I found myself looking at Bob's old skull where it was perched on my coffee table. It was still covered in carved symbols and sigils, though I hadn't expected for that to change. Bob had a brand new skull in his head, and what had once been his prison had inadvertently become my new, morbid teddy bear. For years, I had thought of the skull as Bob's home, or at least a part of him. It had been the only part of him that I could actually touch, and after I'd become his guardian, I'd gotten into the habit of carrying the thing around with me. If nothing else, it made a handy paperweight.
As I stared at it, I realized that was what it had become now: a really morbid paperweight. It was possible the thing hadn't degraded overnight because of preservation spells, but other than that, there was no soul being bound to it, no reason for it to keep existing other than because it had once been someone's prison. There wasn't any good reason that I needed to keep it around, except on the off-chance that Bob ended up dying in my arms again before his curse had been broken once and for all, and there was no way in Hell that was going to happen. Not if I had anything to say about it.
I forced myself to look up the stairs again. Bob was alive and currently sleeping in my bed, not sitting inside his skull or walking through walls. "Bob?" I yelled.
After a minute of silence, I frowned and mounted the stairs. "Bob?"
When I reached the top step, I could see Bob, lying on his back in my bed, staring up at the ceiling as if it held the secrets of the universe.
"Bob?" I asked, pitching my voice lower.
Blue-green eyes blinked, and then he turned his head to shoot me a startled look. "Harry. Good morning."
I nodded, watching him. "Hi, Bob." I frowned. "You okay?"
He blinked again, and nodded. "Perfectly fine..." His voice trailed off, and as I watched, his eyes slipped shut and he snuggled into my bed, his lips parting. I couldn't see anything below his collar bone, but I told myself that it was a good thing. A very good thing.
I cleared my throat, and Bob jumped, his eyes snapping open. "You sure?" I asked, my voice getting a bit husky.
It's not everyday that you see the guy you've been in love with for years nuzzling your pillow.
Bob cleared his throat in return, sitting up and looking like it was a real fight to get out of bed. Seeing the way his hand was petting the dark blue flannel, I couldn't really blame him. The sheets were soft.
Bob finally managed to get himself out of bed, bare-chested from the night before. Now that I could actually see him in the full light of day, I was surprised to find that underneath the dress suits he habitually wore as a ghost, he was... different. He was still recognizably Bob, but his shoulders were wider, his biceps bigger than I'd expected. His forearms were still strong and defined, but now there was a long scar I hadn't seen before, waxy and almost painful to look at. There was another that started on the right side of his chest, trailing down his strong torso to a stomach that looked thicker than the build he had as a ghost.
He looked human. And that was sexier than anything I'd imagined.
"Harry?"
I blinked. Bob sounded like he'd said my name more than once. He confirmed this by giving me his patented patient look.
"Would it be all right if I borrowed some clothes?" he asked. "At least until we can afford to go shopping?"
Oh. I glanced down at his chest, and then told myself that it would be a very good idea for Bob to not walk around the house half-naked. My libido would've beaten my rational mind unconscious after an hour. "Um. Sure." Soul of wit, that was me.
Bob smiled as he nodded. "Thank you."
My mouth went dry as I watched him walk across my bedroom to the chest of drawers, and I could feel my jeans getting tighter than they had a few minutes ago.
Okay, make that two minutes.
I cleared my throat and tried not to watch the way Bob's dress slacks stretched over his ass. "I made pancakes."
Bob paused, and looked over his pale shoulder, grey eyebrows lifting. "Pancakes?"
I nodded, and had difficulty swallowing. "They're downstairs." Of course, they were. I left them in the kitchen. Who knew if Mister had decided to forgo kibble and stretch his culinary horizons by wolfing down the unprotected pancakes. "So. You can... yeah." I motioned vaguely at him to finish getting dressed, and deciding discretion was the better part of not embarrassing myself further in front of Bob, I turned and nearly fell down the stairs.
I served both of us, setting out the maple syrup in case Bob was feeling adventurous. When I discovered Bob's hand in the silverware drawer as I was about to get some clean knives, I jumped about a foot. When I turned around, Bob blinked at me.
He was wearing one of my older T-shirts, one that had shrunk in the wash a while ago and I'd forgotten to give to Goodwill. Since Bob was shorter than I was, it was long enough, but considering that he had a more muscular chest than I did, the fabric stretched across the lines and curves enticingly, even as the T-shirt itself proudly declared itself to be from the Hard Rock Cafe in Berlin.
I was tempted to bang my head against the countertop until I passed out. It would've been more merciful than standing this close to him and wanting to rip that shirt off.
"Harry, are you all right?" he asked, sounding concerned.
"Yeah," I managed, wishing that Bob would back up before I did something extremely stupid. "Just... surprised." That wasn't the half of it.
Bob frowned at me without meeting my eyes, and then nodded slowly. "All right," he murmured, and after getting a knife for himself, he sat down at the table.
I checked in the fridge for a Coke to make sure I didn't stare at Bob. He didn't need me staring at him while he tried pancakes for the first time. I heard a pleasantly surprised hum that made me poke my head up and look at Bob.
He was sitting at the table, his hands on the top of the table on either side of the plate of pancakes, rubbing slowly. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his lips parted. I stared, surprised and more than a little turned on before I asked, "Bob?"
Bob jumped in his seat, his eyes flying open like they had upstairs. "Yes?"
"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked. At his curious look, I cleared my throat and elaborated, "You keep... rubbing things."
"I do?" he asked in a voice that sounded far more innocent than anything I could've managed.
I nodded, resisting the urge to glare at him.
Bob looked embarrassed, his cheeks reddening. "Well, this is the first time that I've actually had a chance to experience new tactile sensations," he said, trying to sound reasonable.
I frowned. "What about the last time you were alive?"
He shook his head, his hands still resting on either side of his plate. "Justin's double was more concerned with bringing his creator back to life than allowing me time to get reacquainted to life myself. After I rendered you unconscious, it was only a few hours later that the confrontation at the city morgue occurred." He eyed his stack of pancakes, and cut a small corner of the top, misshapen pancake. He took a bite, closing his eyes as he chewed slowly. He sat back in his chair and for a long minute, I thought that Bob had stopped breathing.
"Bob?"
Bob blinked his eyes open. "Yes?"
"How is it?" I asked, curious.
He blinked at me again, and when I nodded at the pancake stack, he said, "Oh! The pancakes." He looked down at the stack before looking at me again. "They're very... sweet, aren't they?"
"Try 'em with the syrup," I suggested. "They're even better that way."
Bob smiled a little. "I think I'll refrain for now. Thank you for making breakfast."
I nodded, ducking back into the fridge for the wayward Coke to make sure I wasn't blushing. "No problem."
Bob zoned out a few more times during breakfast, once when I got him a cup of instant coffee (which he liked), and a few more times when he ran his hands across my battle-scarred cutting board and one of the cabinet doors. He always looked slightly embarrassed when I caught him, and I stopped myself two seconds before I kissed his cheek.
"Okay, now that we're both fed and more awake," I asked, wondering how Bob was going to react to this line of questioning, "mind if I ask you some more questions about what happened yesterday?"
Bob's shoulders tensed a little, but he turned on the faucet and slid his plate underneath the tap. He stopped for a moment, and then ran his hand under the water, rubbing his fingers together as he stared single-mindedly at the running water.
Instead of drawing attention to it, I eased the faucet from cold to about lukewarm, and watched Bob's face.
It took a moment or two, but when the water changed temperature, I knew by the look on Bob's face. His eyelids slid to a half-mast that made me shift a little where I stood, and he turned his fingers so that the water hit his index finger, and then spilled over onto his middle finger, all the way to his pinky.
"How's it feel?" I almost whispered, trying not to spook him.
He said something rapturous in what I could only assume was Old English. I stared at his lips as he licked them.
His eyes shot open a second later, and he jerked his hand away with a yelp. I turned off the water and turned to Bob. "You okay?"
Bob nodded, still looking a bit dazed. "Yes... I'm fine. The water just got too warm, that's all." He blinked and glanced up at my eyes. "You said you had questions for me?"
I nodded. "Yeah. You can try out the couch, if you want. I don't know how the leather will feel from the leather you would've been used to...."
He nodded, eying the couch critically before making his way over and sitting down. He looked surprised at sinking into the cushion, but when he got used to it, he wriggled a little into the couch, and very carefully laid a hand on the cushion next to him. He stroked it a few times, trying not to look like he was on the verge of zoning out again, and looked up at me.
"What did you wish to know?" Bob asked.
Where did I want to start? "Yesterday, you said that the sword--"
"Wyrmgastbona," Bob corrected me. He nodded for me to continue.
"Wyrmgastbona," I said, tripping over a syllable, "The sword. What was so special about it? When did you enchant it? Hell's bells, why did you enchant it?"
Bob frowned. "I thought I explained this yesterday, Harry."
"Yeah, but how did a sword bring you back to life? Can you get brought back by anything that has your magic in it somehow?" I asked.
Bob shrugged, looking a bit uncertain. "Well, when Justin's double brought me back to life, he showed me the arrow that pierced Winfred's heart, and informed me that 'lost love' for life itself was the way to bring me back from the dead. The arrow had Winifred's magic embedded in the shaft, and when it came into contact with my soul, it made me mortal."
"So, you loved Winifred enough that she was your life," I said with a nod. I could understand that, at least a little. "But a sword? Did you and Winifred make it together, or something?"
Bob shook his head. "No. From what I've gathered since my return to mortality last year, anything that represents a passion for life, whether it be a person or a symbol of something I felt strongly, or even passionately, about would suffice."
"But a sword?" I prompted.
"The sword..." Bob said slowly, and I mentally braced myself. The way he was deliberately not even looking at my face made me think of when he'd told me why he'd been sentenced to spend eternity in his skull. Despite what you may think, I hadn't learned about Bob's turning to necromancy to bring the love of his life back from the dead until last year. "I created the sword years before I met Winifred."
I blinked, feeling a bit annoyed. I'd been expecting another dark confession of the soul, and all he'd told me was that he'd made it before he'd met Winifred? I shook my head, shoving the annoyance as far away from me as possible. Realization dawned about a minute later. "You said it had a small reputation as a dragon-slayer."
Bob nodded.
"The wizard in the village had been you," I said, confident in my identification. "And what you had to help you 'persuade' the dragon to get out of town was the sword."
Another nod.
"Bob, I don't get it." I shook my head. "What's so important about this sword you helped create?" Another question hit me just then, and I tacked it on. "And how did it end up in Mai's hands?"
Bob didn't answer immediately. Instead, he leaned back more solidly against the couch, his hands rubbing along the folds as if to feel each square inch of leather. After a long silence, he said, "You're already aware that Mai is a dragon."
I nodded, nonplussed by the non sequitur. "Um. Yeah."
He glanced up at my face. "If I am the wizard in the story that I told you, who do you think was the dragon?"
Ice ran through my veins. "You went toe-to-toe with Mai when you were still alive? And you won?"
Bob looked hurt. "You needn't sound so shocked, Harry. Mai, fortunately, wasn't as skilled as she has become in recent years."
"But how did she end up with the sword?" I frowned. "It's not like you were just going to hand it over to her."
Bob snorted. "Give me a little more credit than that." He shook his head. "When I was brought before the Council to answer for my crimes of necromancy, she was there to present evidence. I have no doubt that after my execution, she decided to take first pick over my belongings and keep whatever she wished."
"And because you'd hurt her with that sword," I finished for him, "she'd want to make sure no one else could use it against her."
Bob nodded. "Exactly. Now, when my skull was taken from you, did you call anyone from the High Council to report the theft?"
I was a bit thrown off by the question. "Yeah. Remember Ebenezar?" Bob blinked at me and nodded. "He said he had friends on the Senior Council."
Bob blinked again, and his puzzled expression slowly changed into a victorious smirk. "You brilliant man," he purred. I shifted, trying not to think of how sexy that had sounded just now. "This is turning out better than I had expected."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Mai was relying on two things when she took me," Bob said. "The first being that your relationship with the High Council would be strained enough that if you were to report my skull having been forcibly taken from you a second time in as many years, the Council could declare that you were an unfit guardian, and remove me from your care."
I hadn't thought of that, but now that it had been pointed out to me, I shivered. "And the second?"
"The second being that, with the wards in place in Mai's lab, you wouldn't be able to find me in time before she could lock me away in some dungeon and keep me as a secret weapon against her enemies." He frowned. "By the by, how did you find me?"
I shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. "When you killed Justin permanently, you used the magic you sucked out of me to do it. Since the magic went right through Justin before it came back to me, I had a bit of your magic and Justin's inside me."
Bob's frown turned curious. "That wouldn't have aided you in a tracking spell."
"It did if I used the little crystal tracking skull in the brew," I pointed out.
Bob's eyes widened. "You didn't."
I frowned, trying not to feel a bit hurt by his reaction. "Of course I did. I was going to get you back safe and sound. What's wrong with that?"
"Harry, that crystal skull had been made by one of the Senior Council in the sixteenth century," Bob explained, his voice low. "It was a priceless artifact."
"And anybody who got their hands on it had a way of finding you," I said. "I didn't mind getting rid of it."
Bob leaned back on the couch, his back settling into it, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes. "Oh, Harry."
"If you think I'm apologizing," I said lightly, "you better think again."
Bob stopped rubbing his nose and looked up at me. "It's not a matter of apologizing, though that wouldn't be a terrible idea," he said. "It's the fact that if the High Council discovered you destroyed a priceless artifact for use in a spell, they're not going to look favorably on you."
"Hate to burst your bubble," I said, "but the High Council doesn't look too favorably on me already. I don't think something like that is really going to make that much of a difference."
"It will if it means deciding how to deal with my rather unusual circumstances," Bob replied. "Blackstaff McCoy already knows that we're allies, and he'd no doubt have communicated this to the Senior Council after the first incident when I was returned to life."
"Ah, but I called Ebenezar to tell him that Mai stole you from me," I said. "Since we're friends, he'd actually put in a good word for me, and he wouldn't know that you'd been brought back to life unless Mai told the Senior Council, and I'm betting she wouldn't do that, because she'd want to be able to use you without the Council interfering."
Bob frowned. "How did you know Mai was the culprit?"
"My razor-sharp instincts," I said, tapping the side of my head.
"Your subconscious yelled at you, I presume?" Bob pursed his lips in a way that showed he was trying not to smile.
I cleared my throat self-consciously. "You're here now, aren't you?" I asked.
"I am," Bob acknowledged with a nod. "And for that, I thank you." He sighed, and leaned back further on the couch, tilting his head back to reveal the long line of his pale throat. I tried to swallow quietly, but I wasn't sure how well I succeeded. "Harry, do you truly think that Blackstaff McCoy will fight for my cause in this instance?"
I was surprised by the question. "I don't see why not. You didn't engineer the theft, and you didn't bring yourself back to life. None of the laws of magic were broken when you were resurrected, and Mai has to have made her share of enemies on the High Council."
Bob tilted his head down to give me a long stare. "She is more likely to have acquaintances and allies than enemies, Harry."
"And you know this how?" I asked, finding myself curious.
"Have you ever stopped to think of why a dragon would concern itself with human politics?" Bob asked, his voice unconsciously slipping into lecture mode.
I stopped for a minute, and then shook my head. "Not really. Maybe she was bored?"
Bob shook his head. "Even I myself am not sure as to her motives. As for her history, I've only been able to piece together a few things."
"Like what?" I asked.
"She had difficulty getting the High Council to trust her motives when she first encountered them, for one," Bob said. "Since she had been used to the reputation dragons enjoyed in the Eastern cultures, she had been surprised by how much the West feared and reviled them. As such, she had to prove herself to them in some way."
I had a feeling I knew where this was going, but I still asked, "How'd she do it?"
Bob shrugged, looking nonchalant and relaxed, but he bit the corner of his lip. "Wizards who break the laws of magic for whatever reason are always good bargaining tools, or so I've witnessed over the years." He glanced at me. "Mind you, it's only a theory."
"But one that makes a hell of a lot of sense," I growled. I could feel myself getting angry. "First she gets into a fight with you, and years down the line when she's having trouble getting the wizards to like her, she just hands you over to them on a silver platter?" I demanded.
Bob's eyes hardened, and he narrowed his eyes at me. "Stop."
I shook my head. I reached for my hoody, where I had left it draped on the staircase leading up to my room. "That bitch," I growled. "I'll kill her."
"No, you won't," Bob snapped, getting up from the couch and following me, his legs eating up the floor before his hand landed on my arm. "Harry, she is more than nine hundred years old. Even if you were to weaken her somehow, she would only use it to her advantage." He glared at me without looking me in the eye. "Do you really want to give her the chance to hold something over you?"
I glared back at him, our gazes definitely not meeting. "Stars and stones, Bob, how can you be so calm about her screwing you over, and then trying to use you now?" I demanded.
"You're forgetting that I've had a lot of time to think about my situation," he snarled. "Now, if you're quite finished with your tantrum, I would suggest you sit down so that we can come up with a plan of attack. Mai is sure to use your reporting the theft of my skull to the Council somehow."
I yanked my arm out of his grip, still furious about the whole situation. Bob wasn't exactly helping, though. "Oh, so now my telling Ebenezar about you getting kidnapped was a bad move? Would you make up your freaking mind?"
Bob sighed angrily. "Harry, you need to stop and listen to me, please. What we need to do right now is think of how to counter Mai's moves before she makes them, not to go charging in like a bull in a china shop and try to bring the world down around Mai's ears. There was a reason she wanted me alive, and while we may have managed to stymie her, it won't last. She won't stand for it."
I kept glaring at him. I wanted to be angry at Mai, and at Bob for trying to stop me, but I couldn't. The words were starting to sink in, and it was a much better plan than hopping in the Jeep and driving out to Mai's house so that I could set the whole place on fire. It would also be less tiring, and there was also the fact that I hadn't had time to go and pick up my Jeep from where I'd left it when this mess started in the first place.
I felt Bob's hands, warm and heavy on my shoulders. "Harry," he said, his voice low, "I appreciate that you want to fight for my honor, but sometimes discretion truly is the better part of valor, and I would be sorely disappointed if Mai were to kill you."
"I could take her," I muttered.
I had been trying to make a smart-ass remark, but Bob took it seriously. "No, Harry. You can't."
I met his eyes for a split second, and then I sighed. "You're probably right."
Bob smiled, and at this range, it was deadly, and getting deadlier by the second. "Quite possibly." He let go of my shoulders after a long moment, his fingers reluctant to let go until the last minute, and he backed away from me. "Perhaps we should adjourn to the lab, so as to ensure we won't be interrupted?"
I nodded. "Good idea."
I didn't think about what I'd just said until about a minute later, when Bob was settling onto my one lab stool, his hands running over what bare surface of my lab table there was for him to touch. I stared at him for a long minute before I reminded myself very sternly that ogling my unrequited love who had let me know in no uncertain terms that he didn't feel the same way towards me was a Bad Thing. Especially since he was wearing one of my old shirts that showed off his chest amazingly well.
"All right," I said, trying to cover for the silence, "so what kind of idea did you have for dealing with Mai? You said that Murph and I already stopped her from taking you prisoner the second you were alive."
Bob nodded, grabbing one of my stubby golf pencils and unearthing a piece of blank paper from where a few of my thicker tomes had been resting on top of the pile. "Quite right, but knowing her, she'll have a few more tricks up her sleeve."
I frowned, leaning my hip against the corner of my lab table since Bob had taken the only chair in the room. "What was it that you agreed to, anyway? You said that you'd make her another sword, but how are you going to do that?"
"It was part of the deal I struck with Mai," Bob said, not looking up from the paper he'd been scribbling on. "I would be given access to a forge near sufficient ley lines, provided the material I would need, that sort of thing."
"Wait a minute," I said, "a forge?"
Bob shot me a vaguely irritated look. "Really, Harry, how could I be expected to make a sword if I don't have a forge to make it with?"
"I thought you--" I managed to stop myself before I looked like an even bigger idiot than I already was. "No, never mind."
Bob raised an eyebrow at me. "I would've thought it was obvious, actually. If I'm not part of the forging of the sword, how could I expect for my magic to blend with the metal properly and create the effect I want?"
"Good point," I said quickly, wanting to avoid looking stupid in front of my former teacher, while my mind reeled. Bob hadn't just enchanted the sword, he'd literally made it from scratch. Whatever questions I had, however, I would have to ask them later, when neither of us were in danger of having a dragon breathing down our necks. "Now, what exactly was the deal you hammered out with Mai? Now that you're not in immediate danger of getting shoved into some dark hole somewhere and tossed the occasional crumb to work with, we could probably see what the High Council can do for you." I suddenly realized what I said and sighed. "I can't believe I just said that."
"Neither can I," Bob said dryly. "That was a terrible way to change the subject."
"Did it work?" I asked hopefully.
Bob snorted. "Not especially. Why you would assume something as backwards as that is beyond me."
Irritation showed up to rub my skin the wrong way. "Gee, Bob, maybe it's because I've never heard of making a magic sword from scratch before," I drawled. "Could be that my teacher didn't bother to mention anything about it when he was teaching me, but that's just a thought."
Bob frowned. "Why would I have mentioned it? Blacksmithing is an outdated trade, and even if I had been alive, your uncle would never have allowed you to learn such a skill." He snorted. "He probably feared that you could have turned it against him more easily than anything else."
I mentally shied away from my uncle while still concentrating on the whole Bob-as-a-blacksmith idea. "You could have mentioned that you knew how to do it, at least," I pointed out.
"To what end?" Bob asked curiously. "I wasn't in a position to do more than tell you stories about making swords, and those aren't particularly interesting unless you were in the trade as well."
"Bob, before today, I didn't know there was a trade," I said.
"You never heard of it when you were out traveling?" Bob asked.
I shook my head, not looking at him. "I wasn't trying that hard to find another teacher," I admitted.
There was a long pause, and when I glanced at Bob, he looked curious and surprised. "And why not?" he asked finally.
"Because I already had one," I said simply.
"One who wasn't even alive, Harry," Bob said in a low tone. "While your loyalty is touching, you shouldn't have let it get in the way of advancing in your magical training. You needed someone who could teach you through hands-on training, and I couldn't do that for you."
"Yeah, well, I had other things on my mind that I was dealing with, so looking for someone to replace you wouldn't have worked out that well anyway," I said firmly. "Now, what was the deal you and Mai came up with? She used the sword on you, and in return, you made another sword for her? Did she say what kind of sword she wanted, or why?"
Bob watched me for a while, blue-green eyes intent until he seemed to have come to a decision. "She asked for another dragon-slayer, and no, she didn't say why she wanted it. I assume it's to kill another dragon."
"What was so special about the sword she used to bring you back?" I asked. "Yeah, it was the sword you used on her, but you could've used any sword, right? Why would she have that one?"
"You must understand, Harry, I was the first person to actually injure her. If it had been possible, I would have killed her myself that day," Bob replied, and for some reason, I was suddenly struck by just how dangerous Bob must have been. He had been my age when he'd forged a magical sword designed to kill dragons, and it had worked. Talk about humbling. "And even if destroying the weapon which had hurt her so long ago weren't enough, I'm sure she felt a certain amount of smugness when she destroyed what had been my magnum opus before I turned to the Darker arts."
"Your great work?" I asked, confused. I knew I had translated the Latin correctly, but I hadn't thought about wizards having magnum opii before. Magnum opuses? It was something like that. Bob always corrected me on my conjugation, but it never stuck.
Bob nodded, leaning back on the stool as best he could without tipping over. "Yes. It had a number of spells woven into the blade, half of which I can't remember off the top of my head." He glanced up at me with a rueful smile. "It had been a work of art."
"When did you meet Winifred?" I asked, wondering if he would answer or not.
"A few years after my encounter with Mai, I believe," Bob said slowly. His smile had disappeared, replaced by a nostalgia that didn't look pleasant. "It's one of the times in my life when I can't remember details too clearly, so I try not to."
Open mouth, insert foot. Bob never talked about his past much when I was his student, and he had been just as close-mouthed when I was his guardian than before, so asking him questions about Winifred was probably poking at old wounds. "Sorry," I muttered sheepishly.
He shook his head. "You weren't responsible for my memory loss, Harry." He frowned, and I could see him mentally switching gears. "Mai wanted to keep me in the forge until her replacement sword was finished, and from what she had said to me while we were negotiating, she hinted at the possibility of more weaponry to be made for her personal use."
I frowned. "She wouldn't have been able to keep you a secret forever," I protested. "I mean, even if I hadn't gone to anyone on the High Council about your kidnapping, I would've tangled with her sooner or later."
"And then your death would have been ruled as self-defense," Bob half-snapped, "and with Mai's reputation among the Council, I daresay she wouldn't have found herself under the Doom of Damocles."
I bristled. "Hey, don't forget that I've managed to stay alive this long."
"By sheer dumb luck, yes," Bob said, a sneer in his voice. "I would rather there be more planning involved in my defense, and less heart-stopping terror when I try to ascertain whether or not you survived a fight against a dragon that is at least as old as I am, if not older."
"Either way," I said firmly, trying to cut him off before he could get into a rhythm, "she wouldn't have been able to keep you a secret forever. She wanted a sword from you, so she's probably going against another dragon, and she wanted some kind of protection." I frowned when something occurred to me. "If that sword had been your masterpiece, why would she have used it on you so that you could make another one?"
"Oh, I don't know," Bob said in a deceptively mild tone, looking nonchalant. "I might have mentioned that such magic degrades over time, and if she had been trying to use it on her real opponent like she had on the snake in Undertown, she would've found it... less than effective, shall we say?" He raised both eyebrows at me and somehow managed to look innocent and incredibly evil at the same time.
There's a reason I've been in love with the man for a little more than twenty years.
I nodded, trying to look serious and not succeeding. "Enchanting items is dicey at best. You never know when it's going to crap out on you."
Bob nodded solemnly. "Indeed."
We traded a grin before Bob said, "You do realize it's going to be difficult, don't you? I already have the reputation of being a necromancer with the power to drive masters to madness, and Mai used my capture and execution to ingratiate herself with the High Council of my time."
I nodded, my smile slipping. "I know."
"You also know that you don't have to do this," Bob said, his voice gentle. "You don't have to side with me."
I snorted. "I'll assume that you forgot that I have nearly as shitty a reputation as you do among the Council."
"Your uncle's death was an accident," he said. "I knew exactly what I was doing when I brought Winifred back to life."
"I had the voodoo doll in my hands," I reminded him. "And I really didn't give a damn if Justin was hurt or killed at that point."
Bob pursed his lips, and then asked me suddenly, "When did you think of the idea to use the voodoo doll on Justin? Before that night?"
I blinked. "I didn't even know he had my father's ring before then, or the voodoo doll, for that matter."
Bob nodded, steepling his fingers and propping his elbows on the table as he glanced at me. "All right, so after you discovered the voodoo doll. What were you thinking of when you used it on him?"
I felt my shoulders tensing up. "I don't know."
"Were you thinking of getting revenge for your father's murder? Did you want to interrogate your uncle to discover why he'd done such a thing?"
"I guess..." I said slowly, but Bob kept going as if I hadn't said anything.
"Perhaps you wanted to watch him as he writhed under your control," Bob suggested, his eyes like lasers zeroing in on me. "Press the ring to the doll's chest, and watch as your uncle struggled for breath, feeling his frantically beating heart in his chest like a caged bird trying to escape a cat."
I shook my head. "It wasn't like that."
"It wasn't?" he asked mildly, the intense look replaced with mild curiosity. "Then you have your answer."
I snorted. "It wasn't that simple, Bob."
"It never is," he said. "But... there are times when it can be." He looked away from me to examine his fingernails. "When you've deliberately set out to murder someone, you'll understand the difference. The only trouble is that the High Council didn't know what you were thinking the night your uncle died."
It took a moment for what he said to actually register in my mind, but when it did, I stopped cold. There were times when I could forget the fact that Bob had hurt other people before. When he first told me about necromancy, I had figured that breaking the Fifth Law of Magic, the one about not bringing people back from the dead, was such an important one that Bob had been used as an example to any other would-be necromancers. A few months after dealing with Sharon, I'd found out the hard way just how Bob had brought his lover back to life. He'd died to protect me, sure, but it had been a sobering experience to nearly die because of something Bob had done.
Trying to imagine Bob bringing Winifred back not once, but several times from the way he'd said it when he told me about it... it was hard. I'd gotten so used to him being my teacher, my friend, the man I'd had a crush on and eventually fell in love with. It sounds cheesy, but I couldn't imagine him planning to murder someone, despite the fact that he'd murdered my uncle right in front of me. I could say that he'd done it to protect me, and I'd be right, but the look on his face when he'd done it.... I recognized that look, that sense of unimaginable power at my fingertips.
I've done black magic before. It's not pretty.
Seeing the look on Bob's face, the easy way that he talked about ending people's lives-- I wanted to shake him. I wanted to yell at him, do something.
And then I realized that I could.
I reached out and grabbed his hand, my palm right on top of the fingernails he'd been idly examining. It was a weird grip, but I could feel warm skin and small, trimmed fingernails.
Bob jerked his gaze up to meet mine, and I didn't look away fast enough.
Society has raised people to look each other in the eye when they're talking to each other, but imagine walking up to someone and staring them straight in the eye without ever looking away. Even if Miss Manners says it's polite, it's disconcerting as hell. Now, because wizards have trained themselves to look at the world from angles that your regular joe has never fathomed before, meeting someone's gaze for longer than a minute triggers what's known as a soulgaze. When a wizard looks someone in the eye, he can see their soul laid bare, but they can also see his in return. No stone is left unturned, no secret left unseen. It's also something neither of them can ever forget. They can try to put it out of their minds, but if something reminds them of it, or they think back to the incident, the details are just as clear as if it had happened moments ago.
Let's just say that I don't look people in the eye very often.
The soulgaze I shared with Bob was... intense. Most soulgazes are, but this was a guy I'd been in love with for a little over twenty years. It kind of makes the experience a little different than if it were someone involved with a case.
For a second, I'd thought that everything had gone pitch black, but then I saw two lovers standing in a clearing, dressed in clothes that Ren Faire aficionados would have killed for. One of them was obviously a younger Bob, complete with dark, curly hair. The woman in his arms was a little shorter than him, with brown hair and large brown eyes. As I watched, they murmured to each other, smiling and holding each other close. Finally, as Bob leaned down to kiss her, I could see his lips start to smoke, and as the kiss continued, Bob literally caught fire, his hair turning white, his clothes and body blackening.
The immolation must have taken only seconds to complete, but it felt like a lifetime went by before his skeleton had charred into so much ash. The woman who'd been kissing him closed her eyes, a look of wonder and joy on her face as her hair was caught in a gentle breeze. As I watched, the ashes that Bob had disintegrated into started to glow, kicked up by the breeze until they swirled around her like a black tornado.
It reminded me of the black smoke that he'd used whenever he disappeared into his skull.
Movement out of the corner of my eye drew my attention to people walking out of the trees, staring at the woman and the swirling cloud of ashes. As they got closer, I saw that they ranged from just barely in their twenties to old men and women. There were more than twenty-five people standing around them, because that was when I had lost count.
The woman's wild joy ended sharply as an arrow thudded into her chest with sharp finality. Her eyes widened, and she fell to the ground, the wet grass soaking her dress. The burning embers stopped for a moment, and then swirled around the arrow, as if not sure what to make of it before the arrow disintegrated. Then the ashes began to circle around the dead woman, faster and faster until they set fire to the grass around her. The fire grew larger and hotter as I watched, and it engulfed the onlookers in seconds.
The woman on the ground opened her eyes once, and then closed them again with a wavering sigh.
The ashes swirled around her, burning hot and bright before growing dim, and as they grew dim, the air around me grew dimmer until all I could see was black.
It wasn't the darkness of black magic. It was emptiness. Loneliness. Despair.
Somewhere in the darkness, very far away from where I was standing, I could see a small spark start to glow.
And then Bob jerked his eyes away from mine.
"Harry," he began, but I let go of his hand.
"Sorry," I muttered.
Hell's bells, I'd been such an idiot. That spark had been hope and love, a literal light in the darkness of his soul. Bob was the kind of man who would kill to protect those he loved, who would die to ensure that who he loved would live on. What blew me away was that he wouldn't stop at killing someone or dying himself to do it.
People give themselves over to the Black for a variety of reasons. Usually, they think it's because black magic will give them unimaginable power, or that it's the only way to get what they want. Most of the time, when people use it for the first time, they want more. Black magic feeds off of the darker emotions -- fear, hatred, despair -- and when you open the door, it doesn't stop with just walking inside. It moves right in, makes itself at home, and consumes you until there's nothing left.
Sometimes, people think they can flirt with dark power, and when they get what they want, they'll be able to pull themselves back in time. Those guys usually end up becoming the most dangerous kinds of dark wizards, because they don't realize that they've become evil until they'd already murdered countless innocent people and were wondering why they didn't feel more bothered by the idea of eating babies, or whatever.
The whole point is that you don't give yourself over to the Black because your lover was murdered, and you missed her.
Bob did it because when Winifred died, there had been nothing else for him. He didn't give a damn about the consequences, and he was smart enough not to get caught until over twenty-five people had been murdered. She had been the love of his life, and I knew that he would mourn her until he was allowed to see her again on the other side.
I knew he loved me. That tiny spark at the end of the soulgaze had been the hope I'd given him. But, now that I knew just how deeply Bob had felt for Winifred, trying to compare how he felt about me to that would be apples and oranges.
Bob had killed my uncle to save my life, and he'd died to make sure that Justin had disintegrated right in front of me. He'd broken laws of magic in order to keep me safe, but I knew that Bob would never throw himself into the Black for me without hesitation. Part of me was glad that he never would, because it scared the hell out of me to know that he went that far for Winifred. Some of those faceless victims had been ripped apart by the fire before they'd finally died.
"Harry," Bob said again, his voice sounding choked. I looked at him, only to find his eyes shining with tears as he looked at me. "Wait, please."
I heard the phone ring in the other room, and I stopped myself from breathing a sigh of relief. Saved by the telephone. "Sorry. Have to get that." Without waiting for him to respond, I left the lab and headed for the kitchen phone. "Dresden."
"Hoss, good," Ebenezar grunted, his voice louder than usual. Damn phone. I winced, and held it a little away from my ear. "The Council's assembling, and they should be there in a few days."
"The Council?" I said intelligently.
I heard Ebenezar sigh over the line. "Didn't you just call me yesterday saying that Mai stole Hrothbert's skull from you?"
"Bob," I corrected him.
"What?"
I blinked, and then realized what I'd said. "Um, never mind. Yes, I did call, and it's okay now. Bob's back."
"Hoss," Ebenezar said slowly. "What happened?"
I winced. He only ever pushed if it was important, and summoning the entire High Council counted. "Mai brought him back to life, and I took him home with me."
There was silence on the end of the line.
"Um, Ebenezar?" I asked, a bit worried.
"Hell's bells, Harry," Ebenezar swore. "You don't do things in half measures, do you?"
"What?" I asked, a bit nervous. "Look, Ancient Mai was the one who--"
"Made Bob mortal," Ebenezar finished for me. "I know. You just said. I meant your habit of getting into trouble. How's Bob doing?"
I blinked. It seemed an odd question for him to ask. "Um, he's okay."
"Can I speak with him?" he asked.
I blinked again. "What?"
"Damn phones," Ebenezar muttered before raising his voice. "I said I want to speak with him! Put him on the phone!"
I winced, and then turned toward the lab. Bob was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, watching me curiously. His cheeks didn't seem as flushed as they were a minute ago, and any trace of potential tears was gone. He shot me a puzzled frown.
"Phone for you," I said, offering him the phone.
Looking completely bewildered, Bob stared at the phone before taking it and holding it up to his ear. "This is Bob." His eyes met mine, shooting me a curious look. Now that we'd soulgazed, we wouldn't have to worry about it happening again. One per customer, and it's something that I wouldn't be able to forget until the day I died.
I waited for Ebenezar's reply, but when I didn't hear anything, I mouthed, "Did the line disconnect?"
Bob shook his head, and then narrowed his eyes, listening to Ebenezar. "If you could hold on a moment?" He turned to me. "I need paper. Quickly."
If someone had told me that there would be a day I'd be looking for paper and a pencil so that Bob could jot down notes, I would've laughed in their face. It would've been a sad laugh that hurt inside, but I would've still laughed. As it was, I ducked into the lab and got some spare paper that wasn't completely covered with sigils and math and one of my golf pencils, and came back. He nodded, leaned a hip against the counter closest to the phone, and took down notes, all the while nodding and making affirmative grunts. There were a few times when he started to ask a question, but he never got more than a few words out before Ebenezar cut him off again. Since he didn't look annoyed at the interruptions, I assumed that whatever Ebenezar was telling him, he was interested in enough not to let annoyance distract him. There were a few times when his eyebrows jumped up, and he looked mildly surprised, but he didn't do anything else besides make a surprised grunt. When he was finished, he asked, "Do you wish to speak to Harry again?"
He paused, and then held the phone out to me. "Here."
I took the phone from him. "It's me."
"All right, now I've given Bob some details that'll help him out when you two are in front of the Council. Mai's a tricky customer, but since she started this mess by stealing Bob's skull away from you, you should be okay on that front."
I nodded on auto-pilot. "What's going to happen to Bob?"
"If you play your cards right, Bob won't get stuck back in his skull right away," Ebenezar grunted. "With all the trouble that's going on with Luccio right now, he might be able to stay mortal for a while."
"Luccio?" I frowned. I had met the Captain of the Wardens once, and that had been when the disciples of a necromancer named Kemmler had been duking it out to take his place. The fact that they'd been using Chicago as their wrestling ring while they did it hadn't sat too well with me, and the Wardens weren't all that pleased either. During the fracas, Captain Luccio had her body possessed by a disciple known as the Corpsetaker, and when I had killed the Corpsetaker in her body, she'd been left in the loaner permanently.
"What happened to her?"
"I already told Bob about it, he can explain," Ebenezar said. "I still have some calls to make, but when I find out anything else that can help you, I'll let you know."
I blinked, a bit surprised by the lack of explanation. I was doing a lot of blinking today. At least my eyes wouldn't get dried out. "Okay, sir. Thanks." The phone clicked, and I shot Bob a curious frown. "What happened to Luccio?"
While I had been talking to Ebenezar, Bob had sat himself down at the kitchen table and was reading over his notes, eyes narrowed. As he answered, he didn't look up from the paper. "Apparently, when she tried to return to her work of forging swords for the recently-trained Wardens, she was unable to do the job properly. Most likely due to the level of power her new body has, compared with her old one."
I winced. "Great. I blow the whistle on Mai kidnapping you, and it's going to turn into an inquisition because I accidentally killed the High Council blacksmith's body."
"Bladesmith," Bob corrected me mildly, "but that's neither here nor there."
I walked around the table so that I could read over Bob's shoulder. "What did Ebenezar tell you?"
"Quite a bit, actually," Bob answered cryptically, but he obligingly held up the paper so that I could see what he'd written. It was a strange role reversal, but one that I didn't mind. While intellectually, I was positive that Bob saw me as no more than an adopted son, I could still feel his physical presence brush against my aura with a small thrill of excitement. The tingle of his magic in his aura stroking against mine, almost melding with it, felt warm and comfortable in a way that surprised me.
I shook my head. Concentrate, Harry.
The paper, filled with my cramped writing in the margins and Bob's neater handwriting in the middle, didn't say too much. There were a few things that didn't make much sense, like "psychology" and what looked like a formula. "Stipend" made my eyebrows lift, but Bob set the paper back down on the table. He looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at me.
"Are we going to talk about the soulgaze at some point?" he asked.
I frowned, a bit nonplussed by the question. "Do we need to? We're wizards, we had one, it finished."
Bob sighed, looking annoyed. "Soulgazes are never that simple, Harry."
I snorted. "How many people have you soulgazed before?"
"Quite a few," he murmured, his eyes narrow. "We're going to have to talk about it at some point."
"Why?" I asked. I righted myself and leaned against one of the counters, folding my arms across my chest. Defensive? Sure. But this was one conversation I could live without.
"I beg your pardon?" Bob asked, looking confused.
"I asked why," I said. "Why do we need to talk about it?"
Bob frowned. "Aren't you the least bit curious what I saw?"
"Nope," I said quickly. I didn't want to think about what kind of soul could make seasoned law enforcement shout that they didn't believe in Hell. People fainting, or going pale, I could deal with. But when someone dangerous enough to give me nightmares for weeks was scared of what he saw inside of me, I figured it was better not to know what was lurking in the darker parts of my soul.
"You don't believe that," Bob protested.
"Try me," I said, walking over to pour myself a glass of water and drinking half of it in one go.
Bob stood up to stand next to me. "Harry."
"Still not interested," I said, looking over at him. "Don't you have a Council meeting to prepare for?"
Bob narrowed his eyes at me. "This isn't the last we're going to speak on the subject, Harry. After the meeting with the High Council concerning my employment, we're going to talk about this."
I nodded. "Sure, Bob. Whatever you say."
Bob stared at me for a long moment, and then sighed heavily. "You're an infuriating man, Harry."
I Spocked an eyebrow at him, and smirked. "I know."
END
***
This way to the prequel, Finders Keepers.
This way to the sequel, Plain Sight.
And if you're just plain lost, here's the table of contents.
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Date: 2008-10-09 06:27 pm (UTC)We (and Harry) will learn what Bob saw in the soulgaze soon enough. *nod*
As for writing fast, I'll have to see what I can do. ;)
Glad you enjoyed!