to the little room with the broken faucets

[forzare]

Who: Harry Dresden & John Marcone.
When: The morning after this mess.
Where: The Tower Apartments.
Summary: John finally comes back.
Warnings: Maybe language. Will update as necessary.


The thing about the Darkness? It's the biggest legitimate threat he's met, this side of the Queen of Air and Darkness herself. Irony abounds. The warnings, helpful words and chill that permeates the night had forced him to retreat. The blow to his ego was expected, but still hard. It meant he couldn't go out there, it meant he had to entrust that the vanilla mortal he'd arrived with would fare better. Be smarter, wiser, more resourceful. Things that John Marcone was, without a doubt.

Even still, Marcone was his only tie to home, to Chicago and matters left behind and unsettled and on the edge of total breakdown.

Harry didn't sleep at all, perched on the edge of his bed in their apartment, worrying at anything and everything he could get his hands on. Resisting the urge to fire off another string of tempestuous and freakishly frantic messages to his companion. He did not do waiting well, that was for sure. Paranoid practitioners tended to think on the side of "potentially catastrophic" or "worse-case scenario". It leaves him twitchy and agitated, watching the apartment door with the air of someone about to lunge out the moment morning broke.

For that matter - it was.

Comments

[forzare]

Harry is fantastic at missing out on what's right in front of his nose, but making up for it in the long run. That's part of why he's known as a loaded gun, just point and shoot. His strong suit is the safety features he's installed on himself (control issues, his stark morality) and the fact that he'll see the situation completely in the end. He might even catch up with the bullet. For someone particularly easy to rile and soothe, he is just as good at subtle, unconscious manipulation games. A man with power and a strange charisma - just look at his allies, just look at his enemies.

Look at John Marcone, for that matter.

It's at the point that John makes his actual demand that Harry drops his arms and turns sideways, stepping into the other man's space with hackles raised but... comfort in the corners his eyes. He takes comfort in their exchanges, as it's something that hasn't changed, even though their setting has. "Pretty please," he growls, low and deep and clearly forcing the words out. That's what John wants, after all. That's what he wanted years ago, but Harry had chosen to cuss him out instead because he knew John would do what he was asked to anyways.

It's a madness in him too, because all the dark, spiteful energy dissipates when he puts something saccharine and charming into his words and reaches for the hair in John's hand at the completion of his request: "With that goddamn cherry on top."

[freeholding]

And that...

It is a visage that John has only imagined before. His mind is like a steel trap, trained to remember every thing he sees in case it could be of use later. He has seen Dresden with a cocksure smile and hate burning in his eyes. He's seen him laid on the shore, breathing hard with skin damp from river water. He's seen his face set for battle, the unshakable focus, like fire given consciousness. He's seen him laugh cruelly and seen him stare with wonder at a display of John's dexterity.

Snapshots and images that John has held over the years.

This is new. Dresden's eyes are at peace, but that drive is still there, and the angle of his smile is mocking, promising all kinds of damage. He is a burning match, and John feels very much like something volatile. It could take as little as a brush of skin to set them alight...

He is forgetting himself. This is not his estate in Winnetka, a solid mile from anyone else, and this is not his penthouse on the Gold Coast where it is just him, a tumbler of something expensive, and the city. This is a cramped apartment that he must share with Dresden, who knows him all too well for him to let his mind wander.

His indulgence is that he grabs Dresden's hand, opens the palm and presses his strands of hair there. Like this, his thumb can press subtly against the pulse there as he meets the wizard's gaze dead-on.

This is what unobservant people think: that a heart can skip a beat. Not so. But it feels like it does when it first begins to race.

"It is forever a pleasure doing business with you, Warden Dresden," John says in a quiet tone that is the more urbane cousin to the rumbling growl Dresden gives him.

[forzare]

If the thumb pressed against his wrist is seeking evidence, then John won't be disappointed. Harry is notorious for using his emotions as a weapon - not at hiding them, disguising them or lying about them for what they are. There's a lot of heavy-duty lockdown he'd have to do to prevent them from being what they are, and on display for all to see - and that's just not in his nature. It takes a moment though (that flicker of a moment where his eyes dart to where their hands are flattened one to the other and isn't that so like a mirror what are they really to each other?), but his eyes travel back to John's, and settle there.

Every time is like the first time. All he has to do is look at the edges of those green eyes, and he remembers the edges of John's soul. Sharp as a knife, blurring into infinity like some insurmountable odd. You can't climb that mountain and claim it in your name, all you can do is huddle at the base and pray the man will be merciful when the avalanche occurs. And you know it's all your fault when you're buried, and you suffocate under the weight of his goddamn person. Harry doesn't flinch, but John must be satisfied, because Harry's pulse begins to hammer under his thumb.

Not one to back down, he pulls his mouth up into a wide smirk and replies in kind: "Don't oversell it, Marcone." Using the exact tones and words that John had used on him earlier, of course. Harry curls his fingers securely around the hair, and moves vicously: molten rock over a gentle slope as he pulls back.

[freeholding]

For a moment, he is sure he has shown his hand. Not that he has gone out of his way to hide it; he has always treated Dresden... in a different manner than he would his other rivals, but Dresden has appeared blissfully ignorant. And earlier, John was not subtle about using his, say, force of personality on the boy at the restaurant. This is a somewhat more extreme instance, with John's exhaustion and the new-found familiarity with Dresden making him sloppy.

But... John decides that he doesn't particularly care if Dresden manages to figure it out. So long as it doesn't dissolve the wizard into a stuttering mess of aggressively heterosexual panic, it doesn't matter.

John steps away, smirking still. "Well then. That's settled. You can stalk me as you please." The idea of Harry following him around, particularly into the places where John has a drink and evesdrops on the patrons, is ridiculous. As if Dresden would know how to comport himself in a club.

"If there's nothing else, I haven't slept in a rather long time."

[forzare]

And whoosh, right over the top of his head. Harry misses the point, and the point lets out a faint whee as it sails off into the distance and the wizard doesn't seem to be concentrating on putting two-and-two together. He's living in a little bower of ignorance. It's safer there.

"Ha ha," Harry mutters, closing his fingers around the hairs carefully. That was one problem down. At least now he'd be able to track Marcone down, in case there was a Situation like the one just now. It put him at relative ease - the idea of doing something unwholesome or unsavory with it simply did not occur to him. For starters, Harry wasn't the sort who pulled covert assassinations. He was a student of the school "you'll be awake, you'll be facing me, and you'll be armed". A painfully noble trait, and not the most intelligent when dealing with a man as cunning as Marcone.

"Go get some sleep," he finally replies, and glances up - almost ready to say something more. Instead, Harry just flaps a hand and wanders off towards their battered couch to crash for an hour or two.

[freeholding]

Already, John can see something calm in Dresden. He has the token he wants and it was paid for, in his mind. It is as much a relief for John; living in close quarters with Dresden has not been the smoothest process, and has required no small amount of handling.

This has perhaps been handling the wizard as well, but that's fine. Anything so they don't have to replace any more lightbulbs. And the quite reassurance that should he fall, Dresden will at least know... it's worth the hair.

"Sleep well," John says, and excuses himself to his room, closing the door behind him and at last going to bed.