Title: Sympathetic Magic

Author: Nemo the Everbeing

Rating: NC-17

Summary: So the world was ending, and I had to choose between murder and gay sex to save it. My life is so weird.

Author's Note: Written to convince a friend that book!verse Dresden files was every bit as slashtastic as the television show. Supposed to be a PWP. Yeah, those always go so well for me.

Disclaimer: They belong to Jim Butcher. I mean no offense and no infringement.

oOo oOo oOo oOo

The world was exploding. I know it feels like that happens every other week for me, but this was way too literal and way too scary not to take really, really seriously. Everything in Chicago seemed to be burning or near to. There was panic in the streets; there was panic in city hall; there was pretty much panic everywhere. It was like the Great Fire was back with a vengeance and we hadn't learned anything the first time around.

Of course, the real cause was magical. It always is. Long story short, some asshole decided to douse the whole city in the equivalent of a magical acid bath, poking holes through our reality and into something terrible. Fires and monsters were spilling out, and everyone who had ever been clued into the supernatural had taken up arms in defense. Or, you know, run away. There were quite a few of those.

Please understand, only under such apocalyptic circumstances could anything this crazy have ever happened. Even when I skidded into my apartment with John Marcone, Cujo Hendricks and Sigrund Gard on my heels, I never expected things to get so weird. I know I should have seen weirdness coming. You don't use a couch to barricade yourself against the tentacled horror with mobsters checking their semi-autos at your back without some indication that things were about to take a left turn at normal.

But John found me when the world was ending, and he expected that I could mend reality. I wouldn't have even let them into my place if I wasn't a big softie about people dying on my doorstep. So I opened the door and just knew they'd get mobster all over my rugs.

So there I was, in my lab, hearing our local mafia kingpin and his two top bodyguards upstairs, banging around making impromptu fortifications. Marcone had made it pretty clear he expected me to pull a rabbit out of a hat on this one. I really wanted to tell him where he could stick his rabbit, but I'm not quite so petty as to destroy the world to get one over on Johnnie. I still told him to blow me, but that's par for the course.

"Come on, Bob," I shouted over a rumbling explosion from somewhere outside. "Work a little faster here. Spells to repair the fabric of reality can't be that hard to come by."

"Oh, yeah," he grumbled from his shelf, his skull rattling as the explosions got closer, "I just leave 'em laying around. Why don't you check the bathroom? I might have left one in there for a little light reading."

"Bob, if you don't come up with something the whole city's going to burn."

"Really, Captain Obvious? Look, Harry. Sure there are spells to do what you want, but they require way more power than you've got on hand."

"What about soulfire?"

"No good. Even with what you're packing, it isn't going to be enough. What you really need is a ritual. Something to give you more bang than your buck normally has. Something to whip up, and with a few words at the end the whole city gets a nice metaphysical patch job."

"Okay, come up with a ritual." And pray there was enough time. Rituals felt like they took forever even on days when the world wasn't ending.

Bob rattled on his perch while he thought. "Okay, um . . . okay, given what we have right here . . . no, you don't have nearly enough mirrors for that . . . and not enough tar for that . . . aha! Wait, you wouldn't go for that one."

Apparently he'd missed the desperate-and-will-try-anything look I'd plastered on my face. "What? What wouldn't I go for? Because at this point I'd say that anything is on the table."

Bob looked shifty, which is a rare talent for a skull. "Well, you've got the Freeholding Lord of the city upstairs, right?"

"You want him in on a ritual?" I tried to imagine convincing Marcone to paint himself blue and chant with me or something. Pretty sure I'd get a knife through my windpipe for my troubles.

"You've got to admit, Boss, the symbolism there is pretty strong. Get him in on the right ritual and you not only repair the fabric of Chicago's reality, you give it a good renovation on top of it."

"Great, so why wouldn't I go for that? A little public humiliation for Marcone and my day's looking up."

Was that pity I saw in his flamey little eyes? Bob doesn't do pity, and that scared the crap out of me. "We're not talking about public humiliation, Harry," he said.

I didn't want to ask, but I'm dumb, and I had to know. "What are we talking about?"

"Talk him down here. Play on whatever trust you've got going between you. Sweet talk him. Make promises. Doesn't matter what. You won't be keeping them. Once you've got him alone, he's just one more vanilla mortal."

Oh. Oh . . . "Bob," I started to say, but didn't know what should come after that.

"Slit his throat, fast and clean. The blood and energy would be more than enough for any spell you could name."

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. I tried to wrap my head around it, and, failing that, managed to breathe, "What?"

"Human sacrifice, Boss. You'd be amazed how much energy you can get out of one death." He sounded cold, detached, almost what he'd sounded like when he'd been forced to remember everything he'd done for Kemmler.

I looked up at the trap door. I had never liked Marcone. I hated his business. I hated the crime and the drugs and everything he stood for. He was an asshole who didn't think twice about trying to buy my loyalty. He was smug, superior, and way too cocky for a vanilla mortal running around my big, dangerous world. He was the mafia kingpin of a city that was drowning in corruption, and he took pride in his work.

He was going to die for this city eventually. Why not make it now?

But he had this thing about innocents. I'd seen him willing to die to save the life of a little girl. I'd seen him fight with no hope of gain beyond the protection of innocent lives. And as much as I hate to admit it, Chicago could do a lot worse for the guy on top of the criminal heap. I'd seen some of the alternatives, and they weren't pretty.

But he was still criminal scum, and all options were on the table. The fact that he wasn't a straight-up black hat didn't make him one of the good guys by any stretch of the imagination. I could kill him. I had to have that in me if push came to shove. I wasn't a nice guy, either.

I tried to picture it. We've built a tentative trust between us, like Bob said. He'd come down if I told him the city was on the line. He'd even leave Hendricks and Gard up top. It would take seconds if I could catch him unawares, which was questionable. Guy's got eyes like a hawk and reflexes that make cats envious. But if I was careful, if I planned it right, I could pull it off and cast my spell before Hendricks tried to take me apart. And I'd have to kill Cujo and Gard to get out of the apartment. That was three deaths, but they weren't great people either.

So why did I feel like I was casting myself as the villain of this piece?

"Come up with something else," I said, my voice so harsh I could barely recognize it.

"Okay, Boss," Bob said, his own voice soft and meek.

A few more tense minutes passed, and I heard the people upstairs slowly fall quiet. I wondered if the crisis was over, or if this was just the eye of the storm.

"Um, Boss?"

I turned to Bob. "You've got something?"

"Yeah, I do, but I'm pretty sure that you'd prefer the human sacrifice thing."

I couldn't even imagine. My voice was full of trepidation when I asked, "What is it?"

"Well, you have enough crystals laying around to capture and hold a lot of energy, so I was thinking of a more sustained activity that you could take the energy from and just, you know, release it all in one go."

"Like what?" I asked, now definitely certain I didn't want to know.

"When it comes to humans creating energy, nothing quite beats sex," he said, sounding forcibly cheerful.

"Sex," I said, trying to wrap my brain around it. I mean, I'd suspected something like that, but to have it dangling between us was way too much.

"Yup."

"With . . . with Gard, right? Which is sort of terrifying, but I could manage it. I mean, she's a good looking lady . . . if very tall . . . and with an axe. You don't mean . . ."

"I do mean, Boss. I really do. Like I said, the symbolism is pretty powerful. You're the Head Warden of the region and the unofficial protector of the city. He's the Freeholding Lord and official protector of the city. Get the two of you together and sympathetic magic is more than a cliché."

My brain heard the words, but didn't process them. "Sex with Marcone," I said. I tried to imagine it. Hell, I tried to imagine sex with a man, period. My sex life hasn't exactly been anything to write home about, and those few partners I have had have all been women.

And there I was, caught between murder and gay sex to save the world. My life is so weird.

I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. Then, before I could give myself a chance to back out of anything, I shouted up the ladder, "Marcone! Get your criminal ass down here."

There was a really satisfying silence upstairs, and I couldn't wait to see the expression on his face. It didn't disappoint in its subtle way. He came down the ladder with a tight look of irritation teasing at the edges of that blank mask he wore. His ridiculously expensive suit was smudged, and there was a smear of something right above the blaze of gray at his temples that trailed into a thin cut above one green eye.

I could see Gard's foot start to follow him, heavy combat boots with steel reinforcement.

"Uh-uh, Blondie," I said. "Marcone is really going to want this discussion to stay private."

"Excuse me?" Marcone asked, quiet and suspicious. And, okay, maybe I was acting a little guilty. I refused to let myself tense further. Any more nerves from me and Marcone was going to get both Hendricks and Gard down, and I really couldn't take that sort of humiliation.

So I was really damn proud when I sounded almost calm when I said, "No, really, trust me on this one. You don't want her down here for this."

She looked back and forth between Marcone and me, and then finally withdrew her foot and said, "I'll be waiting at the top of the ladder."

"Yeah, yeah, and you'll smite my ruin on the mountainside, blah, blah," I said. "I got it. Scoot."

She let the trapdoor fall closed. Marcone tensed a tiny bit at that, but his expression was still a study in bored neutrality. "Do please hurry this along, Mr. Dresden," he said. "The city isn't going to save itself."

"That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about."

"You have a solution?"

"Looks like."

"And you were . . . what? Hoping for a pat on the head?"

Okay, the sarcasm was kind of a relief at that moment. At least I was used to the sarcasm. It made the weird seem a little further off. "I can't do it alone," I gritted out.

He got it. "I see. And you want me to participate in some magical ceremony? A ritual of some sort, perhaps? You certainly can't expect me to cast any spells."

"Yes, ritual. And as for your participation, I guess that depends on how much you want to save the city, now doesn't it?"

He met my gaze and didn't give anything away.

I gave him a grin guaranteed to irritate. "Come on, flattened city? Really bad for business."

"Your concern is touching." After studying me for a little longer, he said, "Very well, what's your plan?"

"There are two options, actually. Neither of them are good."

"Mr. Dresden, these things very rarely are. Now stop dithering and get to the point."

He asked for it. "Option A is that I use you as a human sacrifice."

That got a reaction. Marcone had a gun in his hand faster than I could see, and it was aimed at my face. His eyes had widened, and I could see him looking around the room. He wasn't willing to kill me straight off, but he was also weighing immediate action against the fading likelihood of his beating me on my own turf. I've rarely seen him afraid, but I could see it in him right then.

"Uh, Boss?" I heard from my shelf. "Usually if you're going with that sort of plan, you don't tell the victim first. Just, you know, FYI."

"Shut up, Bob." I didn't look away from Marcone as I raised my hands very slowly. "Easy. I told you that was Option A. I've already rejected Option A, which leads us to Option B. Which, frankly, isn't a lot better, but we both come out of it alive."

That gun wasn't budging. "Talk," he said.

And staring down the barrel of a gun was not the way I figured I'd be propositioning anyone ever. But then again, this was Marcone. Would me propositioning him ever have happened any other way?

"Well," I said, "we'd . . . um . . . we'd set up a circle with crystals and things to store energy, and then . . . um . . . we'd . . . uh . . . we'd have sex. Probably . . . um, magically fueled just to give it that little extra punch. I have potions. Don't ask."

It got a blink and a jerk of that gun and I reached fast for my shield bracelet, thinking only to throw up enough of a barrier that I didn't end up accidentally perforated while Marcone got over the shock.

Which, of course, made Marcone think I was trying something. I was flat on my ass before I knew what happened, and he was standing over me. His gun hadn't wavered, but it had maybe inched closer to my mouth. I figure he'd heard of death curses, and wanted to forestall any nastiness I might get out before he snuffed me.

I didn't move. I knew it was my only chance of not dying in a pathetic heap on my lab floor. I could hear Bob rattling on his shelf.

"Mr. Dresden," I heard at length, "what you propose is not only impossible, given my position, but also unacceptable. There has to be an alternative."

"No there doesn't," Bob chimed in.

"Shut up, Bob!" I snapped. I ventured a look up, and I knew what a rabbit felt like when an eagle pinned it down. I thought back on Plan A and realized it would never have worked. Marcone would never drop his guard around me, and he would be more than willing to put one between my eyes if it came down to an 'only one of us is walking away' scenario. I'm good, but even I can't sling a spell faster than he can fire a gun. And if I did get a shield up, he'd use something with a low enough velocity to get through to me. Say, one of those knives he keeps stashed on him.

I put my hands up very slowly, palms facing away from him so he didn't think I was casting in his general direction. "Look, you wanted a solution. I'm not happy about it either, but it gets the job done. I think you'd be willing to put up with a little embarrassment to save the world."

Yeah, he didn't even twitch. "I may eschew a great deal of the machismo that is required in my line of work, Mr. Dresden, but there are certain lines I cannot cross."

"You think I'd talk about this? Newsflash, John! Neither of us really wants to do this, and neither of us is going to run around shooting his mouth off." I winced. "Figure of speech. Gun. Please. Down."

Inch by inch the gun lowered to Marcone's side, and still he stared at me, his neutrality cracking while he gave me a look a guy might give the giant, unidentified bug crawling up his pants leg. I scrambled to my feet.

For the first time since I'd met him I got to witness the spectacle of John Marcone groping for words. He opened his mouth a few times, but thought better of it until finally a single word managed to get out: "Potions?"

And, okay, that's kind of embarrassing. I looked anywhere but him when I said, "Hey, people pay good money for that kind of thing."

"What kind of thing, exactly?"

Asshole. "You know, the kind that relaxes you, lowers inhibitions, makes you friendly. Makes you more than friendly. Add a boost to stamina, and this thing is popular."

"It's a magical roofie." He sounded seriously disapproving. The guy who ran drugs for all of Chicago sounded disapproving of my lust potions. That was just great.

"What? No! I do thorough background checks before I'd ever sell something like this. Committed couples that want to try something new. That's it."

"Or unwilling partners during the end of the world, apparently."

I heaved a sigh and rested my elbows on the table where Little Chicago lived in all its smashed glory, presenting him with my side. A little lowering of the defenses had to happen on someone's part, and it seemed like it wasn't going to be his. "Look," I said. "What else are we going to do? We can't kill what's attacking us. We have to repair the very fabric of reality, and to do that we need one huge battery. You're magically tied to the city, so the resonance creates a huge jolt of power. Add me to the mix, and we'd have enough for this spell. I can't think of any other acceptable way to do this. Can you?"

I could see him thinking. He looked more human when he was flustered, and it was really nice to know I wasn't the only one who felt so completely weirded out by this whole thing.

At length he said, "If you breathe a word of this to anyone—"

"Yeah, great, concrete galoshes. Got it. Let's just do this and get it done."

"Ever the romantic."

"Kiss my ass, Schnookums."

I waved my hand in the direction of my shelves. "Grab that vial of copper filings over there and make a circle. A big one."

He gave me a double-arched brow, apparently back in control of his reactions, and then padded over to the ladder. "Miss Gard," he called up.

The trapdoor opened immediately. "Yes, Mr. Marcone?"

"If Mr. Hendricks and you could please secure all exits and guard them, Mr. Dresden and I will attempt to solve this problem. He's hit upon a rather . . . unconventional solution."

I blushed more than a little at that.

"Dare I ask?" she said.

"No, you don't," he said.

"Very well, Sir." She gave him a significant look, and over her shoulder I could see Hendricks giving me a look full of even more import. What Cujo can't say in words he more than makes up for in meaningful death-glares.

The trapdoor sounded especially loud when it shut, and Marcone didn't look at me when he grabbed the copper filings and made the largest circle possible given my floor space. After a moment's awkward consideration, I laid out my yoga mat in the middle of it. Marcone spared me one withering glance.

"Blow me," I growled.

"That's not on the menu."

I glowered, blushed, and set crystals at five points around the circle, evenly spaced like the ghost of a pentagram. Then I grabbed the finger paint I'd mixed with a few additive ingredients and started scribbling around the circle.

Bob, thank the Stars, kept his mouth shut except to add a few helpful ideas to my makeshift sorcery. It's not every day I do this sort of spell. Stars, I avoid rituals whenever possible. They're pains in the ass. While most spells can be largely improvised, rituals have to be set up just so or they don't take, and you waste a whole lot of power. Each sigil had to be invested with power to create a ritual space, and each crystal had to be tuned into that space and set to absorb. Then the spell to repair reality itself had to ring everything, ready to set off our charges with one word from yours truly. It would have taken me days to figure out on my own, and I was grateful that someone in the room knew what he was doing, even if it was a skull on my shelf.

Once I was convinced that all it needed was the willpower to close the circle and kick-start the ritual I grabbed a sports bottle from my cabinet and, after some awkward consideration, a bottle of almond oil. Pointedly not looking at Marcone, I said, "Okay, hop in the circle. Once you drink this potion you're not going to be able to think far enough to do much else."

He looked more than dubious by that point, but he edged into the circle without even a threat of violence. Then, to my shock, he took off his jacket, folded it, pulled off his tie and laid both on my lab table, the lip of which was just outside the circle's bounds. After a second he pulled off his very expensive shoes and took off his shoulder holster too. I think that might have been the hardest part for him.

I just stood there and gawped. Like a moron. To my credit, it wasn't the sort of thing I ever thought I'd see him do while I was in the same room. Or the same building. He might only take off that holster while I was out of town.

He gave me a sardonic little smile, like he'd found a new way to piss me off. "While I will acknowledge that you don't have nearly the layers I do, I would appreciate it if I wasn't the only one doing this." He undid his cufflinks, dropped them on top of his pile of clothing.

My brain was definitely stuck in first gear on that one. "Uh, what?"

He rolled his eyes, dragged me into the circle with just enough care that I didn't upset the copper filings, and then he jerked my duster off my shoulders and handed it to me. "Strip, Dresden." I just stood there, flapping my mouth like a landed fish and clutching my duster to my chest, because that list? Marcone stepped right into my personal space like this had been his idea all along, and his smile had teeth. "Oh, I do apologize, Harry. Am I moving too fast for you? Should I give you five minutes for indignation and swooning?"

Fine. He wanted to play the game that way? I could do bravado to cover up terrified embarrassment too. I caught at a wisp of magic and whispered under my breath as I passed my hand over the buttons on the front of his shirt. The thread parted cleanly and one by one the buttons fell away. His breath stuttered a little at that, and when I looked up I was surprised to see his eyes dilate.

Stars and stones, had I just found out that magic turned him on? My mind swam, and I was vaguely aware of tossing my duster outside the circle. The potion and the bottle of oil fell to the floor and rolled some distance away.

Then his hands were under my shirt and pushing it up. I figured it would get caught on my face, but he smoothed it off and made it look easy. The t-shirt ended up somewhere outside the circle, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from his long enough to check where. I was either terrified or really turned on. Maybe both. No, definitely both. I wasn't really certain what the hell was happening, but it felt like we'd been building to this since he tricked me into a soulgaze two minutes after he met me.

I shoved the remains of his button-down off his shoulders and, with a little burst of will, slammed the circle closed around us. The drain I felt was imperceptible, like sweat evaporating from your face on a hot day. I was putting out energy, but it wasn't coming back to me. More than that, and sort of unexpected, was the buzz of magic all over my skin like a faint electrical current. Under the circumstances it felt incredible, heightening any pressure on my skin, from his hands to the folds of my clothing, into something strange and erotic.

He took my moment of wizardly confusion to step back and assess me. I still had everything on from my waist downward. He still had an undershirt, trousers, socks, and a ruined button-down hanging from one wrist. He was breathing hard and his pupils were completely blown, but other than that he showed no signs of response to the circle. If he was feeling what I felt, he was a master at the art of the bluff.

"Getting cold feet, Harry?" he said, mocking.

I never could resist a challenge. I stepped forward into his space and pulled his undershirt untucked. Cotton was a hell of a feeling on my oversensitive fingertips, and I had to force myself not to linger over it. Because that would be weird.

Instead I shifted my grip under the shirt until my hands smoothed up a well muscled back. It felt like stroking velvet over steel. I explored contours of ribs and obliques before moving up to trace the shape of scapulae. Sometimes my hand ran across a smooth ridge of skin I could only assume was scar tissue. He held himself rigid when I stroked at his scars, but when I ran a fingernail along his spine he sucked in a hard breath and his eyes unfocused for a second. It was enough for me to feel like I was getting the upper hand again.

And then he growled low in his throat, dragged my head down and kissed me. Stars, I've been kissed a few times in my life by several incredible women, one of whom was a vampire at the time. I'd never felt the sort of electric jolt of adrenaline from those kisses I got from this one. Sure, a lot of that was the magic, but a lot of it was him too. Marcone kissed like he talked, all sweet persuasion thinly layered over a vicious sort of possession and domination. The alpha male in me ooked and eeked in annoyance, while some other, heretofore unknown part of me went weak at the knees.

I grabbed him by the hair and went to town.

We kissed like we meant it to hurt, like we'd taken all those instances when we'd come seconds away from tearing one another apart, and channeled them all into this clash of lips, tongues, hands and wills. I felt Marcone clutch one hand at my spine, and all that magic focused on my body's biggest bundle of nerves set off fireworks in my brain. I groaned into his mouth, really hoping that there were enough explosions outside to cover it, or that one of those 'helpful tips' Bob threw in near the end happened to be soundproofing. This was going to get awkward, otherwise.

Marcone seemed to like that I made noise. The next thing I knew he was dragging me close while his free hand tangled in my hair and jerked hard. I firmly ignored the sizzle of pleasure across my scalp and instead gave a tug of my own. Then I reached down and grabbed his ass, hauling him in close and feeling the whole hard length of him pressing against me.

It was like a bucket of ice water on both of us. We jerked apart. I stared at him, rumpled, his hair mussed and his undershirt rucked up on one side. His lips were red and swollen from kissing, color had risen to his cheeks, and his chest was heaving with sharp, panting breaths. He was about as far from that cold, self-contained mafioso as a guy could get. It made me want to knock him to the floor and see what else I could make him do, and that scared the shit out of me.

I wasn't the only one, it seemed, because he was eyeing me, and stealing glances at the holster on my table.

"Look," I said, trying to forestall any potential homicide, "that wasn't quite what we expected, but it had to head in that direction anyway, right? So we're just ahead of the game." I didn't mention the spell's effect on contact, since I didn't want to give him any more reason not to trust me. He'd never believe I hadn't done that on purpose. Instead I bent over and scooped up the potion. It was pretty damn tempting. We could blame everything on being drugged out of our gourds, and not simply having the worst taste in romantic partners ever. "Your choice," I said. "Pretty easy to dose ourselves out of any responsibility."

He looked at the potion. Again, I could see him weighing the options. Take the potion and trust that I was telling the truth and not enthralling him or poisoning him, or do this stone-cold sober and shoulder all the responsibility for any enjoyment.

Me, I was just fine with dosing us into oblivion.

Marcone took the potion from my hand, and with a flick of his wrist sent it out of the circle and out of our options. I swallowed hard. "I make my own decisions, Dresden," he said. "And I don't pass the buck."

Oh, fine. So he made it a pissing contest. "You know what, John?" I said, cupping his cheek in my hand and getting an alarmed look for all of a half-second before he quashed it. I grinned at him and said, as sweetly as I could, "Shut the fuck up."

And then I kissed him again, but I kept it deliberately light and gentle. The buzz of magic in the barely-there contact was even more intense, creating some sort of tether between our lips. I kept teasing at him, only to pull away before we could dip any deeper. I brushed at his mouth, his cheeks, even his nose in a moment of great daring. But I always came back to his mouth, where the contact made my heart lurch in my chest and my breathing go erratic. I had no idea such light kisses could heighten the feel and the anticipation so much.

I wanted to savor this. I wanted to make him feel it, if I could, on a visceral level. I'm way too old-fashioned to do the sex-without-emotion thing, and knowing that emotion flustered the hell out of Marcone? That was just a bonus. To beat a guy as smart as Marcone, you have to come at him sideways, with attacks he doesn't expect. I was willing to bet good money he never expected romance out of me, but he was damn well going to get it. Then I could win. Wasn't really certain what I was winning at this point, but like everything else between us, this was a competition and I was going to come out on top.

Marcone was not impressed by my romance-fu. "Dresden, if you could see your way to stop kissing me like a thirteen year old girl, I would take it as a kindness." Despite the words, his voice had deepened, and it rasped around the edges. He sounded like he was holding onto control with little more than his fingernails.

I completely ignored the words. "I know I've told you not to call me Harry," I murmured against his mouth, "but when we're making out? That's when you can call me Harry."

"My God, you really are a thirteen year old girl."

I pulled him close and pressed against him. I stifled the panicked response. "Don't bet on it."

His voice was harsh in my ear, his accent broadening into something you heard in the poorest Italian neighborhoods in Chicago: a hint of the immigrant accent, and a lot of street Chicago. "Then stop dicking around, Harry," he said, the vulgarity as surprising as the accent, "and fucking well kiss me like you mean it."

I bit his lower lip in my rush to give him exactly what he wanted and more. I didn't think I'd split it, but the copper on my tongue made lie of that. He didn't seem to mind. I felt his leg hook around mine and jerk. I overbalanced and fell, and only with great good fortune did I drop onto the yoga mat instead of breaking my elbow on cement and spoiling the mood. Marcone didn't check to see if I was all right, but instead launched right back into the sort of kiss that could make a guy dizzy.

He was a hard weight on me, both in the very pleasant physical sense and in the metaphysical sense. I could feel the energy we were putting off get drawn away, along with some of that solidity, that power that comes from knowing who you are and where you stand.

Or lay, as the case may be. In one of my more coherent moments, I managed to shove the undershirt over his head, yank it off him, and drop it somewhere nearby. I pulled back a second to look at him before he dragged me back into the kiss, leaving only a vague impression of well-defined muscles and an El map's worth of scars.

If I thought I'd felt that zing of magic before, the sensation of it between out chests was so intense that I nearly came in my pants. Every shift seemed full of a weird diffuse pleasure that concentrated in my nipples. I didn't remember them being erogenous zones, but they sure as hell were with a little magical persuasion. I broke the kiss, bent down, and nipped at a tendon in his neck, worrying it gently with my teeth. His head arched back, and for a second he trusted me with this.

Then he ducked back down and kissed me again, keeping my teeth away from anywhere that could damage him permanently. I felt frustrated at the loss, and at his resolute control.

I surged upward, catching him around the waist and rolling us, with every point of contact a burning brand. He growled in my ear and expertly continued the roll so that I was still on the bottom. Then he smirked at me. "Stick to magic, Harry."

Well, if he wanted it that way. I caught the barest wisp of magic and whispered, "Ventas servitas." With a twist of my hand I'd knocked him up, off, and then pinned him flat with a wind strong enough it made pushing against it like wading through molasses.

There was a flash of real fear in his eyes, a flash that told me that making him helpless was just about the worst possible thing I could do to him. Then that stone-cold mask was back in place.

"Dresden," he said, "let me up."

"Stars and stones, John, I'm not going to hurt you."

And wow, not being believed at this point in the proceedings was worse than I'd expected. I wanted to melt him. I wanted to see him give in willingly, but this? I let him go and rolled away in disgust.

"This isn't going to work," I said. "I can't do this."

He might as well have had a neon sign that said 'sarcasm' hanging over his head. "Why? Because you're not going to get your way?"

I rounded on him, glaring. "Hey, I'm not the one unwilling to have a little give to his take."

"Are you offended that I don't trust you enough to get kinky with magic?" he looked exasperated, but still in control. Dammit. "What did you expect? I'm not going to give you my complete and utter trust just because we're having sex."

"Gee, I just sort of like it when the people I'm sleeping with trust me. I'm weird like that."

He had the nerve to make it look like he was the one trying to maintain his patience. "Dresden, we're doing this to save Chicago, albeit in an unorthodox manner. Nothing more. This isn't some grand declaration of love. We're not going to go walking arm in arm off into the sunset. This. Is. A. Business. Transaction."

I felt like I'd been slapped. "Why don't you leave a twenty on the lab table while you're at it?"

He stared at me, speechless for a few seconds. His mouth worked, but no sound came out. He made abortive gestures like he was trying to show just how infuriating I was. Yeah, John, well, right back at you.

His voice, when it finally came, was low and intense. "Why must you make this more difficult than it should be?"

"Because I can't have sex with someone and have it mean nothing. Maybe you can, but I can't."

A calm settled over him and he fixed me with that faded money green gaze. "I see. Tell me, do you expect to be changed by this experience?"

"Wha—"

"No, you don't. You just expect me to change, because in your mind you're always in the right and I'm always in the wrong. Stop being such a hypocrite."

Okay, that stung. Yeah, I had kind of expected Marcone to fall for me a little. I had maybe wanted to change him, but he's the bad guy! Is that so damn wrong?

He went on. "Am I willing to have sex with you for the sake of this city? Yes, much as I'm loath to admit it, I am. It's a cheap price for the safety of thousands of people, and very preferable to being killed."

"I didn't force you into this," I whispered, hating the whole situation suddenly, just as much as I thought I might hate myself too.

"Oh, no. Because 'it's this or death' is such an equitable choice."

I felt like a complete asshole, manipulating Marcone into this corner. Stars and stones, what he was describing was tantamount to rape, and it killed any libido I might have had. I made a noise of self-disgust and reached to break the circle. "Look," I said, "I'll come up with some other way. You three can . . . you can go somewhere central, try to get as many people out of Chicago as you can. I'll stay here and clean this mess up."

His hand caught my wrist before I saw him move. "Dresden," he said. "This is still the most cost-effective option for saving the city. What does it matter that, if all things were equal, I wouldn't be here?"

I shrugged him off. "Don't you get it? I can't do this. I can't have sex with you knowing that you were coerced. I don't care if it is the end of the world. I can't."

"What do you want me to do, play pretend? We're not going to fall in love here, Harry. We won't. We can't. For God's sake, we've nearly killed one another more than once. My last lover tried to kill me. I'm not eager to repeat the experience."

I thought of Helen Beckitt, her entire world destroyed, and the object of her vengeance a man who, in his own weird way, had wanted to save her. He'd wanted to make her better, and she'd handed him over to fallen angels.

"If I promised that I won't kill you, that I won't hurt you?" I asked. "Would that change anything?"

He looked away first. "You'll break that promise. Some day I'll cross one of your incomprehensible lines, or you mine, and one of us will not make it out of that confrontation."

"You've been thinking about this a long time, haven't you?"

"It's my business to be prepared. You're my most valuable ally, and my biggest threat. You have to know that. You yourself have stated, to my face, that you want to see me in jail. But that's not the way these things work with you, is it? The villains in your life don't go to jail; they die. And eventually you will decide that I'm too much a villain to let live."

I didn't want to picture it, but I could. When I get angry, I get destructive. I can burn entire buildings down without thinking. I can kill. But when I looked at the man in front of me, I couldn't see the vampires and the ghouls and the necromancers. I saw a human being. They're different, and I really didn't think I could bring myself to kill him.

"How can you keep on living if your view of the world is so bleak?" I asked.

"Someone has to do this. You refuse to get your hands dirty enough, and so someone has to do the truly unpleasant things to keep the innocents of this city safe." He shook his head. "I chose this. I chose what I am, unlike so many of the other monsters you've fought. Eventually, you're going to decide that I'm even worse than they are. You will try to kill me. That's just who you are."

"You'll never believe that that's not true, will you?"

"I've seen the way you operate. You're too much of a moral absolutist for anything else."

I touched his face. The buzz of the magic was still there, making the contact an acute thing. He seemed shocked when I turned his head to look me in the eye. Even though we had no fear of a soulgaze happening a second time it felt strange to lock eyes with this man and not have it be a contest.

"You're right," I said. He tensed up, but before he could say anything I went on. "I can't promise that we're never going to come to blows. My temper is too chancy and you may decide that I'm too much of a liability. But even if that happens, I don't think I can kill you. I could keep you from killing me, but I haven't been able to hate you for years. If I killed you, what would happen to that little girl up in Wisconsin? You're too complicated for me to reduce you to 'just a villain' anymore, and you damn well know it."

"Don't romanticize me."

Way to kill the mood, Johnnie. "Oh, I'm pretty sure I'm never in danger of that."

He was trying to draw away, a weird look of distaste on his face. "I'm not a better man than I appear to be. I am exactly what I appear to be."

The fervency with which he'd said that, the need to believe the hype was surprising. And then it wasn't. Of course Marcone needed to believe he was a terrible person. How the hell was he going to run a criminal empire, doing all the things that a criminal empire necessitates, without believing that? Love was a weakness. Hell, even intimacy was a weakness, as Helen had so adeptly showed him. He'd tried to do right by her, and she'd nearly killed him for it. And I was a way more obvious threat.

We were at an impasse, John and I, both wanting something from the other that he couldn't give. He wanted me to let this whole emotional engagement thing slide and just have sex. I wanted to . . . hell, I wanted to save him. And both desires were equally futile.

Then I had an idea. I can't claim it was a good idea, but it was an idea.

"John," I said, "a few minutes ago you offered to play pretend."

He shook his head. "You don't want that. It'll hurt you all the more tomorrow morning."

"But it'll get me through the night."

"You will hate yourself for this, Dresden, and me as well."

It was my turn to shake my head. "No, I won't. And it's Harry, John. For tonight, if no other time, it's Harry."

He studied me, eyes flickering across my face, gauging my sincerity and my determination. I could practically feel it on my skin and shivered at the sympathetic waves tingling across me.

Then he made his decision. His expression softened into a crooked smile and he returned my touch on his face with one on mine. He looked younger, and reckless, and alive. "Harry," he breathed, and if I didn't know better I would think he actually liked me.

He kissed me as softly as I had kissed him, with a weight of desire and something like flirtation behind it. I knew it was all an act. I had just asked him for it, but some part of me couldn't help but wonder if some of this wasn't pretend. If he was just as sick of penning in his emotions as I would be in his shoes. If maybe this outlet, when he could disavow it as a lie, was the only time he could really express any honest desire.

Or maybe that was just the sort of wishful thinking he was fostering to get the job done. Whichever it was, I grasped that thread and pulled. We kissed slowly, keeping passion banked in favor of something sweeter. I felt like such a girl for indulging in this, but John was just as active a participant as I was. I tasted him with quick flicks of my tongue, never letting it be more than a tease. He tasted like expensive coffee.

"Harry," his whispered again when we came up for air.

"John," I whispered right back. I kissed him again, deepening it slowly. I wasn't even aware I was lowering him to the mat until we were horizontal. I pulled back a little and he looked at me with a hazy sort of appreciation.

"Christ, but you're gorgeous," he said.

I wanted to tell him not to sell it to the cheap seats quite yet, because I knew that was a lie. But I didn't open my mouth. I didn't want to burst this fragile illusion he'd created for my benefit. For this to really work, I had to half-believe.

So I kissed him again, hard, to shut him up. He kissed me back with just as much heat, but without that competitive edge we'd had earlier. Seemed like he'd covered that up in the make-believe too.

I had an idea. If John was willing to play a little pretend for me, I wondered if I could do the same. Nothing major, but one word? One word that just might shake things up in the best possible way? We'd established that nothing said here could be taken seriously. What did I have to lose?

I broke the kiss and looked down at him, eyes lidded with that illusion of love still in place.

"Please," I whispered to him.

His eyes went wide. For a second I was pretty sure I'd broken through both illusion and stone-cold façade to something a lot more personal. It looked a lot like shock and a little confusion and a whole lot of I-want-me-more-of-that. Seemed like I'd found the right button to push. His kiss had an edge to it and he rolled me under him.

I ground my shoulders into the yoga mat when we broke apart, and I arched my neck. I hoped I was presenting a picture of wanton desire and not making him think I was having a seizure. "Stars," I groaned. Was that my voice? Maybe I was a better actor than I thought, because I really sounded like I meant this. Which wasn't something I wanted to think about. "Please, John. Anything."

I heard a soft growl as illusion and façade cracked again, and saw just how deep that desire went, and it was all directed at me. My head swam and the sudden, terrifying thought that maybe the reason he'd fought so hard against losing himself to this was that very reaction: it wasn't that he didn't want me, it was that he wanted me too much. Hell, he'd wanted me under him in one way or another since five minutes after we met, and this suddenly seemed a lot like giving in.

Before I could put the breaks on that particular crazy train, we came crashing together. I was holding onto the illusion that I could save him in this, and he was holding onto the illusion that he finally got to see me give in. We weren't kissing like we meant it to hurt, we were kissing like we were devouring one another. There were hands at my sides, and then at my hips, and finally there were fingers working between us to unbuckle, unbutton, and, with a quick flick of the wrist, unzip. I felt the chilly air reach through my boxers and I burrowed closer.

"Not going to get your pants off if you keep that up," his voice said in my ear before he worried at the lobe with his teeth and palmed my dick.

I let out a moan that was in no way soft and reedy and in all ways girly, so it must have been some other poor bastard whose voice I could hear begging, "Oh, Stars. Please, John. Please."

I squirmed and begged as he skinned me out of my jeans. He managed some really colorful phrases when he had to take time to unlace my boots. I could hear the first hit the wall in the distance. Then the other hit, accompanied by the sound of breaking glass.

My boxers and socks had come off in the tussle, and as I lay there, some part of my brain that wasn't drooling with pleasure registered that I was naked and he was not. His eyes ranged over me with naked avarice.

It was my turn to jerk his t-shirt over his head, and then fumble at his belt, which went pretty well. Fumbling at his pants didn't go quite as well. Stupid things had inner buttons, and button flies, and too damn many buttons. Finally, in a fit of irritation, I zapped the remaining two buttons away, keeping the magic strictly under my control so as not to burn certain sensitive areas and destroy the mood for good.

He noticed. Oh, boy did he notice if the noise that tore itself free of his throat and the unguarded grind against me was anything to go on. I scraped my teeth against his throat and he made another soft noise, but this time he didn't retreat. Just for that, I gave him a hickey somewhere that his collar would cover up. Because I'm a gentleman, and unlike some guys I don't even need it in my name.

I managed to shove his pants and boxers out of the way, but I couldn't figure out how to do anything more. Between the magic and the sheer physical joy of full-frontal contact my brain was pretty much shot.

He pulled back to rid himself of the pants, and for a second we looked at each other. The brief glimpse I'd gotten was only a small extent of the scars running all over his body. I felt like I'd gotten off light, if that was what this life did to a vanilla mortal. That ragged ear of his was only the tip of an iceberg that stretched from his neck to his feet.

Although most of my scars tend to vanish after a few years I acquire enough in that time to look pretty banged up. My hand was a continued source of embarrassment, since it was nothing but a mass of scar tissue. He zeroed right in on it, lifted it and regarded the damage. I like to wear gloves, not only to cover how bad it looked, but also because the scar tissue could get sensitive on some days, so that any cold or heat or pressure was felt acutely. I didn't know what that meant, but figured it had to be some byproduct of the wizardly growing-back thing. I hadn't thought to put them on that day, since I was supposed to be sitting on my couch with a beer and relaxing. Now I just felt weird and exposed.

Then he slipped the first two fingers of that hand into his mouth and started sucking and I found a good side to having my hand burned to a crisp. Maybe blowing was back on the menu.

His eyes slitted, vivid green and intent on my face. I was gasping like I'd run a mile, and he started to get back a little of his cool.

I wasn't about to let that happen while I was still a dribbling moron, so I reached down and wrapped my fingers around his dick. John fell forward, losing his grip on my hand in that rare moment of graceless sprawl. I rolled us sideways, following him, not giving him time to think. Thinking was bad at this point. It only led to better walls.

So I stroked at him, a little clumsy. I always hated masturbation, and I wasn't in great practice. He didn't seem to mind when I licked at one flat nipple. It was going out on a limb, hoping that what worked for girls would work for him too, but from the urgent sound he made, and since he didn't elbow me in the throat, I was pretty certain that was a winner.

He hauled me back up, chest heaving and his eyes unfocused. I kissed him again, rubbing against him and planting my hands on either side of his head. We were making noises that got so mixed up in one another's mouths I couldn't tell who was making what. I felt him start to tense up and dragged myself away. That growl of protest was definitely him.

We stared at one another. Not at the scars, or at that body, but right into one another's eyes. For the first time since I'd met him, I was really happy we'd gotten that soulgaze out of the way.

"What do you want?" he asked.

In that moment I realized that I did want something from him: an indelible memory. Something that got under his skin and stuck there. And, yes, it was stupid, and yes, I did remember that all the affection was pretend and that I wasn't going to save him. None of that mattered, because, Stars, I wanted to save him. I wanted to be the hero and I wanted reality to go fuck itself. Barring that impossible dream, I wanted to give him one thing he'd never experienced before. I could guess, in what had to be a more storied sexual repertoire than mine, what he would have never let anyone do.

But approaching it was something else entirely.

In the end I couldn't think of another way to put it aside from really bluntly. What can I say? Words have never been my strong point. "I want to fuck you," I said.

He sucked in a breath and his eyes went wide.

"Please," I said. I didn't moan it. This wasn't a show. I knew exactly what I was saying to him, and somehow that seemed to catch him even deeper. "I mean it. Please."

"Jesus fuck, Harry," he said, all his newscaster perfect English stripped away in that bare moment.

"Please."

He closed his eyes, turning his head to press against the cold stone floor, then reached out, grabbed the bottle of oil and slapped it into my hand. "Fucking well do it before I change my mind," he said, harsh and demanding and scared shitless.

I admired him more than a little in that moment. Of course, most of my gray matter was occupied with the 'how' of this whole thing. In theory I knew how to go about this, sure. I did spend over a year with an incubus sleeping on my couch. But in practice that seemed suddenly like a really little hole for a not so small thing. I had no idea how to convince slot A that tab B was a workable proposition.

He was glowering at me. Shit. Well, my motto is: when in doubt, do something big and stupid. I went down on him. It definitely stopped the glower in an explosion of fervently Catholic swearing and hands firmly planted in my hair.

I can say now that it wasn't awful. It wasn't great, and I'm pretty certain I wasn't great either, but it wasn't awful. I knew that I had to keep my teeth out of the picture, and suck and lick and do all those things that I enjoyed the one and only time I'd been on the receiving end of one of these.

I oiled up my fingers while I was busy trying not to choke myself, and tried to think of the best way to approach this without fumbling horribly and convincing Marcone that the last thing he wanted to do was risk his ass in my inexperienced hands.

I was tentative as all hell when I stroked at him, just trying to gauge a reaction and figure out if he'd really let me do this. There was a sligh jump in the muscle under my fingers, which, yeah, weird. I tried again, and there was less of a jump. And even better, he hadn't knocked me back on my ass yet, so I was pretty sure that was a go. Or as much of a go as he would ever give me for something like this.

One finger ventured where no man had gone before, and then I just tried to focus on blowing him, which seemed like a hell of a lot less of a trespass when put into perspective. I just sort of let my fingers figure things out. They tended to do better without my brain, anyway.

Somehow I managed two fingers, and they apparently got sort of curious, because they found some sort of bump up there that got me another torrent of Catholic swearing. Wow, John. Way to go for the blasphemy.

"Dresden," he gritted out, "if you intend to do this, I suggest you do it now."

I pulled off him with a popping noise that made me blush all over, and clambered up his body. We were nose to nose, and I could see that his money green eyes had gone the color of grass, vibrant and alive. He was panting, his expression halfway between desire and terror.

"Right there with you," I muttered, or at least I got about half those words out before he slicked me up in the most efficient hand job I'd ever received.

And then, yeah, it was time. I shuffled forward so that my knees were spooned up under his lower back and after a second I felt his legs wrap around me. Moment of truth. I had to follow through on what I'd said I wanted, but now that I was there I was wondering exactly how long a guy like this was going to let the guy who took him up the ass during the Apocalypse survive after we saved the world.

"Dresden—" he started to say, and I pressed forward. I'm a reckless bastard.

His hands were at my sides, gripping hard enough that I knew I was going to be sporting some interesting bruises in the morning. Our eyes were locked, and I didn't dare look away. My head was spinning, my breath was ragged, and he was so amazingly tight around me. One of my hands stroked at the blaze of gray at his temple, while the other was keeping my upper body from squashing him.

The initial reaction was a jerk of pain on his end, and I froze in place. Both of us were gasping, and I could feel his fingernails bite into my flanks. I thought about telling him to breathe through it, but decided I'd rather not get gutted like a fish.

After a few minutes of harsh breathing and trying not to be soothing or caring or any of the things that the chivalrous part of me was pretty much demanding at that point, Marcone gave me a nod. I started easing forward again, and after a second's resistance I slid all the way home.

"Oh, Stars," I whispered, pressing my face against his neck and trying to get enough of my own control back that I wouldn't embarrass myself. Carefully, I pulled back, and then pushed forward with even greater care. He squirmed under me, and I pressed a kiss to his temple.

I kept the pace slow and gentle. I wanted this to be good. I wanted—

"I'm not going to break, Dresden," he said, and the raggedness in his voice me draw back to look at him. His expression was teetering on the edge of something. "And I'm not your girlfriend. Put your back into it."

I snapped my hips forward and he met me. "Do you always have to be in charge?" I asked.

His grin was sharp. "I don't have to Harry, but I always am." I moved hard against him, and he hissed. "No one ever quite seems to step up to the challenge."

Oh, it was on. We were moving against one another for a few breathtaking minutes, fingers scrabbling and clawing, and then somehow were we moving together, like every damn fight we'd ever had, that always ended with us on the same side against the things that go bump in the night. John's hand was between my shoulder blades, and his other scratched at my chest. The electric zing of pleasure drove me nuts and I was fucking him harder than I'd ever dared with any woman. The hand propping me up grated against the yoga mat, and the other hand was wrapped around his dick, jerking.

I could feel the magic binding around us. It was like ropes tying us together, running through us and around us until I could almost feel what he felt. He gasped hard, and twisted his head to one side, his eyes closed tightly and his body gone rigid in my arms before jerking hard against me. Then I was shouting, shoving myself as deeply as I could in sharp, powerful thrusts as I felt the rush of orgasm from my toes all the way to the top of my head, and then back down, building to an unbearable intensity in my groin. The explosion, when it came, burned out every fuse I had.

And it blew out all the street lamps in my block, but I wouldn't find that out until a few hours later.

My ears were ringing when my brain decided to power itself back on, and the first thing I noticed was that I was sticky. The next thing I noticed was that we were tangled up in a human pretzel of arms and legs. My natural inclination to cling in the aftermath had taken over while my mind was taking a break from the world. The air still tingled around us, the whole circle was super-charged with sex and sympathetic magic.

My knees had gone out from under me, and I managed to get them back in something like working order so I could pull out. I went slow, but there was a definite wince under me. I glanced down, and Marcone had slipped back into neutral. His expression was unreadable, even though he was totally naked, just as sticky as I was, his lips were swollen and his hair was a mess. I rolled over, muttering the incantation and tapping at the nearest crystal. The flare of power and light made me arch, almost an aftershock of orgasm in itself. I fell back, blissed out and drained. The silence above our heads was louder than the explosions, and the emptiness of the circle was like an ocean separating us from anything else.

"Dresden?" I heard after a while. I flopped my head in Marcone's direction. Any second now I was going to recover my senses and get really embarrassed about all of this, but exhaustion had trumped modesty. "I take it from that vacant look of self-satisfaction that we have succeeded in saving the city."

"John, no shop talk," I mumbled, closing my eyes and indulging in some well-earned basking. Saved the world and got laid. Go me. "Just get your ass over here. I'm cold."

After a second, I felt my duster draped over me. I cracked my eye open to see him moving to retrieve his clothing. "Really not what I was thinking."

He glanced at me, and oh boy was that mask back in place. I rolled to my feet and let the duster fall off. His eyes scanned me carefully, but I couldn't tell if it was appreciation or if he was assessing a threat. I set my jaw. I'd known this was coming, but, dammit, I wanted more than him walking out like a guilty one-night stand. Even if that was exactly what this had been. An emotional appeal was going to get me nowhere, not with him closed up as tight as he was. I had to come at him sideways again, and use logic.

"Leaving?" I asked.

"There will be a great many matters that demand my attention in the wake of this disaster," Marcone said.

I nodded, then I said, "Stay for an hour. That spell took it out of us. You're going to be no good without food, and I might be crazy, but a shower would be a good idea too." I gave him my best cheeky grin. "You look like you spent the last half hour having mind-blowing sex, John."

"Are you telling me the truth, or are you being sentimental?" He gave me a look that was definitely assessment.

"The great thing is, I can be both at once. I'm cool like that." I stepped in close to him again. "Stay, John. Just for a while."

He lifted his chin. "Come with me," he countered. "I could use some help keeping the supernatural elements of the city in check at this point. Many of them may be tempted to take advantage."

I didn't even consider it before I shook my head. Yeah, dealing with supernatural shit was my job, but if I was seen in the company of the Freeholding Lord, that was me taking a side. More sides than I was already roped into. And it was dangerously close to working for him.

He dressed himself carefully, the suit slipping on like it had never been off. The shirt, without buttons, and the pants, with only about half the buttons, were more complicated. He glanced down at the tails of his dress shirt and shook his head. "Even in this you manage to destroy my property."

I dragged on my boxers, jeans, and duster. I left the shirt in the corner. Fair was fair. "All those tiny buttons? That shirt asked for it." He glanced my way, and I swear I saw his lips quirk just a little. After a second, he left the shirt unbuttoned and untucked over his t-shirt and under his suit jacket. Dammit, he even made it look fashionable. If I'd done that I would look homeless.

"You won't come with me, will you?" he asked, doing up his cufflinks with that crazy precision I was never going to manage.

"I would if I didn't think it was about business."

"Everything is about business."

I wanted to press him on that. I wanted a straight answer about whether the last half hour had meant anything to him. But Marcone doesn't do straight answers, and he sure as hell wasn't going to be handing me ammunition I could use against him.

I leaned against the lab table. "What about a beer after the cleanup? Would a beer have to be about business?"

He opened his mouth, and then shook his head. "Yes it would. The alternative is unimaginable, given the realities of our lives." He smoothed his hair down and glanced in my direction. For a second, I thought I saw something soften in his expression, but then he iced over. "The impasse, Harry, was never crumbled. We just managed to ignore it for a time."

He made his way over to the ladder out of the lab. I watched him go. It wasn't that I wanted him to stay, but I didn't want to be alone. And he was there, and I could remember what he looked like when he wasn't so guarded. I wasn't in love with him. He was still an asshole mobster. He was still an embodiment of human suffering. But he was warm, and this place was cold and empty after everything we'd done.

I wasn't going to beg, or even ask him to stay. I'm not the brightest axe in the monkey barrel, but even I know better than to appeal to John Marcone's softer side. But I was still good at irritation. I started whistling 'Who Wants to Live Forever.'

He half-turned. "Queen, Mr. Dresden?"

"Highlander, Johnnie. There can be only one."

He looked at me again, and for a second he laughed. Really, honestly laughed. "You are a preposterous man." He climbed up and away from me, and called over his shoulder, "I'm sure I'll see you when next some megalomaniac with delusions of godhood decides to destroy my city. Until then, Mr. Dresden, it's been as much a pleasure as anything else."

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to blow me, but that sounded really awkward after I, you know, had. "See you around," I murmured instead. Marcone vanished up the ladder, and left me alone in a stone room, not wearing nearly enough.

I leaned against my lab table with a huff. My consolation in the middle of this craziness was that no one knew. Hendricks and Gard were blissfully unaware that Harry had hot man sex with the Freeholding Lord for the city, because if they had guessed, I'd already be perforated.

And then from the shelf I heard a little, awed voice. "Hot damn, Boss. You keep doing that, and I'll work for you gratis."

Shit.