AN: Short and shippy. I'm at college so everything is off-kilter about writing fics and updating them. My profile has more details and speculations.

tumblr: conjure-at-your-own-risk

Disclaimer: I think it's pretty damn obvious that none of us are Jim Butcher.

Title: A Reasonable Explanation

Word Count: 500

Summary: There was a perfectly good explanation for this. No, really.

"Harry, I hate you."

"No, ye don'," I mumbled around a bobby pin that was in my mouth while I was prodding the lock with the other one.

Murphy shook her wrist that had the magically binding handcuff on it. "I hate you for this."

"Hey, hey," I warned after taking the bobby pin out of my mouth. I waggled it at her. "Do you want me to mess this up?"

She called me something creative and repositioned herself on my couch. It was a long day that had involved a fun chase with a practitioner that was really great at redirecting whatever was thrown at him—electricity, angry cats, jets of fire... One of the said directed stuff was a prototype handcuff that we Wardens were trying out. I was sure that it was a good idea at the time because the handcuffs were supposed to cuff him by themselves.

Well. They worked. I couldn't do a lick of magic with them on, and my only key was lost somewhere in the sewers.

It was a fantastic way to end the day.

It was hard picking a lock with the glare of a police lieutenant aimed at my head. Murphy had tried, but it was difficult to do with her non-dominate hand. She was grimy and she still kinda smelled like the sewers, but I wasn't going to tell her that. Her pride was wounded and I'm sure that being magically stuck to me wasn't on her list of fun things to do.

"Any luck?" she asked, accidentally moving her wrist.

"Dammit!" The bobby pin slipped from my hand and disappeared somewhere between the cushions. I was never going to see it ever again...

"We need to go back to the sewers and find that key!"

"Murph! There was a demonic alligator down there!" My mind flashed back to the green scales and the empty, soulless dark eyes that glowed as its large jaw snapped open… City sewers, who knew that they were that dangerous? "No way in Hell am I going back down there without a small army."

"There's me," Murphy deadpanned. "I'm your small army."

She pulled the chain on her end was off to a good start of dragging me off my sorry ass when the door to my apartment opened. Our savior came in the form of stonewashed jeans that cost more than the entire building, and a muscle shirt that emphasized actual muscles.

Thomas' jaw dropped and it was almost the same for the bag of groceries that he had in his arms. "Empty Night…do I need to leave you two alone?"

"No," I said.

He looked at Murphy and I. "Harry, I love you like a brother, and I know that I'm incredibly attractive, but you're really not my type."

Murphy tugged on the chain. "Just help us break this, you dumbass."