May contain: Harry, absolutely unable to stop compulsively investigating, and completely missing the joke. Some Witcher, a little LOTR, a hint of Archer. A reference to the short story Something Borrowed. Another callback to Dead Beat, one to the end of Changes and one to the uh...dream sequence in Skin Game.

Definitely contains: More Words. Adult language/themes, mentions of suicide. Attempted matchmaking, unsolicited advice and some mild unintentional kinkshaming from my favorite Jedi.

It felt kind of invasive, going through her stuff. Murphy was by far my closest friend, but still.

Usually, when I was rummaging through other people's belongings, it was because they were missing, or dead, or had done or were about to do something terrible.

...Not usually because they asked me to get them a clean pair of socks.

She had sent me to her place with a list of things she wanted me to pick up. I had dropped by every day to feed Mister, but the only thing I had gone through was the fridge. I had somehow forgotten that Murphy was one of those unhinged maniacs who make their lunches a week at a time out of healthy green stuff. She wasn't completely hopeless – there was also the last of a six-pack of Cokes, and some leftover pizza. I grabbed the can and a slice, and checked the list, in her neat handwriting on hospital stationery.

Water the plants! was first, so I tracked down the watering can and hit all the ones in the living room before I forgot, and the half-dozen more in the kitchen that I had brought back from her overcrowded hospital room. Even the little orchid in the cat-shaped pot, though she had threatened to throw it out the window when I told her who it was from.

I had refrained from telling her about the rest of that conversation for both our sakes. Mine and hers, not the plant's, though it had been granted a last-minute pardon. Mister followed me as I made the rounds, and twitched a chewed-up ear in distrust at the ceramic cat. I tossed him a bit of pizza crust in solidarity.

Karrin's house was as incongruously cozy as ever. She was the last person anyone would ever expect to live under the same roof as macramé owls and lace doilies, but there they were, somehow just as at home as the user manual for a rocket launcher sitting on the coffee table. Kind of like I Love Lucy meets The A-Team.

I gathered up a few things I thought she might want. One of her grandmother's crochet afghans, the stack of books and magazines on an end table, her favorite coffee cup – the one with the quote from Twin Peaks on it. I found the gym bag she had asked for on a shelf in the hall closet, and paused in the doorway to her room.

The bed had been made and the clothes I had left were washed and folded in a neat stack on the dresser, though there hadn't been anyone staying here for a week. Probably by her mother, who had stumbled in on us at the hospital the day before, getting as hot and heavy as two people with that many combined injuries could manage.

Which wasn't much at all. Still entirely G-rated. Mostly.

I collected my stuff first and threw it in the bag, then looked at the list again:

Water the plants!
Clothes/Shoes/Jacket
9mm top drawer by the bed
Toothbrush/toothpaste/soap/etc.
Laptop
Check the mail
Don't forget about Mister

Clothes first, then. Murphy's closet was organized by function, season, color and hell, probably alphabetically, too. I sorted through the absurd neatness, collecting an armful of her favorite standbys; flannel, yoga pants, a selection from a vast assortment of hoodies. I grabbed a pair of black low-tops with the left toe permanently scuffed from a Harley gearshift, and a slightly grimy and worn-out Cubs cap.

Below the rack of clothing was a shelf of green ammo cans. Ten or twelve of 'em, labeled in order of ascending firepower. A few rifle bags leaned against the corner, a few heavy plate carriers, and that was just the stuff that was legal. I shut the closet, grinning.

Mister leapt up onto the bed, watching me as he stretched out with a self-satisfied purr.

"Don't get too comfortable, pal," I warned him. "You're going, too."

I turned to the dresser, opening a drawer to pajamas; basketball shorts and blood drive-shirts. Socks from the next drawer – I shoveled them into the bag by the handful. You can never have too many socks. I hesitated at the bottom drawer. Gotta have underwear, too. Hers were all comfortable, dark colors and practical fabric, and into the gym bag they went. Except for the interesting little number that I, folding to overwhelming curiosity, picked up by one delicate strap.

"Hell's bells."

It was nothing but nearly invisible mesh and a few scraps of strategically-placed black lace, dangling from my fingertips. A bra in the same fashion peeked out from a pink paper shopping bag shoved into the corner of the drawer, with a copy of a credit card receipt.

"Hm." Don't do it, warned a voice that I, driven by investigatory compulsion or whatever, blissfully ignored. I picked up the receipt, smoothing out the crinkled paper. It had been pricey, from a little boutique in Bucktown. The receipt was hurriedly signed with Karrin's initials, dated from a while back. From the very day I'd had myself shot, I noticed upon closer inspection.

"...Fuck."

I put it all back into the drawer and shut it, and sat on the edge of the bed with my face in my hands… that smelled like perfume. Faint but familiar and sweet – heliotrope and vanilla, strangely vulnerable without the usual accompanying scent of leather motorcycle jacket and gunpowder. She must have been wearing it at the same time as—

"Ah, fuck."

When she had come back to pick me up from Thomas's boat, obviously. We had planned to go out for a drink, and I had stood her up and died, and spent so long trying not to think about it that I hadn't really considered what I'd missed. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry, and couldn't do either. The thought had short-circuited something in my brain and now it was stuck in a daydreamy feedback loop; her in that expensive French lingerie and the motorcycle jacket, in my lap, all warm skin and soft lips, and that sound she made when I—

"Jesus Christ." I shook my head and reached for the list I'd left on the dresser. "Get it together, Dresden."

And if I wasn't sure then that karma had finally come around to kick my ass, I was when I found the next item she had requested, in the top drawer of the bedside table.

It was a subcompact pistol in sleek monochrome black steel, SIG SAUER P938 NIGHTMARE etched down one side of the slide. Her holdout; the one she'd shot Maeve with, last year. The one she had pressed against my temple in that awful, incredible dream that kept playing on repeat every time I drifted off. Or variations of it, anyway. Minus the jump-scare ending but to a similarly unsatisfying...non-conclusion.

"Well, that's a new one," I sighed, staring disappointedly down at myself. I put the gun and spare magazine in a coat pocket. "Don't judge me," I told my reflection in the mirror on the back of the closet door. "It was hot."

I checked the list again and gathered up a phone charger, lip balm, half a billion elastic hair ties, tossing all into a pocket of the bag. I hesitated for a second, then picked up the paperback that had been under the gun; a trashy historical romance, something Bob would have loved. I thumbed through the dogeared pages, coming to the conclusion that the guy who runs my subconscious was accurate in his assessment of what she might enjoy.

Really, really accurate. I slammed it shut and threw it back in the drawer, and fled the bedroom for the unsexy safety of the bathroom.

Or so I'd hoped. I rounded up soap and shampoo from the shower, a hairdryer and a brush from under the sink. Toothbrush and toothpaste from the medicine cabinet, and a little credit-card sized cardboard sleeve of tiny pills, which I frowned at until I realized what they were.

"Oh, boy."

Well, at least one of us had some common sense.

Wide-eyed, I dropped it all in the Adidas duffel, now nearly too full to zip shut. I left the bag by the front door and headed to the spare bedroom Murphy used as an office. I powered down the laptop by standing as far from it as possible and poking the on button with a pencil. Or what I thought was the on button, anyway. It was one of those milspec, armored-looking things, like it could have been dropped off a building and it might have survived, but would probably explode if I so much as sneezed. I put it in its own case, carefully.

Among the half-dozen family photos on the desk, I recognized my own mug. I remembered the moment but not who had been wielding the camera at Billy and Georgia's wedding – the real one in Forthill's office, not the ceremony that had been crashed by faeries.

It was a good picture, candid, in black and white. We both sat on the edge of a desk, in the middle of a conversation I couldn't recall. Karrin brandished Georgia's mangled bouquet of roses at me. I was laughing about something, she was smiling. It was just ridiculously cute in a way that made my stomach do a nervous, distracted backflip, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a knock at the front door.

And then it creaked open.

I started into the hall, my mind instantly conjuring demonic assassins or Fomor hitmen or something even worse. Overly-friendly Jehovah's Witnesses? I reached for my gun with one hand, still holding the photo in the other.

"Hello?" called a familiar voice.

Mister trotted out past me and shoulder-checked the shins of the wiry-haired, bespectacled man who shut the door behind him, nearly knocking him down.

"Oh." I sighed in relief. "Hey, Butters."

"Hey, Harry. Murphy said I'd probably find you here." He held out a big cardboard box. "Mom sent some leftovers."

"Leftovers?" I took the box as he pulled the picture frame from my fingers. I peered at the contents. Plastic containers and good smells; roast chicken, mashed potatoes and half a dozen other things. "This is enough to feed an army."

"Yeah, she kind of went a little overboard this weekend. Whoa," said Butters, studying the photo. "When was this?"

"Billy and Georgia's wedding."

"Too cute." Waldo raised an eyebrow at me. "For a second I thought I had missed something important and I owed you guys a toaster."

"...Huh?"

"Never mind," he said brightly as he left the photo on a bookcase and followed me into the sunny little kitchen. "Hungry?"

I put the box on the counter, in what space was left between get well soon plants. "Starving."

"You get the beer," he said, "I'll run the microwave."

I had depleted the stash of Mac's brown in the kitchen, but there was an entire case in the old fridge out in the garage. I grabbed a few beers in each hand and made my way back inside.

Butters set a plate in front of me, and then sat down across from me with his own. Judging from the way he tore into the food, it didn't bother him to eat at a table where he had stitched up a patient just last week. He'd seen worse.

Or maybe he was just really hungry.

"How's the leg?" he asked, looking up at me as if he'd just remembered, too.

"Feeling much better."

"Still taking those antibiotics?"

"Finished them yesterday."

"Good. And your arm?" he continued, his tone doctorly. "You're still wearing that brace, right?"

"Yes, Mother," I said as I snapped the caps off two bottles and set one in front of each of us.

"For at least another week, maybe two," he warned between sips. "Just to be safe. Your x-rays are almost impossible to read."

"It feels better." I wiggled my fingers. "But I don't think I'll be playing Carnegie Hall anytime soon."

Butters snorted. We ate in silence for a moment. He hadn't been kidding about his mom being a good cook. Even the reheated leftover noodle casserole was good. Miles better than my typical island fare of army surplus MREs and cold cans of Spaghettios.

The silence was only a little tense. Butters had been rightfully pissed at me for a while now, and having someone that nice be mad at me was just a gut-wrenching, horrible feeling. Not that he would hold a grudge. He was a better person than that, better than most, or he wouldn't have qualified for his recent promotion to Jedi of the Lord.

"Michael said you found a place in town to stay?" he asked, after a moment.

"Working on it. Got the place, but it's mostly empty, so I've been trying to get things together. It's just up the street from the Carpenters', you can't miss it. Especially with that truck parked out front."

"Need any help?"

"Yeah, actually. I could definitely use another pair of eyes to look over some plans for the wards," I said, tentatively. Now that my deadline was no longer literal, and my brain wasn't trying to explode every ten minutes, and I wasn't helping my actual worst enemy pull a heist on a god, I had time to acknowledge that I had kind of fucked up. I could apologize until I was out of breath, but words were only words. "Just to make sure I'm not missing anything?"

He thought about it and nodded. "Is later this afternoon good?"

"Sure. If you're not busy."

"It's cool. I've got a few errands to run first." The ME sighed tiredly. "And another freaking workout to do."

"Yeah?" I tried not to grin – I had already heard about his foray into the world of fitness from a different source. "Murph said she sent you to the gym."

"With a six-week weightlifting program. Two-a-days. The woman is a sadist," he said around a bite of chicken. "I hurt in places I didn't know about, even with a double major in anatomy and physiology." Butters gestured wildly with his fork. "And apparently what I do every day at work doesn't actually count as deadlifts."

I choked on my beer. He continued, impassioned:

"This is my third meal today and it's barely lunchtime. Protein shakes are disgusting. And her Viking buddies' idea of cardio? Me, running down the beach at zero dark thirty in the morning, in the rain, wearing a twenty pound vest, while they chase me, screaming in Norwegian or whatever."

"Pretty sure that's against the Geneva Convention."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure they don't know what that is," he mused. "I know she's going to make me get in the ring, eventually. I'm probably dreading it just as much as she's looking forward to it."

"Probably not," I said with a grimace.

He went a little pale and quiet for a moment before he shook it off and spoke.

"So are you two, like," Waldo waved his fork at me like he was casting a spell. "Dating or something? I mean, Karrin seems awfully happy for somebody who's just spent a week in the hospital. Aside from the morphine drip, I mean. And don't get me started on you—"

"...Me?"

"When you're not completely spaced-out, you look like the cat who ate the canary. I haven't seen you look this smug since you brought a dinosaur back from the dead."

"You know, technically Sue wasn't back from the dead. She was definitely still very dead – you of all people should know that, Butters. It's your job."

"Smug and dodging the question. I'm no investigator, but there's definitely something going on."

"Okay, okay. Something. But we're not, like...advertising it."

His eyebrows climbed as he turned his attention back to his mashed potatoes. "Sure."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm just saying," he shrugged between bites. "You guys are kind of obvious."

"We haven't even told anybody—"

"Okay, what part did you think wasn't obvious? When Murphy threw down with the demon holding you hostage, out in the middle of the street like it was an episode of COPS?" Butters frowned at me. "Or the part where you cussed out an angel for not immediately fixing her injuries? And that was recently, we could go a little further back and talk about how Karrin got fired for helping you, after getting demoted for helping you, and how despite all that, she's still a willing participant in your shenanigans."

"My shenanigans are cheeky and fun," I said through a mouthful of dinner roll. He grinned.

"Oh, like the time you reanimated the remains of a sixty-five million year-old, ten-ton apex predator from the Cretaceous Period and marched it through downtown because somebody was blackmailing your girlfriend?"

"Blackmailing me and threatening my — okay, that was mostly extenuating circumstances? And she's not my—"

"I was there, Gandalf," he said, a tad annoyed. "And it's all really cute, but it would be great if you guys could manage to get the heck over yourselves already. And maybe, I dunno, not die in the process? And then maybe stop subjecting the rest of us to your weird, collateral damage-y, insurance premium-wrecking version of foreplay."

I took a deep breath and nodded, because god, he wasn't wrong. I'd die for her, or at least I had done my best, and she had killed for me on multiple occasions. And as much as I'd hoped, I had never expected us to have the chance to be anything more than friends…who cared a lot and pretended they weren't attracted to each other and used violence as a substitute for sex.

"Solid advice from an expert source," I said, red-faced. "Thank you, Doctor Butters. Next on the News at Noon, meteorologist Harry Dresden. What's the forecast looking like, Harry?" I asked myself. "Well, Other Harry, it's thirty-two degrees and cloudy with a hundred percent chance of dude, can we please talk about literally anything else?"

Butters cackled, beating a fist against the kitchen table so hard the plates rattled. "I'm sorry, did I embarrass the big scary Winter Knight?" he laughed, gesturing between us. "Is that what this is?"

"Come on, man. I'm not saying I don't deserve it, but I'm already down. You can stop kicking."

He fixed me with a serious stare, pushing his glasses up his nose and for a moment he looked kind of knightly, himself. "Harry, if dragging you is the only way I can get you to have a normal human conversation with me, then so be it."

I sighed. There was no way I was coming out of this normal human conversation with my pride intact. Not that I had any in the first place.

Then he nodded at the gym bag sitting by the door, and grinned at me. "So are you moving in or what?"

"No, I actually – so I kind of, uh. I kind of asked Karrin to stay with me for a little while?" I said quickly. "Just until she's on her feet again."

Butters' eyebrows started climbing again. "Oh, really?"

"Yes, really – don't give me that look."

"What look?" he said, innocently. "This is just how I look when I'm happy for my friends who are finally getting together, and moving in together? Wow."

"Just for a while. She'll be out tomorrow, and you know she won't ask for help," I said, trying to keep a defensive note from creeping into my tone. "And she can't even use crutches with her shoulder like that—"

"Sure, sure," he said, entirely too reasonably and still grinning. "Makes sense."

"And until I personally dropkick Nicodemus and all his pals into a bottomless fucking pit, I won't believe for a second that he won't come after her. Or me. Or you, for that matter," I said, angrier with every word, colder by the second. I tried to take a drink, then peered at the contents of my beer. Frozen solid. I sighed. "Goddammit, not again."

"True." Butters nodded sagely, the corner of his mouth twitched. "But that's not what's bugging you."

"It's just...it's been a while, you know?" I set the frozen beer aside and opened another, trying not to sound as pathetic as I felt. "I haven't lived with a woman since... well, if you don't count Thomas—"

"Which, obviously, we do."

"It's complicated." I gathered up our empty plates and put them in the sink. "And neither of us are really good at relationships—"

"You say that, but I once witnessed you and Murphy have a conversation entirely in Eminem lyrics. That's more married than my parents ever were."

"Alright, now we're getting ahead of ourselves," I said as I reached for the dish soap.

"Just saying." He was interrupted by his phone, which beeped and whistled like R2-D2 as he checked the time. "Oh jeez, I gotta go. Those meatheads make me do fifty pushups for every minute I'm late."

"You could always go running with Thomas and me, instead. It won't be more fun, but it might be less…hate-crime-y?"

"You shouldn't be running anywhere, not with your leg like that. Not for a few more weeks, anyway." He gathered up the empty beer bottles and chucked them in the trash. "I'll drop by tonight. Take the rest of that food with you. If I have to see another piece of chicken, I might puke."

"Good luck," I said, and I meant it as we exchanged a fist bump, and Butters hurried out to get whipped into fighting shape by a team of quasi-immortal berserkers.

The guy didn't really need a holy sword, he was already sharp enough. All I had to do was sit him at a table with anybody who needed to be taken down a notch and let him unleash a well-intentioned but ruthless verbal assault on their biggest insecurities.

It probably wouldn't work on monsters but it had definitely worked on me which, strangely, made me feel a little better as I finished washing the dishes.

I hauled everything I'd collected to my borrowed truck, then gathered up the mail. I tucked it all into a coat pocket, scooped Mister up and headed home.

It didn't quite feel like home yet, but I was working on it. I was putting a bookshelf together at the new digs, several hours and a few more beers later when I heard a car pull into the driveway, followed by a sharp shave and a haircut knock.

I could just see a dark, curly head through the square panes of glass at the top of the wooden door.

"Hey, this place is great!" Butters said as I answered, and he pushed a paper bag from Bed Bath and Beyond into my hands as I stepped aside to let him in. "Your doorbell isn't working, though."

"Yeah, I'll get around to it." In the bag was a cardboard box containing a shiny new toaster. "Cool," I said. "Thanks, man. I needed one of these."

He just sighed at me liked I'd missed a joke, and shook his head, grinning. "Mazel tov."

Happy Valentine's Day, btw.