I rectified my lack of pants quickly with a pair of jeans, although I found the pants I'd lost slung over the back of my couch. I shook my head at them tiredly and tossed them into the old hamper in my bedroom. Mouse then decided that yes, I was perfectly awake enough to deal with the other bug in my house, which was behind my dresser, where, without my dog, I probably never would've found it. I don't go behind that dresser, you see. There are dust bunnies back there the size of Chihuahuas, possibly with equal numbers of teeth. I'm not equipped to deal with that. Anyway, curiosity sort of compelled me to take the thing down to my lab, see what made it work even with my technobane issues. Besides, Bob would probably find it pretty interesting. Mouse huffed at me when he saw that it remained unbroken, but I just rolled my eyes it him.

"I'm not a cat, buddy; I don't think my curiosity is going to be what takes me out." He heaved a doggish sigh before he dropped to the floor, rolled onto his back, and fell asleep with all four feet in the air. I just laughed a little and carried the tiny device down to my subbasement. "Oh Bob, it's time to wake up, man! So much stuff to examine, so little time, all that crap." The skull in the corner yawned noisily, and tiny orange lights filtered slowly into its eye sockets.

"No bad puns today?" he asked, and I laughed.

"I'm fresh out, sorry. I've had an interesting past few days. Which reminds me, Marcone, if you're listening to this, how about you go walk into another room or cover your ears or something? I've got to figure out how your little toy works. Also, if you want, you can send me a letter or something explaining why my pants were in my living room this morning. I'm confused on that, and you probably didn't let Thomas take me home alone, so you would know. Because you're a dick. Or I could just be mixing up some kind of dream and reality, and I could actually be spouting all this off to the Nickelheads or someone like them. Or an entirely new malevolent entity that wants to kill me. Can never be sure, really." Bob's lights flickered out for a second, then came back on, which I'd grown to recognize as him blinking.

"Boss, are you going loopy on me? Because if you are, I think maybe you need to execute our contingency plan for what you're going to do with me when you go bye-bye." I snickered.

"Yeah, Bob, I broke a nail this morning, and, that being the final nail in my sanity coffin, had a psychotic break. There's a hammer behind my back right now, with which I plan to smash you into a million tiny pieces. Mab will probably thank me." Bob chuckled.

"Uh, Harry, after literally everything you've pulled through, I really hope a broken nail or a stubbed toe won't be the straw that breaks your back. That'd be sort of depressing, and all the bad guys will laugh at you for the rest of eternity and poor little me will be forced to spend said eternity trapped in your dank little basement."

"Shush. Look, that whoever that broke in left a couple of bugs lying around. I stepped on the first one, but I figured that maybe you could check this one here out and tell me what's going on with it. Like, how it's working in my apartment of all places." Bob nodded as I placed the device in front of him, the lights of its eyes running over it carefully, discerningly.

"Pretty complex working, here, Boss. Old, too, surprisingly enough. You could probably pull it off, but there's simpler ways of doing the same damned thing. Besides, this was done with runes, and you're bad at those." I huffed.

"Do you really always have to remind me of that? I blow up one pot, and you never let it go." He rolled his eye lights at me.

"Boss. You couldn't even cut a straight line into clay. They were all squiggly. I told you five times that it wouldn't work, but you insisted on using it anyway. You almost killed the both of us."

"Molly got the fire extinguisher quickly enough!"

"You're just lucky your circles aren't rune-based."

"Shut up, Bob," I mumbled, and he laughed at me again. "Just show me how to do something like this."

"Might want to break this one first, Harry. Don't want any nasty nosy warlocks learning your spells, do you?" I blinked. Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten that maybe Marcone wasn't the one on the other end. Not that I wanted him to be on the other end, I didn't, because I didn't want anyone on the other end. Still, he was the lesser of many, many, many evils. I could tolerate him. Even like him, some days. Rarely. When he's not being an asshole. Which is always. So when he's being slightly less of an asshole. Like when he helped me and all those other people the other day. I dropped the bug to the floor and brought my foot down hard on it. I played pretend it was Marcone's skull. Stupid fucker should know better than to make me sort of like him, sometimes. Prick. Oh, Stars, this is really dumb, isn't it? I'm being dumb. But I always am, so shut up. This is probably better than my usual variety of dumb anyway. At least this isn't resulting in me being shot at. That isn't due again 'til next week, you see. I'll owe Murph twenty bucks if it happens before then, and I, I'm afraid, don't have twenty dollars. Well, maybe in the shoebox under my bed, but that's for emergencies. Ahem.

"Should be good now, Bob. You want to get started?"

"You'll need something similar to this thing, first. Probably a whole box, or more. And you'll need to practice keeping that little suppression thing I taught you for that TV show going for longer, so you don't bust it before you can even get the spell cast." Ugh.

"Bob, these are really expensive. Can't I just use, like, tape recorders or something? Those are cheap." He rolled his eyes at me again. It's really depressing, when the skull is allowed to be condescending.

"Harry, if you learn to do it on tape recorders, it isn't going to work on anything more advanced than a tape recorder. Although, if I were you I'd practice on computers. Or cell phones. You know, so your friends stop hating you." I blushed.

"They know I can't help it."

"You could if you practiced the fucking suppression. Hell, you'd probably get a lot less supernatural attention if you learned to keep it up 24/7." I shrugged, and fell limply onto my little stool, probably looking somewhat similar to a broken marionette. Molly's tidy little desk gazed at my messy workspace mockingly. I really do wish Charity was my mom too, sometimes. Life would really be so much easier. I sighed. But if Charity had been my mom, a lot of people I'd have saved would be dead, right now. I burrowed my head into my desk. A lot of people I hadn't saved would still be alive, too. I shook my head once, to clear the cobwebs. Now wasn't the time to be getting all emotional. Hell's Bells, there wasn't ever a good time for that, for me.

"Yeah, yeah, Bob, I'll work on it. As for now, I'm going to call Murphy. Maybe she can get me some for cheap." I left my subbasement, and heard Mrs. Spunklecrief yelling and banging on my door. I cocked my head. I knew I wasn't late on rent; I'd just paid last week! I was still back a little, yeah, but not enough that she'd actually be upset with me about it. She didn't start getting a little angry until I was three or four months late. I only owed her half a month's worth, right now. Huh. Maybe she needed me to come masquerade as a handyman for a little while. I went quickly to the door and forced it open, pulling hard with most of my weight. Mrs. Spunklecrief stood there before me, slight and bespectacled as always.

"Harry, I received a package for you, darling." I raised my eyebrows at the gigantic box in her arms that seemed to swamp her, although she held it easily. She really is an amazing woman.

"Who's it from?"

"What do you mean, is it done? Does this have food in it? Really, dear, you should know better!" I sighed. Mrs. Spunklecrief is a very nice woman, but she's mostly deaf on the best of days.

"Who is it from?" I asked again, this time remembering to raise my voice enough that she could make out what I was saying.

"Oh! Some nice gentleman, quite young looking, although he was wearing a very nice suit. I believe he's a nephew of the owner of the building across the street, Mrs. Russo. She talks about him all the time, really, and he comes to visit her very often. I hadn't known you two knew one another!" I didn't know anyone with the last name Russo; however, I didn't exactly want to worry Mrs. Spunklecrief, so I nodded.

"Yeah, we've met a few times. He's a good enough kid. No idea what this is, though," I told her, taking the box, which was ridiculously heavy, from her arms. She granted me another smile.

"Well, nice boys like you two should be friendly. Things like that make for the world's goodness." She waved kindly, and I returned it, using my hip to force the door closed again. I settled the package on my table carefully, being certain not to jar it too much. Look, people have tried to bomb my apartment before. I take it seriously, now. I grabbed a sharp, if a little bent, carving knife from my kitchen and sliced through the tape holding the box closed. The contents were more heinous than I could possibly imagine: clothes. Designer clothes. I stared at them. They were so… colorful. Iglared at them and wondered if maybe they'd spontaneously combust. I ignored the fact that actually, yeah, if I wanted them to they would, but it would probably be smarter to use them to track whoever had sent them, because damn it, I don't know anyone named Russo! I had the sneaking suspicion that Molly was involved, though. She's pretty much always involved where my wardrobe is concerned. Hey, maybe Murph would know something or be able track them with physical means, since chances were there wasn't any magic residue on them. Plus I needed to talk to her anyway, so I picked up my old rotary phone and made the call. She picked up on the third ring, sounding a little frazzled.

"Murphy," she said, by way of greeting, having apparently not bothered to check that caller ID thing she was always going on about. The line cracked with static, which probably alerted her to who it was before I even managed to get a word out.

"Hey, it's Dresden. I was sort of hoping for a couple of favors." I heard her yell at someone in the background. Well, apparently I'd called at a bad time. When did I not, come to think of it?

"What, Dresden? We just got saddled with a case of some troll kidnapping people on the bridge. We've got to head out and deal with it."

"Oh, sorry. I can call back later if you want." She sighed, her voice gruff.

"Damn it, Dresden, will you just tell me what you want already?" I shifted awkwardly even though she couldn't actually see me. "And if you say 'me' I'll kick your ass." I laughed.

"Maybe later, Murph, but I was sort of hoping you could maybe get me some of those little listening device thingies for cheap? And track a package for me." I could almost see her stunned expression.

"Dresden, if you want to destroy expensive technology that badly, just go to an electronics store. You can do it for free there."

"I'm not trying to destroy them; I'm trying to make something that'll let me stop doing that. Wouldn't you enjoy being able to use a computer or a phone in my presence? Maybe have the line stop crackling?"

"And you think whatever you're planning would work why? Why do you want listening devices anyway?"

"Someone bugged my place a few days ago, and they were working when Mouse found them. They were done in a way I can't replicate, though, so I can't just copy it." She gasped sarcastically.

"Someone out there can do a magic trick the mighty fire slinging Harry Dresden can't replicate?"

"Shut up, it's rune based. I suck at drawing them, so any spell I try to cast with them goes a little screwy." She laughed.

"Fine, fine. I'll see what I can do. But only because I'm getting tired of replacing the office phone every other time you call. Do you know who put those things in your place, by the way? Do you want me to bring someone out to sweep for more?"

"I've got a suspicion on who did it, and no, Mouse hasn't been acting funny, so there aren't any others."

"And you can deal with your suspicion on your own?" I nodded.

"Yeah, I can. Don't worry about it."

"Okay. Now, what was that package you were talking about?"

"Mrs. Spunklecrief just brought it by. She told me some guy with the last name Russo dropped it off for me, but I don't know anyone by that name. The box is full of expensive ass clothes, all in my size, which is sort of creepy, because even I don't know what size pants I wear half the time." Murphy paused.

"Are there any identifying marks on the box? Like a stamp or something?" I checked over the thing, and found nothing.

"That Russo guy must have hand delivered it, then. No third party involvement by the post office or Fed-Ex or something. There isn't much I can do with it, in that case." Of course.

"Can you look up the name Russo then? See if it's anyone with a criminal record or a vendetta against me or something?" She laughed.

"Harry, do you know how many people with the last name Russo live in this city? A lot. And at least half of them probably hate you for one reason or another. You probably spilled something on at least ten of them during your diner days. Or screwed them over by working a divorce case in your PI training days. Or just met them on the street one day and said more than one word to them." I huffed.

"Well apparently it's the nephew of the owner of the apartment across the street; the one Graver was spying on me in, with the window that looks out right in front of my door, or at least that's what Mrs. Spunklecrief thought, and she's pretty good with faces. If she's seen him around there, he probably at least knows the lady. She could've misheard the name or the relationship between them, though." I heard her sigh yet again. She shouldn't have the right to sigh at me that much. I'm not that bad.

"You're a PI, Dresden. Just go talk to the lady. If she won't tell you anything about the bastard devious enough to send you clothes that actually fit your skinny ass and don't look like you yanked them out of a Salvation Army box, then I'll look into it. Right now, there's a troll situation and I need to deal with it before it starts eating the people it kidnapped." She hung up. I put the phone back on the receiver and decided I may as well take Murphy's advice. Just to be spiteful, I changed into my rattiest t-shirt, an old white thing I'd had since working on Eb's farm. Mud stains I'd never been able to get out, even with magic, marred most of the front, and there was a decent sized hole in the hem on the left side. There was also a magic marker scribble on the back, from where someone in public school had written something on it, but it had faded and smudged so much over the years that it was no longer legible, and I couldn't quite recall what it had said anyway.

Apparently Mrs. Spunklecrief talks about me with our neighbors, because Mrs. Russo recognized me as soon as she opened the door, and greeted me with a smile. I returned it with the best one I could muster, which probably wasn't too good, but hey. I tried.

"Hey, Mrs. Russo. Um, I was wondering, I got a package today, and Mrs. Spunklecrief said it was from your nephew, but I've never met him. I was thinking maybe he accidentally sent it to the wrong person or something." She nodded.

"Well, he certainly never mentioned you to me, I'm afraid. Of course, it has been quite a while since little Jimmy has come by for a visit. He's been very busy, you see, with his job. I suppose I could give you his address, if you'd like to ask him yourself." I grinned in relief.

"That'd be awesome, thanks." She left the doorway for a few seconds, then came back with an address scribbled on a piece of paper. It was one from all the way across town. I sighed, and said goodbye to the woman. She returned the sentiment politely as I went back to my place, grabbed the box, and hopped into the car. I brought Mouse too. Just in case.

The house was in a decent neighborhood, not exactly gold coast quality, but you could go down the street at night pretty safely, unlike how it was near my place. I'm pretty sure I'd have been mugged at least once by now, if not for the fact that I'm tall enough to be an NBA superstar, if only I had some modicum of talent at sports. I supposed I could always magic the thing through the hoop, but people might start getting suspicious when I refused to go on the court without my six foot long phallic symbol that is totally not an example of overcompensation, thank you very much. Anyway, the little note said his apartment was on the top floor of some recently renovated place, so that's where I went. Have you ever noticed how much of a pain it is to climb twenty or so flights of stairs? I have. Every time I have to go to a building that isn't mine. I really do think the world should be more wizard-friendly.

I knocked noisily at Russo's apartment door, the box propped on my hip. He opened the door pretty quickly, still young enough to have something of a baby face, dressed up in a pair of rumpled pajamas. His sleepy eyes went wide at the sight of me and my box. I grinned and toodled the fingers of my free hand at him. He tried to slam the door in my face, but I caught my foot in it.

"Nuh uh, Jimmy boy, I didn't drive all the way across Chicago to get a door slammed in my face. What the hell is this?" I asked, bouncing the box at my hip for emphasis. He just stared at me, a little in awe.

"Christ. He said that there was a lot of you, but damn." His voice was thickly accented with something I couldn't quite place. Maybe it was some new youth thing. I was certain I didn't know all of those trends, since my only source of knowledge on them was Molly, and she was counterculture, when it came to most of them.

"Hell's Bells, kid, yeah. I'm a big guy. I understand. Now why did you send me a box of clothes, all in my size, mind, when I've never seen you in my life?" He shrugged, leaned against the door to prop it up.

"Nah, you're not big. Just tall. You're skinny as fuck, but you look like a goddamned tree. And you can pull that weird magic shit, right?" I ran a hand through my hair.

"Look, I get made fun of enough by my friends. I don't need some random kid doing it too. Would you please answer my question now? I don't even know my clothing size half the time, unless I check the tag on something that fits before I go to a store, and even that doesn't work half the time, because most of the tags in my clothes get torn out in about twenty minutes. It's sort of creepy, you see?"

"Did you use that magic stuff to find me?" I gazed at him incredulously.

"Kid. You're the nephew of the lady who lives across the street from my. My landlady knows you. You gave the box to my landlady, who gave it to me. Your master plan of me not finding out who you were hinged on me, a PI, being stupid enough to accept a random package I wasn't expecting without asking who'd sent it. The day I need magic to crack this particular case is the day I retire." I decided not to mention that before doing the very obvious thing I'd done I'd thought about both magic and the mortal police. My story was a lot cooler without those bits. He actually blushed a little.

"Oh. Well, the clothes aren't from me, so you don't have to worry about that." I laughed quietly. He blushed again. Huh. Weird kid.

"That still leaves the problem that someone out there sent them, and said someone has very intimate knowledge about exactly what length my pants need to be tailored to. Funnily enough, I'd sort of like to know who this someone is, so that I can be sufficiently freaked out." He shifted to his other foot.

"Look, I promise it isn't a big deal, Mr. Dresden. The one who sent them doesn't want to hurt you." I snickered, and yet again the kid blushed. This was getting kind of strange.

"Buddy, I've gotten some weird veiled threats in my day. And there are some things out there with a really weird idea of not wanting to hurt people that actually turn out to be surprisingly painful." I thought about Lea, of course, of her 'training' to help me kill DuMorne, of the sickly smile on her face as she held the knife, the shadows of her blackberry lips as she whispered, 'I love you, godson'. DuMorne, too, had claimed to love me, to want what was best for me. I laughed to bury those memories back where they belonged. "One guy tied a pair of really nice wool socks to the brick he tossed through my window. People are weird, when it comes to threatening. I always figured that guy was alluding to the possibility of strangling me with really awesome socks, but it never happened. Those socks were really great for when the heat went out, though." Which it often did, in my first apartment. I got a lot more vanilla mortal enemies, back then, when I was working for Nick. It's sort of funny, how much people dislike you when you work for their soon-to-be ex-husband or wife. The missing kid cases never caused that much trouble. The kid blinked at me, then shook his head.

"You're not going to leave, are you?" I shrugged.

"No cases, and the end of the world isn't due for at least another week." He stared at me. I grinned. The blush came again on cue.

"Hey, everyone needs a hobby. Mine is stopping apocalypses. It gets sort of tired sometimes, though, especially when I think about how I usually get paid more for checking garden gnomes for possession than I do for stopping this whole planet from going up in a fiery ball of flaming death. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that this is probably going to be a lot more fun than sitting at home in my underwear while my cat steals my Coke and my dog slobbers all over everything." Did this kid have some kind of disease? I was pretty sure it wasn't normal to blush that much. Maybe he had a fever.

"You're apartment seems sort of small for pets." I shrugged.

"They don't take up that much space, and my cat, Mister, spends half his time roaming the neighborhood anyway. He only comes home when he's hungry, or wants his obligatory fifteen minutes of pets. My dog Mouse is happy as long as I'm in his line of sight and his punchbowl is full of kibble. They're pretty low-maintenance, as far as pets go. They'd only get any easier if they were goldfish. So, at what point are you going to stop asking meaningless questions and answer my not so meaningless one?"

"Do you want to come in?" I raised my eyebrows.

"Hey, pal, if you know about magic, why in the world are you inviting me, a wizard, into your house? I could really fuck up some shit, if I wanted, you know that?" He cocked his head.

"I thought that was just vampires." I laughed. Another blush. Damn it. Maybe I should leave, just so he doesn't overheat or something. Or maybe just call 911.

"I can break a threshold, but it'd cut my power pretty severely. If you've got a good one, which is pretty unlikely, since this is an apartment and you, from what I can see, are a bachelor, I'd be lucky if I could light a candle after breaking through it. That's how it is at two of my friend's houses. Still, if you want me inside that badly, I promise not to hurt you, if you'll promise the same to me." He stepped aside. I stepped in.

It was a tiny place, but still bigger than mine, and clean but for a few beer bottles on the coffee table. Well, that was a little unexpected, nonetheless. He didn't look old enough to drink. I smelled pizza from Pizza 'Spress coming from his kitchen, and yes, I know it was definitely from there. I've eaten enough of that pizza that I could tell its smell from any other brand in Chicago. What really surprised me, though, was the gun sitting in the corner. It was one I recognized for seeing it so often, if not that exact same one. It was the sort Marcone seemed to supply all his guys with. Stars. I backpedalled quickly towards the door, and he looked confused until he saw what I was looking at. He cursed.

"Marcone, huh? He's the one who sent these?" So it was a veiled threat, then. Had to be. He was probably trying to display that even without the bugs he could find out damn near anything about me, if he wanted to, personal things, things I hardly knew myself. "Take them back with a message to go fuck himself, if you please." I dropped them on the floor and stormed out, my magic threading tight around me, tendrils of it whipping around like lighting. I felt something similar to static electricity twitching around in my hair, and took a deep breath. It loosened, some, but not enough. I wanted to go to Mac's very badly, all of a sudden. The arrangements of thirteens would cut through this easily enough, and the beer would be a nice extra. I heard footsteps behind me when I was halfway down the stairs, and elongated my steps so I could take them three at a time. What the kid lacked in size, though, he made up for in speed, so by the time I got outside he had caught up to me. He was panting, though, which did make me happy.

"Wait, please!" he said. I decided I may as well humor him

. He was vanilla anyway. If he wanted to try and kill me, I could take him easy. I recalled saying that a few days ago and ending up with a gun pointed at my head in a moving vehicle, but still. I was usually right when I said that.

"What?" I growled, my arms crossed tightly, my hip cocked some, because damn it, it's a natural position, okay? I can't help it. He paused for a second to catch his breath.

"Mr. Hendricks said to not let you give them back. I don't want to get in trouble with him." Oh come on. Really? Was this kid trying to guilt me into taking that box? The better question was, why was it working? I leaned up against the Blue Beetle, which hopefully looked just ridiculous enough to serve my purposes.

"I don't think Cujo would beat up his own guy." The kid gaped.

"Cujo?" I nodded.

"He's Marcone's guard dog. It was either that, or Clifford, and I figured Cujo was at least slightly less offensive. Everyone gets a nickname, once they meet me, at least if we're not good friends." He paused again.

"You have friends?" I glared. That was actually sort of offensive. Who had told him I didn't? I pouted and asked as much. "Um, Mr. Hendricks said Mr. Marcone thought that. I opened my mouth to speak, decided better of it, got in my car, and left, the kid protesting the whole time. When I got home I had a dozen bright red roses in front of my door, in a vase that had to cost more than I made on the average case. The card sitting in the little holder at the top had a simple message.

Harry,

I supposed these might do quite a bit to brighten up that little room beneath your home.

John.

I glared at the little white card with all I had, and proceeded to put the flowers on the sidewalk. I did take a few petals off of one of the roses, though. I was running out of dried rose petals, since they were in a lot of potions, and hey, these were free. I could dry them my damn self. Besides, they smelled awesome when they were done, and my house could use some nice smells, what with the slight odor of wet dog that had permeated my couch after Mouse decided it'd be really fun to roll around in a mud puddle outside. I did have to admit that Marcone was certainly the best giver of veiled threats I'd ever met. I mean, really, clothes to show he could find out pretty much every little detail about me? Flowers with a message that revealed he knew about my lab? These threats were so veiled one would almost think they weren't threats at all, but that was just ridiculous. This was Marcone I was talking about.

Thomas' POV

My Harry-is-being-courted senses were tingling. By that I mean Mrs. Spunklecrief, who I paid to call me every time someone delivered something to Harry (which was more often than one would think), called and said a large box had arrived for the man this morning, delivered by a nice boy who was related to the woman across the street from Harry. It'd be really cool if I did have a sense that would tell me that, though. Helpful, and all. She also claimed Harry seemed quite certain there was food in it, although that was probably her near-deafness coming into play again. I figured it was another one of those puppy love situations, where a young guy meets my little brother, thinks he's cool and attractive, and so sends him stupid little trinkets and things. It had happened often enough, over the years, with both males and females, and they were generally pretty easy to dissuade. One sight of me generally sent them running for the hills with nothing but a brand new inferiority complex to show for their efforts. I went and worked my obligatory few hours in the salon, then drove off to Harry's apartment. There was a bundle of roses on the sidewalk directly in front of his door, but I've sort of learned not to question things I see outside his house, especially after the zombie thing.

I walked down the three steps to his door and barged in without knocking, as was my habit. He was sitting sprawled on his couch, spider legs at a hundred or so awkward angles, carefully arranging a large pile of flower petals on some kind of weird paper in a dictionary he kept lying around for what I'd assumed was no reason. He worked determinedly until none of the petals touched, then closed the book carefully and piled a bunch of others on top of it. I'd always found it fun, to watch him do things like that, things he'd learned so young and done so often that they were second nature now. It was sort of similar to the feeling I got when I watched him do magic, but it held a lot less awe and pride and a lot more familial comfort. It was a little discomforting, though, when he didn't even notice my presence at any point during this process. I really do wonder, sometimes, how he survived so long without me to look after him. His survival instincts really are awful. He jumped a little when he finally saw me.

"Stars and Stones, man, could you knock?" I grinned.

"Never knocked before."

"You lived here before, asshole. I don't expect you to just appear in my living room anymore. I guess it's pretty convenient, though, since I needed to give you a call anyway." I moved to sit on his couch, dropping down gracefully, and crossing my legs. I also propped my fist up on them and gave him my best therapist's expression, just to be an asshole, because I love him. He rolled his eyes at me.

"What seems to be the problem, Mr. Dresden?"

"Well, Mr. Raith, it all started when I was born. See, the Almighty hates me. He proved it by making me be born with this funny disease where I have to smack my stupid, condescending brother over the head with my staff whenever he's being a dick. Oh, wait, actually that might be the one nice thing the Guy Upstairs has done for me." He accented his words with a kick to my shin. I laughed.

"Seriously, Harry, what were you going to call me about?"

"Why did I wake up without pants this morning? I've got a decent idea, but I'd like to hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak." I went silent. Without pants? Never did I leave Marcone alone with him at any point last night, for fear of just such a thing happening! My baby brother! Molested by a mob boss! One who could apparently be in two places at once. And then I remembered that while Marcone himself had never been alone with him, his brick wall had. I could feel my eyes narrow. I'd kill him. Painfully and slowly. Maybe I could give him to House Malvora as a sacrifice, then save him, and let House Skavis finish him off. I glared off into space and imagined the brick wall's head on a pike.

"And what is it that you suspect happened, little brother?"

"Well, I got a present today, from Marcone. It was a box full of clothes, all in my size. I figure they got taken off to check the size, even though that pair didn't really fit too well anyway. He also sent me some roses. I put them on the sidewalk, though, except for a few petals, since I'm running short. These that I'm pressing now will last me until I can scrape together the cash to order some new ones myself." Harry sounded… surprisingly cool about Marcone sending him gifts. I had to fix that.

"Harry, he's a mob boss. Dangerous bad guy, remember?" Harry blinked slowly at me.

"Yeah, I sort of realize this. It's not the first time he's threatened me, though. He's just being a little more creative about it, this time, rather than his usual classic menace-at-me-or-have-Hendricks-menace-at-me-until-I-do-what-he-says method." He thought… he thought Marcone was threatening him. How in the world could he possibly… okay, you know what? No. I'm done being surprised at the sheer, pure devotion my brother must have to completely ignore anything and everything that could possibly be construed, in any way, shape, form, or fashion, as a romantic gesture. I mean, that was more than simple obliviousness; it was selective goddamn blindness. In everything else, he was a pretty smart guy, smarter than me in a lot of ways. Still, listening to him rationalize shit like this was almost sad.

"Harry. He sent you flowers and new clothes that are probably very comfortable and actually, real-life fit you. How could you possibly see that as a threat? I know I've told you this before, and you've ignored it, but he wants to bone you. He wants to bend you over his bed and fuck you until you can't stand up anymore. He wants to do it against a wall, on his kitchen table, in his car, over the hood of his car, and on his couch. He wants to kill monsters with you, go for a tea party with Ivy, and have candlelit dinners. I don't know how I could make this much fucking clearer. Empty Night, Harry, he kissed you twice last night." He blinked, slow and confused and so idiotically cute I was glad Marcone wasn't in the room, because he probably would've jumped my dearest baby brother's bones, consequences be damned.

"Huh? That wasn't a dream?" I wondered how badly it would hurt if I slammed my head against his walls a few times.

"No, Harry, that was real life. Lea kidnapped you, we had to come save you, and Marcone kissed you." Another slow blink, this time with a side of raised eyebrows.

"So I really did threaten to shove a hand grenade up his ass and put uranium in his cereal and turn him into a nuke?" Of course that was what he latched onto. I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe a sane reaction? Ha! Since when have 'sane' and 'Harry Dresden' lived in the same dimension?

"Yeah, but I don't think that's what you should be focusing on. I think the fact that he-" Harry interrupted. As always.

"So that's why he's pissed at me! Maybe I should send him a-" I interrupted him this time. Turnabout's fair play, and all that.

"He's not pissed at you! Let me make this perfectly clear, Harry: Marcone is madly in love or lust with you. I can't really tell which, but they're both equally dangerous for you, where he's concerned."

"That doesn't sound like him. There has to be something else behind it." I reached out and shook him, because sometimes it's just necessary. It seemed to shake some form of sense into him, though, because when I stopped understanding finally dawned on his face. "Hell'sBells." I grinned, because I'd at least finally gotten him on the same page as me. Let this go in the history books, folks, as the day Harry Dresden was finally struck over the head enough times with a Clue Bat that he boarded the Clue Bus.

Marcone's POV

Mr. Russo entered my apartment late one evening, looking for all the world like a shamed puppy. The familiar box under his arm told me the reason for it, and I gave him a sigh and a smile, to calm him enough to speak.

"S-Sorry, Mr. Marcone. He found me and made me take it back. He's real quick, you see. I couldn't run him down, and I ain't got a car right now, you know, so I couldn't chase after him once he got into that bug." I nodded, and waved him off.

"It's alright, Mr. Russo, I honestly expected as much. I'll simply have to get a bit more… creative, in my delivery, I suppose." He gave a grateful smile as he settled the box on my desk, visibly deflating.

"Thanks, Boss. I see why you like him so much, though, even if I didn't before. He's… not bad looking, especially when he's smiling." A pale crimson flush colored the apples of his cheeks. My own eyes narrowed. Mr. Russo spent the next three months cleaning guns, shining shoes, and ironing suits. I, of course, am not a spiteful man at all, as I'm sure you know. Simply… pragmatic. And if I happened to get a bit of pleasure out of watching the boy doing menial tasks after that, well, that's certainly no one's business but my own.