Thomas' POV

John. Marcone. Fucked. My. Baby. Brother. And my baby brother liked it. My baby brother went out to eat with him afterwards. Mybaby brother. What the hell? I knew my little brother was sort of stupid, but I didn't think he was this stupid. Marcone dropped a possessive paw on my brother's bony hip, a smirk bright and wild on his face. Harry looked mortified again. Marcone just seemed smug.

"Harry. Your aura. Do you have any idea what it looks like?" He blushed. Fucking… fuck. Marcone licked his lips, and his lust hit me like a sledgehammer. Images of Harry on his hands and knees, flushed red and keening on the floor, big hands wrapped tight around his hips, assaulted my mind. I'd seen pictures like these before, around Marcone, but they'd always been hazy and pieced together, his fantasies tangling messily with the real bits and pieces he'd seen of Harry's body. These pictures had the solidity of reality that made me growl. I grabbed Harry and dragged him away from Marcone, away from his food, and out the door. Marcone chased after us, his mouth set in a hard line that I cared nothing about. I scolded Harry the entire way out even as he protested that he cared about Marcone, that he was happy and wanted to try this. I didn't care, just then. I dragged him into an alley, where I hoped Marcone wouldn't notice us, but he followed us anyway.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Raith?" Marcone yelled at me, his face for once showing his anger.

"Saving my bro-my friend from the likes of you!" I screamed, dropping my hold on Harry to clench my fists in Marcone's shirt and shove him into the rough alley wall. He bared his teeth at me and shoved hard at the center of my chest, his legs kicking out and landing solid strikes to the back of my knees. Any mortal would have fallen, and even though it ached, I kept my hold solid. Harry was yelling, but I could hardly make out the words.

"There's nothing to save him from," Marcone growled, "Except, perhaps, you. He's come with me willingly, Raith, and there's not shit you can do about it." He tried to punch me, but I dodged it. Harry's hands went unnoticed on my shoulders, a steady, solid weight I couldn't have cared less about just then.

"Fuck you!"

"I've Harry for that now, although I'm afraid you've gotten it backwards," he said tauntingly. My fists tightened, and I felt it easily when his shirt tore somewhat, because my own nails began to cut into my hands. Harry was yelling louder, now at Marcone too. Good, he actually deserved it. I wasn't doing anything except defending him. I slammed him into the wall harder, and his skull cracked against the crumbling brick. He only laughed louder.

"Why the hell did you have to fucking ruin everything?" I cried, "We were happy, or as happy as we could be, and now you're going to take him! You're going to hurt him! I need to… I have to keep him safe!" The gunshot rang out suddenly at the end of my statement, and I saw the car as it drove away, I saw that they'd been aiming for Marcone, and as I dove away, I saw Harry lunge in front of Marcone, his duster billowing out wildly. The bullet bounced to the ground harmlessly. Harry was shaking. Marcone was holding him. I couldn't breathe. I was scared, because Harry almost died a lot, yeah, but I'd never seen a bullet actually hit him, enchanted duster or no. It was… it was unnerving, to recall that he was still just a human even if he was a wizard. It was scary. I was pissed at the idiot for risking his life. I suddenly heard what Marcone was saying.

"Harry, Harry, honey, you idiot, why would you do that, that was stupid, my god, that was dangerous, Mother Mary, don't ever do that again, you fucking moron, don't scare me like that." His words were genuine and soft and scared and worried and everything my voice always was where Harry was concerned. The realness of his feelings suddenly bashed me over the head. He wanted to keep Harry safe too. He loved him too. Harry just chuckled softly, his voice breathy, and I knew his rabbit heart would be pounding a mile a minute in his chest just then, at speeds quick enough to kill a vanilla mortal.

"Don't worry about it, I'm fine." The tirade I'd had set up for Marcone suddenly shifted to Harry, and I let everything out. I let out how stupid I thought he was, how dangerous his life was, how he was going to get himself killed, how he needed to ask for help, how he didn't have to be so independent all the damn time, how he didn't have to save everyone, how it would be nice if for once in his fucking life he'd be selfish, and Marcone helped me. Marcone joined in. Marcone matched me word for word. My god, but I was agreeing with a mobster. I'd never thought this day would come, but here we were, backing Harry into a wall, screaming in time with one another, both of us scared that he'd die and leave us here alone where we didn't ever want to be alone. About ten minutes of this passed before Harry suddenly broke down laughing.

"What, Harry, could possibly be so funny that you feel the need to interrupt us when we are frightened and upset to laugh?" Marcone snarled, and I nodded in agreement, of all things. Christ. This was weird. Me and Marcone agreeing just didn't happen on this place of reality, like, ever.

"You two are agreeing!" he finally managed, his voice still broken with giggles, and he laughed until a few tears were streaming down his face. "You guys have fought for almost a month, nonstop! Now you're lecturing me together! Are you going to exchange friendship bracelets next? Maybe have a tea party? Ooh, I know, you're going to buy one of those best friend necklaces they sell nowadays!" He was chortling, holding his belly he was laughing so hard. I couldn't help it. His smile was infectious, always had been, and I found myself laughing with him. Marcone joined in shortly after, as not even His Royal Badassness can stand against Harry when he's genuinely amused by something. We laughed and we laughed and we laughed there in that alleyway, and while we laughed, Marcone and I came to something of an agreement: we both loved Harry dearly, and we'd both do anything to protect him. I'd let him do that, I'd let him get close to Harry, but if ever he betrayed the trust I was putting in him, if ever he harmed my darling baby brother, I'd rip his guts out through his nose and feed them to Mouse. I'd have to get him involved in the Protect Harry Club soon, I guessed. I wondered what size coat he wore. He'd need the Official Membership Jacket pretty soon, if he wanted to come to our annual ice cream social.

*TIME SKIP* One Month Later…

Murphy's POV

I'd gotten to the Alphas' apartment early enough to snag a place on the couch, this month, which was honestly a pretty rare, enjoyable experience. The not-so-enjoyable part was Johnny motherfucking Marcone sitting right beside me, and I couldn't even have the pleasure of arresting him, since he wasn't doing anything. He was just sitting there, polite as you please, legs crossed, his hands perched easily on his knee, as if he didn't have a gun and at least five knives concealed illegally on his person. I glared at him. He smiled at me. His tacky-as-hell Protect Harry Club jacket was draped over the arm of the couch, whilst my own was hung on the coat rack with most of the others. It always surprised me that Thomas, card-carrying fashionista that he was, had designed the things, which were an eye-searing shade of pink and made of satin. They also had the club's logo, a large battlement with a cute, miniature Harry in the top room, pasted on the breast of them. It never failed to amuse me that Harry had yet to manage to catch one of us with the stupid thing. Still, I was getting off-topic, meaning Harry had rubbed off on me more than I'd thought.

Beyond our resident crook, the room was filled with the same faces as before, except in slightly differing arrangements. McCoy had spent the past twenty minutes snarling resolutely at Marcone, who had simply continued to do that smiling thing that had probably gotten him out of jail more times than I cared to think about. And Harry was dating that. Son of a bitch. I still wondered how he'd managed to come out of this fiasco with his balls intact. Maybe they really were made of steel, like Harry had always said. Come to think of it, maybe I should've suspected something before, considering how often Harry talked about the man's balls. And his eyes. I was pretty sure Harry had a green eye fetish at this point. Thomas climbed up onto his soapbox, the only one in the room who wore his shitty jacket proudly.

"I call this meeting of the Protect Harry Club to order! Today, we welcome a new member to our fold, John Marcone! If that is his real name. Which it isn't, but whatever. John Marcone has been serving as an honorary member and proving his worth at protecting Harry for the past month, and thus far he's stopped two shootings, a knife attack, five magical assassination attempt, and possibly a rape. No one's sure about that one, and for some suspicious reason that no one could possibly determine we can't find the guy." Marcone seemed really pleased with himself. Goddamn it. Marcone was as good as admitting to disappearing somebody right now, and I couldn't do anything, because I was happy about it. This was going to suck. "I vote that he's one of us now." The entirety of the room, except for Molly, who despised Marcone completely and totally both for his chosen profession and for the fact that Harry was screwing him. Even Charity reluctantly raised her hand, although I was pretty sure that was partly because Michael was sort of raising it for her. "The motion carries! John 'The Bastard' Marcone is now a member of the Protect Harry Club!"

I realized with sudden certainty that we were all totally fucking ridiculous. I found myself not caring, because Harry really was rubbing off on me. We were keeping him safe, and that was all that mattered. The rest of the meeting continued on with its usual amounts of stupidity, and a few new plans were written up and named things that were so horrible the world couldn't bear to hear them repeated.

Harry's POV

John came home at about five o'clock, that ridiculous jacket he and all my other closest people thought I could never possibly see mostly hidden under his actual coat. I mean, honestly, it was sort of idiotic that they thought they could make up such a stupid club and I'd never find out about it, but still. In some ways, it was actually sort of cute of them, so I didn't think it was a big enough deal to confront any of them for it. It was pretty nice to know so many people cared about me that much, really, after my particularly unique past. I stood up from the soft, mushy recliner John had bought for me, the one gift from him I'd actually accepted without much of a fuss, and walked over to him with a smile. He returned it, one of his hands going up to loosen his tie and undo the top button of his shirt. It reduced his age by about ten years, at least.

I was generally the only one allowed to see him like that, open and kindly relaxed. I draped my hands over his shoulders, and he wrapped his around my waist, stretching up easily to kiss me. I bent down a little to make it simpler for him, engaging in a dance we'd done many times already. It was a comforting sort of normalcy, the kind that allowed me to relax and grin and be safe and lazy and pleased. He walked me backwards to the couch, and then twisted around to drop down onto it, me on his lap. It sort of fascinated me that he had the capability to let me, who is made entirely of gangly limbs, sit on his lap, but I kind of liked taking advantage of it, days like this. He nipped my neck out of habit, right where he always did, as I'd never been able to break him of it. I had a mark there now that was pretty much permanent, and he insisted on replacing it every time it started to fade away. Still, I fought with him relatively often, so I let him have his way on a few things. I rolled off of him to curl beside him as best I could, my legs taking up an entire half of the couch.

He snorted and allowed me to plop my head onto his chest as he twisted his arm around to settle his large hand on my thigh. We'd come to all sort of compromises, during our rather short time together, and the cuddling was one of them, but it certainly wasn't the most uncomfortable for me. I stretched over him to grab a book, and he snickered, then plucked it from my hands.

"The Hobbit again?" I huffed.

"It's a good book." He flipped it open to the beginning, carefully keeping my bookmark, another gift from him, where it was.

"May I?" I grinned.

"Only if you read it out loud." He nodded, and started to read. He had a surprisingly good voice for it, one that rose and fell with the action, and sometimes he even caught himself doing different voices for the different characters. I smirked at that, and I actually got one of his rare blushes. We sat together like that for hours, and I completely forgot that I'd been planning on spending the day playing with the bugs Murphy had sent for me earlier in the week. Bob, who I'd finally convinced John to let me keep after a thorough inspection by Gard, which Bob himself enjoyed far too much, would be pissed at me. I shrugged to myself and cuddled closer into John's side, pecking the space between his neck and shoulder gently. Like it mattered. I didn't get to be happy and cozy and comforted very often, and I was damn well going to enjoy it. Everything else could wait until I was done. John started on a new chapter, and a noisy explosion sounded from somewhere down the hallways, and Hendricks started cussing a blue streak down the hallway. He slammed the door open.

"What was it this time?" John questioned. You see, we'd been finding all the traps Thomas had lain about the house from before he and John came to their truce ever since they got on friendly terms. First was the termite infestation, then there was the hornet's nest in one of the bathroom cabinets, and then there was the rigged toaster oven that caused a pretty severe fire in the kitchen. At least he had said something about the garbage disposal, which had been set up to explode and fire garbage back at whoever attempted to use it.

"Goddamned vacuum cleaner. It blew up. Dust fucking everywhere. It's on the ceiling. I've got to clean it up. Harry, I'm going to motherfucking kill that asshole Thomas. Then Gard's gonna bring him back, and I'm gonna kill the bastard again. And again and again and again." I snorted. John sighed, his forehead creasing.

"I'll handle it. Take the rest of the day off, Mr. Hendricks." The flustered man finally relaxed and grinned, although his face was still a little red with residual anger.

"Thanks Boss." John nodded and waved him off, then immediately went back to the book once he was gone. I raised my eyebrows at him.

"Didn't you say you were going to deal with that?" He smiled and made a call to that Russo kid who'd delivered the box of clothes with me, telling him in no uncertain terms to clean the mess up. He never had told me why he seemed to hate that poor kid so much. Still, I figured I could find that out later. Just then, I was cozy, and he was coming up on my favorite part, so I didn't really want him to move either. I snuggled back in and shifted my legs, dropping my head carefully atop his shoulder. He moved his hand to scratch my head gently and continued to read. I don't think I've ever felt quite as safe and happy and loved as I did right then.