Favor

Verb: feel or show approval or preference for.

Author's Notes: Alright, here's chapter 3. Since story relevant chat is down in lore notes, I don't really have much to add up here. Not as much work done on BtOG this week, but next week is a vacation. I should have some time then to hopefully crank out some pages.

So, here we go, where Lara and Harry's relationship progresses, and Lara experiences something she has most likely never had to go through before. Eveer.

Time: Post Fool Moon

Why was it that she had thought wizards were boring? Lara was struggling to remember the specific reason as she gave a sheepish looking Harry a rather aggrieved look over the edge of her sunglasses.

"You know, I had thought wizards were supposed to be discreet," she drawled, crossing her arms under her breasts as she continued to give him a look which she really hoped didn't convey just how amused she really was.

"Well, you know, I always felt someone should rock the boat a bit," Harry shrugged, glancing over his shoulder in embarrassment as he refused to meet her eyes. Well, refused to look in the general vicinity of her face. Him being a wizard had made a lot more sense out of his habit of refusing to look anyone in the eyes. She had originally attributed that to him just lacking in confidence.

"Rocking the boat is posting yourself in the yellow pages as a wizard," Lara countered. She purposefully tapped one of her boots on the floor loud enough for him to hear. "Rocking the boat is having business cards outlining your mystic prowess. Rocking the boat is not killing an enormous canid killing machines on the public news."

"I mean, the footage is terrible," Harry pointed out. "Really, when you get right down to it, that could have been anyone wielding enchanted silver. Anyone at all, when you think about it."

"I have thought about it," Lara told him. "And no. No one else seems to come to mind. No matter how poor the footage."

Also, him being a wizard made a lot sense of why she had gone through so many cellphones during their relationship. In the beginning, she had simply thought that the perils of having avant-garde electronics simply made them less reliable. Now though, she probably owed an apology to several dealers she had given scathing reviews to when her phones always seemed to die in a few month.

"At least the werewolf FBI agents never made it on screen, or the hog tied mob boss," Harry finally sighed. "If that had happened, I can only imagine this being much worse."

Lara couldn't help it. She stared at him for a moment, and then abruptly pushed her sunglasses up to conceal her eyes and raised a hand to her mouth.

"And now you're laughing at me," Harry complained, though he couldn't quite suppress a grin as her frame shook with controlled mirth.

"I'm not laughing," she managed to get out with what she felt was remarkable dignity as she tried to make her words true. "I've long since determined that laughing would only encourage you."

"You know, years ago when I first confessed I was a wizard, I had to admit I expected a bit more doubt about my claims," he grumbled. "Why is it again that you never seemed to have any trouble taking my stories at face value and instead go straight to laughing at them?"

"Because I'm rich, Harry," she answered as easily as she could while still restraining her humor. "We're more used to ridiculous things. It says a lot that you can still manage to amuse me like you do despite that."

He had originally been doubtful about her explanation for why she had so easily accepted him being a wizard. He hadn't made an issue of it, but obviously thought that she was just humoring him at first. Until he had apparently been propositioned by Gentleman Johnnie Marcone to use his talents for the mob.

Lara had been mildly impressed by young Marcone's meteoric rise to the top. His combination of solid business acumen and ruthlessly efficient violence had done him well in his career. He'd further impressed her when rather than turning from the truth he had discovered on the way there, he had actively sought to shore up his newly discovered weakness. She hadn't been surprised at his lack of success in bringing good Ser Knight to his cause.

If Harry had been that easy to persuade, she wouldn't have had as much trouble as she had over the years.

Still, with Marcone and a few cases to support her ridiculous claim that wealth equaled belief in the supernatural, Harry had at least ceased to question her original explanation.

"Well, as long as we're on the subject of ridiculousness, I have to ask: what's the deal with the Monroe Manson ensemble?" Harry, no doubt realizing that being on the defensive would never get him out of the hole he had found himself, decided to go on the offensive instead. Lara would have been proud if she wasn't still trying to keep him on the defensive.

"Alas, with the recent explosion in paparazzi, I find myself needing to resort to new methods to going about unmolested," Lara explained, helpfully spreading her arms and posing so Harry could take in today's disguise.

"I have to admit, it's working," he complimented her. "I didn't recognize you at all until you waved me over."

"Once exposed, there is no refuge save in audacity," Lara admitted. It had been two years since her retirement from the porn industry, and she had come to realize she wasn't going to be able to go back for quite some time. She had apparently gotten out too late to avoid the internet.

She had her lawyers trying to determine how to get some of her films removed from the sites they'd ended up on, however it was proving a fruitless effort. There was too much obscurity involved with how the sites were operated and who was responsible for them for her team to track who it was which kept illegally posting her intellectual property and direct the lawsuits at them specifically. They'd had some luck with targeting the servers who hosted them; however the bootleggers would just take their material to another server and it was right back up again.

She felt a bit of sympathy for Pam and Tommy. However, they really had handled the whole affair the wrong way.

In the long run, it would probably be several decades before she could be called on to get back into the industry. She was quite fine with that. She had enjoyed the scene, but in the end the only reason she had joined it was at her father's orders.

In the short run, however, it seems there was a market for candid celebrity shots in the news, and as a porn star she apparently fell into the acceptably famous enough range for a market of her photos to have developed.

With her normal disguises becoming more recognizable, she had decided to simply go so over the top that no one would believe it was really her.

Black satin, lace, bows and frills, all combined with electric colored hair extensions, and her disguise as a goth was complete. Naturally, she wore it well, but she was confident anyone staring at her wasn't staring at her because she was her, but rather because of how well she wore it.

"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," Harry agreed with her.

"Oh, wizard mine," Lara sighed, getting her laughter under control. "How on earth do you keep getting in to trouble like this?"

"Oh, so now I'm your wizard?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. "Wasn't I supposed to be a knight?"

"I suppose you could be both," she offered generously, but paused when Harry began to smile at the concession.

"Like some kind of Mage Knight?" he offered, too innocently. Lara's eyes narrowed immediately.

"We've discussed this before," she began and Harry held up a hand to stop her. She ignored it.

"All I'm saying, is that there's nothing wrong with it…"

"And I'm saying is that it's ridiculous…"

"…It's just good fun, a chance to pretend you're something you're not…"

"…There are many other more dignified methods of escapism…"

"…No one in a session will judge, they're all there for the same reason…"

"…Methods that do not result in endless consumptions of sugar water and corn chips…"

"…and you might just end up enjoying yourself."

"…I have other methods of enjoying myself, thank you."

Both Harry and Lara trailed off at the same time. Lara kept her eyes narrowed. They've had this discussion before. It was a war he wasn't going to win. Finally Harry sighed.

"I'm never getting you to a D&D session, am I?"

"No, you are certainly not," she informed him.

"Not even if we make your character a Queen and we force everyone to call you 'your majesty'?" he offered. She paused. It looked like her Knight knew her well, judging from the tempting bait.

"I have another session you could participate in where you could do the same," she challenged him. "And I can assure you, it would be far more enjoyable."

Harry cleared his throat, but didn't blush. Lara internally snapped her fingers in displeasure. It was getting harder these days.

He was become more inured to her seduction. That was good. It would be hard to function in the White Court if just a little skin and innuendo was enough to throw him off.

"Above the belt please," Harry asked, and she relented. "Susan already gives me enough grief about our hanging out."

"Miss Rodriguez?" Lara asked, already knowing the answer. "How is your pet reporter these days?"

"She's not my pet," Harry corrected. "She's a working acquaintance."

"Oh, is that what they're calling it these days?" she teased.

Lara… had complicated feelings about Susan Rodriguez.

"Look, she's a smart gal, and with a good investigative instinct," Harry defended, reflectively. Lara held a hand up in surrender, interrupting his speech. She'd heard it, or different iterations of it, before.

"I've no doubt of that," Lara allowed. "After all, she managed to discover our little meetings, and figure out who I was despite my efforts. And she has my thanks for being discreet about it. Rather, I was asking because I sensed some… tension between the two of you."

Susan Rodriguez was unimportant and uninteresting. While Lara could admit she was attractive, she was simply one of many attractive young women in an industry that chewed them up and spat them out. And Lara meant this even with her own experience in the pornography industry. It was worse when it came to reporters; there was always pressure to accomplish, and for young women that pressure could force them to either use their feminine wiles to try to get more information, or end up pursuing information into places where their gender made them a target.

In the first case, once it was discovered that they had used those wiles they would be immediately shamed by the same industry that pressured them into doing so.

In the second case, they usually ended up dead or brutalized.

However, Susan Rodriguez had managed to do something that others in her industry hadn't: realized the importance of Harry Dresden.

Some would say that Rodriguez attempts to use flirtation, and her willingness to date for information were signs of her falling into the first category, and thus were a mark against her. Lara would agree with the first part, but disagree with the second. She found Rodriguez's amateurish attempts to seduce Harry for information to be amusing, and a sign of an intelligent mind.

But Lara would also recognize that her stance on seduction fell askew of what most mortals considered appropriate.

Still, Rodriguez ability to identify and monopolize Harry were good indicators of instinct in Lara's book. She had managed to find a real, genuine link to the supernatural that she claimed to be investigating, and even further managed to utilize that link to complete her goals. Her skill as an investigator had even managed to uncover Lara's link to him.

Not anything about Lara's nature though. If Lara suspected Rodriguez even getting close to that, she would have taken steps.

However, she had managed to find out about Lara's old career. Apparently it had taken Harry promising some favors, as well as pointing out that him being friends with an ex-porn star really wasn't what the Midwestern Arcane was meant to investigate to keep her from running with the story.

"Tension, you say?" Harry deflected, poorly. "What would you mean by that? I felt that the working relationship between the two of us was going along rather well. Haven't you pointed out that having a contact in the media could help just as much with how things are presented as what is presented?"

"I wasn't referring of tension between you and Miss Rodriguez's working relationship. I mean tension between you and Miss Rodriguez in your pants," Lara clarified with a slight smirk.

"Hell's bells, Lara. Above the waist line, please," Harry muttered, this time not fully able to suppress the blush she was aiming for.

"But there's so much fun to be had below," she teased, and Harry sighed.

"She's a smart, driven and attractive woman," he admitted. "Maybe there's something there, but I'm not sure I want to press it."

"Perhaps she would appreciate you pressing it?" she supplied, and Harry finally gave her that warning look. She had become familiar enough with it to know that any further teasing would result in his actually being upset. She relented, holding her hands up to show her surrender.

"I'm just not sure I want to risk it," he admitted, staring down into his mug. "What if it's not what I think it is? Or what if it is, but it doesn't work out?"

"What if it is what you think it is?" Lara countered gently. "What if it does work out?"

It was strange, but she found herself meaning her questions. True, she had been waiting for some time for Harry to show interest in another. Harry had proven a hard target, or just incredibly dense when it came to female interactions. For six years, she had been meeting with him, and never in that time had he shown any chink in his armor of celibacy. While she enjoyed his presence, she couldn't imagine a dry spell lasting more than a week, much less six years plus however long it had been in place before. And that was even disregarding the fact that her Hunger wouldn't allow her to go that long in the first place.

Now that a weakness appeared, it was true that it was in her best interest to encourage it. A dalliance would finally clear that protection of his, opening him to more direct methods of pursuit. However, it wasn't strictly necessary. Lara had excellent control of her Hunger, and if he had shown any interest in her, she was confident she could have successfully taken him without falling to her Hunger. Afterwards, she could see if that had been enough to break his protection (protection was rare, after all, and there were some aspects of what it would take to break a protection that were a little hazy). If it wasn't, it would be simple enough to encourage him to come with her to a club and perhaps indulge a bit more (all men dreamed of a menage a trois, right? Afterwards, there would be no doubt of the protection being wiped free).

But that didn't matter. Rather than all her plans, she found herself asking the questions simply because it was what Harry needed to hear. She was a friend regardless of her ultimate intent, she reasoned, and sometimes it was up to friends to give their friends the push they needed, right?

"I just worry," Harry finally admitted with an explosive sigh. "I think she would be…"

"Amendable to aligning interests?" Lara provided helpfully.

"I was really worried I was setting you up with that line, but yeah, amendable," he nodded. "But even if it worked out in the short run, what about the long run? What if things go wrong, or something happens, and it falls apart?"

"Those are the kind of worries that really should be saved until after you've confirmed amenability," Lara reminded him. "And if it doesn't? It simply means you tried it, and it didn't work. It's better to find those things out, rather than leave them as could have beens."

He closed his eyes and gave a brief, jerky nod as he acquiesced her point.

"Besides," Lara continued, wryly this time. "There are other smart, driven, and attractive women out there. Even if it doesn't work out, there are other options available."

"Like there are so many other women like that who find me attractive," he quipped.

Lara raised an eyebrow.

"Harry," she began slowly. "I know you're not that dense."

"Er," he glanced away, and she knew him well enough to know he understood who she was referring to.

"I have to ask," she went on, "was there a reason you never took me up on my invitations?"

Six years Lara had been meeting with Harry. During that time, she hadn't been idle. In the beginning, her invitations were subtle. They still were, if only barely. Lara would not demean herself to being brazen and instead had just eased up on the subtlety. And not once had Harry taken her up on her offer.

She knew she was taking things slow. That had been the plan, after all. But Lara was not used to being denied what she wanted.

Part of the reason she chose now to bring it up was that people were more inclined to take risk when they had a safety net. By broaching this subject now, she was effectively saying that even if things fell through with Miss Rodriguez, she herself would still be there.

Her. Lara Raith. As a safety net. To think.

Which was, perhaps just a little, the other reason she was bringing it up. Lara KNEW that if she truly wanted to she could have Harry in her bedroom by the end of the day. But still, for someone to have resisted even her gentle pressure she was curious, if perhaps a little miffed, about why.

Harry cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable with the topic and not sure how to respond.

"Was it my job?" Lara asked, having suspected the reason for his reticence. It wasn't uncommon for men to be intimidated by her past sexual history. Even just the recent amount she had made Harry aware of, much less the centuries he wasn't. For some reason men always seemed to wonder how they measured up. Couldn't they just accept that it doesn't matter who you were with before, just who you were with now?

"It wasn't that," Harry hurriedly assured her, before pausing. "Well, not only that. Look," he began, before taking a hasty sip of his coffee. Lara gave him a moment to gather his thoughts, leaning forward so she could hear his reasons.

"Let's be frank, Lara," he began. "You're the full package. Gorgeous, talented, tough as nails, rich…"

"All true," she murmured.

"And modest," he added in a deadpan. "At first, I have to admit I was a little intimidated. What, with you killing, you know, like five people back when we first met."

"Ah," Lara grimaced slightly. It was hard to play the demure, needed to be protected damsel role that some men preferred after something like that. Had she thwarted herself before she even began?

"Which I thought was pretty badass, truthfully," he admitted, alleviating that particular doubt almost as soon as it occurred to her. "But after we got know each other, I realized that you were more than just a pretty face with a mean trigger finger. You were smart, insightful, funny. You have a great sense of humor, and a great personality."

If nothing else, Lara realized that this conversation had identified a flaw in herself that she was previously unaware of: she was apparently weak to genuine praise. She felt herself flush as the man before her, who had no intention of trying to flatter her to bed or take advantage of her in any other way, who had taken years to get to know her when she had the leniency to be true to herself rather than play a role, continued to list what he saw as her good quality.

Damn it. The tables were turned! How dare he embarrass her, and not the other way around!

"I know you can, and have, had your pick of the litter over the years," he continued, "but I also saw the way your fans would come up to you and just sort of assume you were some oversexed bimbo rather than a person because of your job and hit on you. It sort of pissed me off, to see people treating you like that, so I decided I wasn't going to sink to their level."

Lara would avenge herself of this indignation, she swore silently as she felt her flush grow.

"So, yeah at the beginning I didn't take you up on anything so I could sort of prove that I like you as a person, rather than an objectified sex symbol," Harry went on. "But, you know, the longer that went on the more I ended up liking you as a person. I guess in the end, I just started liking you more for what you offered as a friend, than what you could have offered in the sack."

Lara was silent a moment, before she spoke up.

"Harry Dresden," she began slowly, her tone even as she spoke each syllable of his name. "Are you trying to say you friendzoned me?"

Her. Lara Raith. Friendzoned. Why was she putting up with this indignity again?

"Well, maybe a little?" he offered hesitantly.

Lara was extremely glad she had left her sunglasses on. Her breath felt a little short, her clothes a bit too tight. She was sure right now her eyes were bordering on white.

Her Hunger was telling her to take him. Right here. Right now. It didn't care about his protection, or her plans. All her Hunger was telling her was that she needed to dominate the man in front of her. She needed to take him inside her, physically and spiritually, and mark him indelibly as prey, as HERS.

Lara had mastered her Hunger centuries ago, and was still its master now. She restrained it with the ease of long practice and an iron will cultivated over the years. But the surge of want had been unexpected.

Was it her growing tired of refraining from her instincts? Was it the unexpected and earnest praise and genuine admiration he had given her? Was it suddenly being confronted by the unexpected, and unwanted, chivalrous regard?

Whatever it was, she waited until she was sure her eyes had returned to their natural shade, before taking off her glasses and looking him in the face. He averted his gaze from hers, most likely to avoid a soulgaze, but kept his line of sight on her face.

"Thank you," she told him directly. Whatever else had occurred here, he had spoken honestly to her about his feelings for her, and she appreciated those feelings. "For your words. I appreciate how you think of me, and I'm glad you're my friend."

"You're welcome," he responded gruffly, no doubt succumbing to that immature masculine belief that discussing your feelings was somehow wrong in some way.

"That being said, I do hope you know me well enough to know how I would react to such a statement," she pointed out pleasantly.

"Yeah," he grinned sheepishly. "I sort of figured."

Good. He did know that there was no way she couldn't take that as a challenge.

"I believe you have a conversation with Miss Rodriguez to see to soon," she continued, sipping her cup and finishing her coffee.

"Yeah, I guess I do," he admitted, bracing himself as he raised his own cup to finish it.

"On the plus side, if the conversation goes poorly, you know that you have mind-blowing, life altering rebound sex available," she added, already having the menu available to block his spit take as she timed the sentence right while he was drinking. He began coughing furiously, glaring at her, and she smiled innocently at him in return.

"Hell's bells, Lara," he grumbled. "Above the belt, please."

*Scene Break*

Lara had plans to go out that night. The sudden surge of Hunger earlier had left a lingering heat in her, and she wanted that cleared up as soon as possible. She had been feeding regularly, but perhaps she might be better off increasing her intake if she was getting hunger pangs like that so unexpectedly.

Before she determined what she was wearing to Zero tonight, she intended to see to it that her progress was filed. Which she would, of course, have to do herself.

After years of broaching the subject, her father had relented to her proposal to upgrade her filing system. Technology was making it possible for the files to be accessed electronically and remotely, meaning that even across the world the profiles she had been gathering could be utilized with a fair level of convenience. They could even cross reference those files now, allowing them to be searched by faction or geographical region.

Agents of the White Court about to engage in missions for the Court would be able to easily determine potential threats or opportunities in their operation, and increase their efficiency.

Something she had been pointing out for nearly a decade now.

Though, of course, her father had naturally presented the plan like it was his idea, which he had manipulated her into doing without her knowledge. Which was fine, actually. Credit was something you tended to try to avoid garnering in the White Court. It meant you had been forced to act overtly.

And if he could claim it for himself, it would mean he didn't have to… admonish her loyalty later.

Still, even if her attempts were finally gathering fruit, she found that fruit a bit sour as her father had naturally presented his own requirements over the personnel she was finally allowed to gather.

Really. Passing up the best programmer because he wasn't good looking enough? Refusing to hire experienced typists for data entry and instead hiring only the most vapid, stupid, and attractive for the role?

Two steps forward, and one step back was the name of the game.

Well, the dim personnel made it easier for her to manage just what information was being entered, and the low efficiency let the process stretch out. Consequentially, certain files that Lara considered sensitive still only existed on paper, and she was still the only one that really bothered to handle them.

Files, like the one for good Ser Knight.

She had considered just ensuring his file was never fully entered, but with the waves Harry had been making it was inevitable that someone would realize he wasn't in the system. Consequentially, it was most important to simply ensure she was the one handling them for now.

Which was her intent, before she opened the door to the filing office and discovered that at some point a localized disaster had occurred.

"Thomas," she sighed, unsure if the sight before her was amusing or disappointing. "Really?"

"Lara!" her drunken brother slurred cheerfully, raising a bottle of tequila to her. The action was apparently enough to unbalance him, and he fell over from the chair he had been haphazardly perched on. Fortunately, the tequila missed the table, and somehow he managed to avoid spilling any of it on the floor which had more files on it than the table at this point. "Have a shot!"

"Oh Thomas," she sighed again as she placed a hand to her forehead, as much in exasperation as to cover her smile. "When I insisted that if you were going to be staying in the Chicago estate you would be required to review the threat assessment files, this wasn't what I had in mind."

"Oh, everyone knows that if you're going to study anything, than you have to be drunk," Thomas enthused, trying to push himself up the chair. He missed the chair with the hand grasping for support, and fell forward, slapping his chest and face into it instead. Despite the sudden move, he managed to avoid spilling any of the tequila. "A million frat boys can't be wrong, right?"

"I suppose not," she acknowledged, coming forward to help him back into the chair. When he stuck the tequila under her nose she rolled her eyes and took the bottle from him. It wasn't her usual fare, but she was already planning on indulging herself today so she decided to take her brother up on his offer.

She threw the bottle back, pulling on it hard. Thomas blinked at her as she kept pulling, but after ten seconds he cheered and began chanting, 'Chug, chug, chug!'

It took her another thirty seconds, but once she finished the bottle she placed it down next to him, wiping her lips primly. She suppressed a belch, as she had an image to maintain.

"I always knew you were my favorite, sis!" Thomas clapped appreciatively, and she gave a small stage bow in response. The pleasant rush was already starting to work its way through her.

"Alas, now that the bottle is empty, you won't be able to get another until you finish your reading," she told him, and he gasped, staring between the now empty bottle and the piles of files he still had to work his way through.

"Insidious! Diabolical! Tyrannical!" he declared as he realized her master plan.

"Indeed," she agreed easily, moving to the appropriate cabinet so she could retrieve Harry's file. "Such is the fate of all those oppose my nefarious reign of terror."

Thomas laughed easily, already picking up one of the profiles. She would have applauded his diligence, if he wasn't simply flipping the papers over after barely giving them a glance. She could only hope that he somehow managed to acquire through osmosis the information within them.

Still, Thomas was well documented philanderer and hedonist at this point. Her father had already given up on him ever contributing meaningfully to family business. The chances of him accidently offending any of the powers in the city were limited to him running across them in the bar and hitting on them inappropriately. Frankly, some of them might even appreciate it.

"I gotta say sis, whoever you've been banging recently has gotta be pretty good," Thomas told her as he continued to waste his time. "You've always been the favorite sister, but recently you've been a lot more relaxed."

"Hmmm?" she hummed, flipping through the appropriate cabinet, and frowning when she couldn't find Harry's file. She fingered through the cabinet, checking to see if she had misfiled it the last time she had updated it. "There hasn't really been anyone in particular."

"Ah, gotcha," he nodded sagely, tapping the side of his nose and winking exaggeratedly at her. "Keeping it on the sly. Madeline's not in the city, but Natalia can't keep a secret worth shit. Probably for the best. Daddy dearest might get mad if you follow through with what you said you were going to do last time you caught her poaching."

"There really hasn't been anyone in particular though," she shrugged. "Managing the club has been taking some time, and organizing all the shell companies to purchase the smaller studios under Silverlight has been a bureaucratic nightmare. Tonight's going to be the first time I've been to the club for recreation in several weeks."

"Oh! I'll go with! Let me grab Justine and…" Thomas began to rise immediately as he saw a way out of his assignment, only for Lara to level a flat look at him. "Or I could stay here and make sure to take care of all this reading. Always liked reading. It's like a movie, only without pictures."

"Someday I might introduce you to this strange and archaic artifact. It's called a book," she told him, frowning as she still couldn't find the file. Turning, she gave the scattered files a quick look, before finding the one she was looking for. Thomas must have decided that rather than find the assigned files and remove them individually he would just grab whole handfuls out of the cabinet and hope the ones he were looking for were in the pile.

"What are you doing with that?" she sighed, striding over the table and snagging the file from beneath the one Thomas was currently reading. He panicked as the movement knocked the file on top that he was picking through onto his lap.

"Er, how did that get there?" he wondered, trying and failing to look innocent. He wasn't fooling anyone. Lara would have to lecture him on office etiquette later. It was just rude to mess up the files that everyone needed. It was good manners to ensure that things stayed where others could reasonably expect to find them. "Who's that?"

"No one you need to worry about," she told him, opening the file and flipping through it. She already had the report on the news report printed and prepared. She had just held off on filing anything until she had spoken with Harry about it to see if he would mention anything she hadn't already determined.

Her contacts in the legal system had already confirmed who were involved, and where, so there was nothing particular to add and the paperwork just needed to be filed. "Just a long term project of mine."

The alcohol must have been kicking in, because for a moment she could have sworn that Thomas looked panicked.

Lore Check.

Alright, so Dresden STILL hasn't figured out what Lara is. This is partially the result of him not having any reason to believe otherwise and thus not bothering to check, as well as the fact that the White Court is just naturally low key. In Blood Rites and Proven Guilty Harry points out how the White Court vampires have a way of camouflaging themselves passively. Susan has shown up too at this point. Lara is obviously using her to try and get Harry laid, partly to help her friend out (really, celibacy is like anorexia for the White Court after all. Just not healthy), and partly because once he DOES get laid, Lara gets her chance to start upping her game.

Harry's feelings for Lara are pretty much Cannon. Harry has always greatly admired Lara's brains, wit, and ability in addition to her appearance. It's one of the reasons he's so cautious of her in the first place. There's no reason that he wouldn't feel the same here, but the difference is that here he has no reason to avoid her for it. Harry being pissed off that other people treating his friend like a bimbo resulting in him being determined not to do the same seems right up his line of thinking as well.

Thomas shows up here as well. He would have met Justine about a year or two ago at this point (according to the series timeline). The White Court has numerous safe houses, so theoretically there's no reason he would have HAD to be in Chicago before that, so I decided to have him just start here. This would have been one year before one of his Oblivion War missions. Theoretically at this point he would have been on several. This calls to mind why Lara is internally categorizing him as being mildly useless. There's a lot of opening for interpretation here from the series, and while Lara does love her brother, and has been directing him on missions at this point, there's no reason she can still secretely think of him as still being an immature but loveable idiot.

As for Lara herself here, I admit I've started taking some liberties with her character. Her reaction to being embarassed, her choosing to steal the tequila, etc. The truth is, there's a LOT of room for interpretation for Lara. We don't really know her for more than a day or two in the series before she suddenly finds herself the new ruler of the White Court. What was she like before that, when she was simply an agent of the King? Back when she was basically just an experienced wetworks woman? My thoughts are that she would be a more relaxed and informal person, back before she had to maintain an image. Yeah, she wouldn't show it to just anyone, but in front of her brother and her friend, I could see her genuinely relaxing. The kind to take a night off after a hard mission, destress through some partying, and no reason not to be able to do it in public. Later on, she has to start maintaining her image more carefully, but for now? #LaraClosetPartyGirl.