Just a Little Bit of Peril?
Title: Just a Little Bit of Peril?
Fandom: The Dresden Files
Spoilers: Couple big ones for Blood Rites and White Night.
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry gets revenge on Thomas for "It Is, On Occasion, Hilarious."
Notes: Phew! So much angst. I think it's time for some crack, don't you?
“I hearby christen this place Castle Anthrax,” I said, and struck a pose.
“It’s not remotely a castle,” Murphy observed. Buzzkill. “And that’s not a grail-shaped beacon. Or, lest you go that direction, a Batsignal.”
“There is a shocking lack of Batsignals in this city. But I’m not being Batman today.”
Murphy coughed, and her mouth twisted the way it does when she fights a smile. “Good, because I’m not in the mood to be Robin. Remind me what we
are doing here?”
‘Here’ was the alley running along the back of Thomas’s hair salon. It was narrow, dark, and slightly damp, as are most of Chicago’s back alleys, crowded with trash cans and the occasional recycling bin. I stood at the back door, my staff in one hand while I fumbled with the lock with the other. Murphy was behind me, looking entirely too cute in an oversized plaid shirt and jeans, waiting for me to answer her question.
Thomas had showed me how to open this lock without a key once. Doing that while talking was proving to be difficult.
“We are getting revenge on Thomas for that business with the Firefly quoting last week,” I said, when I’d reached a pausing point. “Remember that?”
She grinned. “How could I forget? It was the most fun I’d had on duty in years.”
“For you, maybe.” The door clicked open, and I pumped a fist in the air. “Success! Come on. Anyway, I’m his little brother, not the other way around. I’m supposed to be the obnoxious one.”
“I guess that’s true enough.” She waited, pointedly, until I went in before her. I got the last point though; I held it for her from inside. Bonus points for long arms. “I still don’t think that bursting in on him during business hours is the best way of doing this.”
I grinned at her and swung the door shut. “But that’s the brilliant part of my genius plan. He closes for an hour at lunch.”
Murphy stared at me. “So, what, you’re going to burst out of his back room and start quoting things at him? And I’m supposed to bear witness?”
“Pretty much!” I said.
“You’re insane, and I’m going to blame you.”
My grin got a little bit wider. “Feel free. I don’t want anyone else taking the credit for this genius plan.”
She laughed at me. If I hadn’t been feeling so smug, I might have felt a little hurt. Regardless.
The back room was darker than I’d expected, and I kicked over a pile of something soft getting to the salon proper—I think it was towels. Murphy picked her way with far more dexterity than I did. I waited until she was standing just behind me in a perfect witnessing position before I shoved the door open.
The salon lay revealed, a mass of gleaming metal, black and white and pink tiles, and my brother, mid-bite, staring at me across a table with his mouth open. On anyone else it would have been unflattering; on Thomas, a White Court vampire, it somehow managed to be sexy. Bastard. Anyway.
He wasn’t alone. A couple of the other hairdressers he employed were there, as well as his receptionist. All four of them were blinking at me. It was about as perfect as it could get.
I grinned at Thomas, took a deep breath, and savored the moment.
Then, in my loudest voice, I announced, “And after the spanking, the oral sex!”
Behind me, Murphy made a strange noise halfway between a choke and a snort.
Thomas stared at me for a second, and then said, “Uh. Hello to you too.” He wasn’t using the accent. His employees must’ve known about the fakery. They clearly didn’t know about me, though.
“Quick!” I said, striding into the room and seizing his arm. “You are in great peril!”
His minions blinked, oddly in unison, and one of them ventured, in a tone too tentative to be deliberate, “No, he isn’t.”
“Silence, foul temptress!” I boomed, disregarding that a) he was very neat and b) he was a guy.
Thomas, in the gentle, kind voice one uses with the incurably insane, asked, “Harry, are you insane or just trying to make me so?”
“Come on!” I said, beckoning madly at Murphy, who clung to the doorway and sounded like she was having a seizure. “We’ll cover your escape!”
Something about that line must have tipped him off, because he glanced at his employees, then at the women already beginning to line up outside the door. He gave me a long-suffering look, and in his driest tone said, “Please. I can defeat them. There’s only a hundred and fifty of them.”
The hairdressers exchanged glances. The receptionist gasped, and then started to laugh. Murphy was gasping for air and turning pink. Yep, I’d say this was a success.
I leaned in to Thomas and hissed, “This is what you get for quoting Firefly at me, you bastard.” Louder, I added, “We were in the nick of time! You were in great peril.”
“I don’t think I was,” Thomas said. “Really. And you deserved it.”
I ignored this obviously silly statement and bulled ahead. “Yes you were, you were in terrible peril.”
“And it’s my duty as a knight to sample as much peril as I can. Can I get back to work then?”
“No, it’s too perilous.”
There was a sudden silence. Thomas began to grin.
I realized what I’d set myself up for at approximately the same time that Murphy, grinning devilishly, beat Thomas to it.
“Bet you’re gay.”
I spluttered. Thomas laughed like an idiot. The poor deprived hairdressers were making faces at each other and the receptionist pounded the table, howling.
Next time I’d pick one that couldn’t come back to bite me.
Bastard.
