Files (Dresden Files, gen, Justine POV)
Jan. 14th, 2011 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sienamysticFandom: Dresden Files
Title: Files
Rating: Gen, all-ages
Summary: A Justine POV vignette, set sometime post-Blood Rites and pre-Changes. There's a question she needs Harry to answer. In the meantime, she's learning other things, and filing them all away. Written for Yuletide 2010.
Disclaimer: All characters property of Jim Butcher. I just enjoy taking them out for a spin occasionally.
Harry Dresden’s information was, of course, in our files. The rolodex card holding his details is a trifle battered at this point, and one day I’ll get around to rewriting it on a fresh card, but there are always a thousand more pressing matters and things to file, phone calls to make and take, information to be processed. It was funny to me to discover that ancient evil creatures need a coterie of efficient secretaries, although perhaps they weren’t as organized before Lara Raith took over the operations of her House. Whatever else the rest of the Raiths believe, she is fully cognizant of the power that can reside in a plain manila envelope, inside an utterly average file cabinet, in a discreet office that looks like it handles insurance matters.
I suppose insurance is a fairly accurate description of what those drawers hold, when you think about it. The file on Harry Dresden is thick, and growing thicker. There are a few things that have been discreetly removed from it, at the request of Thomas and done by my hand – a dangerous activity, should I get caught, but then, my life is a fairly dangerous one at the best of times, and I’ve learned to take it in stride. I am a trusted employee of the Raiths, and most of the time, I am a good little worker-bee for them. But when Thomas needs me to be otherwise, I become an infiltrator, carefully covering my tracks.
After all, I had been trying so hard to find some way to die when Thomas found me, at Zero. It doesn’t matter what dangers I face now. He saved me the minute he took my hand and pulled me away from the crowd of dancers, from the second our eyes met and I realized I suddenly wanted something out of life instead of a quick exit out.
With all this Raith-sourced information at my fingertips, it was easy enough to make an appointment to speak with Harry Dresden in his downtown office. I had made it under a false name, and I could see his puzzled recognition as I stepped through the office door.
“Justine? Did Thomas send you about something?” His face, a battered echo of my own beloved Thomas, was quizzical, his usual bouncing energy subdued.
I smiled at him. “This is something I’d rather keep private, actually. For several reasons.”
He tipped his head sideways and examined me, a slight frown creasing his eyes. Ah, Harry. Always protective when it comes to your baby brother. And if you think Lara hasn’t been speculating wildly on how best to leverage the connection between you two...well, I’d bet you’ve already thought of that. You’ve got enough hyper-vigilance to fuel a dozen CIAs.
I held up a hand to forestall his mild indignation, and said simply, “I want to know if there’s some way I can touch Thomas again.”
Harry sagged back in his chair, mouth open. “Oh. I…oh. I suppose you would. Er. Naturally.” I swear, his cheeks were pink.
“Whatever you’re imagining, you’re probably quite correct,” I said, stifling a laugh. “But there are other reasons, too. For one, it’s just really, really difficult. I was walking with him on the grounds yesterday, and a breeze caught a strand of my hair out of my ponytail. Neither of us noticed it until it had blown against his cheek. It was enough to sting him badly, and I’d give a great deal to not constantly be on guard around him. I’m considering beekeeper suits.”
That startled a laugh out of him. “I would pay cold, hard cash to see Thomas in a beekeeper suit. If it happens, take pictures.” He shook off the entertaining thought and recovered his composure. “And the other reason?”
“It may, in the future, become necessary to deceive Lara as to the exact nature of our relationship. Right now, it’s obvious that we love each other. It can’t be hidden, not when I’m walking around in opera length gloves when I know he’ll be by to see me. The entire clan of them act like I’m radioactive, when they’re not snickering at Thomas behind their hands - they don’t dare do it in front of him now that he’s been so useful to Lara.” I made a face at Harry, who was clearly fascinated by this inside look at House Raith. Soap operas featuring the rich and vampiric.
“Inari is lovely, and mostly free of all this, so I don’t see her often, and Elisa isn’t so bad, but Madeline is a complete cow, and some of the cousins that hang around are just horrible. At least Thomas has some clout now; before he was just completely trampled by everyone, and his dad was...” I shivered. “Let’s not talk about his dad. But I’m getting off track...” I stopped, unsure how to proceed. Thomas and I had talked late into the night about this, but I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it. Harry, however, had caught on quickly, as he usually did.
“You think that there may come a time when you will have to trick Lara into thinking that the true-love bond had broken. That you had lost your protections. So he can go play double-agent, I suppose?”
I nodded. “That’s essentially it. Thomas is embracing his heritage, I suppose. He’s learning to think five steps ahead, not just two steps. If we had something like this in reserve, it might someday be useful to him, or to us both, perhaps to you, since he’ll always help you and you seem to be constantly in trouble these days...” He winced, and I held up a hand in apology. “I’m sorry, that was inappropriate of me, Harry. You’ve saved my life more than once. It’s just that you tend to attract big trouble, and Thomas will always back you when you need him. I just worry sometimes. And honestly - my biggest reason for asking this is...I’d really just like to feel his hands on my skin again.”
Harry let out his breath in a little woof, and leaned back into his chair. “I think this is spell-slinging above my pay grade, Justine. I’ll look into it, see if it’s been done before. But I don’t really think there’s anything I can do, and I’m sorry for that. Can you give me a week to research it?”
I stood up, fastening my coat around me as I did so, and smiled at him. “Don’t apologize until you’re certain you can’t help, Harry. And even then, I’ll be grateful to you just for the attempt.” I turned and walked out of the office, not letting my smile falter until I was ushered into the back seat of one of the Raith limousines. And there, in tinted-glass privacy, I cried, just a little bit.
*****
We met again three weeks later. Raith business had taken me to their safehouse in Rome, and then to a quiet back-alley in Zurich, where I handed an envelope over to a man with scales covering his entire body, and orange eyes. And Harry had a quick job of his own, involving helping the police chase down a thief with just enough magical oomph to figure out he could hex ATMs so he could rob them, but not enough smarts to hide his trail. Harry didn’t tell me about it, but I noted it in his file anyway. A quiet man in the records department of the police station kept me informed.
When we finally met again, I could tell what the answer would be. Harry was shifting in his chair, and staring down at some papers he was shuffling, doing anything to postpone the bad news.
“You can’t help us, can you?”
He let out a gusty sigh, and finally put the papers down and looked at me, although not into my eyes. “I tapped every source I had. Chased a handful of leads. None of them came to anything. There was one possibility. But it’s so far out of my league, I don’t even know how I’d begin to fail at doing it right. I’d have to be a master potions maker with a lab of expert assistants to pull it off, it would cost a fortune, and it takes a good year to make - assuming the recipe even works. Only two people have ever tried it - and the most recent attempt was in 1672.”
I trembled for a moment, on the edge of tears even though I had prepared myself for this moment. Harry, ever the gallant, saw it on my face, and practically vaulted the desk to sit next to me and take my hands. “I’m sorry, Justine. I hate failing you like this. I’m just not that good, and anybody who is, well...it would be dangerous to let too many people on the Council know I have a White Court half-brother. Dangerous for me, dangerous for him.”
I brushed away a stray tear and laughed shakily. “I was hoping you’d find something, but I knew how futile it was, truly. I just...it’s hard. It’s really hard.”
I turned my head towards him, forgetting to be careful, and our eyes met. For a long, long second, I felt the beginnings of a strange pressure behind my eyes. Thomas had told me about this thing - he called it a soul gaze. The pupil of Harry’s eye seemed to dilate, and I could see into it, like I was looking into a room. I saw a brown-haired boy sitting there in the middle of it, in the dark, his knees up and his face pressed against them. The boy looked up, and in his face, I saw...
Snap. Harry fell backwards, out of the chair, his eyes squinched shut, and I recoiled as well, pressed back against my chair at the sudden lifting of the pressure. A headache blossomed behind my left eye, and I saw stars for a dizzy moment. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he gasped. “Should have warned you. Soul gaze. Managed to break it off in time. You ok?”
I nodded, still swimmy with the feeling of being pulled under. But wait, he said he had managed to break it off...but it stayed with me - the image of the boy sitting in the dark, with some indescribable emotion on his face - was that some true sensing of who Harry Dresden was? I opened my mouth to tell him what I had seen, but reconsidered, and shut it without saying anything. Harry hadn’t wanted the soul gaze to happen. And while I was sure he had seen something in me, as I had in him, maybe it was best that we not discuss it. I held my tongue, and instead let him get me a glass of water, stayed a few more minutes making light, idle chatter, and left, after hugging him in thanks and brushing away his apologies with a lighter spirit than I really felt.
In the limo, I turned over the image of the boy in my mind. I wasn’t sure if it was an effect of what a soul gaze was, but I could remember it perfectly. What emotion was at the core of Harry Dresden? Sadness, rage, fear, love? All of them, and more? Should I talk to Thomas about it? But they had shared a soul gaze already, he had told me that it happened, although not what it was like. In the end, as the limousine swept up the driveway to the Raith estate, I made my decision. This was information for me alone, not for the Raiths to use against Harry, not even for Thomas, who was Harry’s ally. It was mine, something to hold back for myself. Something that hopefully, I’d never have to use against him.
Running inside, I went to find Thomas.
Title: Files
Rating: Gen, all-ages
Summary: A Justine POV vignette, set sometime post-Blood Rites and pre-Changes. There's a question she needs Harry to answer. In the meantime, she's learning other things, and filing them all away. Written for Yuletide 2010.
Disclaimer: All characters property of Jim Butcher. I just enjoy taking them out for a spin occasionally.
Harry Dresden’s information was, of course, in our files. The rolodex card holding his details is a trifle battered at this point, and one day I’ll get around to rewriting it on a fresh card, but there are always a thousand more pressing matters and things to file, phone calls to make and take, information to be processed. It was funny to me to discover that ancient evil creatures need a coterie of efficient secretaries, although perhaps they weren’t as organized before Lara Raith took over the operations of her House. Whatever else the rest of the Raiths believe, she is fully cognizant of the power that can reside in a plain manila envelope, inside an utterly average file cabinet, in a discreet office that looks like it handles insurance matters.
I suppose insurance is a fairly accurate description of what those drawers hold, when you think about it. The file on Harry Dresden is thick, and growing thicker. There are a few things that have been discreetly removed from it, at the request of Thomas and done by my hand – a dangerous activity, should I get caught, but then, my life is a fairly dangerous one at the best of times, and I’ve learned to take it in stride. I am a trusted employee of the Raiths, and most of the time, I am a good little worker-bee for them. But when Thomas needs me to be otherwise, I become an infiltrator, carefully covering my tracks.
After all, I had been trying so hard to find some way to die when Thomas found me, at Zero. It doesn’t matter what dangers I face now. He saved me the minute he took my hand and pulled me away from the crowd of dancers, from the second our eyes met and I realized I suddenly wanted something out of life instead of a quick exit out.
With all this Raith-sourced information at my fingertips, it was easy enough to make an appointment to speak with Harry Dresden in his downtown office. I had made it under a false name, and I could see his puzzled recognition as I stepped through the office door.
“Justine? Did Thomas send you about something?” His face, a battered echo of my own beloved Thomas, was quizzical, his usual bouncing energy subdued.
I smiled at him. “This is something I’d rather keep private, actually. For several reasons.”
He tipped his head sideways and examined me, a slight frown creasing his eyes. Ah, Harry. Always protective when it comes to your baby brother. And if you think Lara hasn’t been speculating wildly on how best to leverage the connection between you two...well, I’d bet you’ve already thought of that. You’ve got enough hyper-vigilance to fuel a dozen CIAs.
I held up a hand to forestall his mild indignation, and said simply, “I want to know if there’s some way I can touch Thomas again.”
Harry sagged back in his chair, mouth open. “Oh. I…oh. I suppose you would. Er. Naturally.” I swear, his cheeks were pink.
“Whatever you’re imagining, you’re probably quite correct,” I said, stifling a laugh. “But there are other reasons, too. For one, it’s just really, really difficult. I was walking with him on the grounds yesterday, and a breeze caught a strand of my hair out of my ponytail. Neither of us noticed it until it had blown against his cheek. It was enough to sting him badly, and I’d give a great deal to not constantly be on guard around him. I’m considering beekeeper suits.”
That startled a laugh out of him. “I would pay cold, hard cash to see Thomas in a beekeeper suit. If it happens, take pictures.” He shook off the entertaining thought and recovered his composure. “And the other reason?”
“It may, in the future, become necessary to deceive Lara as to the exact nature of our relationship. Right now, it’s obvious that we love each other. It can’t be hidden, not when I’m walking around in opera length gloves when I know he’ll be by to see me. The entire clan of them act like I’m radioactive, when they’re not snickering at Thomas behind their hands - they don’t dare do it in front of him now that he’s been so useful to Lara.” I made a face at Harry, who was clearly fascinated by this inside look at House Raith. Soap operas featuring the rich and vampiric.
“Inari is lovely, and mostly free of all this, so I don’t see her often, and Elisa isn’t so bad, but Madeline is a complete cow, and some of the cousins that hang around are just horrible. At least Thomas has some clout now; before he was just completely trampled by everyone, and his dad was...” I shivered. “Let’s not talk about his dad. But I’m getting off track...” I stopped, unsure how to proceed. Thomas and I had talked late into the night about this, but I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it. Harry, however, had caught on quickly, as he usually did.
“You think that there may come a time when you will have to trick Lara into thinking that the true-love bond had broken. That you had lost your protections. So he can go play double-agent, I suppose?”
I nodded. “That’s essentially it. Thomas is embracing his heritage, I suppose. He’s learning to think five steps ahead, not just two steps. If we had something like this in reserve, it might someday be useful to him, or to us both, perhaps to you, since he’ll always help you and you seem to be constantly in trouble these days...” He winced, and I held up a hand in apology. “I’m sorry, that was inappropriate of me, Harry. You’ve saved my life more than once. It’s just that you tend to attract big trouble, and Thomas will always back you when you need him. I just worry sometimes. And honestly - my biggest reason for asking this is...I’d really just like to feel his hands on my skin again.”
Harry let out his breath in a little woof, and leaned back into his chair. “I think this is spell-slinging above my pay grade, Justine. I’ll look into it, see if it’s been done before. But I don’t really think there’s anything I can do, and I’m sorry for that. Can you give me a week to research it?”
I stood up, fastening my coat around me as I did so, and smiled at him. “Don’t apologize until you’re certain you can’t help, Harry. And even then, I’ll be grateful to you just for the attempt.” I turned and walked out of the office, not letting my smile falter until I was ushered into the back seat of one of the Raith limousines. And there, in tinted-glass privacy, I cried, just a little bit.
*****
We met again three weeks later. Raith business had taken me to their safehouse in Rome, and then to a quiet back-alley in Zurich, where I handed an envelope over to a man with scales covering his entire body, and orange eyes. And Harry had a quick job of his own, involving helping the police chase down a thief with just enough magical oomph to figure out he could hex ATMs so he could rob them, but not enough smarts to hide his trail. Harry didn’t tell me about it, but I noted it in his file anyway. A quiet man in the records department of the police station kept me informed.
When we finally met again, I could tell what the answer would be. Harry was shifting in his chair, and staring down at some papers he was shuffling, doing anything to postpone the bad news.
“You can’t help us, can you?”
He let out a gusty sigh, and finally put the papers down and looked at me, although not into my eyes. “I tapped every source I had. Chased a handful of leads. None of them came to anything. There was one possibility. But it’s so far out of my league, I don’t even know how I’d begin to fail at doing it right. I’d have to be a master potions maker with a lab of expert assistants to pull it off, it would cost a fortune, and it takes a good year to make - assuming the recipe even works. Only two people have ever tried it - and the most recent attempt was in 1672.”
I trembled for a moment, on the edge of tears even though I had prepared myself for this moment. Harry, ever the gallant, saw it on my face, and practically vaulted the desk to sit next to me and take my hands. “I’m sorry, Justine. I hate failing you like this. I’m just not that good, and anybody who is, well...it would be dangerous to let too many people on the Council know I have a White Court half-brother. Dangerous for me, dangerous for him.”
I brushed away a stray tear and laughed shakily. “I was hoping you’d find something, but I knew how futile it was, truly. I just...it’s hard. It’s really hard.”
I turned my head towards him, forgetting to be careful, and our eyes met. For a long, long second, I felt the beginnings of a strange pressure behind my eyes. Thomas had told me about this thing - he called it a soul gaze. The pupil of Harry’s eye seemed to dilate, and I could see into it, like I was looking into a room. I saw a brown-haired boy sitting there in the middle of it, in the dark, his knees up and his face pressed against them. The boy looked up, and in his face, I saw...
Snap. Harry fell backwards, out of the chair, his eyes squinched shut, and I recoiled as well, pressed back against my chair at the sudden lifting of the pressure. A headache blossomed behind my left eye, and I saw stars for a dizzy moment. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he gasped. “Should have warned you. Soul gaze. Managed to break it off in time. You ok?”
I nodded, still swimmy with the feeling of being pulled under. But wait, he said he had managed to break it off...but it stayed with me - the image of the boy sitting in the dark, with some indescribable emotion on his face - was that some true sensing of who Harry Dresden was? I opened my mouth to tell him what I had seen, but reconsidered, and shut it without saying anything. Harry hadn’t wanted the soul gaze to happen. And while I was sure he had seen something in me, as I had in him, maybe it was best that we not discuss it. I held my tongue, and instead let him get me a glass of water, stayed a few more minutes making light, idle chatter, and left, after hugging him in thanks and brushing away his apologies with a lighter spirit than I really felt.
In the limo, I turned over the image of the boy in my mind. I wasn’t sure if it was an effect of what a soul gaze was, but I could remember it perfectly. What emotion was at the core of Harry Dresden? Sadness, rage, fear, love? All of them, and more? Should I talk to Thomas about it? But they had shared a soul gaze already, he had told me that it happened, although not what it was like. In the end, as the limousine swept up the driveway to the Raith estate, I made my decision. This was information for me alone, not for the Raiths to use against Harry, not even for Thomas, who was Harry’s ally. It was mine, something to hold back for myself. Something that hopefully, I’d never have to use against him.
Running inside, I went to find Thomas.
