Title: I Sidhe What You Did There
Author: binz
Fandom: The Dresden Files, book!verse
Pairing/Characters: Harry/Marcone
Rating/Category: NC17
Word Count: ~7800
Prompt: for kink_bingo, square public sex.
Spoilers: Spoilers through to Turn Coat.
Summary: Stars and stones, I hoped this didn't end up as some sort of Sidhe sex tape.
Notes/Warnings: Main kink: sex in public, for a given value of public. Secondary kinks: light aphrodisiac and/or drug/alcohol

The second time Mab, Queen of the Unseelie Court, of Air and Darkness, let herself into my office dressed in human guise, I was on the phone with my commanding officer. Let me tell you, that's a situation no etiquette book has ever prepared you for.

"Wizard Dresden?" Anastasia Luccio asked, her voice far-away and tinny sounding over the staticy phone line. Between the ancient phones, the effects wizards have on modern or even modernish technology, and the long-distance call from Edinburgh to Chicago ... well. It wasn't the clearest of lines, let's just leave it at that. "Wizard Dresden? You are still there? This line is secure?"

"... Um," I said.

Mab smirked at me, lips as red as frozen raspberries, and held open my office door to let in Grimalkin. The last time I'd seen them both, it had been in a hospital chapel; Mab had spoken to me without the use of Grimalkin as her interpreter, and the pain had nearly killed me.

I swallowed.

"Wizard Dresden? Can you respond?"

"Ah, yeah. Um. I gonna call you back."

I'd never hung up on Luccio before. Not when we'd been ... well. Not dating. But casually seeing each other, if you can call her interest in me, forced upon her through mind control by a traitor in the White Council of Wizards, ‘seeing each other’. And especially not when she was acting in the capacity of my superior officer.

I scrambled with the phone, hitting the cradle at an angle, and ended up holding it on with both hands. Obviously, I was smooth, suave, and utterly unshaken by my visitor.

Mab's smirk deepened, and she held out a hand, gloved in off-white leather cuffed with what looked like sinfully soft white fur, and I didn't want to spend too long pondering what type of creatures the materials came from. There was snow on her sleeve, a long pea coat in shifting shades of blue to suit the weather, and it showed no sign of melting anytime soon. An envelope was in her hand, small and square and decorative.

"An invitation, from Mab of the Unseelie Sidhe," Grimalkin said, his raspy, alien voice matching Mab's smirk. "Offered in good grace, to a Warden of the White Council and an Emissary of the Winter Court." Grimalkin's ear twitched and Mab's bright eyes, their colour shifting between blues and greens and the deep purples locked in the ice of a glacier, crinkled at the edges. "Accept it with no obligation in the capacity of these entities, as a gesture of goodwill, and no debt shall be accrued."

I scowled, wondering if that counted as goodwill, and plucked the envelope from Mab's hand. "Under those conditions, the offer of the invitation is accepted, but not necessarily the contents within."

"Acceptable," Grimalkin said, and they turned to leave. They were almost at the door before Mab turned back, raised a finger, and Grimalkin spoke for her, its wailing, inhuman voice tinged with the Sidhe Queen's amusement. "Your attendance at the event is especially requested, dear boy, and that of your guest. We will expect to see both you and your young man, bold child who brought Summer fire to Arctis Tor."

My stomach dropped out of my middle, and probably landed somewhere on the first floor.

Mab winked in a way I was coming to hate, and left my office with a swirl of snowflakes that still hadn't melted two hours later when I pulled on my coat and pushed out into the chilly December night.

At least she hadn't made me stab a letter opener into my hand this time.

The Beetle took a few tries to start, but the engine finally turned over, and I drove home stewing in a sullen sort of anger that was tinged nicely with panic and inevitability. Who says wizarding isn't a barrel of laughs?

I needed to accept the invitation - a pre-Solstice celebration thrown by the Winter Court in Undertown, with Winter revealing at the height of its power - for all the right political reasons (I would be acting as a representative of the White Council if I refused, rude enough, but Winter was a tactical ally, and I couldn't risk Mab pulling her permission for the White Council to use the Ways through Winter as a response to the slight of my refusal) and all the survival reasons of the fact that Mab effectively owned me.

But bringing John into it.

Hells bells, how had she even known?

I mean, we'd been so careful. And if there's one thing John Marcone knows how to do, it's keep a secret -- except when there are meddlesome wizards involved, it seemed.

The thought made me clench my teeth, and I ground my molars together while I slid the Beetle into its usual parking spot outside of my basement apartment in a century old converted boarding house. If I had somehow given us away ... John would forgive me.

Whether or not I would forgive myself was another thing entirely.

And whether or not it would matter because there probably wouldn't be enough of me left to forgive once Cujo Hendricks got through with me for putting his boss in harm's way like that, well. That was another matter all on its own.

I swore empathetically at Mouse after I shoved open the poorly installed steel security door, and explained sheepishly when he blinked at me with big sad doggy eyes. Stars, he can make me feel like a lousy parent sometimes. I consoled him and my stupid conscience in one go by pouring the larger half of our can of Coke into his bowl, and sat down on my comfiest sofa for a good long think.

"But what am I going to DO?"

Mouse wagged his tail at me, and put his head on my knee for an ear rub.

"Oh for -- argh," I said. "You're right. It's not fair of me to make this decision on my own." So I sighed, reached for my ancient rotary phone to dial a number I knew by heart, and Mouse panted happily, slobbering on my arm.



In the end, we really hadn't had much of a choice. So, on December 13, I shuffled my boots in the icy slush on the sidewalk and skulked in the shadows until a dark sedan slowed to a stop a few feet away from me. The driver lumbered out of his seat and over to the rear, opening the door and resembling nothing so much as a well-trained redheaded gorilla. I wondered if Hendricks knew sign language. And if he had a kitten.

Then I didn't wonder anything else for a few minutes when John Marcone got out of the car.

His eyes shone in his handsome, comfortably confident and urbane face; his posture was assured and relaxed; his suit fit him like a glove -- not surprisingly, since it had most certainly been tailored to his exact specifications -- and there was a lot to fit. John wasn't bulky or anything, but he was well toned -- in amazingly good shape, really, for a man in meetings all day, and trust me when I tell you the flexibility and strength in that body is incredible. I wanted to take a bite out his shoulders, to rub my face against his pecs, and push him back inside the car and forget the Winter event entirely.

The suit itself, a soft, tightly woven grey, was simple and cleanly pleasing, and the blues of the tie and his shirt was a nicely subtle acknowledgement to the hosts. I'm not so classy. I wore black. It's always in style, right?

"Mr Dresden?" John said, his sharp, intelligent green eyes peering into the darkness where I was standing, missing me by only a quarter of an inch or so. He's good.

He adjusted his gaze in an instant when I pushed off the wall, a flicker so fast I doubt even Hendricks saw it, and was smiling with a corner of his mouth and the lines around his eyes when I stepped into the dim glow of the street lights.

"John," I said, hands in my duster pockets, and I rocked easily on my feet. "Looking sharp."

"You look like a cowboy, Mr Dresden. I was unaware that this was a costume event."

"Boss," Hendricks grunted, and held out John's woolen greatcoat. John nodded and slid it on as easily as a king into his robes. Show off.

I tucked my chin down, lips pursed, and waited. Hendricks didn't take the hint, and stood solemnly behind John. John raised his eyebrows, eyes sparkling. I scowled and tapped my hands against my thighs through my duster pockets.

Hendricks grunted. "You moving anytime soon, Dresden?"

"... You're not coming with us, Hendricks. My invitation is for plus one. Plus one, only. And you don't want to know what happened last time I was at an Accord-ruled event and a gatecrasher showed up." With a counterfeit invitation and a determination to find a story for the supernatural-focused newspaper she worked at, The Arcane.

"I'm waiting here," Hendricks said, and crossed his arms. I've seen mountains that seemed more inclined to move.

"You're going to get frostbit."

"I'll be in the car."

"So why aren't you in the car?"

"Gotta see you off."

John's mouth twitched, and I threw up my hands. It was like having a chaperon. A big hulking linesman of a chaperon who only existed to stop you from enjoying the good things about your lover, and not to come exercise some knuckle-cracking intimidation at the otherworldly hootenanny you were headed to. Hell's bells.

"... Fine," I ground out. "We go in here." I jerked my thumb behind me at the half-finished building. There always seemed to be half-finished buildings in this part of town, especially lately. "Connect to the Pedway, and then down into Undertown. We'll either get a guide, or the way will be marked. Official rules. There's usually an unlocked door into these buildings; we're just going to have to find it."

"Or," John said, reaching into his greatcoat pocket. "We could use the key." He held up both a traditional metal key (somehow, I was willing to bet good money that it was untraditionally made of iron) and a plastic keycard.

"You own the building?" My voice was flat, but I could feel the smirk starting to creep in around my lips. "You own the building."

"And the land that the building is on, naturally."

"Naturally. And depending on how far into Undertown we're going, possibly also the land that we're headed to."

"Naturally."

I grinned - there's a certain satisfaction in being faced with a smug bastard when you can share in it - and John's smile widened into one of his rare real ones. His head jerked left and right, gaze flickering down the empty street, and then he took two quick steps forward and had a hand on the back of my head, pulling me down to kiss him.

Oh Stars, I always seemed to forget how good it is.

It's hard, when you can't be with your lover -- when you can barely manage to see him save for a few carefully planned hours every few months. I deepened the kiss, brushing my tongue across John's lips, and smiled when he returned the favour.

Hendricks made a sort of choked gagging sound, and John laughed, pulling away. The big redheaded lunk might protest dramatically, but he has been our closest, if often reluctant, ally these past years.

"Let's go, Harry. Before Mr Hendricks gets hypothermia." John slipped around me to unlock the door, pulling out a flashlight, and I heard the lock click. Hendricks glowered, and I toodled my fingers at him before following John through into the dark building and toward Undertown.



I'm not sure what I was expecting, but by the time we arrived (led by my own disturbingly growing familiarity with Undertown and eerily lit path markings in turn), I was pretty sure that a giant cavern made up to look like a high school gymnasium hadn't been it.

The ground floor was painted with crisscrossing lines and angles and circles, a pattern I recognised as something similar to my own high school, indicating different courts and boundaries for various sports, and reflected a laminate glow whenever the light caught it. There were white and blue streamers draped from stalactites and other drip stones, twisted around stalagmites, and hung from every available mount as if a group of team spirit-minded teenagers in sweater vests had stayed late after study hall. Balloons and sequins in all shades of the Northern Lights drifted across the floor and puddled in corners, and the air was filled with a thin fog of glittering, sparkling dust.

I turned to John, standing close and stoic at my side, and reached up to brush away some of the glitter that was already dusted across his cheeks. He went still – a fast debate in his eyes between leaning in and pulling away for the sake of anyone watching – and stayed where he was. My fingers hummed happily - my skin hummed happily - and I realised it was probably already too late to stop whatever affect this glitter was going to have. "We're guests," I told him. "Here under an oath of protection."

I didn't mention that I was pretty sure Mab considered me 100% one of her Court as well.

"Whatever this is," I held up my be-glittered fingers, "it can't actively hurt us. It's like the food and drink. As guests, we can't technically be enthralled by it, and it would be rude not to accept some, but it will certainly encourage us to be enthralled or ensnared by something else." Like if some Red Court vampires had spit in the punch, or something. Not that anything like that would ever happen.

I'd been nattering worried advice to him at all hours since Mab's invitation, but he bore it with a slight, fond deepening of the lines around his eyes, and it was all I could do not to kiss him right there.

"Just. Keep your wits about you, huh?"

He lofted an eyebrow, and I rolled my eyes. Some men would have said something like, oh, I don't know, "Don't worry, Harry," or "As long as you're careful too," or "Oh, wise and venerable wizard, I hang onto every offering of your great knowledge," but not this one. It's a good thing I speak Marconese. I elbowed his shoulder, and we pushed forward out of the shadows of the entrance way and into glowing werelights of the dance floor.

Kill me now, the band was playing Journey. (I tried not too look too closely at the glazed, sweaty faces of the mortal men and women, all playing their instruments like those possessed. I tried not to think about the unwitting bargains they had entered into, and the price it was extracting.)

The whole set up was ... creepy. There were more species of creatures than I could name, mixed with those few I recognized, including even a couple familiar faces. Maeve smirked at me from her throne, watching over the dancing and milling crowds, and dressed in something similar to the idealised realisation of what Molly had probably been going for when she went to Catholic school. She was flashing a fair bit of what looked like a cotton, heart-printed thong with one combat-booted leg hanging over an armrest, the other stretched out in front of her.

"... And I thought public school on the South side was an experience," John said dryly.

There were easily a thousand years of mortal dress represented, and I wasn't even going to try to guess at the non-mortal dress codes, and a large percentage of the crowd consisted of attempts - some exact, some decent, some horrendous - at modern American highschool wear ... for a given value of modern. There were mohawks mixed up with victory rolls, sports team uniforms and private school uniforms, creatures dressed like it was a 1950s prom and a couple sets of clothing I probably would have seen at a bus stop that morning.

One of the contemporary-looking hoodies had a large tear out of the back, and a tall, pale creature was wearing leggings and a pink cardigan that wasn't bright enough to hide the bloodstains.

Rage began to churn somewhere in my stomach, and I could feel the dangerous stillness of John at my side, going tight and silent while his own anger washed through him.

A white-haired Sidhe lady wiggled past us, body gyrating in interesting ways to the music –Loverboy, now -- and stirring up a new cloud of the fine, glittering dust. My skin hummed anew where it touched me, and I followed the pleats of her cheerleader skirt with my gaze.

"It would, perhaps," John's voice said next to my ear -- his cheek brushed against my hair and my eyes lidded; I swallowed my moan and lost all interest in the cheerleader -- "be prudent if we were to separate a little. Revealing such a hand, as it is, to so many ... is not in our best interests."

My hand snatched back at his of its own accord, and I wasn't surprised when his skin was as hot and faintly damp as mine. My heart was pounding, and I waited for a moment, trying to calm my breathing before loosening my grip.

I wasn't letting go unless he shook me off.

"We were invited together," I said, turning to meet his steady gaze. His eyes -- Stars, he has the most amazing eyes -- picked up the shifting, otherworldly quality of the werelights and matched the sparkle of the glitter on his skin, their normal dollar bill colour darkened into an all-too-familiar shade of something grass-green and rich, and they stood out in the Winter-décor like a July afternoon by Lake Michigan. "I'm not letting Mab pull some sort of etiquette fit because she didn't see us together."

It was a thin excuse. His expression told me he saw through it as clearly as I did, but he tipped his chin in acquiescence, closing his other hand over mine, and then slowly pulled both away. He took a breath, and visibly regained composure.

I admired that like nothing else; nothing in my years of training and practice at controlling my body, for spellwork, combat magic, and the ever-crucial need for a wizard to be able to focus in all situations, has given me control like that.

"Then," he said, "I will suggest that we move away from the crowd to where the air is ... clearer."

I nodded, glancing around at the glittering dust where it sparkled mid-air, and we skirted the edge of the dance floor, trying to dodge close-dancing fae and fellow invitees without appearing to be abandoning the party and our responsibilities as personally invited guests entirely.

I was eying the refreshments tables (their offerings ranged from unknown beverages in bowls that looked like crystal, but given the theme, I'm sure were really made of ice to a set-up along one table like an old fashioned ice cream shoppe, and everything glistened with the same light sheen of glitter as all the guests and the air) when Mab stepped out from the crowd and stopped in front of us.

"Wizard Dresden," Grimalkin said for her. "And Baron Marcone. Welcome. Winter is honoured by your presence." She turned to John with a gleam in her colour-shifting eyes that made them look even more feline than the vertical pupils normally did. "I have heard many things about you, Baron." Her smile turned enigmatic at the corners. "I look forward to seeing how many of them are true."

... I couldn't tell if Mab was just being herself, or using Grimalkin to flirt with my lover. Either way, it was creepy, and not just a little bit threatening.

John proved again that he has balls of iron and met Mab's smile with an implacable one of his own. "Queen Mab," he said, bowing his head just politely enough. "An honour. I can only hope you won't be overly disappointed."

Mab’s smile grew just a fraction wider. “So far, Baron Marcone, I assure you, I am not. You have certainly lived up to your reputation." Her gaze flicked over to me, and I tried to ignore the nagging voice that wanted to comment on any shade of possessiveness in it.

"You make the most interesting choices, child,” she told me.

Well, if there had been any remaining doubt that Mab knew exactly what she had been doing when she told me to ‘bring my young man’, that would have gotten rid of it. I couldn’t help the niggling, insistent little thought at the back of my head that pointed out that she had never mentioned John by name, and that it might only have been through his presence at the event that his identity was confirmed to her. But I shushed it before I could think too long along those lines and guarantee myself a psychotic break.

Besides, given the role that Titania – Mab’s counterpart in the Summer Court - had played in John’s kidnapping and torture at the hands of some very literal fallen angels a few years ago, and, most notably, her role in trying to keep me from rescuing him ... and Mab herself recruiting me to do the rescuing, I was betting that it was a pretty safe assumption that the Sidhe Courts had known about John and I even before we had.

Nothing like having the Sidhe messing around in your personal life.

“At least it keeps me from getting boring,” I said, smiling as boldly as I ever could when faced with Mab. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not completely insane. Therefore, the lady scares my balls off.

Mab laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle that sent conflicting messages to various parts of my anatomy, although ‘crawl inside and never come out again’ seemed to be winning.

“Well now,” said another voice, younger and somehow more innocent sounding, although I knew she probably hadn’t been within sniper-range of innocent for at least a millennium or three, but still remarkably similar to Mab’s, especially hearing them so close together. “Don’t tell me you’re over here, hogging all of their attention, not sharing.”

Maeve pouted sultrily, batting her big glacial-green eyes, and shifted her weight to draw attention to her hips, bared by the low, low cut on her schoolgirl skirt, and her long, muscular legs, their fishnet tights more tattered than not. “You can’t keep them ALL for yourself, Mother,” she told Mab. “The rest of us want to have a little fun, too.”

I felt my eyebrows rise and John stiffen beside me, although dollars to doughnuts his face didn't show it. I weighed the options, and turned to glance at him. Yup, as calm and implacable and handsome as ever. Stars, I was glad to have him at my side.

Yeah, yeah. I'm a big girl. Shut up.

"Our last Knight was most entertaining," Maeve told me, smiling sweetly. "Most reliable, and always ready for a bit of fun. Are you, wizard? Reliable?" Her gaze strolled leisurely down my body, stopping at my lips, my jaw, my chest, my hips and crotch, my thighs. "Always ready? Perhaps I should ask your consort, mm?"

I smiled, and my words were as bitterly cold as any winter night I had ever encountered. "Does that constitute a request, Lady Winter?"

Maeve's face froze, and Mab stepped between us, as sudden as the first frost. "No," Grimalkin said for her as she turned her otherworldly, feline gaze on me. "That is a matter between you and I, Wizard. Our agreement, and what passes between us, is our matter alone."

I could feel my smile turn sickly at the edges, lost any smugness I had felt at hinting that Maeve could have just voided Mab's request, only twice asked, that I become the Winter Knight, and wondered if Mab had just recruited me as a spy.

“Baron Marcone,” Grimalkin bowed his head low, looking absurdly like Mister when he got a good scratch where his tail met his spine, and Mab nodded her head in graceful acknowledgement. “I’m sure we will meet again. We have much to discuss. But now we will take our leave of you, Baron, Wizard Dresden.” Mab pressed one hand to the small of Maeve’s back; I didn’t envy Maeve the trouble she’d bought, but the Winter Lady recovered enough to lick her lips sensuously before blowing John and I a kiss off two of her fingers.

And then the two Queens of Winter were gone, with their celebration suddenly loud and cacophonous about us, a renewed swirl of glitter in the air, and only the post-adrenalin twitchiness in my muscles to tell me they’d been there at all.

Welcome to the family, John.

"Crazy party, huh?" I said, my forced smile a little sickly, my voice a little brittle. "And to think, I didn't even start a war that time."

"... We will talk about this," John said, and I didn't need to ask what he was referring to. I'm not going to pretend I've never had issues when it comes to communication -- I'm an arrogant, closed-mouth, presumptive bastard sometimes. But you'd have thought I'd have learned by now. Like getting Kim Delaney killed wasn't bad enough. Like getting Murphy hurt wasn't bad enough.

I nodded, and wondered how I was going to tell John about Mab's owed favour, and that she wanted me to be her Knight. I wondered how I was going to tell him that I had invited him along to a Winter-hosted event knowing full well I had kept vital information from him.

Stars and stones, the danger I'd put him in. How could I have been so stupid?

His hand came down on my arm, big and dry and warm despite the chill I was beginning to feel creeping in through the body heat thickness of the crowd, and he squeezed gently. "I said we will talk about this, idiot wizard. Not that we must talk about this now. Please, give me time. Please, take time. We are at a party … let’s do our best not to be killed, possessed, or otherwise inconvenienced, yes?”

The buildup of self-flagellation departed in a rush, draining out as quickly as it had come on me – although not unwarranted – and my shoulders dropped with a shaky sort of shrug. It still surprises me, sometimes, how deep a hold this man as on me.

John frowned, a line appearing between his eyebrows, lips pressing together, and he reached up and brushed his hand against my cheek. He stared at the glitter on his fingertips, where he had rubbed them from my skin. I was warm where he'd touched me. “We must be very careful of this ...” he snorted, “pixie dust, Harry. I do not think we can fight it entirely – I fear to think too long on what that would do, given its apparent nature – but we must not allow it to lead us too far astray down any one path. Even the most pleasant of emotions could lead to a downfall.”

“Think happy thoughts,” I said, “and you can fly, you can fly, you can fly?”

John glanced around the dance floor, slowly degrading from a mock high school theme night into something that more resembled a high school student-attended rave. “Unfortunately, that does appear to be the case.”

“There’s not that many humans here,” I pointed out, maybe a little desperately. “Most of … these,” I waved a hand at the crowd, “are creatures of Winter, and this dust doesn’t seem to discriminate. It lands on everybody, at least. Mab wouldn’t cripple her own people. Especially not when there’s still an unbalance with Summer. This stuff can’t be too … harmful.”

“Not to the Sidhe, perhaps,” John said, and shifted a fraction of an inch closer to me.

I was suddenly aware of the warmth of his body, of the strength and muscles hidden under that wool coat and fine grey cloth, of the smell of him, his sweat and his skin under the lingering scents of the gel in his hair, his deodorant, and the pure masculine heat of him, prowling under his carefully impassive expression and tightly controlled movements.

My knees grew weak in the same instant my cock grew hard, becoming a hot, heavy weight that pressed against the fabric of my suit pants - more giving that my usual denim, but still too constrictive by far - and I swallowed dryly.

"Harry," John said, starting with a warning tone but ending in an octave that made my toes curl and my belly clench. His cheeks flushed under their fine dusting of glitter, and I brushed some of it away with my fingertips, echoing his earlier gesture.

His eyes lidded at my touch, and his effort to regain control was visible. "Harry," he said again, a little choked, a little raw. "Please. Don't hand them more to work with."

It was cold in there; logically, ostensibly, I knew that.

But I couldn't feel it.

My hand shook and I wanted nothing more than to pull him closer, to touch every inch of him, to get out of these clothes, to rid him of his, to see how much of the Winter ice we could melt.

I swallowed, could hear it, and pulled my hand away. Maybe I lingered a little longer than I should have; maybe I brushed my fingers too far down his cheeks, over his lips, across his jaw, revealed in the slightest scratch of stubble that I couldn't yet see on his close-shaven face. But I broke contact, and drew my hand back.

John made a sound like there was something with fangs trapped in his throat, and my hand was suddenly crushed inside his. I hadn't seen him move -- I didn't see him move, but my back hit the wall with enough force that my breath rushed out and my knees buckled. John caught me with his other hand, fisted in the fabric of my shirt, and held me pinned, my eyes even with his.

Unseelie Court? What Unseelie Court?

I raised my other hand, shaking only a little, and stroked the back of it up and down his jaw, again and again, until his muscles relaxed, the tension pooling away from his shoulders, and he pressed into me with languid, liquid heat. I wanted to do things to him, things I'd never even thought of before, things I'd never even realised I'd ever want. But Stars, I wanted them now.

I licked my lips, eased my other hand from his, and pressed it against his chest. His gaze tracked my tongue, stayed on my mouth, and he leaned in, breath puffing warm against my skin.

I tilted my head forward to meet him, and whispered "Forzare" against his mouth.

Even with the only the lightest touch of my will he went flying back like I'd kicked him in the chest, and I barely snapped my hand out in time to catch his wrist when his grip was yanked free from my shirt.

"Sorry," I said, gasped, and shook from the sudden loss of his presence and the newly-felt cold in the room. "Guess I'm a little juiced."

I'd meant to distract him, to shock him, to force him mind back into clarity and give him something else to focus on. It had worked. Sort of.

I really should have remembered what it takes for John Marcone to be John Marcone on a daily basis. It was one of the first things I'd noticed about him, in that soulgaze in the back of his Cadillac. John had, and constantly maintained, a level of personal control I could sometimes barley fathom -- and I'm a wizard. Control is to us what a silicone coating is to a live wire. If the wire could electrocute itself as well as others. And tear down a chunk of civilization while it was at it.

John kept everything under wraps and a vaguely pleasant, implacable demeanor -- a crucial survival skill, really, considering the world he inhabited and the external control he held over it. John kept his opinions to himself; his fears; his anger and joy and secrets. He didn't finger you if you cut him off in traffic. He didn't punch you in the face if he saw you stick your hand up a waitress's skirt. He didn't tip his head back to bask in the sun on a summer day or smile when he passed a dog out for a walk.

He didn't show what it did to him when certain, sometimes possibly slightly irritating, wizard threw magic around.

John Marcone was not, in any way but the obvious, a public figure.

He couldn't afford to be.

He seemed to have forgotten that.

I'd thought he'd moved fast last time; this time, I was surprised he didn't break the sound barrier. One second I was gripping him by the wrist to keep him from flying backward into the quickly devolving function on the dance floor; the next my grip had been slipped off, replaced by his own, and I was back against the wall, my elbow bent over my head, and my other arm twisted with his to press lightly - but with promise - over my throat. I tried to regain some balance, and he slipped a leg between mine and locked it around the one I'd been moving.

"Do that again," he said. His eyes were darker and brighter than I could ever remember seeing them. He didn't let me hear that accent very often, the one that said he'd been raised lower-class in a lower-class Italian neighborhood, but he did now, and that trust, like it always did, made my stomach clench and my cock twitch.

He rubbed against my thigh, hot and hard and single-minded. "Now."

Holy shit.

... Hendricks was going to kill me.

"John?" I said, nice and slow, as you do when faced with someone crazy, drunk, or otherwise impaired. "How much are you with me here?"

He responded by pressing my arm just a fraction harder against my neck, and his hips moved hot and fast against me, his cock sliding against my own and only separated by what were quickly beginning to feel like very thin pants. My eyes rolled back for a moment, and my knees threatened to take us both down to the ground where we'd be much more comfortable.

"... Harry," John said, and his jaw clenched, muscles tense and shaking. "Harry, please. I don't think," his eyes glazed out of focus, and then brightened again, fixed on my mouth. "I can't wait very long, Harry. Please."

Stars, he could keep saying that forever.

Sometimes my subconscious isn't very nice. Okay, scratch that. My subconscious is a dick and affection-starved enough to cuddle a rosebush, but right now he and I were in complete agreement about what a rather feral, rather desperate John Marcone did to our reasoning capability. Among other parts of us. Me.

The line of rational thought I'd been desperately clinging to startled to unravel, the fear that I'd been using to pin it down losing shape and cohesiveness at John's strained but clear voice, and something released between my shoulder blades, leaving me warm and tingling and pleasantly weighted with nothing but love and need and the knowledge that all I would ever want was in front of me, waiting for me to hurry up and get there already.

I sagged against the wall, letting his effort and my own arm keep me upright, burbled at the pressure that put on my windpipe, and felt my face stretch into a warm, easy smile. John released my arm with a sound like he'd been holding up all of Chicago instead of one lone wizard, and met me with his whole body as I slumped forward, pressing himself against me, and me back against the wall.

He was so hot, body radiating heat in a way I was only familiar with when it came to furnaces and asphalt on a summer afternoon and open flame, and the contrast of his heat and the chill of Winter against what little of my skin was exposed left me with my head tipped back, my mouth open as I babbled sincerely and incoherently.

John pushed forward with everything he had, strength and grinding hips, driving me harder and harder against the wall. I mumbled something about how hot he was, to go harder still, if he was okay, although I doubt anything recognizable as English came out, and found his mouth with my own.

He came.

I blinked, surprised, and caught his breath for him, kissing his lips and jaw as he panted and snarled. I could feel his body jerking as much as his cock through our combined layers of clothing, muscles tense and movements sharp and fast, a greater heat blossoming out against my thigh where his hips pressed, and I slowed our kiss to match when I could feel him winding down.

It didn't keep him down for long, but it was long enough for him to pull back and look at me, green eyes bright and dark and ringed with lashes that were clumped and wet. His cheeks were flushed, high spots of colour that made him looked startlingly young compared to the splashes of silver at his temples, and his mouth moved slowly. "... Mr Dresden," he said, and attempted a shade of his normal, confident, in-control mask. "I do believe we're making a scene."

I kissed him again, reveled in it a little -- that I was and I could and neither he nor I were stopping to see who might notice, or to dodge the potshots and blackmail that would inevitably come flying our way. He kissed back with a hunger that was unabashed, blatant and exposed, and rough, unfinished sounds slipped out whenever our lips parted.

I pulled back when his cock slid along the inside groove of my thigh, as hot and hard as if he hadn't just come minutes before. Fucking faeries, I tell you.

"John," I said against his ear, mouthing along it, my trajectory blind, and I slid a hand up the back of his suit jacket and down his pants, digging my fingers into the top of his firmly muscled ass. I spared a look past him, at the crowd. Well, at what was left of it.

We'd missed some action, it seemed. The refreshment tables were tipped over, food and drink spilled across the floor and across a large number of stretched-out, unconscious or barely conscious bodies -- and a lot that were perfectly conscious, but otherwise, ahem, engaged. Some guests were still dancing, grinding and stumbling along -- to Supertramp, currently -- despite their obvious exhaustion, and some were merrily beating the shit out of each other in the corners.

Looked like we weren't the only ones to go a little ... overwhelmed.

Stars and stones, I hoped this didn't end up as some sort of Sidhe sex tape.

John bit my neck hard enough to make me start, jarring me from my thoughts, and proceeded to suck his way down to my collarbone.

"-- Hickey," I managed. "Don't."

He cut me off with another bite, harder, and pulled my hand, the one that wasn't busy trying to leave fingerprints on his ass cheeks, down around to his front, pressing it against his damp pants and straining erection.

"Touch me."

"I --John. They'll see you --"

What?, I wondered. What would they see? Hell's bells, what hadn't they seen?

"What?" John said, managing a puff of strained laughter against my neck. "Naked? Harry, I already am."

... He had a point, and it made my heart ache. I fumbled his fly open; closed my hand around the hot, familiar weight of his cock. It was still slick from before, slid skin-on-skin with loud, wet sounds, and I breathed deep, letting the musk and the male stink of it pull me farther under.

"We leave nothing behind," I said, and dropped to my knees, rubbing his cock against my hair, my cheeks, my mouth. I swallowed him, and wrapped my arms around his hips to hold him upright when he choked on my name, hands fisted in my hair, and held me there while his hips jerked.


We moved quietly through the remaining party guests, weaving through the minefield of splayed Sidhe lords and burbling lesser fae, and had to, cringing, step over the arm of a troll who was stretched full-out in front of the entrance/exit way, a punch bowl overturned on his head and his hand extending out into the passage of Undertown.

I should have know better. I really should have. But I looked back, briefly, for just a moment, as we slipped out into the tunnel.

Mab stared at me, seated in the throne Maeve had occupied at the start of the night. She wore a pleased smile that was just a shade shy of smug, Grimalkin was lounging across her lap like a hypothyroid tabby, and she raised a hand to echo Maeve's earlier gesture, blowing us a kiss.

Except that Maeve's kiss hadn't left a spot on my cheek burning with sudden, sharp cold a half second later, and I slapped my hand over it even as John tugged on my other one, pulling me away.



The night was dark and cold and like making land after shipwreck. We pushed out the door of the half-finished building at only two steps slower than a run. Sharp, fresh air and falling snow swirled about us, and our breath plumed out in familiar, safe, mortal gusts -- I hadn't even realised that had been missing in Undertown. My shoulders sagged, and I breathed my tension out in one long puff.

A car door closed, the sound normal and unexpected and muffled by the snow, and Hendricks loomed up out of the dark, bundled under a knit hat, gloves, a scarf, and a giant, puffy winter jacket. The man is loyal, I'll give him that. A giant loyal popsicle. Trained to kill.

His beady little gaze zeroed in on where John's and my fingers were tangled together, hands clasped tight and holding on, and he grunted, never shifting his gaze. "Ready to go, Boss?"

John squeezed my hand, kept me from pulling back, and smiled politely at Hendricks, as if we weren't still a little too wild-eyed and breathing a little too hard; as if we didn't have the cold, slimy sensation of gelling, drying semen inside our pants, and glitter all over our faces and clothes like Vegas rejects. I could feel the dust, whatever it was, tingling and popping on my skin, like muted static shocks or faery Rice Krispies. Snap, crackle, blow your lover on a Sidhe dance floor.

"Of course, Mr Hendricks." John tugged me forward, and then let go of my hand to press his against the small of my back. "Let's stop at a Starbucks before returning home. Mr Dresden -- you will let me buy you a drink as a token of my appreciation."

"Um," I said, and pointed down the street. "I'm parked back there. I should just -"

"- someone will pick up your car," John told me, continuing on as blithely as if I hadn't spoken, his hand on my back guiding me into the sedan. "You can get it from behind my building in the morning." Behind his building -- a casual reference to the outdoor lot two blocks away that my car had stayed in the few nights I had stayed over at his penthouse. He has an elevator that opens into his living room. It's bigger than my entire apartment. The elevator, I mean. I'm pretty sure the living room is bigger than Murphy's house.

"Please, Harry," John said softly, privately, reaching across me to open the side door. "You've been so good to me. Come home."

I shuddered, just a little, as his breath brushed close to my neck, and remembered the night I had spent coming down off of a Red Court vampire's narcotic saliva. I didn't think this night would be like that; whatever Winter had been using, it didn't have near that potency. But God, I didn't want to be alone.

I doubted John did either, and I nodded casually, sliding into the heated backseat and staying firmly put on the passenger side, making John go around the car to get in behind Hendricks. A big chicken? Me? You better believe it.

We pulled away from the curb and started moving, and I felt muscles I hadn't realised were still tensed relax now that I was safe in a big iron box. I looked over, and John was smiling at me, soft and a little sad and gentle and rare, the lines around his eyes crinkled and deep. He reached a hand over and brushed his fingers across the spot where Mab's kiss had connected. I wondered if it showed.

"We will talk tomorrow," he said, quiet and low, but I doubted Hendricks would have any trouble hearing it. I tried to avoid looking at the reflection of his eyes in the rear-view mirror. I like to think he was doing the same. "Tonight --." John went quiet, and his smile turned a little teasing, a little challenging, a little pleading. His hand slid from my cheek and he rested it on my thigh, turning to look ahead. "We work things out."

He paused, then added, "Mab was flirting with me."

"A little," I agreed.

"You're sure she called me 'your young man' when she delivered your invitation?"

"Yup."

"... I feel like I was hit on by your grandmother."

"Don't even joke," I told him. "That's icky. God. What if she knitted? And would that make Maeve my aunt? Can you imagine the family reunion?" I gave a theatric shudder, only a little faked.

John laughed, a dry, breathy chuckle, and I closed my hand over his, still on my thigh, and stared out the window at the city passing by.