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Dresden Files: post-Changes fic
I swore to myself that I wasn't going to write post-Changes fic. I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't. What I want at this point is more canon, and I'm sure that anything I come up with is going to be significantly less awesome than what actually happens (and, also, jossed six ways from Sunday in a few days). And yet I couldn't get this scene out of my head. So I wrote it.
There is really no way to even summarize this thing without spoiling the book, so I'm going to put the whole thing, header and all, under a cut. It's about 2100 words, PG-ish, and basically gen with passing references to a canon pairing. Also posted over at AO3.
Title: Next of Kin
Word Count: 2100
Rating: PG-ish; profanity, references to sex, etc (it's Murphy, after all)
Notes: Huge spoilers for Changes; takes place a few hours after the end of the book. Undoubtedly will be jossed all to hell in a week.
Summary: This is a conversation Murphy really, really doesn't want to have. But maybe it's the cop in her, or maybe it's just because she has to do this for a friend.
Disclaimer: (As per Jim Butcher's fanfic policy) The Dresden Files is copyright (c) Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.
I've been a cop in this filthy city for ... well, more years than I want to admit. In my time in the trenches, I've gotten intimately acquainted with all the hospitals in Chicago, and all the morgues. In fact, sometimes I think I've spent more time sitting in these cracked, uncomfortable plastic chairs than in the chair in my office.
My ex-office. Whatever.
This time, though, there's nothing to wait for. The chair is just as uncomfortable as I remember, the coffee just as bad -- and there's nothing to wait for. I spent twenty minutes pumping the still chest of a corpse at the marina, and then they brought him here and pronounced him DOA, as I knew they would. No one is going to come out of that door at the end of the hall and give me good news.
I've been a cop for a long time. Even before the coroner confirmed it, I already knew. I know what dead bodies look like.
And here I am still, because I have nowhere to go. I've talked to the coroner -- it wasn't that little friend of Harry's, thank God for small favors -- and I've given my official statement and promised a report. And now, finally, everyone's left me alone, and here I am -- slumped on a really uncomfortable plastic chair in the hallway outside the morgue, with nothing to keep me company but a styrofoam cup of terrible coffee that hasn't become any less terrible now that it's cold.
I was supposed to be having sex right now, damn it. And I know that's a stupid, petty thing to think about when I -- when I just -- anyway, it's a stupid thing to think about at a time like this, but it's been awhile since I got laid, and longer still since I had good sex. And this would have been good sex.
I know it would have.
But I'll never know for sure, now.
I've already washed my hands in the morgue's bathroom (after I threw up a couple of times, but that's neither here nor there). I still keep expecting to see blood when I look down, but my stubby fingernails are clean. There should be red crescents under them. I can still feel the hot blood, mixed with the icy waters of Lake Michigan.
It's been a clusterfuck of a day. A clusterfuck of a week. But the fighting's over now. This is the part when we relax, the part when we lick our wounds and gather ourselves up for the next battle. I should've been taking a nice luxurious shower right now, well laid and well fed and happy for the first time in too long.
Instead I'm here in the fucking morgue. I should get up, but I just haven't got the energy. The coffee cup is about to slip out of my hand, so I lean over and set it on the floor, moving very slowly. I feel stiff, achy, and old, like my joints are full of ground glass, like I've aged twenty years in two hours.
I keep feeling like there's something I ought to be doing. Finally, still moving like a woman of seventy, I take out my cell phone and flip it open.
I'm going to have to tell a lot of people about this. And I'm really, really not looking forward to any of those conversations. But there's one call I can't put it off any longer.
Ask any cop their least favorite part of the job, and they'll tell you that it's informing the next of kin. Doesn't really matter if they're a beat cop or homicide, if it's a car accident or an old lady falling down the stairs or a rape-murder -- it still sucks donkey balls. There's no good way it can go, and a thousand different kinds of bad. And let me tell you, as someone who's been there a whole lot more often than I'd like, that it's infinitely worse when the deceased is your best friend, and the next of kin is a vampire who can probably rip your arms off without breaking a sweat.
I'm selfishly glad that Thomas Raith is thousands of miles away, on a Navy cutter off the coast of Mexico, looking after a wounded Molly Carpenter. At least this way, I can get out of this conversation with all four limbs intact, if not my heart.
Awhile back, I'd taken the liberty of programming a few numbers into my cell: people in Harry's world, the handful of them that actually use phones. Thomas Raith is still in there, though the listing isn't under his name, of course. I hit the preset for TR AUTO REPAIR, and listen to it dial.
He doesn't answer. Doesn't even have a custom message on his voice mailbox. I listen to the standard message and draw a slow breath.
"Thomas." Even my voice sounds old and creaky. "I'm at Cook County General, in the morgue. I -- I need to --"
-- and I can't do it. I've never been that fond of Thomas, but I know what he means to Harry, and I assume it's at least somewhat mutual. I can't leave him a recorded message telling him that his brother's dead. I'm a bitch, or so I've been told more than once, but I'm not heartless.
"I need to talk to you, so please call me when you get this." I try to will some energy into my voice, so that it doesn't sound so flat, so lifeless -- so that it doesn't say everything I can't bring myself to say. "It's about Harry," I add, and hang up.
The phone dangles limply from my hand. I should've asked about Molly, left her a message for Thomas to pass along or something. I have her number programmed in, too, but I doubt if she's picking up right now. But I guess I can ask about her when Thomas calls me back. Maybe by then I will have figured out what to say about -- the other thing.
I slump back against the wall.
Not five minutes later, the swinging doors of the morgue burst open and Thomas strides through. He stops short at the sight of me. I stare at him, too.
"What the hell, Raith? Did you teleport here?" The thought occurs to me as soon as the words are out of my mouth that it's a very real possibility.
"I was upstairs, actually. We just finished getting Molly transferred. I called in a few favors." He runs his hand through his hair, swiping it back from his face. I've never seen Thomas anything other than impeccably neat, but, for the first time in our acquaintance, he looks like ten miles of bad road. He hasn't even changed clothes since Chechén Itzá. I can tell that he's washed his face and hands, made a token attempt to clean up, but his white suit is a hideous mess of rips and suspicious brown stains. I'm amazed that hospital security didn't take one look at him and immediately call the police. I can only imagine vampire charm played some role in that.
This is also the first time since I've known him that I've actually been able to see the resemblance to Harry, though that's little more than a cruel joke at this point. I don't know if it's his general air of disarray or the naked fear on his usually composed face that brings the resemblance out so strongly.
"You said -- your message --" I've never heard him stumble over his words, either. But there it is. Thomas is as close to the edge as I am, and probably as exhausted.
"Harry and I went to your boat," I tell him. And there I stop, the words binding up behind my tongue.
Thomas goes to one knee in front of me, a curiously courtly pose. Even tired and ragged as he is, he's still inhumanly graceful -- the ultimate gentleman, the ultimate killing machine. He takes me by the shoulders and looks into my face with his stormcloud-gray eyes. "What happened?" he asks me quietly.
"Harry was shot," I blurt out. It's like ripping off a bandaid -- at least the pain is over quickly, right? Except the pain just goes on and on. I've said these exact words to dozens of people in my career: to mothers and fathers, to children and wives; surely I can say them one more time. "He was DOA, Thomas. He didn't make it." Now that I've started ripping it off, I just keep tearing, because at least the pain is something I can feel. "He was probably dead when he hit the water. I did CPR until the ambulance got there, but it was a lost cause at that point."
Thomas stares at me, and slowly, his face goes still and his eyes blur into reflective silver pools. It's one of the creepiest things I've ever seen, and believe me, with the things I've seen, that's really saying something. A cold wave of menace rolls over me. I'm not looking at anything human anymore. I'm looking into the face of a predator -- the face of Death itself.
"Who did it?" he asks me, in a perfectly flat, composed voice.
"I don't know. I have no idea. I was just driving up when -- and I was too busy pulling him out of the water to --" My voice catches, because I can still feel him him slipping through my hands -- literally and figuratively. The water was so cold, but his skin -- his skin was still warm. By the time the ambulance arrived, it wasn't warm anymore.
Thomas takes a slow, deep, shuddering breath. I wonder in a distant part of my mind if I'm in danger, but I can't find it in me to care. Actually, I'd almost welcome Thomas's brand of oblivion at this point. From what Harry's said, it makes you feel good at least. Right now it seems like I'll never feel good again, that I'll never feel anything again, nothing but this darkness and the pain clawing up over the edges of it.
Then he straightens and stands, a liquid movement with nothing human in it. "Where is he?"
"In there," I tell him, jerking my head down the hall.
He turns his back on me, a dismissal so complete that it's like I've ceased to exist in his world, and strides away with that same liquid, flowing motion -- like a cat, like water, like something that was never human and never will be. He vanishes through the door at the end of the hall marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.
I close my eyes, and sag boneless against the wall. Then I collect myself, get up and follow him. There's a gun under my jacket; I touch its comforting weight and then take my hand away. I'm not going to shoot Harry's brother. At least, I hope not. I really, really hope not. But I honestly don't know what I'm facing now.
There's no sign of anyone else in the morgue. I don't know if they've gone off duty or if Thomas made them leave. There's a metal slab pulled out of the wall. Thomas stands with his back to me, his hands resting on it, his shoulders slumped and his head down.
My steps falter, slow, stop. I don't think I can face looking at what's on that slab, not again.
I'm not sure how long I stand by the door before Thomas straightens. He tucks his hands into his pockets. I take a few steps forward, as close as I dare to come to him right now, as close as I dare to get to the thing on the slab.
When he looks over his shoulder at me, though, his eyes aren't silver anymore. They're human, and exhausted, and raw in their grief.
"What now, Karrin?" he asks me. I think it's the first time he's ever called me by my first name.
And, to my surprise, I find that I have an answer. "Now," I tell him, "we find the fucker who did this and ventilate him. Or her."
A ghost of a smile touches his lips, though not his eyes. "If I find him first, there won't be anything left to ventilate."
"Fair enough, Raith."
I hold out my hand, fist closed. Thomas stares at it blankly. I don't think he's firing on any more cylinders than I am right now. Then he gets it, and he bumps my fist with his -- hard enough to bruise my knuckles, but I'm not in a mood to complain.
Someone out there is in a shitload of trouble. They just don't know it yet.
~
This entry is also posted at http://friendshipper.dreamwidth.org/288765.html with
comments.
There is really no way to even summarize this thing without spoiling the book, so I'm going to put the whole thing, header and all, under a cut. It's about 2100 words, PG-ish, and basically gen with passing references to a canon pairing. Also posted over at AO3.
Title: Next of Kin
Word Count: 2100
Rating: PG-ish; profanity, references to sex, etc (it's Murphy, after all)
Notes: Huge spoilers for Changes; takes place a few hours after the end of the book. Undoubtedly will be jossed all to hell in a week.
Summary: This is a conversation Murphy really, really doesn't want to have. But maybe it's the cop in her, or maybe it's just because she has to do this for a friend.
Disclaimer: (As per Jim Butcher's fanfic policy) The Dresden Files is copyright (c) Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.
I've been a cop in this filthy city for ... well, more years than I want to admit. In my time in the trenches, I've gotten intimately acquainted with all the hospitals in Chicago, and all the morgues. In fact, sometimes I think I've spent more time sitting in these cracked, uncomfortable plastic chairs than in the chair in my office.
My ex-office. Whatever.
This time, though, there's nothing to wait for. The chair is just as uncomfortable as I remember, the coffee just as bad -- and there's nothing to wait for. I spent twenty minutes pumping the still chest of a corpse at the marina, and then they brought him here and pronounced him DOA, as I knew they would. No one is going to come out of that door at the end of the hall and give me good news.
I've been a cop for a long time. Even before the coroner confirmed it, I already knew. I know what dead bodies look like.
And here I am still, because I have nowhere to go. I've talked to the coroner -- it wasn't that little friend of Harry's, thank God for small favors -- and I've given my official statement and promised a report. And now, finally, everyone's left me alone, and here I am -- slumped on a really uncomfortable plastic chair in the hallway outside the morgue, with nothing to keep me company but a styrofoam cup of terrible coffee that hasn't become any less terrible now that it's cold.
I was supposed to be having sex right now, damn it. And I know that's a stupid, petty thing to think about when I -- when I just -- anyway, it's a stupid thing to think about at a time like this, but it's been awhile since I got laid, and longer still since I had good sex. And this would have been good sex.
I know it would have.
But I'll never know for sure, now.
I've already washed my hands in the morgue's bathroom (after I threw up a couple of times, but that's neither here nor there). I still keep expecting to see blood when I look down, but my stubby fingernails are clean. There should be red crescents under them. I can still feel the hot blood, mixed with the icy waters of Lake Michigan.
It's been a clusterfuck of a day. A clusterfuck of a week. But the fighting's over now. This is the part when we relax, the part when we lick our wounds and gather ourselves up for the next battle. I should've been taking a nice luxurious shower right now, well laid and well fed and happy for the first time in too long.
Instead I'm here in the fucking morgue. I should get up, but I just haven't got the energy. The coffee cup is about to slip out of my hand, so I lean over and set it on the floor, moving very slowly. I feel stiff, achy, and old, like my joints are full of ground glass, like I've aged twenty years in two hours.
I keep feeling like there's something I ought to be doing. Finally, still moving like a woman of seventy, I take out my cell phone and flip it open.
I'm going to have to tell a lot of people about this. And I'm really, really not looking forward to any of those conversations. But there's one call I can't put it off any longer.
Ask any cop their least favorite part of the job, and they'll tell you that it's informing the next of kin. Doesn't really matter if they're a beat cop or homicide, if it's a car accident or an old lady falling down the stairs or a rape-murder -- it still sucks donkey balls. There's no good way it can go, and a thousand different kinds of bad. And let me tell you, as someone who's been there a whole lot more often than I'd like, that it's infinitely worse when the deceased is your best friend, and the next of kin is a vampire who can probably rip your arms off without breaking a sweat.
I'm selfishly glad that Thomas Raith is thousands of miles away, on a Navy cutter off the coast of Mexico, looking after a wounded Molly Carpenter. At least this way, I can get out of this conversation with all four limbs intact, if not my heart.
Awhile back, I'd taken the liberty of programming a few numbers into my cell: people in Harry's world, the handful of them that actually use phones. Thomas Raith is still in there, though the listing isn't under his name, of course. I hit the preset for TR AUTO REPAIR, and listen to it dial.
He doesn't answer. Doesn't even have a custom message on his voice mailbox. I listen to the standard message and draw a slow breath.
"Thomas." Even my voice sounds old and creaky. "I'm at Cook County General, in the morgue. I -- I need to --"
-- and I can't do it. I've never been that fond of Thomas, but I know what he means to Harry, and I assume it's at least somewhat mutual. I can't leave him a recorded message telling him that his brother's dead. I'm a bitch, or so I've been told more than once, but I'm not heartless.
"I need to talk to you, so please call me when you get this." I try to will some energy into my voice, so that it doesn't sound so flat, so lifeless -- so that it doesn't say everything I can't bring myself to say. "It's about Harry," I add, and hang up.
The phone dangles limply from my hand. I should've asked about Molly, left her a message for Thomas to pass along or something. I have her number programmed in, too, but I doubt if she's picking up right now. But I guess I can ask about her when Thomas calls me back. Maybe by then I will have figured out what to say about -- the other thing.
I slump back against the wall.
Not five minutes later, the swinging doors of the morgue burst open and Thomas strides through. He stops short at the sight of me. I stare at him, too.
"What the hell, Raith? Did you teleport here?" The thought occurs to me as soon as the words are out of my mouth that it's a very real possibility.
"I was upstairs, actually. We just finished getting Molly transferred. I called in a few favors." He runs his hand through his hair, swiping it back from his face. I've never seen Thomas anything other than impeccably neat, but, for the first time in our acquaintance, he looks like ten miles of bad road. He hasn't even changed clothes since Chechén Itzá. I can tell that he's washed his face and hands, made a token attempt to clean up, but his white suit is a hideous mess of rips and suspicious brown stains. I'm amazed that hospital security didn't take one look at him and immediately call the police. I can only imagine vampire charm played some role in that.
This is also the first time since I've known him that I've actually been able to see the resemblance to Harry, though that's little more than a cruel joke at this point. I don't know if it's his general air of disarray or the naked fear on his usually composed face that brings the resemblance out so strongly.
"You said -- your message --" I've never heard him stumble over his words, either. But there it is. Thomas is as close to the edge as I am, and probably as exhausted.
"Harry and I went to your boat," I tell him. And there I stop, the words binding up behind my tongue.
Thomas goes to one knee in front of me, a curiously courtly pose. Even tired and ragged as he is, he's still inhumanly graceful -- the ultimate gentleman, the ultimate killing machine. He takes me by the shoulders and looks into my face with his stormcloud-gray eyes. "What happened?" he asks me quietly.
"Harry was shot," I blurt out. It's like ripping off a bandaid -- at least the pain is over quickly, right? Except the pain just goes on and on. I've said these exact words to dozens of people in my career: to mothers and fathers, to children and wives; surely I can say them one more time. "He was DOA, Thomas. He didn't make it." Now that I've started ripping it off, I just keep tearing, because at least the pain is something I can feel. "He was probably dead when he hit the water. I did CPR until the ambulance got there, but it was a lost cause at that point."
Thomas stares at me, and slowly, his face goes still and his eyes blur into reflective silver pools. It's one of the creepiest things I've ever seen, and believe me, with the things I've seen, that's really saying something. A cold wave of menace rolls over me. I'm not looking at anything human anymore. I'm looking into the face of a predator -- the face of Death itself.
"Who did it?" he asks me, in a perfectly flat, composed voice.
"I don't know. I have no idea. I was just driving up when -- and I was too busy pulling him out of the water to --" My voice catches, because I can still feel him him slipping through my hands -- literally and figuratively. The water was so cold, but his skin -- his skin was still warm. By the time the ambulance arrived, it wasn't warm anymore.
Thomas takes a slow, deep, shuddering breath. I wonder in a distant part of my mind if I'm in danger, but I can't find it in me to care. Actually, I'd almost welcome Thomas's brand of oblivion at this point. From what Harry's said, it makes you feel good at least. Right now it seems like I'll never feel good again, that I'll never feel anything again, nothing but this darkness and the pain clawing up over the edges of it.
Then he straightens and stands, a liquid movement with nothing human in it. "Where is he?"
"In there," I tell him, jerking my head down the hall.
He turns his back on me, a dismissal so complete that it's like I've ceased to exist in his world, and strides away with that same liquid, flowing motion -- like a cat, like water, like something that was never human and never will be. He vanishes through the door at the end of the hall marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.
I close my eyes, and sag boneless against the wall. Then I collect myself, get up and follow him. There's a gun under my jacket; I touch its comforting weight and then take my hand away. I'm not going to shoot Harry's brother. At least, I hope not. I really, really hope not. But I honestly don't know what I'm facing now.
There's no sign of anyone else in the morgue. I don't know if they've gone off duty or if Thomas made them leave. There's a metal slab pulled out of the wall. Thomas stands with his back to me, his hands resting on it, his shoulders slumped and his head down.
My steps falter, slow, stop. I don't think I can face looking at what's on that slab, not again.
I'm not sure how long I stand by the door before Thomas straightens. He tucks his hands into his pockets. I take a few steps forward, as close as I dare to come to him right now, as close as I dare to get to the thing on the slab.
When he looks over his shoulder at me, though, his eyes aren't silver anymore. They're human, and exhausted, and raw in their grief.
"What now, Karrin?" he asks me. I think it's the first time he's ever called me by my first name.
And, to my surprise, I find that I have an answer. "Now," I tell him, "we find the fucker who did this and ventilate him. Or her."
A ghost of a smile touches his lips, though not his eyes. "If I find him first, there won't be anything left to ventilate."
"Fair enough, Raith."
I hold out my hand, fist closed. Thomas stares at it blankly. I don't think he's firing on any more cylinders than I am right now. Then he gets it, and he bumps my fist with his -- hard enough to bruise my knuckles, but I'm not in a mood to complain.
Someone out there is in a shitload of trouble. They just don't know it yet.
~
This entry is also posted at http://friendshipper.dreamwidth.org/288765.html with
no subject
(And Murphy too. But Murphy has a family and other people and...Thomas has a family too but it's not quite the same.)
(So could Murphy take up the sword for this? Because it would be for love & loyalty, and given time Murphy might even be able to pull herself back on track. Or not...)
...want the next book noooooow. I have a bad feeling the story will only whet my appetite...
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I think you're probably right about the novella ... I don't really think it can answer anything at all, really, without spoiling the next book, but at least it'll probably give us a better idea of Harry's status at the end of Changes ...!
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And Thomas.
This was so stark, so painful, so - oh, their love for Harry. If only - if only things could be different. They have to be; this is too unfair, too... much. Oh.
You write so beautifully. And tear my heart out. And I love it.
*clings*
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Anyway, awesome story, thank you. :)
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... and yes, Harry has so many people who love him now. Somehow, there must be a way to fix this!
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Incidentally, when does Murphy find out that Thomas is Harry's half-brother? Was it Blood Rites, or more recently? I can't remember...
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... and you know, I'm not really sure. I actually wondered as I was writing this if she knows at all. But she must, even if we never specifically saw her find out; if nothing else, she spends enough time around Harry that she would surely have noticed he was sharing his apartment with an incubus, and badgered him until he told her why!
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What, you mean she wouldn't be fooled by Harry's brilliant story that Thomas is his boyfriend? XD
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*snorts* I can't believe he actually does this. In canon. And PEOPLE BELIEVE HIM. Oh, Harry, you DORK.
I finally broke down and pre-ordered it, because I'm not sure how much opportunity I'll have to get to B&N next week. Yesterday I got the message that it had shipped. :D Now it's just in the tender mercies of the postal service (and I'm in Alaska, so that can take awhile).
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Very good. Need Tissues. ::sniffles::
Hope Murphy and Thomas kick some major ass.
::sniffles::
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Re-reading some of the books and short stories, it's interesting to be reminded all over again how close they were before Thomas's descent into the dark side. I really do hope that Harry's "death" (because of course he's not going to stay dead, he can't!) will be the impetus for some kind of reconciliation.
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When does the next book come out again?
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SEQUEL IN APRIL AAAAAUUUGGGHHHH. At least Butcher's been incredibly good about delivering his books on time; I am really impressed with that, because with this series, when they say that a book will be available on such and such a date, they mean it. None of this delayed-for-years crap with Dresden Files!
(And Side Jobs next week, yay! Though I am quite sure that nothing at all will be answered. Heh, and I accidentally got a HUGE spoiler for Ghost Story from its the Wikipedia article; I kind of wish I hadn't clicked on it -- I was looking up some canon bits from the previous book -- but I had no idea the wiki page would be as blatantly spoilery as it is. It's got the whole cover blurb for the next book right there at the top.)
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The secondary characters are part of why Codex Alera didn't really work for me. Dresden Files is so blatant about pushing certain buttons (that scene where Lord Raith breaks Thomas's neck gets me every time), and Codex Alera just... isn't. It fails to deliver at nearly every opportunity, like when the Captain of the Watch learns his brother isn't really dead, or when those other two brothers reconcile, or, or, or... It's frustrating.
With Dresden Files, I don't like Molly, but her getting along again with Charity still made me go all wibbly.
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Plus, he was trying too hard in some cases to keep characters ambiguous. I likes me some bad guys who do bad stuff for good reasons and good people who are simply assholes, but if half your cast is like that, you'll probably lose me sooner rather than later.
It didn't help that Tavi was the awesomest and most specialest awesome special guy who ever awesomed his way through all his specialness. Do not want.
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