I write what I want to read, so here's Harry: dorky dad and awkward boyfriend, with literally everyone he knows giving him shit about it. Starting with probably the last guy he wants to see. Set riiiight after Skin Game. Like a couple days after.

May contain: passive-aggressive bickering between two ridiculously OP grown-ass men, Caddyshack references?, more petty bickering, a callback to Dead Beat, some BDE

Definitely contains: adult language/themes, mentions of suicide

I was sitting at the bar in Mac's, about a week and a half out from the last real sleep I'd had, and four cups deep in the dented steel coffee pot he had wordlessly left in front of me. It was still a few hours before lunch, dim and quiet. I rubbed at my eyes, exhausted.

The tavern was completely empty and had been since I arrived, and unintentionally scared off the morning crowd. It was just me and Mac, who was silently sweeping up, until the door swung open, and someone dropped into the seat to my left.

The last person I had expected to see; a man of indeterminate age, his face not lined enough to be old, his grey eyes too cold and empty to be young. He stood nearly as tall as me, in a backwards black baseball cap and a military-style wool coat.

I was kind of surprised to see him, until he set a plant down on the bar – a white orchid in a pot shaped like a little waving good-luck cat, and I had to hide a grin behind my coffee.

Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised after all.

"Hey, Dresden."

"Hey," I said, as he took a look around. There was no one here to bother us, not that anybody with even a vague idea about who either of us were would try.

"How is she?"

"Alive." I drained the last of my coffee and refilled the mug. "Doing alright, considering."

"Good."

"Should be out of the hospital the day after tomorrow."

"Good. That's what the kid said." He glanced up at the mirror, meeting my eyes for a moment. "Said it was Nicodemus."

"Yeah," I nodded. "He had me hostage, and Murphy went after him."

It was tough to get a bead on him, rare that any emotion touched his ageless face, but today Kincaid looked almost kind of pissed.

"Your skinny ass is not worth that much."

"No shit," I agreed. "He baited her into it."

"Like that's hard to do." He rolled his eyes, but it was kind of fond, and the line of his shoulders seemed less tense. Maybe he cared, as much as a guy like that could care, or he wouldn't be here. If he did, it was probably for the same reasons I did – Karrin just had that effect on people, regardless of whether they were actually people.

...Or maybe I just hoped he cared, for my own sake. I mean, at least I still had a soul.

I wasn't sure how much he knew about what had been going on, other than the fact that Murphy was in the hospital after her scrap with Nicodemus...who had been dumb enough to put some of his heist plans down on paper.

"I warned her about getting involved with those swords," he huffed. "Never ends well."

So he knew that much. "When?"

"When didn't I? Last time we talked, for sure. And a couple months before I—" Kincaid mimed a finger gun at me and clicked his tongue against his teeth. "She figured that out pretty quick, by the way."

"You don't fucking say."

"Hey, I'm not the one who forgot to account for the fact that Karrin is a damn detective while planning out my needlessly-intricate assisted-suicide attempts."

"Who's the bigger idiot? The dumbass who makes the plan or the one who agrees to it?"

"Probably the guy who thought he could pull a fast one over on a queen of Faerie. Or the guy paraphrasing Star Wars."

"Probably," I said, as he nodded at the stack of empty coffee cups on the bar to my right. I slid one down the bar, spaghetti western saloon style. "You gonna go see her?"

"No," Kincaid said bluntly, as he caught it. "No, I don't think I will."

He reached for the coffee pot. Mac didn't serve milk or sugar, the coffee was just a little burnt and strong enough to fuel interdimensional travel. I already felt on-edge and vaguely nauseous, one more cup and I'd probably buzz right out of the visible spectrum.

"What do you know about the crew she's been working with lately?" he asked, wincing as he took a drink.

I frowned. "The Monoc guys? I've met their boss a time or two. They can't be that bad, or she wouldn't."

"They sent one of their recruiters after me, way back when. She was… well, you've met one."

"The second most terrifying woman I've ever run into in a dark alley?"

"And for you, that's saying something."

The Hellhound drank his coffee with a grimace. I drummed my fingers against the bar. We sat in silence, except for the whir of the ceiling fans and the sound of Mac's broom on the floor. It felt like we were both kind of dreading the rest of the conversation; for a long, long moment, neither of us spoke.

"So. When are we gonna kill him?"

Kincaid had his own tiny blonde reason for wanting Nicodemus dead, though by now she probably could have killed Nicky and all the Nickleheads with a wave of her hand, if she was allowed to do it, which she was not. Nothing was ever easy.

"Eventually. I mean, he is my least favorite immortal douchebag."

"Backhanded compliments are not a good look for you, but I'll take it." He studied me critically for a moment, eyes narrowed. "I have to say, you seem to have a much better handle on this whole Winter thing than...whatsisname. Your predecessor."

"Who, Slate? Well, I'm not mainlining heroin," I shrugged. "So I got that goin' for me, which is nice."

Even outdated movie references don't usually land with the paranormal crowd, but Kincaid snorted.

"Are you sure you don't want to go see her?" I asked.

"No," he said. "I enjoy being anatomically correct."

We both kind of laughed, but it was a hollow, unfunny sound. Neither of us had done right by her, we both knew it, and only one of us had been pardoned for our roles in my admittedly disastrous plan to off myself via hitman. I kind of got the impression he wasn't exactly thrilled about it being me.

...Or maybe I was just projecting.

"You know," he said reasonably, after a beat. "If you wanted us both to fuck her over so goddamn bad, you could have just asked."

It took my sleep-deprived brain a second to figure out what he meant, and god, it was going to take something a lot stronger than coffee to scrub that image out. And then it occurred to me how deeply satisfying it would have been, for a multitude of reasons, to throw him headfirst into the mirror behind the bar, but that was the reaction Kincaid expected. He was trying to find out how deep Winter's claws were sunk, to gauge what kind of threat I might be now, trying to push my buttons.

...Or else he was serious, in which case, yikes.

"Eh." I shrugged. "Just seems like that kind of thing would turn into a competition. People get embarrassed. Feelings get hurt. Winning... well, it gets kind of boring after a while, y'know what I mean?"

He stared at me, silent and expressionless.

"Guess not," I smiled.

The door to the tavern swung open with a gust of cold, wet February air. Two of Mac's regulars swept in mid-conversation, saw us and immediately stopped. They turned and beat a quick retreat out the door.

Kincaid was still staring at me, not quite glaring. A muscle in his jaw twitched, like he was either going to swing at me, or crack up.

I smiled a little wider.

"But you do know that Karrin would shoot you for saying that. And then me, for hearing it. And then nobody gets to have any fun. Well." The cup in my hand had gone cold. Really cold. The contents were slushy, half-frozen, and I drank it anyway. "Nobody except her."

"She'd shoot me, regardless. Apparently the only thing you have to do is tell a few lame-ass jokes and all is forgiven."

"Maybe so. But if you'd done your job like a good little assassin, we wouldn't be having this awkward fucking conversation, now, would we?"

Kincaid threw his head back and laughed for real, hoarse and creaky, like he didn't do it very often. It was unsettling as hell, like abandoned Pripyat amusement park levels of creepy.

"See?" I said. "Works on you, too."

He shook his head and fell silent for a moment, reaching for the coffee pot. "So you and her–"

"Yep."

"Guess it was bound to happen sooner or later." He held out the coffee pot. I shook my head. He poured the rest into his cup. "I can give you a few tips, if you want–"

"What makes you think I need any?"

"Whoa." Kincaid blinked at me. "Imagine if you'd had a pair like that on you, way back when. We could have avoided this awkward fucking conversation entirely."

"Well, you know what they say–"

"Nice guys finish last?"

"I'd worry less about who's finishing when." I watched the last half inch of coffee freeze solid in the bottom of my cup. The ceramic frosted over and began to crack. "And more about the fury of a patient man."

He held both hands up, palms out, and was quiet for a moment before he turned to me with a grin.

"It's a lot less fun to fuck with you than it used to be."

"I can't tell if that's a compliment or if you're still trying to hurt my feelings."

"Eh," he said, waving a hand. "Just making sure you still have 'em."

"Do you?"

"Hypothetically." Kincaid made a face and shrugged. "Like, say if a friend of mine calls me up out of nowhere and asks me to kill him as a favor, that might hurt my feelings. If I had any."

"What? We're not friends–"

"Or," he continued darkly, "If the woman I've been seeing says some friend of mine's name in bed, that might do it."

"We're not—what."

"Unfortunately, we are. And I don't enjoy shooting my friends, Dresden. Don't make me do it again."

There was no change in his tone or expression, still pithy and amused at my obvious discomfort as he stood and took something from a coat pocket. He set it on the bar with a hollow thunk of metal on wood; the empty brass casing of a fifty-caliber rifle round.

From anyone else it would have seemed like a threat, but that wasn't his style. We both already knew he could kill me. We both knew it probably wouldn't stick.

And then he pushed the little flowerpot across the bar toward me, smirking.

"Give this to Karrin for me, will you? You remember how much she loves her damn plants."

We stared at each other. I set the frozen mug on the bar, gently, and it shattered like it had been dipped in liquid nitrogen.

"Good talk." Kincaid clapped me on the shoulder, still grinning as he headed toward the door. "Let me know when we're gonna kill him, yeah? Call me."

I waited until he was gone, then buried my face in both hands and made a noise like a dying pterodactyl. That could have gone better. Could have gone worse. Definitely could have gone the rest of my life without any of it. And of course Kincaid had to get the last word. He knew that would bother me more than anything.

Oh, god. Maybe we were friends.

"We're not, though," I said to no one in particular.

Mac made a non-committal noise as he swept the remains of the busted coffee mug into a garbage can. From between my fingers, I saw a bottle of whiskey and two glasses land on the bar. He eyed the potted plant doubtfully as he opened the whiskey and poured a measure in each glass.

"The last time I brought her flowers she threw them at me." I took the glass he pushed towards me and downed the contents in one searing gulp. "If I take her that, she's going to nuke me from orbit with it."

Mac snorted, which was as close as he ever got to laughing. "Scared."

"I'm not scared."

He raised an eyebrow. "Hmph."

"I'm not," I insisted, as I got out my wallet and counted out a few bills onto the bar.

It was only mostly a boldfaced lie – I was fucking terrified.

Things had been going incredibly well for the past few days. Just ridiculously nice. I had a place to stay, enough money in my pocket that I didn't have to worry, hadn't had a headache at all. Got to spend every evening reading to Maggie until she fell asleep. Got to spend a couple hours every afternoon making out with my best friend like we were giggling, oversexed teenagers.

It should have been a relief, all of it. Instead, I had been wide awake every night for a week with an anxious knot in the pit of my stomach, waiting for something to go horribly, horribly wrong.

"Leaving?" the bartender asked, as he collected the empty glasses.

"Headed to the hospital."

Mac nodded thoughtfully. "Driving?"

"I was gonna call a cab."

"Wait." He held up a hand - five minutes. Then he set my glass back down and poured me a double before he ambled back to the grill. The smell of steak sandwiches floated through the bar, still a little early for lunch, but my stomach growled anyway. I reached over the bar for the old black rotary phone and dialed for a cab.

I nursed the glass of whiskey as I frowned at the cute little plant in its cute little pot, wondering how on earth I was going to explain it to Karrin:

Hey babe, you'll never guess who I ran into at the bar between attempting to caffeinate myself into the ethereal plane and day-drinking my way through my third existential crisis since breakfast!

A moment later, the bartender set a brown paper bag down in front of me, Murphy's name on it in black marker.

"Won't throw that," he said, which the most he'd said to me all morning. Probably all week.

"Mac, you're a goddamn genius."

keep an eye out for ch2