AN: Post Turn Coat. One of two or three? Blah. No idea. Self-contained one shot. Might be more.

Doing the Humbert

Sometimes, the best thing you could do on a cold winter morning was have a drink.

There have been far too many cold winter mornings this month.

There were less than a dozen people in McAnally's when I entered. The pub was suffused with cosy warmth emanating from an open fire that reminded one of grandmothers and fairytales. The abundance of polished wood and a lack of gleaming, impersonal modern appliances tended to reinforce the impression. All in all it exuded a sort of Old World charm.

Really Old World.

The ceiling was dotted with tales of creatures that could send grown men gibbering into closets. I would know. I'd met some of them.

The number thirteen figured prominently in the bar's construction: there were thirteen fairy tales inscribed upon the roof in no discernable order, and thirteen pillars holding it all up. There were thirteen tables haphazardly placed, and, well, you get the picture. Very few of the people that happened across the bar mistook this for some kind of artistic experiment gone horribly wrong; most of its patrons were well aware that it broke and dispelled the flow of supernatural energies. Of course, the configuration wasn't strong enough to deter a determined wizard, but that was what the plaque according the pub the status of Neutral Ground was for. Considering that some of the nightmare creatures depicted upon its roof were the ones enforcing the Accords, most things would be rather be strung up by their entrails (if they had any) rather than violate the terms of the treaty.

It is a pretty neat place.

A few people carelessly waved at me (in quintessential bar fashion by raising their drinks) as I descended the couple of steps that lead to the room. My smile back was a bit hesitant in coming. I still wasn't sure I was quite comfortable in being greeted as a part of the gang in a bar. But it was still better than all the alternative greetings I'd been subjected to in the night. And these guys had seen more of me in the past few weeks than, well, pretty much everybody else.

Like the typical wizard, I found myself a small secluded corner to brood in. My drink was already waiting for me by the time I sat down. "Thanks, Mac," I said, completing the cliché.

Mac grunted, placing his cloth on the bar instead of its usual perch upon his shoulder. Placing his hands upon the bar he leaned a little forward. I blinked.

"Harry," he began in usual stoic tone.

"Thanks. Mac." My words were punctured by a sharp smile as I cut him off. He stood there for a moment longer, a large man of undistinguished appearance and indeterminable age, before walking away to cater to somebody gesturing wildly across me.

As I'd said before, a Wizard's prerogative.

I drank slowly, savouring the burn and letting my gaze rove around the place, the muted colours seeming more homely than home seemed to be these days. Most of the people around were familiar in that hazy, slightly drunk sort of way. That guy with the shaggy beard had tried to engage me in a conversation about magical foci and genitalia lengths. The girl by the window, with her long hair bunched up in a long ponytail, had been here all week, staring at the ceiling and scribbling furiously in a little notebook. That lady in green over there had in a week twice accused me of being a murderer, and then gone stiff as a board as I'd raised my eyes to meet hers. She'd started to pack the moment I had entered, quickly finishing her drink and shrugging on her jacket. I gave her a jaunty little wave.

No threats then. I finally relaxed the tight hold I had on my will, and my mind felt like it was finally going to get a really great massage from a really hot masseuse. The strips on light on my fingers dimmed until they were indistinguishable from a poor man's One Ring.

Come to think of it, maybe that's what Mac had been tetchy about. And not that fact that I was frequenting his establishment often enough to have a whole corner cordoned off for me.

I sighed. A couple of minutes later the glass was empty and Mac was standing in front of me. I lifted my hand and wiggled my fingers. "Sorry," I said, my voice gruff.

He poured my drink and grunted.

That's why I come here. The pithy eloquence of our conversation.

It wasn't like I had nothing to do, or nowhere else to be. I'd been spending the past few nights bumming my ass off trying to track down a couple of stolen items. It made me kind of nostalgic for those times when I was eking a living fetching a couple of lost keys or stolen love letters. And when my hankies could still store sunlight. But something about the weather (it wasn't as cold as it should have been), or maybe it was just a delayed response to the events in summer, or maybe 'cause I hadn't seen my brother for months, or that every bloody time I saw Michael I couldn't help but hate myself a little – whatever it was, I felt depressed and Mac's drinks here helped me drown it.

I wasn't like most people. I couldn't just pop a couple of Prozac, stitch a smile on my face, and act as if nothing was wrong.

I was a Wizard. And my magic was intimately connected to how I felt and lately it had gotten into a habit of either fuzzing out or flaring up. Neither of which were conducive to long term health.

So here I was. Doing the whole shebang and telling myself every time I entered that this was just a phase to tide me over, and that once I got better I'd stop. An alcoholic's tagline if there ever was one.

Even Mac knew, and he hesitated with the third glass.

I sighed, "I know."

"Harry," the rare inflection in his voice did unnerve me a bit, but I could still see and think far too sharply and it was easy to ignore.

The third glass glowed amber.

The girl from the couch got up, storing everything but that notebook in a small brown bag, and came up to the bar and sat beside me. She was pretty, in a way, but her sharp, angular features suggested more than a bit of cruelty. Taking a couple of bills from a thick bundle, she turned towards me, her eyes narrowed as if assessing, or angry.

I turned right back. "Can I help you?" I gruffly asked.

"You're Dresden." She spoke slowly. "Harry Dresden?"

I grunted. Yeah, I was rude. So sue me.

She stood there quietly, like somebody readying to attack. Surreptitiously I reached for my staff, which I'd gotten used to leaving leaning against the wall beside me. We were on neutral ground and it was unlikely she would attack but there was no point in taking chances. She didn't feel like something supernatural though, just your vanilla mortal. But maybe she was just too weak to register. Either way, she wasn't getting in a lucky shot.

She had dark hair that ran halfway down her back, and with the way she was gripping the edge of the counter, all she was doing was emphasising the cords of muscles in her arms. Despite the rather modest clothing, she had a serious Tomb Raider vibe going. As my descending eyes kept on telling me.

Damn it. I really shouldn't be drinking so much.

Mac was at the behind the bar, holding a glass and washcloth. He levelled his gaze at me.

I relaxed.

"Look, lady," I said, as politely and unthreateningly as I currently could. "I have no problems with you, so if you'd just let me get back to," I raised my glass, swivelling it slightly, "I'd be much obliged."

She didn't relax. Her face, if possible, got even tighter. "Is that all you do? Sit in a bar and drink?"

"I also play a mean game of darts."

And even though she tried to hold it, her scowl fell off. It made her look, suddenly, much prettier.

"You're welcome to join me." I squinted. "I seem to be missing the bullseye a lot."

"There isn't a board here."

"Ah, maybe that's the problem."

She laughed, and sat down, asking Mac for a brew.

"That was bad, Mr. Dresden," she said, the grin still hovering. "Do you pick up all the girls with that?"

I kind of blinked at the word. Pick-Up. I think my dictionary had lost that one a long while back. Thoughts of Anastasia and Susan and even Murphy swivelled around my held, in tandem with the drink in the glass. And I could feel my sudden good mood suddenly evaporating.

The girl was still beside me, perched upon the stool, her long thin fingers enclosed around her drink. She still had that smile on her face, and it wasn't like I got a lot of women who struck up conversations with me in bars.

"So, what brings you here?"

She shrugged. "It's one of the few neutral places that I know. Besides," she looked up, nodding at the ceiling. "The art is fascinating."

That was one word for it. Considering that the art in question was largely derived from the legends and stories of the Old World, and contained in one innocuous form or another, horrific human deaths, I'd go for creepy, or sinister. But apparently, that's just me.

"That…one way to look at it." I eventually said.

She smiled wider and scooted closer, opening up her notebook and riffling the pages until a badly drawn portrait of a Farie Queen was staring up at me.

Don't get me wrong, it was well made, and the creature depicted was extremely beautiful. But the artist was thinking in completely wrong terms. It seemed as if she'd taken a gorgeous model and made her even more attractive; a difference in degree. But I've seen the Queens and there is nothing mortal about then, nothing that can be captured by this, or any sort of approximation.

Still, my role tonight wasn't that of the critic.

"She is beautiful."

The girl waved her hand. "Nothing like the original."

"You've met the Queens?" I asked, startled.

"No," she sounded a bit dismayed about the fact. "Only read. And all the descripting were, you know, really vague. Extremely beautiful this, exquisite that. I mean, the only thing concrete was that you couldn't describe them by mortal means. Which isn't really surprising since, well, they aren't exactly mortal."

I blinked. Not the usual conversation you strike up in a bar, still, "But what do they have to do with the art?"

"Well, that's the thing: they have everything to do with it. I've been studying it for years now and pretty much the only constant are the queen. Well, that," she shrugged, taking a long swing of her drink. "That and us. Humans."

"So, you're a Wizard then?"

"No," She shook her head. "Just an extremely low level practitioner… a fact I know you're already aware of."

"I was." Only low level practitioners don't make it a habit to strike conversations with me. Not in recent years, at least. Unless they were drunk.

I placed the now empty glass aside. "Didn't really want to make a mistake about it."

"It's alright." She took a long gulp and finished hers too. "I saw you going for your staff earlier. Thought I was going to attack ya?"

I shrugged. Not many ways to answer that.

Her face turned, and she nodded towards the door where the plaque according this place as neutral grounds hung. "Even here?" she seemed cautiously inquisitive, as if she was enquiring exactly how big a tin foil hat I wore.

I grunted. This little tête-à-tête was rapidly going FUBAR. "Just 'cause you can't see them, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you."

A span of a moment passed and then her smile split her face wide open. But not literally. "You're adorably paranoid."

"True." I nodded. "My paranoia comes in many flavours."

She laughed. "I'm Faith, Mr. Dresden."

"Call me Harry."

There was warmth in her voice of a kind that I hadn't heard for a very long time. She had her own very obvious objectives in seeking me out. But the laughter and the smiles seemed genuine, and these days I would take anything I could get.

She scooted closer, finishing off her own drink. "So, what do you do, Harry Dresden?"

0-0-0

We fumbled through the doorway. I still retained enough sense to go first.

Not for long, though.

Mouse raised his head when the door slammed behind me and she stopped, blinking. "Erm, is that a… dog?"

I wanted to call him my very own T-Rex miniature, but the press of her breasts against my chest and drink and the arousal made my mouth want to do nothing more than taste the hues the fire cast upon her face, and the slivers of neck exposed between strands of her hair. "He is."

She gave him another look over and turned back towards me. "They say dogs take after their mas-"

I cut her off with a kiss.

It was hard to describe.

The last person I'd kissed had been Luccio. Because of Copspeaker, she'd had a beautiful young body but it was evident that beneath that youthful exterior a strong women lay. Her kisses had been hard and soft and everything in between; they had been whatever she had wanted them to be.

Faith's were not.

Don't get me wrong, she was good. She was beautiful, and like all beautiful women, had probably had her pick of suitors to practice with. But there was hesitancy her movements, and while enthusiastic, she wasn't very refined. Still, her innocent, exuberant sexuality could still somehow speak to me in ways many more practiced ones hadn't.

Then her hands moved, cupping parts that should have been explored at a later part of the procession, and all thoughts dissolved.

She was here and real and really, this was just sex.

Hours later when I could finally move, and bring up a thought slightly more coherent than how absolutely beautiful she looked, I turned on my side, kissed her smile, and asked her if she wanted something.

She did, but it wasn't exactly the glass of water I'd meant to offer.

Moments later she was on me again, her body spread over mine, our hips moving in tandem. It was slower now, lazy, languorous, and the sharp spikes of arousal had become this delicious warmth that spread and suffused every single part of me. My hands were threaded in her hair, exploring her back, while she cupped my face, occasionally bending for a whispered her breath hot against my face, "Harry Dresden" as if it meant something now, in this moment, as if we weren't just two people who'd met and decided to further each other's company.

I almost sighed. It wasn't perfect. She was going to want something, if not now then later. But, but it was alright.

So, I whispered right back, "Faith – what's your name again?"

She moved, her arms pressing against my chest, the movements of her hips increasing. And with every stoke, with her hair tumbling around her face, she exhaled a soft and barely audible, "oh". Her lips were slightly pursed and her face was slightly tilted, and the soft sounds coming from her were the most erotic thing I've seen in a very long time.

Between my thrusts she managed to reply, "Faith. Faith Astor."

There were warning bells, distant and faded. But the immediate world was far too sensual. I could do little but revel in the feeling of her encased around me.

When she came, she made a sound somewhere between a squeal and a shout.

And that Neanderthalic part of me that wanted to grin and count the number of times I'd made her organ, grinned and counted.

Faith Astor. Oh ye-

A little girl. A bridge and a troll. Murphy.

Oh.

"Hell Bells" I breathed as Faith Astor orgasmed.