Dresden: A Very Harry Xmas

A Very Harry Christmas
A fanfic by Noir deSilhouette
Characters and World by Jim Butcher

. . . o o o O O O o o o . . .

My workshop has very solid beams running across its ceiling.

Usually, I focused on things lower than the ceiling.  My workshop was underground, with stone walls and a concrete floor.  The walls were covered in wire racks holding boxes, bags, bottles, urns, and every other container known to man or wizard, most of them holding relatively commonplace items which are the tools of my trade - stacks of blank white paper, a jarful of cheap beaded jewelry, a Tupperware bin of shiny water-smoothed stones, and a bag of stale old Oreos.  The rest held rare and unbelievable items which are also the tools of my trade, like basilisk scales and powdered hens' teeth.  The floor had a permanent silver circle set into the stone floor, the mess of the rest of the lab kept well away from its perfect ring.  Off to one side a large workbench held a scale model of Chicago, perfect down to the smallest detail, and worked in with stone dust or wooden slivers from the objects they represent.

One shelf was different from the rest - wood, held to the wall with simple metal stands.  At either side of the shelf is a candle, their brass candleholders long since buried under every color of melted wax in existence.  The shelf was stacked with playboy magazines, raunchy dime-store romance novels, and a red ribbon with some rather embarrassing memories attached to it.  Oh, and a human skull with an orange flicker glowing in its eyes as it talked to me.

I often sighed and stared skywards when talking to that skull - or more specifically, to Bob, the air spirit inside the skull - but I usually didn't actually see the ceiling when doing that.  I was more busy wondering "Why me?"  My ceiling has very solid beams running across it.  Solid enough to hold a rope, a rope that I knew was on the shelf right over there.  I knew the right knot, if I kicked a chair out from under me ...

"HARRY!" Bob shouted at me, and I realized I'd totally missed whatever he'd been saying.  "You stop that this instant!  It's not you, it's the poison!"

"Right, right," I replied, refocusing on the task at hand.  "Is there a cure?" I asked again.

Bob sighed a resigned and long-suffering sigh.  "Harry, you never listen to a damned thing I say."

He was right.  I didn't.  I was overwhelmed with a fierce guilt at that - I was a horrible person.  I possessed a living embodiment of knowledge and I never truly appreciated him or listened to him.  "You're right, I'm sorry," I said, my voice catching as I stood up, "I'll go."

Bob's skull turned towards the wall and banged its bony forehead once against the cold stone.  "Harry, sit yourself down right now and listen to me."  I automatically obeyed, which would have made anyone who knows me boggle.  "Now, as I was trying to tell you before your attention wandered, this is poison of the Unloved."

"I know that-" I started to say.  I knew what poisoned me.  I'd been hunting them for the last few days.  It all started when the suicide rates started rising crazy fast over December.  It's an urban legend that suicide rates go up during December.  As a matter of fact, Christmas is just about the only holiday that puts a real serious dent in the suicide rate, so I figured something was up.  The Unloved weren't their actual name - they had some sort of twisty Norse term that I couldn't pronounce, much to Bob's frustration, but "Unloved" was close enough.  Some sort of Norse goblin come over through the Nevernever, the world of the Fae.  

Bob cut me off.  "I know you know that!  You're very smart; you usually remember something after I've told you a half-dozen times."  He didn't have to be patronizing about it. "Just listen to me, and pay attention.  Those goblins devour the ability to love anyone, even yourself, and to connect with your fellow man.  They literally murder their victims through suicide - and you're on your way to that if you don't take the cure."

I knew all this, but I tried really hard to listen instead of flashing back to the fight.  I thought I'd gotten all of them.  It'd been hard to get enough mistletoe - it was their weakness - because most places were trying to sell holly under that name, and didn't think there was any real serious difference.  I'd stacked up small piles at every exit and went in with a handful and some wind spells ready at hand to propel them as little deadly darts.  I'd thought I'd gotten all of them - overconfidence always was my weakness, I supposed.  I always thought I knew best.  I was such a horrible person ...

The last one had been hiding while I killed off the rest, but as I was getting ready to leave, it had jumped out and fastened onto the back of my leg with its sharp little jaws.  I hadn't had any mistletoe close at hand because I'd just used the last of it, so I'd simply exploded a pile at the exit so it had sprayed the both of us.  Scratched me up something fierce, but killed the little creep.  Of course, I'd been picking berries and twigs out of my clothes and splinters out of my skin the whole way home.  It'd been pure luck that I'd gotten out of there alive.  It was always pure luck whenever I succeeded at anything.  Now my luck was going to run out, and I was going to die by my own hand.

"Harry, Focus!" Bob scolded me.  I nodded guiltily and paid more attention to him again.  "Now, this isn't exactly like White Court vampires, but it's close - the cure to the poison is love.  You need love in your life, and you need it now.  And as much as you'll be shocked to hear this from me, I'm not gonna suggest you go pick up some cute girly at a bar and bring her back here for some sexual healing.  That's not love, that's just sex."  He paused.  "Though if you wanted to do that afterwards, I'd be glad to give you some pointers, and -"

"Bob!" I scolded him, my heart only half into it.  "What do you mean, then, love?"

Bob sighed.  "You know how vague I am on this sort of thing," he replied.  "All this morality and self-sacrifice and all that doesn't make sense to me, but just, you know.  Be given love.  Home-cooked meal, a little TLC.  Someone to pamper you."

I stared at Bob incredulously.  "How am I supposed to whip that up?!" I exclaimed.  "Can't I just make some sort of potion?"  Yup, it was hopeless.  I was going to die.  It wasn't such a bad thing, really, dying.  I'd been pretty close to it a couple times before.  I just tended to mentally run into a real nasty asshole whenever I was on the verge of death - me.  It's a long story, but I'm really not a big fan of myself, apparently.  Other than that, though, it was pretty peaceful, all things considered.  And this sure fit the death curse leveled at me - here I was, ready to die alone.  To die because I was alone.

Bob somehow managed to shrug, despite not having shoulders.  "There might be things I could put in a potion, but it'd just slow things down, and I don't know if you have the ingredients.  It wouldn't cure it."

"Slowing it is good," I said.  "I can hardly focus with how much I keep thinking of how horrible I am... and Bob, I'm sorry I haven't appreciated you.  I should let you out to enjoy yourself more often.  Listen to you more often..."

Bob sighed.  "Harry, thanks, that's nice of you to say that, but it's not helping.  And I really don't think you have everything you'd need for this potion - same reason you can't store sunlight in a hankie anymore."

Oh, right.  That whole 'have to be truly happy' thing.  "So what you're telling me is that in order to survive, I need to suck the love and happiness out of someone just like those things, leave someone else to commit suicide in my place?"

"Nono," protested Bob.  "Love isn't like that.  White Court, they suck life force out of people through passion and lust.  What you called "Unloved," they remove people's ability to love.  But love itself is one of those violations of nature - it's a power that only grows the more you give.  Makes no sense to me, but basically, you won't hurt them, so you don't have to worry about that.  What you need to do," Bob almost purred, "is get Luccio over here for some hot sexual healin', and plenty of it."  

I shook my head.  "Off on some mission in India.  No idea how I'd even get a hold of her."  An imp would be stopped several miles out, the sort of defenses they'd have up, and phones would be useless.  She'd be around a whole mess of wizards, and the chances of any phone working in the middle of a circle of wizards was somewhere between slim and none.

"What about Molly?" he asked.  "I know that cute little chickadee has tried to jump you a few times."

"Bob!" I protested, "That's all sorts of wrong!  First off, she's my student!"  I ignored Bob's muttered suggestion of 'extra credit'.  He really did watch too many pornos.  "Second, her mom would kill me!  Then Luccio would kill me!  Then her mom again!  Then I'd probably commit suicide anyway out of pure guilt!"

Bob sighed.  "This is one of those 'morals' things again, isn't it?"  He didn't wait for me to confirm it.  "All right, then, why not just a Carpenter family dinner?  Sounds like just the thing."

"Out of town for the holidays," I sighed.  Of course.  The one real family I knew, full of the purest love in existence, and they weren't there for me.  I really was all alone.

"Wolf pack?" Bob suggested.

"Scattered to the four winds," I responded.  "And before you suggest them, I'm not going to go to Murph or Thomas on this.  Thomas, it'd hit too close to home for him.  Besides, with no love in me, I might smell like some sort of Ambrosia of the Gods to him."

Oh, did I mention that my brother is a vampire who devours emotions and is physically burned by contact with love?  Yeah.  It's actively painful to think about for too long, but I think I'm starting to understand how alone he feels all the time.

"Well, what about Murph?" Bob pushed.  "I know you love her, I know she loves you."

I shook my head.  Any other time, I'd deny everything, but I was feeling entirely to wide-open and soul-bare to be able to even start putting up a protestation.  "She already made it clear we won't be able to do that," I said.  "Besides.  I can't do this to them.  I only call them when I need help... I never just, y'know... hang out with them.  I don't want to use them again."

Bob let out a noise of frustration.  "Harry!" he protested, "You're not thinking straight!  They'd want to help, you know that!  OK, leave Thomas out, you're right about him, but please go to Murphy for a little 'Who's your Daddy!'"

I started to object again, but then I stopped.  It was a ridiculous thought.  I know that given my normal frame of mind, I'd never even consider this.  I blame it entirely on the poison making me drugged up.  Besides, there was a certain appealing thought that when it backfired, it'd prove I really had nothing left to live for.  Which was the poison talking, I reminded myself.

An attempt to phone ahead turned out quite useless.  I couldn't even get a ringtone.  The energy that wizards throw around is devastating to the smooth running of anything newer than World War II, and I'd been slinging spells for days.  I shouldn't be surprised, but usually I could at least get static.

It just wasn't fair.

I couldn't count the number of times I nearly died on the way over.  It was snowing lightly, but not enough to whitewash the giant mounds of dirty snow from all the ridiculous snow we'd been getting in the past couple weeks.  Everything was brown and dark and grey as I drove through the night, a glumness only highlighted by the occasional gaudy colored lights in some of the windows.  I couldn't get two blocks without considering pulling over into oncoming traffic.  My car was a little VW Bug I called the Blue Beetle that decades ago had already seen better days.  It was more replacement than original car by this point.  Some of these giant cars probably wouldn't even notice as they flattened it, and me with it.

Luckily, I had one thing going for me.  When people are being nice, they say I'm strong-willed and determined.  When people are being less nice and more honest, they say I'm mule-headed, stubborn, and simply too contrary to give up and die.

Whatever was the case, I made it there.  It was a cozy little suburban house, and decorated enthusiastically but tastefully with a few million tiny lights.  In fact, most of the folks on this particular street had their houses decorated in much the same way.  It was a resounding sea of color and light in an otherwise dreary and bland winter night.  It actually made me feel a little bit better about myself.

How depressing, I pondered, that I wanted to believe that a few generic Christmas lights constituted enough love to get past the poison.  "I must really be getting desperate," I muttered to myself.

I hesitated a few times on my way up the walk, but finally I was knocking on Murphy's front door, my heart in my throat.  I so hoped this worked.

Murph's a tiny little thing:  blond hair, button nose, slender.  Looks more like a cheerleader than a police officer, even if that tiny frame does hide enough tough muscle and experience to rip apart anything from common thugs to vicious Fae assassins.  She'd saved my life more than once.

This wasn't her.  This woman was taller, and quite stout, with that classic matronly look about her.  Her unashamedly graying hair was tied back into a messy bun, and she was wearing a long, loose denim skirt and a green and red sweater covered in snowmen and reindeer that would have looked gaudy on anyone but her.  She managed to make it look comfortable and sweet.  She wore a smudged apron over that sweater, had a dash of flour on her nose and one cheek, and was drying her hands on a small hand towel festooned with embroidery of Jolly Saint Nick.  A fierce blast of delicious smells like that of a good bakery or restaurant came to the door with her.  Norman Rockwell would have dropped to his knees and given thanks for a model like this.

She stared at me for a moment without recognition, and a good deal of suspicion, which I realized was probably fairly reasonable.  I looked like a mess, myself, with my long dark duster that looked like I'd stolen it off a Western's movie set, and the battered and torn t-shirt and sweats I was wearing under that.  My only dry clothes after the last several days of hectic craziness.  Then the light dawned in her eyes.  "Mister Dresden?" she asked in amazement.

"Hey there, Mama Murphy," I responded.  I was sure she'd turn me away - I mean, we'd only met once, in passing, at a Murphy family reunion years ago.  It was ridiculous.  What was I even doing here?  I supposed there was only one reason I'd come here.  A memory of heavenly hamburgers.  And she'd given me cake.

Worry sprung up in her eyes.  "Is Karrin all right?" she asked, concerned, wringing nervously at her towel.

I raised my hands quickly.  "Nono, it's fine, Karrin's just fine," I assured her.  "I didn't mean to worry you.  I just... "  OK, how did I explain I just wanted to come by and eat dinner?  I obviously hadn't thought this out very well.

The silence stretched out a bit.  Mama Murphy glanced at my head in confusion for some reason, and I brushed at my forehead, hoping I didn't have a bleeding cut there.  Her gaze dropped into my eyes, and I felt a connection just about to start there - I quickly averted my gaze.  The last thing I wanted to subject her to was what was inside of me just now.  I don't know what people saw when they soulgazed me, but that vision didn't ever go away, and it had to be even worse than normal just now.  The silence couldn't be good, but my brain was shutting down, and I just couldn't think of a way to break it.

"Oh, stop standing on the step with those big puppy-dog eyes and get in here, Mister Dresden," she told me, suddenly all softness.  "I've seen that look on my poor Collin's face often enough."  She was referring to her husband - Murph's dad, who'd been a cop that'd seen many of the same sort of things I dealt with on a day-to-day basis.

I stepped inside and she closed the door behind me.  The house was filled with antique furniture and plenty of lacy doilies, but it was also obviously a police house.  There was a small display box that held an old police-issue pistol and a badge in it, and several small figurines of police of varying levels of tooniness.  A belt displayed here, a news article framed there - Collin might have been dead for a long time, but he still lived here in Mama Murphy's heart.

She let me absorb the house for a moment or two, then put her hand on my shoulder - she had to reach up quite a ways to do that - and sympathetically asked, "Don't you have anyone to go to?"

I damn nearly wept.  I satisfied myself with just shaking my head.  "No," I replied, hoarsely, my voice nearly breaking.  Dammit.  I cleared my throat before I continued.  "I mean, I could go to Karrin or my brother, but ... I ..."  I'm a horrible liar, but how did I explain all this?

Mama Murphy was the wife of a policeman, in a family full of policemen.  "They'd want to know what was wrong, and you don't want to burden them," she finished for me.  It was true enough, I supposed.  "Let me get you something to warm you up.  Why don't you sit down for a bit?"

I sat down in the couch, looking around.  I could see why Murph's house looked the way it did - it was so similar to her mother's house.  She was definitely her mother's daughter as much as she was her father's.  It was warm, cozy, and very comforting just being there.

I didn't realize I'd started to nod off till I jerked awake at Mama Murphy's entry with a big steaming bowl of soup and bread that must have been fresh out of the oven with the freshness of its smell.  Just the scent was enough to send a thrill of bliss through me.  "Mister Dresden," she asked, her mouth quirking with some sort of amusement.  "Do you know what day it is?"

The last couple of days were kinda blurred for me, and I fumbled a little with trying to count them up.  "Monday?" I guessed, very uncertain.

She laughed and shook her head.  "No, Mister Dresden," she said, her eyes twinkling.  "It's Christmas Eve.  I'm just baking some cookies and the like for the family get-together tomorrow."

"Christmas Eve?!" I exclaimed, trying to stand up.  "I couldn't have missed that much sleep!"  No, I probably had.  "I'm sorry, I'll just-"

I couldn't stand up.  She had a hand on my shoulder and I couldn't budge it for the life of me.  "You just sit right there, Mister Dresden, and eat your soup, and don't you worry about a thing."  Then she proceeded to fill up the awkward silence with all sorts of chatter about the family, how they were doing, and reminiscing about Collin when he was alive, and sharing embarrassing stories about Murph when she was younger.  Murph was gonna kill me so dead when she found out I knew some of these stories.  They'd never find my body.  I'd knew I'd have to bring them up carefully and casually.  You know.  Like thirty seconds after I saw her next, while struggling helplessly to keep in the laughter.

The soup was of that hearty sort of soup that was developed in frozen lands of ancient times to keep people warm long after they'd left the fire, and had a flavor that would have made angels come down to earth just for a spoonful.  The bread was thick and delicious, and covered with butter just the way I liked it.  I'd already gotten two refills, and each refill seemed to make Mama Murphy even happier.  I think she might have thought I was too scrawny and needed fattening up.  Either that or she realized the same thing that I realized after I'd scarfed half the first bowl - I hadn't eaten since a donut snagged from a police car two days ago for breakfast.  Of course, this would have been unimaginably good even without hunger spicing it.  It was halfway through the third bowl when the front door opened and Murph walked in with Thomas right behind her.

I looked helplessly at Mama Murphy, a look of shock and surprise on my face.  She smiled urbanely back and patted my cheek, then turned and headed back into the kitchen.

"Mama!" Murph cried in mock surprise, "Why'd you put a second Christmas tree in, only this one's all scrawny and barely has any greenery on it?"  I looked down and plucked a few more mistletoe leaves from my shirt.  

"What was that?!" I asked in surprise, "Did someone talk?!"  I made a show of looking around at Murph's feet.  "Oh, hey, there's someone there!  You were so small, I didn't even notice you come in!  Murph, is that you?"

Thomas hung back a little.  "Hey, Harry, you look like shit."  He looked nervously at me, and I could see all the color in his eyes fade away for a moment while he fought his beast within.  It was rather unnerving, but he managed to get them back to normal, and give me a cocky grin.  "An interesting look," he said, gesturing at my head.  "I might be able to pull it off, but I don't think it works on you."

Confused, I automatically glanced upwards to see what he was talking about, one hand lifting, but then Murph had her arms around my neck and was hugging me hard.  Very hard.  I felt those tears welling up again, and blinked quickly to try to avoid them. "Murph?" I asked, confused.

"Mom said," she whispered, "She said you looked like you were going to ... "  She stopped, then tried again.  "Like Dad did, before he..."  She stopped again, and this time I found my cheeks were wet after all.

"I stopped them," I croaked out.  "The things that were making people depressed enough to commit suicide... they got me, though."  Stupid voice.  Betraying me a lot tonight.

Murph stiffened.  "Are you going to - ... ?" she started to ask, but couldn't finish the question.

I shook my head.  "Hell no," I responded vehemently, and it wasn't till I answered that I realized it was true.  I didn't feel that need, anymore.  That horrible emptiness.  "I'm not, not anymore" I continued, and my surprise came out in my voice, too.

Murph pulled back, and her cheeks were wet, too.  "Cold out there," she passed it off, wiping at her cheeks with her sleeves.  "Stings your eyes."  I nodded as if I believed her, even though we both knew it was a threadbare excuse.  Then she smirked and reached up to my head, and there was a sharp tug in my mess of hair.  "What are you trying, Dresden?" she asked.

"Oops," I blushed, as I saw the large sprig of mistletoe she'd pulled from my hair.  "No, uh... kryptonite.  Explosion."  I stammered out the words, hoping they would make sense.  Probably not.

She put her finger on my lips.  "Shhhh," she said, then leaned in, still holding the mistletoe over us, and gave me a light, lingering little kiss, then pulled back, her eyes twinkling with amusement.  The amusement turned into full-out ringing laughter as she saw the poleaxed look on my face, then went into the kitchen to help her mom.

When someone uses a wizard's Second Sight, they see the true nature of a place, the depth of emotion and the sorts of magic it's got suffusing it.  And it stays with you forever.  I've seen some pretty horrible things in my day, horrible things that are still as fresh in my mind now as they were when I first saw them.  And I've seen a few beautiful things, so beautiful there's hardly words for them, which keep me reminded of why I do what I do.

That night, as my brother and my best friend teased me mercilessly and Mama Murphy provided all of us with cookies and milk, though Thomas didn't eat any after his first try to pick up a cookie, as I sat under plastic Santa’s and looked at the blinking lights of a Christmas tree and realized that some magic didn't have anything supernatural about it, I added one more moment of perfect beauty to my memory, a memory that'd never fade, and I didn't even need the Sight to do it.