Bet Your life There's Something Killing You [Harry/Phaedra/Saerian]
He'd just have to go get the Jeep tomorrow. At least Murphy could watch Molly for the night. With all the panic the girl was going through, he didn't want to put her in his place with Phaedra. Knowing his luck, Molly would attack Phaedra, then Phaedra would defend herself, and Harry didn't want to have to wake up from his painkiller coma to pull the pair apart.
His goddamn shoulder hurt, his head hurt, and he still wasn't sure what had happened. Molly was good at mental work. She'd wiped part of his memory before, so smoothly he didn't know it. This wasn't as smooth, but her state had been a complete wreck. There had been evocations, his own magic. And his rings were depleted. All of them.
What the hell?
Trying not to move his left arm, Harry took down the wards and got inside. The medicine was in the kitchen. Shouldn't take long to have a few. Provided he could open the bottle with his teeth.
Phaedra was spending less and less time at Harry's lately, which she actually wasn't sure Harry'd noticed. He gave her a wide berth.
But there was Lindsey, now. Taking up her time. It was a distraction, sure, but it was nice. No one could reasonably expect her to spend all of her time glued to Harry's side, especially when most of the humans in this place viewed her as a thing and were quite vocal about that.
She got home just in time to see Harry trying to open what looked like a pill bottle using only his teeth, face down near the kitchen counter, trying in vain to hold it steady without any real leverage. And she could see what the problem was: one of his arms was hanging lower than the other.
She didn't have time to wonder what the Hell had happened to him. She just shut the front door, went over to him, and grabbed the pill bottle out of his mouth, opening it and holding two pills out to him.
Harry blinked, but took the pills and swallowed them. Dry-swallowing wasn't pleasant, but he turned on the tap in the sink and took a gulp of water to help them along. "Thanks," he said after that. "Um. Can you help me get this coat off?"
He could shrug about a quarter of the way out of it, but trying to shrug the left shoulder was a horror in agony he didn't want to think about until the painkillers had settled in. Tylenol Threes, the best of the lot. Not like the mediocre Tylenol Two: The Pain Strikes Back.
Phaedra looked Harry over. She wasn't hungry, which was good, because she could smell Harry's blood. It was on him, dried to his shirt. Enough of it that she now knew exactly the scent of it.
Her eyes didn't change. Yet.
She tilted her head, looking at his arm and the state of it. There were two ways she could help. One, she was pretty sure Harry would not allow. The other she'd probably have to trick him into.
"Yes, but I'd rather help you put your arm back in the socket," she said. Both eyebrows raised. There had to be hard liquor in this kitchen somewhere. She would give him some and pop his arm back in.
Harry let out a sigh. He wasn't pouting, because that was for children and pixies. But his expression was a bit strained. "Can't I just wait until the painkillers kick in? I think I have to throw myself into a wall to do that. That's what Mel Gibson did in Lethal Weapon. It hurts. Contrary to belief, I don't really like pain."
He moved towards the fridge, grabbing a beer before grunting and replacing it for a Coke. This, he managed to lean on the counter and open one-handed. "Should I have my coat on or off to put it back in?" He liked his coat, but it was leather and lined and it wasn't exactly cold in the kitchen.
Phaedra just stood there, watching his display. "Nothing likes pain, Harry," she said. She'd sort of expected him to be... tougher.
And throwing himself at a wall... she smiled, slightly.
Phaedra was the wall. Much better than the wall, for that matter.
"It really doesn't matter," she said.
She didn't get into the logistics. Phaedra was physically much stronger than Harry. A little leather wasn't going to change her grip on him in the least, or stop her from getting his joints back where they should be. It occurred to her that Harry wasn't going to like her touching him, but there wasn't much she could do about that. The other option was to give him her blood to heal him, but that was probably going to go over even less well than this was.
Phaedra stood in the center of the kitchen with her arms slightly away from her body, almost like a statue of the virgin Mary, that same pose. Slowly she raised both her arms and wiggled her fingers toward her in a beckoning gesture toward Harry.
He'd like everything better once his arm was properly attached.
With a grumble, Harry set down the Coke and moved towards her, close enough to be encircled in her arms. If he thought about it, it might have been disturbing how willing he was to move that close. But in truth, the more the others had spoken against her, the more Harry had found reason to trust her. Here he was, wounded and vulnerable, complaining to her about hurting like she was an old friend. Someone he didn't mind being mortal around.
Maybe it had something to do with being home, since Harry never wanted to keep the act up within his own walls, but he didn't think of Phaedra as an enemy.
"You're making the beer run tonight," he huffed.
Phaedra thought about rubbing her hands together like Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid. But then Harry was standing right there, trusting her. Very close to her.
Even spending time with Lindsey, this felt odd, this display of trust. Phaedra could hear his blood moving and his heart beating, and it wasn't quite right. It was slow. Her mouth opened slightly, eyes looking him over for other signs of hurt.
The big one was on the left side of his neck, the puncture wounds that were still there, the blood clotting inside of them. Phaedra shook her head, annoyed. Roma whispers about idiocy came from her lips. The parts of her that weren't human were responding to this, all of this. Phaedra took Harry's left hand and straightened his arm as much as she could without injuring him, and braced herself against him, right arm on his right shoulder. It kind of looked like a slowdance involving serious pain. She shut her eyes, trying to focus on fixing him rather than being a predator.
"On three," she said. "Jek. Dui."
She didn't wait for three. She pushed his arm until she heard and felt it pop back in, holding onto his wrist with her hand, still braced against him like a full-body splint.
Her eyes changed a moment before she closed them. He only saw a flicker of color and was drawing a breath to ask her about it when his shoulder was suddenly popped back in place. He let out a shout, body going rigid with shock for a moment. Stars twinkled in his eyes, but Harry put a stop to that with a quick slap in the face. He clenched his teeth against some pitiful little whimpers that wanted to come up, holding tight until the throbbing was coaxed to something merely unbearable.
And saw that he wasn't clutching the counter like he thought, but Phaedra's arm. He gave an apologetic grunt before taking a step to the side and finally letting the duster slide off his shoulders. "Hell's bells, that never gets easier," he muttered. Or maybe it did. Humans forgot pain, didn't they?
He gave Phaedra a faint, weary smirk. "Thanks. And you're still on beer duty."
Phaedra sort of wanted to laugh at him gripping her for dear life. She supposed she couldn't fault him, though. She mostly preferred her arms and legs in their designated sockets, too.
She stepped back once he was okay and blinked at Harry, watching him carefully.
Beer duty was going to have to wait.
"What happened to you?" she asked, leaning against the kitchen counter. She removed her own coat, putting it down next to her.
"No freaking clue," Harry said. He let the duster drop onto one of the kitchen chairs and went back for his Coke, leaning on the counter. "One minute, I'm walking down the road with Molly, and the next, I'm banged to shit and she's in hysterics." He lifted a hand, waggling the fingers to indicate the braided silver rings on each finger. "Rings drained, magic in the air, and she's..." He sighed, rubbing his eyes with his fingertips. "Ranting about vampires. Panic attack. She was there, that night. The Red Court."
He had his own version of those nightmares. They usually began and ended with a lovely face, warm brown skin, and deep chocolate eyes.
"Had to get Murphy for a ride back. Spent too much energy on that. Damn head is killing me. At least the shoulder was a distraction before."
This was not good.
Phaedra turned to face him, searching his face for any trace of anything he wasn't telling her.
"You're bitten," she said. She wasn't about to touch the wound herself, even though that was her first instinct. Instead, she brought her hand up to her own neck to show him where the wound was on him.
"Your heartrate is too slow," Phaedra said as an afterthought. "I don't like that you can't remember this happening."
Harry frowned at her. "Bitten?" He reached up where she'd indicated and felt the dried blood, staring at the flakes of it that had come off against his fingers. Then he took his pulse. Hell's bells, it was down to seventy! "How was I bitten? I'd remember getting bitten!"
This raised all kinds of new questions. Why couldn't he remember? Why hadn't whatever bit him drained him? What the hell was going on with Molly?
When he looked back at Phaedra, he was pushing his initial anger and panic back under control. "Why wouldn't I remember what happened?"
How was I bitten?
Phaedra knew this was rhetorical but couldn't help herself.
"The traditional way. Teeth."
She sighed, waiting for Harry to calm down again.
"There are a few possibilities. All of them are unpleasant. One? You met a stronger, less-nice version of one of my kind. Or the closest approximate, since I'm a freak. It strongly suggested you forget and forgot. Or you met a vampire capable of glamoring you. There are a few species that can do that, regardless of how old or strong they are. I'd say if you were attacked, it would've had to be young and fairly stupid."
She liked these options even less than Harry would. An older vampire of her type could hurt her, if not kill her. One this strong would be possibly a thousand years old.
"Something was in my head," he half-muttered, half-growled. "You know any way to get around that?" He'd managed to get around Molly's mind-wipe of him, but he'd been dead at the time. Things had been a little different, since he hadn't had a physical body to get around.
His arm was starting to recover. Another day or two and he'd be fine. Hell, with enough Tylenol, he could be fine tomorrow. "Now I feel like an ass," he sighed. "I thought it might have been something to do with Molly."
Wow.
Phaedra didn't realize how bothered this really made Harry. She constantly forgot she had the ability to read and project thoughts. She also constantly forgot it could be offensive. But mostly, for someone so powerful, for a human, Phaedra really expected Harry to be a little more open in terms of what upset him. This was nothing, wasn't it?
Phaedra shook her head. "Not really. With us, it's the power of suggestion. Mind over matter. It chose to make something not matter." She was watching Harry's face very carefully, waiting for him to start calling her an 'it' too. "If I knew what did this, maybe. I can't tell from the bite, other than vampire."
She put her face closer to the wound, anyway. She could see Harry's pulse jumping under his skin. The wounds were similar to ones she'd make feeding, but Phaedra knew most vampires of her kind would close wounds, not just let them go unless they were in a hurry.
... something to do with Molly.
Phaedra backed away again. "I kind of doubt it."
She wanted to offer to heal his neck, but thought better of it. The offer died before it got past her lips. "Whatever fed on you probably got quite a shock. I imagine it didn't want you to remember."
"Damn things," he muttered. Then glanced at Phaedra. "Present company excluded. Here's hoping it didn't like the taste of bitter, crotchety wizard."
Once Molly settled, maybe he could have her take a look. The idea of even Molly peeking into his mind bothered him, though, and if she found something from a vampire... Ugh. He didn't want to trigger another episode like this. His nose wrinkled.
This would be graceless and possibly tactless. "You can read minds," Harry said, trying not to glare. He didn't turn his head to glance back at her. "Think you could see what happened?"
Phaedra arched her eyebrow.
You can read minds.
The vampiress couldn't stop the smirk on her face. Think you could see what happened?
The way he said it, it was just... borderline hilarious and insulting.
"You made it pretty clear to me you never wanted me in your head," Phaedra said. She took one of the kitchen chairs, turned it around, and sat leaning her chest on the chairback with a leg out to each side.
She sighed. "There might not be anything there to see. If it's gone, it's gone. And you'd have to be actively thinking about it and not your normal defensive self or it's not going to matter if I look."
If she drank his blood, she'd see more clearly. Much more clearly. But if he'd been glamored, there was nothing to recover.
"I don't want you in my head. I don't want Molly in my head. I certainly don't want some asshole in my head, even if it's just to take something else out. Not even my-- not even Mab gets in my head without my permission." He scowled. "But I'd rather know what happened than not know. And I'd rather be uncomfortable with that than provoke Molly again."
He leaned against the counter, folding his arms over his chest. He was going to have to practice more, if there were things out there that could change his memories.
Change of conversation. He turned his head towards Phaedra. "Did you hear about the Slayers in town?"
Phaedra put her chin on the chair. There wasn't anything she could do for Harry that she hadn't already done. And he was clearly pretty crabby about this entire thing.
"Slayers plural?" She didn't lift her head back up.
There was something wrong, here. Aside from what Harry just said. Something didn't feel right.
"I thought there was only one."
"Yeah, well, usually it's just one. Then something happened, and there were two. And then the Hellmouth dropped another from the future out of the sky, and there's three. One is still in Sunnydale, but..." He shrugged. "I guess they just end up where they're needed. More at work there than just the Slayer line."
Yes, he was grumpy. Something had gotten into his head. Memories erased? Mab hadn't taken his memories, only hidden them. Same for Molly. It just didn't seem possible, to completely remove something like that. Not without brain damage. Like that movie with Jim Carrey and the girl from Titanic. Even then, there had been signs.
Harry let out a sigh that was bordering on a growl. "Look, there's got to be some trace of something. You know how much I don't like this. But... can you take a look anyway? Memories can't just vanish. There has to be something." Yes, he was going to trust the vampire with this. Why? She'd talked about her family with him. It had hurt her, he could tell, but she had. She'd told him things that she probably hadn't mentioned to many people at all.
She was on their side. He knew it. Not just because he'd gotten her contract first, but because this was the side she'd chosen to be on. That made her an ally, and Harry knew from poor experience that allies had to be trusted. "Please?"
The 'please' got her attention.
Suddenly, Phaedra understood why she liked Harry. It had taken her some time, since the reason was, while clear, not obvious. Harry reminded her of Richard.
The men didn't look alike, and Richard hadn't been anything but just a simple man-- family, work, some good liquor. But the way he conducted himself, the way that he spoke... he reminded her of Richard. Just enough. Just a little.
That 'please' brought up memories. Richard asking her to please turn him, so afraid of death that he did not care he'd become a monster.
Death got to Richard. Bothered him. Because it took away family, work, and the good liquor. Memories being erased got to Harry. Bothered him. Because it took away... what? Not his power. She wouldn't quite put it like that. But his sense of self, that part no one could touch.
"Okay, ves'tacha*."
She wasn't really sure what she'd find in his head when she looked. Reading a mind for just one memory was something like attempting to pick up one fish hook from a pile. Sometimes you got one. Sometimes they hung onto each other, and you got all of them.
"Think about it. About what you remember before, and after." She sat up straighter. "And I'll look."
*Roma for sweetie, or sweetheart.
He started to move closer before realizing that it likely wasn't necessary, and leaned against the counter again. "Right," he said, shutting his eyes to keep his thoughts clear as he could. He wanted to tell her not to snoop around, but that seemed like too much of a breach of etiquette. He'd asked for this, after all.
Clearing his mind didn't take long. A lifetime of discipline made it relatively simple. Then Harry called up the memory.
Harry nodded to Molly as they walked down Trout Run Road. He'd been here before. He was explaining when and why. "Yeah. I was out here when I met Fray. That Slayer from the future I told you about. The Gates seem to be dormant during the day. Bob said there were different locks on them, in a few different dimensions. Space, time, astrological, et cetera. I only saw the first one, but it was apparently locked at the time."
He caught her look, that sudden look of shyness that she used when she was unsure if she was in trouble or not, so concerned over whether or not the 'boss' approved of her methods. The look made him smile a bit. "Just try and be aware where you're going, grasshopper. At least at night."
Molly's eyes had gone a little vacant, but that faintly worried, faintly shy look was still in place. She snapped out of her reverie and smiled a little up at Harry. “Always am.”
And then, he was opening his eyes, shouting in pain as his shoulder was shaken, alight with sheer agony. He didn't know what was wrong at first, but his instincts were on full alert, ready to burn and smash and tear at whatever was in his way.
Until he saw that it was Molly. Molly, her face streaked with tears, paler than usual, one pupil dilated while the other was constricted. Rag Lady, his mind whispered, as he struggled to sit up, only to fail when his arm again roared with pain.
Phaedra hadn't met Molly, but she knew she'd been to the house. So she recognized the voice, but not the face.
She smiled. Harry called her 'grasshopper.'
Everything seemed fine. She didn't see the threat.
And then there was this... gap. Like someone cut the film reel and then put it back together. The aftermath didn't look that great, and it didn't feel that great. Phaedra winced.
She could push, but that would violate Harry's trust of her. So instead, she simply sighed.
"I just see Molly," Phaedra said. "And then pain. The middle's missing. Her eyes... your arm... " She sighed again, and shook her head.
"I'd need to pry. And I don't think you want me to do that."
Outside, Saerian listened carefully. Not moving, just spying. Waiting.
Harry sighed. He considered, and she probably heard the flow of thoughts debating between knowing and not knowing. After a few moments, he shook his head softly, braced his mind, and said, "Do it."
Better to know. Better to have someone he trusted, someone who wouldn't worry over him, to take that deeper look. He didn't like it. His hands were clenching the counter behind him hard enough for his knuckles to go white. But he needed to know what the threats were. Would he be under someone's thrall? Could something use that bite as a connection? Had it gotten his blood? Blood was powerful, it could create a thaumatergic link to the rest of the body. He'd always been careful to clean up any blood, hair, or fingernail clippings, usually casting them into the fire to burn away any traces that could be used for such a link.