Margaret "Molly" Katherine Amanda Carpenter (ragged_lady) wrote in blood_red_sky, @ 2011-10-13 22:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | harry dresden, molly carpenter |
Brush off those communication skills (Harry)
[ooc: this occurs before the fair comes to town]
Molly had lots to talk about with Harry after her encounter in the library. She wasn’t certain how he would react to some of it. She was still tense and nervous after the incident in the woods with the vampire attack, but she was trying to move past it. She had kept coming for lessons except for the day right after when she hadn’t even gotten out of bed unless absolutely necessary.
Today she showed up with coffee and donuts instead of Burger King breakfast. The coffee was better at the donut place and she didn’t want to make two stops. She went through the usual song and dance of getting through the wards and threshold, quietly closed the door behind her then went to set up their breakfast in the kitchen. Harry wasn’t typically awake at the early hour she usually showed up at and long experience had taught her you don’t poke a sleeping wizard. She always had something she could be reading or trying out if he didn’t rouse from the smell of coffee.
It was just over half an hour that the scent of coffee got Harry into enough consciousness to wake. He stayed laying in bed for a bit longer, letting his brain work out who might be here and why, since Phaedra wouldn't be making him coffee. Not during daylight hours. Murphy or Molly would be able to get through the wards. Molly would have knocked by now if it was important. Murph would have called.
Nothing pressing, then. Harry pushed himself out of bed and headed for the bathroom. A minute after the bathroom door shut came the sound of the shower on full blast. He was making the most of the outdoor water heater for as long as he possibly could. A hot shower was a luxury, was pure bliss. He made it hot as he could stand, and stayed in there until he was pruned all over.
Once he was clean, and dry, Harry pulled on some jeans and an old Zepplin shirt and finally exited his room. He gave Molly a cursory glance, and beelined for the coffee.
She was used to the dragon that was Harry pre-coffee by now so didn’t pay any attention to him barely acknowledging her presence. She just smirked behind the book runes she was transcribing into a notebook, her pencil filling the silence with a quiet scratching sound. A couple of minutes passed allowing him to get some sips in before she spoke. “There’s glazed pumpkin donuts with orange and black sprinkles. Sounds gross to me, but they were on special. Tis the season and all that.”
At her suggestion, Harry reached into the box and selected one of the pumpkin donuts. He polished it off pretty quickly, and when he had, along with a refill of coffee, he picked up a second one, sat down across from Molly, and gave her his attention.
"Grasshopper. What do you call this ungodly hour?" Sure, there was a clock somewhere, but this was far more typical of a grumpy wizard.
Molly smiled for the question still without looking up from the notebook but she switched from transcribing the runes to writing down the Dresden Question of the Morning. She was making a list since they tended to change from day to day, but were always amusing. “I call it escaping Murphy’s Morning Work Out A.M. but most of the world calls it 9:25.” She finally lifted her head to turn that smile to her boss. “You can get away with Ugh Ngf Thppt if you want.”
Harry snorted. "She's gonna gripe at me about missing a few months of training. 'Akido is a demanding discipline, Harry. If you don't practice it every day, you're going to lose the skills you've learned'." He let out a sigh. "Guess I should work on some staff moves, though. No point in letting it get rusty. Besides, I only missed months from her perspective."
Better not to talk about the months spent dead. Mab keeping him alive had been one thing, but Demonreach was a whole different story. Harry was still wondering just what kind of deal he'd made with the island. And didn't want to know just yet what would be expected of him.
"If you're gonna be up anyway, might as well take advantage. Never pass up the chance to learn a new defensive skill."
Molly gave him a look somewhere between a withering scowl and flat out dubious indignation. “Drink your coffee until you start to make sense because wow.” She even went so far as to lean over and reach for his forehead as if checking for a fever. “Next thing I know you’ll be wanting to go back to my health nut days.”
Harry coughed, and shook his head. "At the risk of drinking orange juice for the next month without coffee, I'll say this; knowing that my staff is six feet of solid oak is one thing, but knowing how to use six feet of solid oak to beat someone up when I can't use magic on them is pretty damn good to know. Murph teaches self-defense classes. Even wizards should know how to manage without magic. Especially wizards. Granted, I don't think doing it at Murphy's Insane O'Clock is the way, but... well. Magic doesn't help anything. People do."
It was also the mentality that went into the discipline. Knowing how ti defend yourself gave you the physical advantage, but also helped your mind learn when to put aside fear and motivate itself into useful action. Something that Molly would do good to learn, considering her current responses to fear.
"Just think about it, padawan. Now, what's got you here this early? With bribes, I might add."
She wasn’t so sure she wanted Murphy teaching her self defense. The ex-cop would be absolutely ruthless, worse than Lea with shield training. Getting frustrated, beaten up and pissed with one’s roommate probably wasn’t a good idea. Now Carr, on the other hand. He might know some self defense and would probably be willing to teach her, and the idea of wrestling around with a sweaty Carr was much more appealing. Ahem.
Molly had to snap out of that reverie with a hint of a blush and a smile. Harry had asked her a question. A pertinent question. Right! “Oh. I met a vampire at the library.” Not got attacked by. Not threatened by. Met a vampire.
The coffee cup froze halfway to his lips. Not literally, thankfully, but his hand stopped moving the instant the 'v' word was brought up. "Oh really?" he said. He knew it wasn't rational to expect her to be this calm about it, not rational to expect that just because he'd met two - two - vampires he hadn't killed (not even counting Phaedra) that she might have done the same. No, what mattered was that she was Molly, and he was supposed to be watching out for her. Michael trusted him to watch out for her. That was important. That was all the rationality he needed.
His voice was a little too calm as he asked, "Molly, are you okay?"
She knew that would have thrown him but she couldn’t resist taking advantage of the moment by being a little cheeky and put on her best Renfield voice, nodding dramatically. “Yes, of course. I keep myself fit and well for the master.” She smirked immediately with a chuckle and shook her head.
“I’m fine. Really.” She shrugged a shoulder. “I was freaked out initially when I realized what he was. And I blew out a ring putting him into a set of bookshelves when he touched me, but we came to an…understanding? After that. I let him help me with what I was researching.” A more serious look settled on her face. “You said to give them a chance so I did.”
His left hand twitched at her impersonation, but he gradually stopped himself from clenching it. Stars and stones, he hated Renfields.
You said to give them a chance so I did.
His brow furrowed slightly. When had he told her that? Maybe sometime when he was talking about Phaedra, but it wasn't supposed to apply to all vampires. This was gonna be one of those horrible 'do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do' things, wasn't it? Hell with that. Harry wanted Molly to do as he did. It was generally the way to do things. And she was intelligent enough to know when her mentor was just being fantastically lucky on an incredibly stupid plan, right?
...right?
"Um. Who is he, and what were you researching?" Yeah, those questions seemed to go with the conversation. At least he hadn't asked what she'd -- "Wait, what kind of understanding? The understanding that if he tried to touch you again, you'd fry him? Tell me that's the sort of understanding there was. Even if it wasn't. But don't lie to me. Because it should have been."
Molly had started to answer but ended up with her mouth hanging open when Harry switched gears back to the details of her agreement with Bill. She blinked when he got all contradictive. He was freaking out. Wonderful.
She got a confused and hesitant look on her face with a healthy dose of wounded ego in her baby blues. “He wanted me to promise not to assume I was better than him because I wasn’t the walking dead. Something about not having a pulse not automatically making him evil. I said I’d try not to be a bitch so long as he kept his hands to himself. No touchy without my permission.” Her brows came down as she gave Harry a bit of a glare. “So yeah. No lying necessary to convince you that I’m a big girl who can take care of herself.”
Very slowly, very carefully, Harry set down his coffee and the remains of his doughnut. He swallowed, keeping his face neutral. "Molly," he said, tone carefully even, "I just feel the need to point something out. I speak with monsters all the time. I have no illusions about how dangerous some of them are. But I speak to them, and some of them turn out to be restrained and careful monsters. Some are even quite human. Marcone, for example, is a very human sort of monster. Phaedra is a very monster sort of human. But when it comes to my friends, specifically my family, more specifically, my girls, I'd like to remind you that, to a certain degree, a monster can sill be a monster."
He let out his breath and drew in another. His hands were folded on the counter in front of him. "I know you can take care of yourself. I've trained you, I've taught you, and you could do no less being the daughter of Michael and Charity Carpenter. For all that, you're still my grasshopper. The Red Court went after my little girl. I Showed Up for her. I promised you that if you ever needed it, I'd Show Up for you, too."
He met her eyes directly. "I trust you. But stop getting so damn twitchy when I worry about you. Because that's never going to stop."
That just about broke Molly’s heart into little bitty pieces. She couldn’t twitch him anymore after that, not when he brought Maggie into the conversation. She lowered her eyes as she sighed regretfully then pulled up her spine and reached out to put a hand over one of Harry’s on the counter.
“I don’t want you to stop worrying, and I know I can’t make you stop. I just want you to show that you trust me, that you’re proud of me…a little more often. The ol’ confidence got a little broken, boss and you always said that’s important. So I’m trying.” She lifted her eyes to look him in the face. It was nice not to have to worry about doing that. “I didn’t tell him about you. You’re my ace in the hole in case he or someone else does the back stabbity stuff. But like I told Murphy we have to maybe trust some of the things we wouldn’t normally here. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’re a little outnumbered on the white hats. There’s a whole lot of grey ones. I could get really confused and scared by that, but I don’t want to.”
It would be really easy for her to retreat into the fear. It would keep her safe, sure, but it would paralyze her too, render her useless for anything but being that person to be taken care of. She didn’t want to be that person. She was better than that. She was Harry Dresden’s apprentice and that person was no shrinking violet.