#coin!harry

Coin! Harry Dresden

Hey, I want a taste You're a black heart devil and I can't explain Why I wait for your face You're a hotel lover on the back end deal of this race Every night she seems to change her name Doesn't matter who you really are The back room where we sip champagne I can never seem to get enough

I ignite So hold on 'Cause we're about to light it up It's on tonight So hold on 'Cause we're about to about to light it up

Group Starter for Better Angels arc: @nowmakeyourpeace, @carpenterwithacoin, @winterladymolly, @wagnerianbamf.

For a brief overview of this arc, go here. For the arc tag with threads, go here.

Peebles, Ohio

Harry shuffled the stack of flyers in his hand, nearly dropping the whole lot of them, as he searched for the one that summarized the known history of the Serpent Mound. At least he had both of his hands free, since his staff had broken some weeks ago. He hadn’t bothered to make a new one. For one thing, where was he supposed to find the time, space, and materials for it, constantly on the road as he was?

For another, the Fallen riding shotgun in his head had been teaching him, helping him fine-tune and channel his magic without the need for focii. He was a reluctant pupil, true, but knowledge was power, and the more he understood about Lasciel, what made her tick, what she was capable of doing with him and through him, the greater the likelihood that he could keep full control. 

He found the flyer he was looking for and perused it, one corner of his mouth turned down. He passed a hand over his face, his beard. He was looking a bit less like a scruffy nerf herder today, having taken the time to shower, trim his beard into a somewhat acceptable shape with a small pair of scissors-- he still couldn’t bring himself to put razor blades against his skin, and wasn’t sure when he’d get over that particularly annoying and recent quirk-- and change into clean, if rumpled, clothes. His duster could use a good dry-cleaning, though. “Effigy was built around A.D. 1110,” he said to Wynonna. “Probably by the people of the Fort Ancient tradition. Uh. Burial mounds of the Adena nearby--”

“Haaaarryyyy,” said a voice from the travel-stained canvas sack hanging from his belt. “You’re getting the Cliff Notes version with those stupid flyers. What the hell do you think you’re gonna learn from that? Take me out and let me see. Spirit of intellect here, remember? It’s what I do. Also I wanna see Wynonna. I mean, meee-ow. I gotta say, Harry, you scored big-time with--”

“Shut up, Bob,” Harry growled.

“All I’m saying is--”

“Bob!” Harry snarled. He closed his eyes, took a deep, slow breath, and successfully resisted the temptation to smash the bag, and the bleached human skull inside that served as a shelter for the totally fucking annoying spirit of air, multiple times against the nearest tree.  “We are in a public place, Bob. There are people here. I am not going to take out a talking skull in a public place. So shut. The hell. Up. I'm not in the mood.”

“You are such a grump, Harry,” the voice muttered. “Grumpy wizard who grumps. Would it kill you to be nice to your most invaluable asset? Just once? And I can’t even read this book you gave me. It’s high art, Harry. True classic erotic literature, and I can’t see it because I’m in a freaking bag.”

He sighed and cast a frustrated glance towards Wynonna. “Remind me why I even brought him along?”

@wintermae​ requested a Coin!Harry/Better Angels arc starter.

It was a long shot, but that was really all he had to go on right now.

Harry held the newspaper in his hands, his eyes sweeping over the article again. The headline read Priceless Artifacts Stolen from British Museum. There had been a number of items stolen which may or may not have been useful to one such as Nicodemus Archleone. An ancient shepherd’s staff. An ornate box. The remnants of a torn curtain. 

Nicodemus had always had an obsession for artifacts of power that bordered on a fetish. Harry wasn’t entirely certain what sort of power, if any, these particular objects contained, and neither was he certain that Nicodemus had been responsible for the theft, but it was a hunch. And these days, he followed up on all of his hunches, every scrap of possibility, no matter how shaky.  

He rolled up the newspaper and thrust it into the pocket of his duster, crossed his arms over his chest, and waited for the bus to pull into the terminal. A cacophony of musical whispers kicked up a gale inside his head, but he firmly pushed them aside. He was still in the driver’s seat. He was still in control. 

He carried the Coin, not the other way around.

“Oh, they talk about me, do they?” Harry narrowed his eyes at the other man as the whispers built to a crescendo inside his head. Lasciel recognized one of her own. His fists clenched, fingernails digging into palms as molten rage surged inside him, burning through his blood and turning the edges of his vision red, but he held himself in check. For now. “They happen to mention that I really don’t like you guys? At all? Being fucking tortured kinda made me lose any taste for kumbaya-ing in the Happy Denarians Club. So you can fuck right the hell off.”

{From here.} 

Yes. I did.” Harry didn’t quite meet her eyes. He knew what it took for Wynonna to give her trust to someone, and with him, she had. It had taken a good long while, but in the end, she had given him this gift.

Lying didn’t come naturally to him. It never had. He was just too much of a “take it or leave it” kind of guy. Sure, he had withheld information from his friends before, for their protection, but bald-faced lies? Not really his style.

This time, though. This time, he’d had his reasons. They were good reasons, though Wynonna probably wouldn’t have agreed. He looked at her now, his gaze level, silently begging her to understand. “And I’d do it again, if it meant keeping you safe. I can’t lose you, Wy. I–”

You’re all that’s holding me back from the abyss. You’re the only reason I’m still me.

“You’re all I’ve got right now.” 

Wynonna’s bottom lip caught between her teeth as she nodded. At the mention of keeping her safe a humorless laugh escaped her. 

“Keep me safe, right. Nice. Did you forget that I’m the Goddamn heir to a shitty curse that pretty much makes safe a non-existent word? Because it does. So lying to me isn’t going to do that. It’s going to make things harder. And it’s going to get someone hurt. Maybe not you, or me. But someone will.” 

insult someone my muse cares about on anon 

Weak. Pathetic. Broken. 

The familiarity of each word stings at her own memories of them. Still Wynonna can’t help but smile. It’s a cutting, angry sort of smirk but there is a little amusement in her expression as well.

“What he wants from me? And what would that be? He can’t put his hands on Peacemaker without some serious smoke, he’s not that big on tech because…well smoke for that too. And we’ve already had some fun with his staff. Do you see where I’m going with this? The idea that he’s playing this long game is almost laughable. It’d be a lot of energy to expend just for someone like me.”

She stares down at her half-full glass, considering.

He’ll abandon you–If he doesn’t kill you first. 

“Wouldn’t be the first guy to pop off. As for killing me…Take a number or show some initiative. I can take care of myself and him, if I have to.”

@carpenterwithacoin requested a Coin!Harry starter.

He had been traveling for months, sometimes with Wynonna, other times alone, often on foot through hazardous Way paths when his car failed to make it more than a few paltry miles at a time. Tracking down leads. Searching for the bearers of the thirty pieces of silver that came with their own complimentary fallen angels.

He searched for one in particular, the one responsible for his own bad angel on the shoulder. Nicodemus Archleone had pushed him beyond the brink of sanity, broken his mind, stripped him of everything he believed in, robbed him of every option but the one he had successfully resisted for years. Had forced him to watch, helpless, as one of his dearest friends was horrifically tortured, a bloody sacrifice intended to create a powerful weapon against God knows what. 

Castiel had survived, and so had Harry, only because the wizard had surrendered to Lasciel’s temptation and taken up her coin. And now he was going to make damn sure that the ancient Denarian would pay for his crimes.

He now lived the life of a hunter, much like Castiel’s friends the Winchesters. Always on the road. Always alone, more or less. Always on a mission. He would be lying if he said he’d gotten used to it, but it was necessary. He would take them down. All of them, one by one, until every coin was recovered from every corpse. Then, and only then, would he surrender his own coin into safekeeping to the Church. He would do it then. He would be able to let it go then. He was still in the driver’s seat. Beyond that, he didn’t know. Maybe he could pick up his old life again, move back home, return to his practice, work cases of the more localized variety, spend time with Wynonna without the Fallen looking over his shoulder the whole time. If she would still have him after all of this.

With a murmured word, he sealed the Way behind him and looked around himself to get his bearings. The sun was descending behind a swath of pink and indigo clouds, illuminating the buildings and streets and the rushing, growling stream of traffic. There were a few pedestrians out and about, but the human race has a tendency to look the other way around things they didn’t understand, to rationalize and block out and outright ignore, so none of them paid any attention to his sudden appearance as he seemed to step right out of a solid wall. He slid his hands into the pockets of his duster, ducked his head, and began to walk. His staff had shattered somewhere back in Milwaukee, but he had been getting a crash course under the tutelage of a fallen angel who had long practice with finesse, subtlety, and fine control. He didn’t really need his focii anymore to channel his power. Still, though, his hand itched for the familiar heft of the carved oak. Another link to his old life left behind.

@thornednamshiel wrote here:

The Fallen was not at all surprised that the Wizard knew his name. And his moniker, of course, but it had been a few millennia since anybody had called him just Namshiel. Not that it mattered much.

The mortal man’s tone was still flippant, however, and this time the Fallen didn’t try to hide his annoyance. What were a few hours, in truth? Nothing in the grand scheme of things, much less if they were used for science. Preciously few people understood that, and Namshiel was starting to think that this Wizard would be like many other hosts: unconcerned about the really important things.

Maybe, he considered, the Wizard was still angry about the last time they’d met, at the island in Lake Michigan. He couldn’t see why, though, it had been Namshiel who had lost a very capable host and a magic array that had been a scientific marvel. But humans could be weird like that.

“If you really intend to live for twelve centuries, then I can wait, of course. I’ll be here until the end of times, no sense in rushing if you first want to learn from Lasciel.” He said, trying to be reasonable. “And I can pay you, if that’s what it will take.”

He had a few full bank accounts in some places, and a couple of vaults. Money had no value for him, but the ability to acquire materials and equipment did.

This was a really bad idea, he reminded himself, even as he remained determined to see it through. He’d left Wynonna back at the motel, had just gone out for a food run before they hit the road again. He wasn’t prepared for any sort of confrontation, and was especially not prepared for any sort of trap. Which this probably was, given his streak of shitty luck so far. Hell, he was probably being set up to be the guinea pig in some kind of fucked up Nazi-esque experiment or something. Fun times.

Or, maybe Thorny over here was being completely sincere and just wanted a benign exchange of services. No harm, no foul. And maybe he’d get an offer on a nice stretch of oceanfront property in Arizona while he was at it.

But every lead they’d pursued so far had turned up zilch. The Denarians were good at covering their tracks when they didn’t want to be found, and they apparently did not want to be found right now. He’d be an idiot to let this opportunity pass him by.

Rationalizations. But still rational.

At Namshiel’s offer of money, Harry let out a grunt that substituted for a sharp laugh. This guy obviously didn’t know him at all. Oh, he was more than happy to be paid for an honest and ethical day’s work. He had bills to pay, after all, and needed to eat. But that was hardly his strongest motivator. However, maybe he could take advantage of that misconception, give the appearance of being just another mortal driven by greed.

“Now you’re speaking my language. How much we talking here?”