Title: Night
Fandom: Dresden Files
Pairing: Harry/Bob
Rating: G
Word count: 447
Summary: Harry and Bob go camping.
Author notes: Written for the "Night" drabble challenge at the greatestjournal skull_boy_love community. This is an epilogue to my Smallville crossover, The Bisexual Wizard. You don't have to have read that to enjoy the drabble, which doesn't explicitly reference anything from the fic, but that's why Harry mentions Metropolis instead of Chicago.
Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me, and I'm not making any money off this.
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I woke up shivering with cold. Fucking sleeping bag. Why aren't the damned things designed for guys who are six foot three? I had a crick in my neck, and there was a rock digging into my hip. I reached up to rub my eyes. Ow! I exclaimed as my hands brushed my face. I'd forgotten about my sunburn, acquired on the long hike from the Jeep to the edge of the lake.
I hate camping.
The night outside the tiny tent was filled with unfamiliar sounds. I heard something howl---I couldn't tell how far off. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up in instinctive human fear, and I reached out and closed my hand around my staff, just for reassurance. I'd rather face a pack of werewolves in Metropolis than a feral dog out here. For one thing, my strength is fire, and doing fire magic while surrounded by trees---not really your smartest option. For another---well, Metropolis is my turf. This isn't. This is theirs. I tried to decide if I would recognize bear noises if I heard them.
I rolled over and realized three things: my legs ached, I still had that weird sticky feeling you get after you sweat a lot and don't shower, and I had a mosquito bite on my elbow. I'd tried hard all afternoon not to feel resentful, but it had been difficult when I'd been climbing a mountain carrying ten tons of crap---including a certain someone's skull, I might add---and Bob had just been floating along beside me with a big silly grin on his face.
I reached out and pulled the tent flap back, quietly. Bob was where he'd been the last four times I'd woken up---about twenty feet away, crouching by the lake, some half-finished equations glowing in the air before him. It was a misty night, and he glowed all over, weirdly golden in the moonlight. I could see his profile clearly, even through the halo; he looked calm and content, centered as I'd rarely seen him. As I watched he reached out a hand and trailed it in the water, sharper golden light springing up under his fingertips. He smiled and looked back up at the stars, desultorily adding a few lines to his equations. The wind changed, and I could hear him humming some centuries-old song to himself.
I grinned. I had known this would be worth it.
I let the tent flap fall closed. Pulling my sleeping bag up over my shoulders as high as it could go and hitting my hip on another rock as I did so, I went back to sleep.
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