PK half expects a duel to break out, but of course things aren't like in dumb kids' novels. PK settles back a little farther, and Carey puts a steady hand on his shoulder and snaps his fingers. When he speaks, his voice sounds like he's speaking directly into PK's ear. "Why don't we go somewhere a little quieter?"

Mortimer narrows his eyes, but he nods. "Follow me," he says, not bothering with - or maybe not knowing - Carey's trick. PK scrambles out of the booth and follows, Carey on his heels.

They go into a back room, Mortimer clearing it with a curt, "Leave." When the door is closed, Mortimer's body man standing in front of it with crossed arms, Mortimer says, "You should have known it was dangerous to deal in my city."

"You're telling me you control the Muggle dealers?" Carey says with a small laugh.

"I control who I want to control." Mortimer raises his eyebrows. He's a very expressive man, PK notes distantly. "And that includes you and your frightened partner."

For one dizzying moment, PK thinks they've been compromised. Then he remembers their cover and says, "Hey."

"He's new," Carey says dismissively.

Mortimer's lip curls. "He must be, how do you say it? Amazing in the sack."

"You know how we say it," Carey says. "Let's not pretend, hmm?"

"Very well." Mortimer goes back to looking bored. "I'm interested in - recruiting you, we'll say."

"What if we don't want to be recruited?" PK says impulsively.

He ignores the pulse of worry through his and Carey's currently-inconvenient curse and looks at Mortimer steadily. "I'm not interested in selling unicorn horn and cursed rings," he adds when Mortimer doesn't say anything.

"New, you said," Mortimer says finally.

"Relatively," Carey says.

"I see." Mortimer sighs. "You will show me what you sold, and then I will decide where you go."

This, they've rehearsed. PK doesn't bat an eyelash, just pulls the baggie of spelled pills out of his pocket and says, "You mean this?"

"Yes," Mortimer says, and holds out a hand.

PK almost deposits the entire baggie in Mortimer's hand, but then he gets a feeling from the curse, and that sparks inspiration. He pulls a single pill out of the baggie and hands it over.

"Preserving value?"

"Wouldn't want to just throw them away," PK says, smiling and aiming for cluelessness.

It works, apparently. Mortimer disregards him and puts his wand against the pill, whispering an incantation so quietly PK can't hear it. The pill glows, and Mortimer glances up at them with renewed interest.

"Giving magic to Muggles," he says. "Whatever shall we do with you?"

Carey finally speaks. "Put us in charge of your shipments."

Mortimer laughs. It's high and grating, and PK feels like it bounces off the concrete and drives straight into his ears. "Not the trade itself?"

"You have someone for that," Carey says.

"So you did your homework."

"I'm not an idiot."

"Neither is your partner, apparently. I assume you didn't just happen to move into my neighborhood."

"Muggles and idiots believe in coincidences," Carey says.

"I see." Mortimer pockets the pill and switches to French. "You might be bold, but I cannot put you in charge of any shipments at all. That's simply not how an operation such as mine works."

"It was worth a shot," PK says.

His French isn't as good as Carey's and he knows it, but he really thinks it's kind of ridiculous, how surprised Mortimer looks. Mortimer doesn't answer him directly, though, looking between him and Carey and saying, "The airport. Tomorrow, eleven PM. If you're late I'll hex you until your own mothers don't recognize you."

He doesn't give them a chance to answer: he walks out, henchman following, before either of them says anything.

"Well," PK says when they've Apparated home. "I think that went well."

Carey's silent. PK knows better than to prod him, so he goes out to the kitchen and gets them both Muggle beer before sitting down in the living room. Carey casts silencing spells, sits down on the other side of the couch, grabs the beer, and finally says, "We can't use the curse."

"Huh?"

"The curse," Carey says. He's speaking slowly, deliberately. PK gets the feeling he's saying something pretty hard. "We need to stop using it."

"Okay," PK says. "I thought it was useful, though."

"That's the problem. They cursed us with something useful because they expect us to use it. If we rely on it, something tells me that curse will unravel."

It's solid logic, and PK has no reason to argue with it. But his mind catches on something, and he says, "That doesn't mean we shouldn't use it, though."

"Oh?"

It's a leading oh, the kind Hal will give him when he's about to expound on why PK's wrong about the structure of a spell, in a way that throws PK back to school. But it's not like PK's ever backed away from Hal, or any of his teachers. His dad's the only one who can really make him shut up. He says, "If we have a tool, we use it. It's that simple. There's no reason we shouldn't use it while we have it. You can use something without being dependent on it. Otherwise, why would we use magic?"

Carey blinks. "Huh."

"I just think we should use it." PK shrugs. "We'll be fine. Or we won't be. But if we don't use it, that's like casting lumos when you could light five sconces."

"Sconces?" Carey says with a wry smile.

"I was going for an old-school feel," PK says, but he laughs and sips his beer.

They go to bed early. Well, not actually early, but early compared to when they got home. Carey brushes his teeth while PK changes, and vice versa. Carey's the one who snaps his fingers and extinguishes the lights; PK closes his eyes and does his best to sleep.

It's hard. Like this, their curse is a lot more obvious. PK doesn't really know what to do with that; he feels weird about it, even as he knows it's useful. He doesn't want to dwell on it and he doesn't want to be weird at Carey because of it. He just -

"Stop thinking," Carey mumbles, kicking behind him and connecting with PK's shin.

"Easier said than done," PK says.

"You don't normally have a problem with it."

"Hey."

"Joke."

Irritation and affection gets sent via the curse. PK smiles to himself. "You're a softie."

"M'not."

"You're a softie and you snore a little when you sleep."

"Fuck yourself," Carey says, shifting onto his stomach.

PK laughs a little, quietly. Carey's asleep soon after that, and PK follows. There's no real reason for him to stay awake, and PK's never been that big a worrier. That's Carey's job.

They spend the next day hanging out and not doing a whole lot beyond trying to look vaguely criminal whenever they're in front of a window. PK's pretty sure he wouldn't be able to tell if Carey's nervous or not without the curse - but he's not nervous, not at all. It's kind of amazing, actually, how excited he is.

"I think there might be something wrong with you," PK says over dinner (takeout for tonight, because they'll be reimbursed the Muggle money they spent with Galleons).

"What?"

"You're excited."

"Our job is moving along. Of course I'm excited."

PK can appreciate that level of double-speak, just in case there's a listening charm. "True," he says. "But it's dangerous."

Another spike of excitement. PK snorts and eats his lo mein.

"Anyway," he says after awhile, "if we're meeting at the airport, it can't be that big a deal."

"He might just have us grab a Portkey. There's a certain symmetry there."

But PK knows, and he knows that Carey knows, that flying in Muggle airplanes is exactly how Death Eaters have been sneaking into Canada to begin with. That's why PK's kind of nervous, and why Carey's so excited.

"Maybe," he agrees, and they go back to eating in silence.

They wrap themselves in dark cloaks and cast three deflection spells before Apparating. They manage to place themselves on the tarmac easily. Muggle airports are one of the things that Aurors are taught about, because so much crime - Wizarding and otherwise - has happened on them. Usually fancy crime, white collar crime, the kind of crime Aurors find just as hard to hunt down as Muggle police. But that's beside the point, and PK's only thinking about it because he's nervous; the actual point is, they know where to go from the point they Apparate to.

"Let's go," Carey says quietly. They walk across the tarmac, towards the small plane and the people standing, watching it.

"Who's in the plane?" PK says in French when they draw level with the people. He does his best to sound cheerful and clueless.

"Someone interesting," the guy next to him says.

Screw it. PK sticks his hand out. "Hi," he says. "I'm Jake."

"Liam."

"Anglo?"

"So are you."

"My French is great," PK says. He plays up his offense a little, but he totally does feel a little offended. If the curse is any judge, Carey's amused.

"Sure," Liam says. "Who's your friend?"

"The brains of the operation." PK looks over his shoulder at Carey. "This is Kev."

"Pleasure," Carey says, nodding.

He does 'aloof criminal' really well, PK can't help but notice.

"So," PK says. "We're waiting for someone mysterious."

"Are you always this chatty?"

PK blinks at Liam. "Should I not be?"

"The Muggles won't notice us," Liam says. "Not that you have any interest in that."

"I do." PK decides to fall silent, remembering suddenly that he did actually tell himself Carey would have the lead on all this. He doesn't speak again; about fifteen minutes later, the door of the plane opens and steps slowly lower.

"Muggle technology," Carey mutters. He injects just the right amount of contempt into it.

"Indeed," Liam says dryly.

Three wizards walk down the steps. PK doesn't recognize any of them, which makes sense; Mortimer wouldn't invite practical strangers to take any high-profile Dark wizards around town. But they're definitely Dark wizards, with the Dark Mark obvious on all their forearms.

PK whistles. Liam says, "Cut it out," and walks forward to meet the wizards.

After that, PK hangs back. He's made it obvious to Mortimer's lackeys that he's not a threat; now it's Carey's job to convince them that he, actually, is.

Carey does a good job. A few wandless spells here, a few smirking references to illegal stuff done in the past there, and by the end of the night, people are reasonably wary of them. That's long enough for PK to find out that the three Dark wizards are Mitt Lerner, Frank Delay, and Tait McKinney. They're low-profile, purebloods - and isn't that a word PK's tired of hearing, professionally and otherwise - but of questionable English heritage.

And it's PK and Carey's job to babysit them.

"It's not babysitting," Carey says when PK brings it up in their bedroom, behind the cover of anti-listening charms.

"It is, though," PK says.

Carey sighs and pulls his shirt off, tossing it on the floor with his abandoned robes. "Yeah, maybe. But we have to do it, so." He pulls his pants off and then stops, glaring at PK. "Are you going to just stand there all night?"

For a second, PK thinks it's an invitation. But then he gets with the program and says, "Okay. Right," and goes into the bathroom so he doesn't have to watch Carey bend over to retrieve his clothes.

"We start tomorrow," Carey says the next morning.

"Great," PK says. "So what are we going to do today?"

"Lay low."

"Lay low?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

"Not really," PK admits. "I just might go crazy."

"We have an X-Box."

"I never really played Muggle games." PK puts his shirt on, not missing the way Carey's eyes follow the movement. They really should just sleep together and get it out of their systems. But apparently Carey doesn't operate that way.

"It's easy," Carey says. He swallows and meets PK's eyes. "Come on. I'll show you."

Two hours later, they've forgotten about coffee and even food in favor of trying to kill everything in Halo 4. "This is awesome," PK says. "Why haven't I done this before?"

"I hadn't until Auror school," Carey says. He leans back and shoots. "I had a Muggleborn roommate."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Carey makes a noise of dissatisfaction as he's hit. "Halak."

"Huh. Is he in Quebec now?"

"No," Carey says in a flat voice.

Well, that's that line of conversation shut down. PK sighs internally and goes back to playing. Someday, Carey will tell him details of his life that aren't shrouded in mystery. PK's chosen to keep the faith, because otherwise he might go a little crazy.

They make lunch around 2. "We should do something sinister in front of the windows," PK says as he puts mustard on his sandwich.

"Should we?"

Carey's voice is carefully neutral, and PK's getting nothing from the curse. He hesitates, then says, "Did they say anything to you?"

"They said plenty of things to me." Carey shrugs. "I'm not sure what's important and what's not."

"You should tell me. I'm your partner."

"I know," Carey says. "That's not the problem. Or it is, rather."

"Huh?" PK definitely doesn't follow.

Carey looks at him, and for a split second it's like all the air's been sucked out of the room. There's so much want coming at him from Carey that PK's frozen as Carey steps forward, angles their bodies so they're visible from the window facing their neighbors' house, and kisses him.

It's long, and slow, and PK thinks distantly that he really should've known Carey would be good at this. But in the end it's just sex, so he gets with the program pretty quickly, putting a hand on Carey's hip and kissing back.

Then Carey steps back just as quickly as he stepped in, and it's like an Imperio breaking. PK blinks and says, "So is that your wand or are you just happy to see me?"

Carey snorts. "You're not funny," he says, and grabs his sandwich, walking quickly out to the living room.

PK's not going to analyze that. Analyzing things is his job, and okay, technically this is his job too - but it was just for verisimilitude. That's all, PK reminds himself.

He finishes making his sandwich, but he eats it in the kitchen. He tells himself he's not hiding, and confirms it with himself by going out to the living room once he's done. Carey's plate is sitting on the coffee table, so PK flicks his wand at it so it floats out into the kitchen.

"So," he says, sitting down.

"It's for the job," Carey says, not looking at him.

"We could fuck," PK says.

Carey goes very, very still. "What?"

"You heard me." PK shrugs. "I'd be fun. I'm usually up for it."

"So I've heard."

PK thinks that's maybe supposed to be a dig, but it's not like Carey's the first person who's said something like that to him. Mostly it's just hassling from people at the station, no big deal. "Anyway, it doesn't have to be a big deal. Me and Dominique -"

"We're not sleeping together on a case," Carey says before PK has time to talk about playing shinny and then Apparating back to PK's, and what a big deal it wasn't in the morning.

"Sure," PK says. "But you know, after."

"No."

"Okay," PK says, and drops it. He doesn't want to pressure Carey. He's not that desperate, and anyway, he and Carey aren't - they aren't like that. PK's fine with that. It's not like he doesn't have other people he can sleep with.

The rest of the day passes too slowly for PK's comfort. Carey makes dinner, a stir-fry that takes ten minutes and tastes better than PK thinks it should, all things considered. They go to bed early, both of them going over casefiles in bed and pretending it's morning. The next day, they put all the files in the spell-reinforced file folder they have for this occasion, and go next door.

Liam answers the door. "Took you long enough."

"We're on time," Carey says. He has the kind of lazy interest that makes PK think of a cat right before it scratches you. They could use a little of that, PK thinks. "Are our charges here?"

"I told you, you're not babysitters."

"And I told you, I know a babysitting job when I see one." Carey flicks his wand. The front door slams inward, hinges squealing. Carey walks in, past Liam, like it's no big deal. PK gives Liam a smile and hastily follows.

Lerner, Delay, and McKinney are all sitting in the living room. They look sour, so much so that PK really thinks they're playing to type a bit too much. They're glaring at the wall, wands out, and when PK and Carey walk in, they shift their glares to them.

"Hey," PK says, determinedly ignoring the tension. "I'm Jake. This is Kev. We're here to escort you around Quebec."

"Babysit us, you mean," Delay says. "Right bunch of horse manure, if you ask me."

"Shut it," McKinney says. "Do you really want to be handed in to the Ministry?"

"I want -"

"Food?" Carey interrupts. He flicks his wand at the table, and a book is Transfigured into a bowl of fruit. Even PK's impressed. "Entertainment? I can't provide you any Muggles to torture, but maybe at a later date."

"We're supposed to get involved in business," Lerner says. "Something tells me you lot ain't exactly the cream of the crop."

"Neither were you," PK points out. "You're not exactly the Malfoys, are you?"

"Fuck off," Delay says. "Merlin's balls, do we really have to put up with these two for weeks?"

"Until Mortimer decides you can be trusted," Liam says smoothly. "You're welcome to explore the city, but any attempts to enter circles of...disreputable business, and you will be removed immediately. Painfully."

PK thinks this is all pretty dramatic, but he keeps his mouth shut, crossing his arms and looking down at the three.

For the rest of the day, PK and Carey escort them through Montreal. PK at first thinks it'll be really dramatic and tension-filled, but that ends up not being the case, really, really quickly. They go to a cafe, and around the city center, and they visit the harbor. No one tries to do anything illegal by Muggle or Wizarding standards. By the end of the day, PK's itching to cast a hex just because they didn't mention boring sightseeing in Auror training.

"That was exhausting," he says when they get back to the house. He collapses dramatically on the couch.

"Oh, come on," Carey says. "It was fine."

"Exhausting," PK insists. "Soul-killing. Horrible. Life-ruining."

Carey snorts and shoves PK's feet away, sitting down on the couch. "Well, we have to do it again tomorrow."

PK casts a listening spell. "How long before Mortimer trusts us? Or Liam. Whoever."

"It'll take awhile," Carey says. "You know that."

He does; he's just being ridiculous for the sake of it. PK sits up. "Yeah," he says. "It makes sense that they'd be the ones sent over, though."

Carey glances over at him. "Yeah?"

PK nods. "Sure. If they suspect we're onto them, better no-names get caught than people higher up, you know? They still want Britain to be the center of power. Canada's just a pit stop."

"They can't possibly be thinking about resurrecting the Death Eaters again."

"Of course they are," PK says. "They're extremists."

"I guess." Carey sighs. "I won't say I get why."

"Me neither," PK says.

"You do, though."

PK grins. "Are you calling me evil?"

"I'm saying you get it," Carey says. "It's a compliment. Learn to take it."

"Yeah, yeah," PK says. "Well, anyway, they're trying to start it up again. There's no way they're not."

"We need to make a report."

"In person?"

"Unfortunately," Carey says grimly.

"Hey, I've been pushing them to adopt better Wizarding technology for ages," PK says. "Where are we going?"

"La Nuit."

"You can't be serious."

"Polyjuiced," Carey says.

"Oh." It does make a kind of sense. "Okay, then. When?"

"Three AM."

"Carey!"

Carey out-and-out laughs at him. "So get ready," he says, getting up. "I'm going to go to bed."

PK lets him go. He's not nervous about the meetup, but he wants to have notes prepared. Carey, he knows, will just give an oral report and call it a day. He's good enough that that's not really a concern for him. But PK...well. He knows how Martin feels about him, and he doesn't want to give Martin any reason to give him shit. So he conjures some parchment, really old-fashioned stuff, and begins writing.

When he's written what he thinks is a pretty comprehensive report, it's almost eleven. Waking up just before three is going to be the worst, he thinks, but at least he'll get to sleep a little.

He slips into bed and closes his eyes. The bed is warm, a product of Carey being a one-man furnace. PK wants to move against him; it's weird, spending so much time not even really touching anyone. But Carey doesn't want that, and anyway, PK should probably get over it. They're in deep cover and could be for a long time, and their cover is that they're more or less devoted to each other, in an evil way. So he can't just run around hooking up.

It's fine, he tells himself as he slowly falls asleep. It's perfectly fine.

Carey wakes him up at ten to three. "Put your robes on, we need to Apparate," he says.

PK groans. "Okay, okay." He sits up, yawning. "I'm up."

Carey goes into the bathroom. PK stumbles upright and pulls his robes on, not bothering to change out of his pajama pants. They won't really be able to see them, and anyway, it's not like they can reasonably be expected to be up to dress code at three AM. Especially since they're undercover.

They choke down the Polyjuice, transform, and Apparate, bleary-eyed, to La Nuit. They're about the same size and weight, but PK's a white dude now, and Carey has bright red hair. Carey leads them to the right table, and they sit down across from a guy PK doesn't recognize until he taps the table three times.

It's Hal, also Polyjuiced.

"How goes it?" Hal says.

"Fine," Carey says.

"Here." PK pushes a Galleon across the table. "Password's un."

"One? Really?" Hal says.

PK shrugs. "Simple enough." When Hal casts revelare and says the password, the Galleon will become the documents PK was writing.

"We have their trust," Carey says. "Minimal, but we can work with it from there. Our suspicion about the smuggling was right."

"Means?"

"The Muggle airport."

"Not deviating from tradition, are they?" Hal strokes his moustache. PK secretly suspects he's enjoying this. "I'm supposed to pass on the message to continue as you are. We'll send you a response to your report within the week. I did ask for a more specific date, but specificity apparently isn't a strength of -"

"Thanks," Carey says. PK glances at him, somewhat in awe. He would never cut off Hal like that. "We're done, then."

"We are. Unless you want to stay." Hal looks between PK and Carey with an expression PK's pretty sure he wouldn't be able to read even if Hal had his normal face.

"We'll be fine," Carey says. "Let's go." He stands.

Hal pockets the Galleon, but doesn't move. He does have a firewhiskey, PK supposes. For his part, PK says, "I'll see you."

"You will," Hal says.

It's the most comforting thing PK's heard since he started this case. He nods and leaves, following Carey and Apparating as soon as he gets outside.

"Well," PK says as they sit around, waiting for the Polyjuice to fade.

Carey's nose is shrinking, he notes as Carey says, "Hal's a character."

"I like him."

"I never said you shouldn't." Carey raises his eyebrows. "You get a lot of shit, huh."

"It's not like you don't."

"True enough." Carey sips his butterbeer. "They've always put me undercover alone before."

It's such a breach of protocol that at first PK doesn't even process it. Then it sinks in and he says, "Wait, alone? But -"

"I know, they're not supposed to." Carey shrugs. "I had a partner for awhile. Then I didn't. I'm a pain in the ass, apparently."

He says it with the kind of cynical amusement PK honestly can't imagine having. But then, he's nothing like Carey, even though he wants to understand Carey almost as much as he wants to solve this case and bring Mortimer and his gang to justice. "Well, I'm clueless and I don't work hard enough," he finally offers.

Carey's mouth becomes a hard, flat line. "That's bullshit," he snaps. His skin shifts back to its normal color, hair darkening, and in a few moments of tense, drawn-out silence, he becomes Carey again.

"Um," PK says, because he got kind of distracted watching the transformation, but it's not like he doesn't remember what Carey was saying before.

"You heard me."

"I know it's bullshit," PK finally says. "Do you know yours is?"

Carey shrugs. "Sure."

"Okay then," PK says. "Great." He looks down at his hands. They're normal again. "Let's go to bed," he says, because he's getting this ridiculous churning tangle of emotions from Carey, and if it doesn't calm down he's going to - he doesn't know. He's never felt like Carey feels right now in his life.

They go to bed, neither of them talking. They don't talk much when they wake up in the morning, either. PK's settling back into his Jake persona, reminding himself that he's an amoral, evil Dark wizard who's married to someone he has sex with all the time. As far as he's concerned, the attributes are equally important.

When they're dressed, they leave to go next door. They don't have a chance to show McKinney, Delay, and Lerner Old Montreal, though; when they get inside, Liam says, "We've had a chance to look at that pill you handed over."

PK blinks. "My pill?"

"Interesting spellwork on it."

"Thanks."

"I wasn't complimenting you." Liam holds out a scrap of parchment. "Here's the spell we want you five to put on these." He leads them out into the kitchen. About three thousand pills are stacked neatly on the table.

"You can, of course, use magic to seal them appropriately," Liam says. He makes it sound like he's giving them some kind of awesome present.

"Great." PK smiles widely. He knows from experience that nothing he's thinking will be obvious right now. "Thanks!"

That means they spend most of the day being an assembly line, spelling pills with the complicated rework of the spell PK originally used. It's not a good rework, even; there are problems with the combination of spells that means PK could nullify the whole thing with a flick of his wand. But he's not going to get picky about it. This is work they can do, and he's getting a front-row seat to how the guys they're babysitting cast spells.

He can tell Carey's watching it, too, but he's reasonably sure it's not obvious to anyone else. He spells pill after pill, until he's exhausted and pretty sure he couldn't cast anything more complicated than lumos.

Then, as the sun is going down, Liam comes back in and says, "That'll be enough, gentlemen."

"Fuckin' right it'll be enough," McKinney mutters.

"This was fun," PK says.

"Are you dim or lying?" Liam snaps.

PK blinks. Carey interjects quickly. "He's just enthusiastic," he says. "Do they not have that in Britain?"

"Leave," Liam says.

PK guesses it's too much to hope he'd answer directly.

He manages to keep his laughter in until they get inside their own house. "Come on, man," he says when Carey frowns at him. "That was kind of funny."

"That was a test, and you're not acting like a Mob member at all."

But he can tell Carey knows that's the point, so PK just says, "They trust you, though. And you'll drag me along."

"And you're observant, so everyone will be looking away when you get enough details to send them to La Joie de Vie."

PK thinks, not for the first time, that whoever founded Quebec's only and frankly horrible Wizarding prison had a weird sense of humor. "Yeah," he says. "Well, that's my job."

"I know."

"I think -"

PK forgets what he's going to say he thinks. He forgets everything, in fact, because an arrow - an honest to God arrow - shatters the window, breaks the protective spells with a horrible tearing noise, and embeds itself in his side.

It hurts. It hurts really badly, actually, the kind of hurt that makes PK think he really should have just become a Potions professor at the Ontario School of Magic the way Dad wanted him to. He thinks he cries out, but he's not sure; he falls to the floor and watches as Carey hurls the protection spells back up, with a sudden flare of power PK didn't even know Carey had, then falls to his knees, hands coming up to touch PK's face.

"You're going to be fine," Carey says. His voice sounds funny, and PK realizes he's probably passing out.

Then everything goes dark.

When he wakes up, his side hurts like hell. It's bandaged, though, and PK's still alive, so he's got a few things going for him. He's also lying in his and Carey's bed.

"Ow," he says, sitting up gingerly. "Did Liam -"

"It wasn't him," Carey says. "Careful, you've got a regenerating potion in you."

That explains it. "Liam?" PK says, leaning back.

"Brought it over," Carey confirms. "He seemed concerned."

"Kind of weird he had it waiting."

"Martin didn't tell us we were walking into a turf war."

He's never, with Carey or Hal or anyone else, actually said the things he sometimes thinks about Martin, or the Montreal branch of the Aurors in general. He doesn't say it now, either. He just says, "With who?"

"Muggles."

PK blinks, then blinks again. "Okay. I know I'm sort of full of healing spells, but -"

"Muggles. You heard right." Carey sighs. "I'll tell you the details in the morning. Mortimer's generously given us the day off. Rest up." He snaps his fingers, turning the lights off, and leaves the room before PK can protest that it's fine if Carey stays here, too.

He wakes up early the next morning. His side feels fine; pulling the bandages away reveals smooth, undamaged skin. He throws them in the trash and stretches, grabbing some Muggle clothes and going to shower. He still feels a little weak, weak enough that showering is kind of a pain; but by the time he makes it downstairs, the scent of coffee making his head swim, he's definitely sure he's on the mend.

Carey's moving around in the kitchen, wearing low-slung pajama pants and no shirt. He turns to look at PK when PK opens the cabinet to get a mug. PK feels a sudden unknotting, which is when he realizes that at least half of how tense he felt was Carey's own worry. That realization comes on the heels of pain as Carey knocks him back against the counter and kisses him frantically.

PK makes a muffled 'ow' noise into Carey's mouth, but then he gets with the program and starts kissing Carey. He pulls Carey closer, fisting his hands in Carey's pajama pants and kissing back until Carey groans into his mouth, fingers digging into PK's biceps.

Everything kind of hurts and they're in the sightline of a window, which is probably the whole point for Carey, and PK doesn't care. He doesn't care in the slightest, because Carey's sliding one hand down to his ass, and he can feel Carey getting hard, and right now his priority is getting this to somewhere where he can get Carey to fuck his mouth, where he can kiss Carey wherever he wants and bite his neck and touch as much as he wants.

"Couch," he says when Carey pulls away to nibble at PK's throat. Carey mumbles what PK hopes is assent and jerks away from PK, grabbing his wrist with a ridiculously tight grip and pulling him over to the couch. He shoves PK down and covers him, arching his back so they're pressing together, hips thrusting against each other. PK's so turned on he can barely stand it; he tugs at Carey's pants until Carey wiggles out of them, then grabs Carey's ass, guiding Carey's thrusts as he kisses Carey.

PK made the mistake of putting sweatpants on, which he's bitterly regretting even as Carey bites his neck hard and tugs at them. He lifts his ass off the couch so Carey can get them down, then moans involuntarily when his dick rubs against Carey's stomach. He's already almost hard, and he wants so much that he feels clumsy and sixteen again. "Carey," he manages when Carey worries the skin at the curve of his shoulder and neck. "We should -"

"I'm going to blow you," Carey says. He sounds all flat, almost like he's pissed. If that's his sex voice then it's really not sexy, which means there's no reason for PK to do a full-body shudder.

"Yes," he hears himself say, and then Carey's nipping his way down PK's body. He's almost smiling, the asshole, right until he gets level with PK's dick. Then he glances up at PK and rubs his thumb over the head, jerks him off a little, taking the kind of care with PK's foreskin that means he's had practice with this, oh God. PK stops pretending he has any kind of modesty and throws his head back, thrusting up into Carey's hand.

He's had his fair share of blowjobs, but never from someone as goal-oriented as Carey. It's dizzying in the best way, and PK's pretty sure at least part of the dizziness isn't even the healing potion.

"Oh, fuck," he says when Carey bobs his head. He looks good, too, this is so good, and he's not sure what it says about him that he's this into Carey's terrifyingly thorough intenseness.

Carey doesn't smile, doesn't even look up at him - he just doubles down and sucks harder, running his fingers over PK's balls, down to his ass. PK lets himself get lost in the sensation, until he's about to come. He says, "Carey -" and Carey pulls off, finally looking up at PK as he jacks him through an orgasm.

"Now you," PK says, tugging Carey up.

"PK -"

PK gets his hand on Carey's dick and jerks him off, a quick motion that's a lot easier to do than you'd think from the noises Carey makes. He thrusts into PK's fist and bites PK's shoulder as he comes.

After, PK just kind of lies there for a minute, mind blown. Carey sits up, but PK doesn't mind, since he keeps glancing down at PK with a smug smile on his face.

"Yeah, laugh it up," PK says.

"Oh, I will," Carey says. "You look good."

PK flips him off lazily. "Jackass."

Carey smirks some more. "And?"

"Oh, nothing," PK says. "Anyway, that was fun."

Carey still looks hunted, but it's faded a bit - enough that PK's not borderline scared of him. "It was," Carey finally says.

PK smiles at him hopefully.

"Oh, fine," Carey says. "We'll do it again. You jackass."

PK fistpumps. "Oh, yeah."

Carey rolls his eyes and stands. "We have to do an incident report." They can send it from the house, PK knows, but that just means they really have to do it, and can't get out of it.

"Paperwork, Carey? You're killing the afterglow."

"Get up," Carey says, smacking the back of PK's head.

PK will take it. It's better than Carey's awful desperation and it's definitely better than almost dying.

He showers and then does the paperwork while Carey's showering. It's kind of maddening, but PK fills it out as best as he can, then puts it in the box spelled to mirror its contents in Martin's office.

They don't get a response that day. Things are kind of weird and tense, and PK has to take breaks several times to lie on the couch and regret his whole life. It's not until dinner that Carey says, "We're going to have to deal with Montreal."

PK glances around, for the comfort of knowing they're protected from listening ears as much as anything else. "Yeah?"

Carey nods. "You know we will."

"I'm not sure how we can deal with them," PK hedges.

Carey shrugs. "I've been fighting them for years."

PK remembers, vaguely, hearing about and seeing Carey before he was assigned to be Carey's partner. From what he knows, that's an accurate summation. "Sure," PK says. "I just want to be an Auror, though."

"I know," Carey says. "But we're in a dangerous spot, here."

"What kind of Muggle shoots an arrow, anyway?"

"Making a statement." But Carey looks bothered by it, too.

So PK voices what he knows they're both thinking and says, "It's not normal."

"No," Carey says. "It's really not."

"But?"

"That's what Liam's told us, and I believe there's a turf war," Carey says. "So we stick to the plan of being shady and work around attempted murder."

It's kind of a hell of a line, but he delivers it like he's telling PK what kind of pizza to make for dinner. PK takes another bite of his noodles and says, "Okay."

"Just like that?"

"What'd you think I'd say?"

"I've had partners who don't like that kind of thing."

"Well, I'm not one of them. We're going to do what we have to do."

Carey's looking at him with a hard, inscrutable expression. PK blinks at him, then takes another bite of noodles. It seems like the thing to do.

"Okay," Carey says finally. They go back to eating in silence.

Fortunately, in the next week, no one gets shot. It's, overall, really low-key and calm. PK and Carey don't sleep together, or even talk about it, though a few times Carey has kissed him mid-laugh. For the cover, PK assumes. Of course, they're still colluding with Dark wizards and moving several thousand illegally magically infused pills per day; PK and Carey can't even fake it when they enchant the pills.

But Liam is starting to trust them more and more, and PK knows both his and Carey's wandwork is good enough that Liam will want to bring them in on more complex work. So he's not surprised when, after a week and three days, Liam pulls them aside and says, "Mortimer wants to meet with you."

"La Nuit?" PK says.

"La Nuit," Liam confirms. "Eleven tonight. Don't be late."

PK smiles, keeping to his somewhat dim routine. Liam can't buy it completely, considering his spellwork, but PK's pretty sure he's sold the guy on PK being kind of clueless about the realities of a criminal lifestyle.

"What do you think this is?" Carey says when they get back to their house.

"A test," PK says. "Which is what you're giving me too, by the way."

Carey smiles. "Good job. You passed."

PK thinks, distantly, that maybe he shouldn't have had to learn investigative work on the fly. "Great," he says. "What do I get?"

He doesn't even realize he's flirting until Carey frowns. "Not dead, for starters."

"Buzzkill," PK grumbles, but he escapes to the living room. Carey's not exactly subtle when he needs space.

La Nuit is almost abandoned when they enter it at 10:55. PK sees the reason why right away. Mortimer's sitting at a table in the dead center of the room, old-fashioned pointed hat pulled low over his eyes, smoking a Muggle gangster-style cigar. He looks mean and scary as hell. PK himself can't even ignore his sudden urge to turn around and put as much space between himself and Mortimer as possible.

He doesn't, of course. He and Carey walk forward and sit across from Mortimer. But the menace is just rolling off of him.

"Well," Mortimer says. His French still sounds sneering, sinister. "You haven't screwed up too badly. Yet."

"We've tried not to," PK says.

"We understand how earning trust works," Carey adds.

"And yet, you never ran with a gang in Toronto."

PK takes a moment to wonder if Mortimer just seriously used the phrase "ran with a gang". Then he says, "We're small-time. We want to stop being small-time, you know?"

"I do know," Mortimer says. "After all, I'm here."

"Uh huh," PK says. "You're here, and that's great and all, but we'd like to be here too. You know what I'm saying?"

"What he's saying," Carey cuts in, "is that we don't want to work for you if we don't get our piece of the pie. However small it is."

"I understand." Mortimer leans back, but his had still casts a shadow over his eyes. "You want to know there's a reward in it for you."

"I want to see that reward, and collect it," Carey says.

He might as well have tossed a cursed Galleon on the table as a wager. Mortimer stiffens and says, "So that's how it is."

"Were you expecting something else?" Carey asks.

"Not particularly," Mortimer says. "I find this is an interesting development, though. You've been here a week. What makes you think you've earned it?"

"We've done a week of babysitting Death Eaters and casting spells complicated enough they're worth thousands of Galleons," Carey says.

"Is that meant to impress me?"

"It's meant to point out that you have some serious paying up to do."

PK's careful not to betray his shock, but it's definitely, definitely there. But Mortimer, to his shock, tilts his head back and laughs. Heartily. For a long time.

"You've got style, I'll give you that," he says when he stops. "Fine. You noticed they're Death Eaters."

"They have the Mark," Carey says.

"That they do. That's a side venture. The real money's in Dark objects."

"The Muggle crime?"

"Also a side venture. I keep my fingers in a lot of pots."

"Probably wise of you." Carey leans back. "And you want us to have our finger in the Dark objects pot."

"I want you to make Dark objects."

"Complex spell-casting that can be verified by people you trust." Carey narrows his eyes. "Not the top of the pyramid, considering who you might be spiriting away to Quebec soon."

PK thinks that might be a little too on the nose, but Mortimer doesn't so much as blink. He says, "Keep pushing. I like that," and turns away from them to signal the waiter for another beer.

They've been dismissed. PK sighs to himself as he stands up and leads the way outside.

When they're back home, PK says, "Well. That was exciting."

"You think I pushed too much?"

"No," PK says. "I mean, maybe a little, but not really. I'm just kind of - doesn't it freak you out? What if they figure it out?"

"Then they figure it out," Carey says. "I can't stop doing the job over a little worry."

Carey's borderline suicidality is kind of comforting, PK thinks. It's nice, in a way, him being ready to hurl himself into danger without thinking twice about it. PK will follow, obviously, and that's kind of scary; but it's not so bad he's going to call the whole thing off.

Also, PK trusts they won't actually die. That's definitely a component, too.

"So what's the next step?" PK asks. "What should we do?"

"The job," Carey says, "until we've proven ourselves enough to -"

Three things happen all at once. Cat starts yowling, Lacey runs to the door and starts barking, and the doorbell rings.

PK feels kind of cheated that there's not also a clap of thunder. It definitely feels like there should be.

They go to answer the door together, wands out. Carrying sticks around can be explained away to Muggles; they're not going to go unarmed.

But when they open the door, there's just a woman standing there. A tall woman, white and with lank hair that looks like it hasn't been washed hanging to her shoulders. "Please," she says. Her hand is white-knuckled around her wand. "Help me."