The Dresden Files/Codex Alera is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.

Crossposted at the multi-fandom Day_by_Drabble community on Livejournal for the April Showers Drabblethon.

Prompt: Prompt #18, fling

A/N: This is a sequel to another, longer story I haven't posted yet (but will, soon). Haven't seen many fics around here about Anastasia Luccio, which is a shame. She's one of my favorite secondary characters. I'm not particularly OTP shippy for this series, but her Regency-esque snark nicely complements Harry's weird, anachronistic gallantry (the whole body-swap, mental coercion thing notwithstanding).

It's odd, waking up in someone else's body.

Anastasia thought that after a while, the Freaky Friday-ness (as a certain Warden she knows had so eloquently put it) would wear off and she would grow accustomed to being twenty-five again. But such was not the case, and for four long years she has started each day in a state of vague, anxious disorientation.

Stranger still is waking up in someone else's bed after several lifetimes of waking in one's own, alone. And waking up next to a man almost two hundred years younger, well…

Curiouser and curiouser.

Categorically qualifying as strange in his own right and sleeping with one hand on her ass is Harry Fucking Dresden (one of Donald's oft-used epithets, not that she would ever tell either of them how accurate it truly is). He's snoring adorably with his arm draped over her, and – she lifted the edge of the sheet – is still quite naked.

Oh, dear.

"S' too damn cold," he mumbled and roughly pulled her against him, making all sorts of lovely memories of the night before surface like bubbles in a champagne glass. He ran a calloused hand up and down her back, fingers tangling in her hair, then kissed the corner of her mouth with a shameless groan and immediately resumed snoring.

For the first time in decades, she blushed, and was particularly glad he wasn't awake to see it.

Restive and shivering from the cold, Ana untangled herself from him and the bedclothes and pulled on one of his shirts – a black one that read 'I Can Run Faster Horny Than You Can Scared' (also reasonably accurate).

Snow was banked against the windows of the basement apartment, giving the whole place a dim gray light. The fire had gone out hours ago. The dog, sleeping on the hearth, opened an eye as she wrapped up in a blanket from the sofa. She stoked the fire, lit it with a spell and put the kettle on. The cat wound around her ankles as she looked in the fridge, freshly stocked with breakfasty items; the sly bastard had been planning ahead.

Ana fed the cat, let the dog out for a few minutes and set about making a cup of tea.

Old habits die hard.

This was about the time she would have dressed and left, had this been a routine fling with a stranger she never expected to speak to again – something she had been doing long before that kind of behavior was considered acceptable. She'd always refrained from having physical relationships with her colleagues or subordinates, though (not that Dresden considered himself anyone's subordinate).

This may be more awkward than she had initially anticipated.

Inspired (because an embarrassed Harry is even more delightfully amusing than usual), she took her tea and returned to his room to find him lying on his back with the sheets tangled around his hips and one arm over his eyes. She leaned down and kissed him.

"Anastasia," he said, with a faint smile. "You're still here."

Some women might have been perturbed by this comment, but she could hear relief beneath the teasing tone. He sat up and stretched a little, all lean muscle and interesting scars.

"You were expecting somebody else?"

"Thought I heard you leave." Harry looked abruptly self-conscious as she sat down next to him, mattress springs creaking.

"I let the dog out." Ana put the mug of tea in his hand. "And lit the fire."

"You don't have to do any of that," he said apologetically, his unrelenting niceness once again coming off as machismo. "Wake me up next time."

"Next time," she echoed, without any betraying inflection.

"Did I stutter?"

He gave her an inscrutable look and finished what was left of her tea, coming to some sort of ineffably Harry-ish conclusion as he set the empty cup on the bedside table. He kissed her, not at all chastely, pulling her closer by the hem of her shirt and then pulling it off over her head.

"You're a morning person," he said, with a Cheshire cat grin. "I like that."

She put a hand on his chest and pushed him flat against the bed.

"It does have its advantages."

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