*facepalms*
Title: Every move you make
Summary: It is, after all, everywhere.
Author's Notes: NC-17 explicit Lone Power/Nita. Set some time after A Wizard's Dilemma. Yes, the fact that the title is from The Police's "Every Breath You Take" could be considered a extra warning.
Fandom is Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, which *everyone ever* ought to read.

The part that wizards forget, when they come home to their safe houses and their families and leave the dark behind, is that the dark comes with them.

The fact that little Juanita Callahan is home with her family, her Dairine and her Christopher and her father, does not mean that It is not there, too. It is next to her when she eats dinner, tiredly, discussing her victory with her sister, and It is there when she showers away the sweat and dirt and blood from this exploit (she is scarred, pale, and there are lines on her face that will turn into wrinkles if she lives long enough; It wants to press her to the wet wall and take her apart).

It does nothing except press Its will upon the water splashing over her skin, cooling it, until she swears and bends to turn the heat up, her skin reddening under its fall and her scars palely visible. It could stop her heart here, or manifest and watch her spit out a mouthful of water in defiance, or make the sound of falling water louder so that her sister did not hear and press her down to the tiled floor and smother her sounds in her own dripping, dark hair. It does not do any of these things. It waits.

It is there when she slips into bed, her skin still damp under her t-shirt and her hair spreading wet onto her pillow. Her sister comes in to wish her goodnight, mocking words disguising the affection It can see and despise, and It is as much there when her sister sleeps as It is here.

But It is here when she begins to dream, Juanita Callahan, and it is easy to press Its will upon her mind until she wakes shaking, sweating, tossing in her sheets, and It smiles as It slips her back under.

It remembers their encounters very well, and replaying them for her is easy. Stretching time, too, is easy, holding her under for events which happened in days while she sleeps for minutes, and her face twists as she fights her own sheets, seeing It in her dreams.

It is there, too, of course, watching her sleeping face scowl as her face in her dreams does, glaring at It with stubborn, solid determination, and It laughs as It wonders how much longer It will let her play this game. She has, in the long run, already won.

There are portions of It that have not forgiven her for that -- she laid hands on Its person, she rewrote Its very Name, and It will make her soul writhe for that temerity -- and there are portions of It that want to simply hold her down in her mind, and Its, until she understands the enormity of what her own thoughtless compassion, her sister's stubborn refusal and sheer luck, have done to It. It already knows which part of It will end up winning; It simply does not know what will happen to her until the inevitable plays out.

It is not sure what It wants to have happen to her.

They are in a dream that It has made, but the dream is in her mind, and Its confusion is contagious; her eyes are wide, startled, her mouth parted in the middle of a spell, and her eyes gleam against her pallor in the strange light that It has made.

There are minds within minds, and It is losing patience with playing this same game with her -- even her sleeping mind will sleep, with a hard enough press, and as she crumples to the floor It goes deeper into her, looking for the portion that had laughed as she shed blood and the portion that had thought about taking Its offer and the portion -- always, ever looking for the part of her that had done this -- that had rewritten Its Name.

It sees pieces of Itself as It sinks into her. It sees pieces of Itself everywhere, shreds and shards of entropy, but even these are silvered with her wizardry, gleaming with loyalty and exasperating compassion, and It knows there is nothing for It here.

It stays anyway, sinking further, looking for her.

Part of Its attention is still on her sleeping body, unmoving now, her features slack and her breathing slow. It could wake her up, It knows -- force her blood faster, prod her breathing to speed and catch in her lungs. Perhaps It will, once It has found what It is looking for.

The other problem with wizards is that, if they are good, and she is very good, they know It is always in them. Which is why, as It goes further, past moral codes and favorite books and thoughts of her Dairine and her Christopher, looking underneath for the mayfly tree-child, It finds her aware.

She leaps at It from the dark, graceful, fast with the speed and muscle she had built fighting It, and when she snarls a challenge with anger in her eyes It smiles -- It likes best to see her this way, fury and adrenaline speeding the pump of her heart, her breath coming fast and deep, all the restrictions her waking mind places gone.

She is not truly at her most dangerous this way, she lacks the conscious control for her wizardry to be effective, but this is her own mind. Her battleground, and like this she has no checks, and the words that fall from her mouth become fire in the darkness.

She can hurt It like this in ways she would have more difficulty doing elsewhere, and It makes a shield of her own cruelties and laughs at the rage in her eyes.

It stays until her fury nearly glows into her skin, sparking lightning in the air between them, her eyes incandescent with the power a wizard holds in her own mind, and then It leaves her, watching her wake with a spell half-spoken on her lips and her body quivering with energy.

She sighs, sinking back into her pillow, and glares at her little clock, muttering about dreams and stuffy nights as she slips out of her bed to open a window, sticking her head out as It calls the wind in to tangle in her drying hair.

When she returns to her bed, dropping her sticky t-shirt to the floor -- It remembers when It gave her that scar low on her stomach, and the way she had screamed -- and whispering a request to her sheets to cool, It waits until she is settled again, her heart still pounding and her breath still coming fast, and it is simply her own restless thoughts that have her hand slipping under her blankets down to her skin.

Then It slips back into her, the copper and the salt of her rushing blood and energy heady in Its consciousness. It does not whisper, she would notice that, but It presses suggestions into the heat of her arousal and she whimpers under her breath as her hand moves.

It has turned wizards before, like this. Older wizards than she is now, but still young enough to be transfixed in the touch of a Power, even such a mental touch as It is using now. It does not think it could turn her this way, but It stays nevertheless, stroking her blood faster, awakening more sensation in skin and muscle, and under her sheets her legs spread wider without her conscious command.

One day, It promises Itself, It will test whether she truly could be turned like this, and whether the press of Its hand inside her would make her moan, toss her head and her damp, tangled hair, the way two of her own fingers do.

Perhaps It could make her beg, and the thought is pleasure enough that the shock of it leaps from It to her, and she bites her own lip to keep herself quiet as she arches -- persuading the skin of her mouth that it is more delicate than it is takes seconds, and the taste of her blood in her mouth is beautiful.

There are acts she cannot perform with her own hand, but It weaves them in with her own thoughts: phantom teeth on her throat, sharp, the flash of pain making her arch under her blankets, a tongue on her breasts making her bite her lip again before she hisses at the pain, her teeth red with her blood, and It keeps going as she shakes in her bed and moans.

It feels what she does, caught in her pleasure, and It pushes her higher, making her choke on her own sounds, her thighs shaking as her hips shove into her own fingers, her other hand simulating the teeth on her nipple that It has her feeling.

It stretches time like human candy, keeping her shuddering in the touch of her own hands for what feels to her like hours as her clock ticks seconds and minutes away peacefully, and when It lifts Its hand from her, letting her body finish, she muffles her scream in the pillow and slumps down exhausted.

It slips her into sleep again, her body relaxing into peace, and leaves to wander elsewhere.

It is still with her, of course. It is always everywhere, and always with her. Waiting.

For next time.
-- Finis