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st_aurafinaTitle: Buying the Time on My Knees
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: Explicit
Words: 6K (this chapter) 80K overall.
Characters/Pairings: Jessica/John, Jessica/John/Nathan, John/Nathan, John/Harold, John/Kara, Harold/Grace, Rick Dillinger, Mark Snow, Grace Hendricks, Lawrence Szilard, Daniel Aquino
Warnings/Content: Pegging, D/s dynamics, Dubious Consent, Domestic Violence, Infidelity, Light Bondage, Threesome - M/M/F, Canon-Typical Violence, Alternate Universe: Jessica lives, Alternate Universe: Nathan lives, Bad BDSM Etiquette
Notes: This fic is complete at 80K and will be updated weekly. All the ships mentioned do happen, but some of them not for a long while. (Harold/John doesn't happen for a long while, for example, but it gets there.)
I've added 'Bad BDSM Etiquette' to the tags, because Jess and John are flailing a bit in this chapter.
Next week, I'm taking a short break to deal with some RL business, but I'll be back to regular posting on the 24th.
Dubcon warning is for the Kara/John relationship, which gets dicey from time to time.
Thank you tolilacsigil and talkingtothesky, who both helped me get this behemoth finished.
Title is from Iron and Wine's song, House by the Sea
Master post with chapter links
Chapter Summary:
Harold and John have lunch. John and Jess try to reconnect.
Overall Summary:
After he joins the CIA, John stays in touch with Jessica as best he can without endangering her marriage or alerting the agency. He doesn't realise that these breaks from his professional life are as much a respite for Jess as they are for him.
Meanwhile, Jessica's number keeps coming up and Nathan has a plan to keep her safe.
Also at the Archive
He managed to get stateside in late spring, with nothing worse than a broken toe. Kara he had left behind in Colombia, glued to the side of a cartel regionale in what had eventuated as a longer-term assignment. They'd staged John's death at her hand to establish her cover, and once he'd swum free from the concrete block to which he'd been cuffed (hence the broken toe), he was ordered back to the States and told to keep his head down. A few months ago, to make Jess laugh, he would have told her that part then busily kept his head down between her legs. Now he didn't know where he and Jess stood. Did she still want to see him? Was seeing her putting her at further risk? Or giving her respite from what was happening at home? He wrote and deleted several messages, but eventually sent their usual coded text. Simple and to the point. She could refuse if she wanted.
>Staff meeting today?
John found a hotel with a sturdy bed and, while he waited for an answer from Jess, decided to spend the morning spying on Universal Heritage Insurance. The company occupied half a floor in the Schroder Building, one of a hundred faceless companies staffed by well-dressed but unremarkable corporate clones. John took an elevator ride up to Universal's floor, into a lobby furnished with the right kind of bland but luxe furniture and vases of large and unimaginative floral arrangements. One of the receptionists, in the middle of a phone conversation, caught his eye and nodded acknowledgment of his arrival, and he in turn gave the standard brief smile and nod that indicated he was willing to wait.
Meanwhile, John browsed the photos on the wall: standard historical shots of the Board of Directors, all the way back to 1992. Harold was in every one, always at the back, always dressed a little more conservatively than he had been on the night they'd met: a less flamboyant check, a more subdued tie, no pocket square or silk lined waistcoat.
John smiled. To look at him, he would not have guessed that Harold would be able to pull off camouflage to that extent. For some reason, the calculated nature of the disguise pleased him.
Someone approached him and he spun to see the receptionist, out from behind his desk. The man's hands were folded politely in front of him, and he had an apologetic expression. "Excuse me, Mr Rooney?" he said, and John raised his eyebrows in answer, despite this not being an alias of his.
"I'm very sorry; Mr Wren is unfortunately late for your meeting; he's been unavoidably delayed with other business."
John let an easy smile crease his face. "That's no problem. Tell him I'll be in touch." He turned for the elevator but the receptionist called him back.
"Mr Wren asked if you would be free for lunch? He has a table at the Four Seasons for midday."
It was a good choice for a covert meeting: crowded enough to slip in anonymously, full of money-rattling narcissists who don't know anyone else exists in the world, and acoustically very difficult to bug. John put on a corporate smile.
"That would be great. Please tell him I'll meet him there."
> Did you get my message? Hope things are okay.
The Four Seasons was just starting to fill with groups of power brokers gathering for statement lunches. The maître d caught his eye, and he said, "I'm meeting Mr Harold Wren." While she checked her list, John scanned the room, saw Harold tucked by the wall in the Pool Room, and gestured to the maître d.
He was swiftly escorted across the crowded floor and seated at Harold's table.
"Mr Rooney," Harold said, pushing a folder towards him on the table. "I'm sorry I missed you at Universal. Perhaps you'd like to make an appointment next time you want to visit." His cane was propped against the wall, dark burled walnut with a black handle.
"I don't always get a lot of notice before I'm here, and I'd hate to disappoint." John took the folder and flicked through it: it was an identity package for the aforementioned Mr John Rooney, and a very neat one, too: passport, driver's licence, various credit cards, gym memberships and loyalty cards to the kind of places that a manscaping financier would prefer, and a set of car keys with a BMW tag. He put it down again and looked at Harold, eyebrows raised.
Harold took a sip of water. "I thought it would be useful for you to have a clean identity outside of the agency."
"Who says I don't?" A waiter slid plates in front of them, tiny bites of salmon with something bright green drizzled across. Another appeared beside John to pour wine, yet another hovered should they need anything extra.
"Indeed," Harold said. He dismissed the waiters with a brief gesture. "Are you planning to see Jessica while you're in the city?"
John ate with stoic steadiness, though he felt a coldness low in his belly suddenly. "Is she okay?"
"Yes, when I checked this morning," said Harold. He picked up his fork, turned the salmon pieces over in the sauce. "I know when she's clocked in at work. Her shift finishes at three, so I wouldn't be too worried yet if she hasn't answered any of your messages." He ate in small bites, gazing thoughtfully off into the distance, as if John ought not be troubled by the fact that Harold knew the minutia of Jess's life.
It was frustrating, needing this man's help, when he was so intrusive about it. At the same time, it was difficult to justify being insulted at Harold knowing so much about John, when the same electronic nosiness was keeping Jessica safe. The fact that Harold was polite and otherwise respectful made it worse. John would rather hate him, but the care he had taken to keep Jess safe made that impossible. It would have been easier if Harold were trying to recruit him. At least there'd be motive.
"She's met with Nathan a couple of times," Harold went on. "They're getting along well, actually." The way he said it didn't sound as if Harold was pleased with the fact.
John dredged the last piece of salmon through the green sauce. "How does that work, exactly? Does everyone you help end up on Nathan's Angler profile?"
"No, that's just Nathan." Harold's expression was wry. "I don't think anyone could pin him down to traditional monogamy," he said. Waiters appeared to clear the plates, and Harold picked up his wine glass while they worked.
John sipped his own wine. Then – and he didn't know why – he said, "And you?"
"Me," Harold said, drawing the word out, thoughtful again. His eyes flicked to the cane. "I am coming to the realisation that no matter how hard I try to convince myself, my life will always be very far from traditional."
John spent the entire entrée course trying to untangle that sentence. By the time that dessert came: he had reached the conclusion that Harold never gave away truths about himself without complicating them in ways that made truth worse than falsehood. They hadn't talked about much, really: weather, the impending summer, storms in the Gulf. A place that Harold had stayed once in Bavaria with a stuffed bear in his room, and a dish John had eaten in Krasnoyarsk that was made with jellied eels.
"Two things that shouldn't be together," John said, as dessert was laid down on the table: fruit sorbet and dainty curls of chocolate. At Harold's raised eyebrows, he said, "Jelly and eels. I'm not a fussy eater and I'm not squeamish, but that's just not okay. For me." Harold was listening carefully, and John was embarrassed to have expressed anything remotely personal, even though this anecdote couldn't hurt him, not unless Harold chose to lock him up with only a pot of jellied eels to sustain him.
Harold's phone chirruped softly while they lingered over coffee, and he picked it up. "Jessica has signed out of work now," he said.
John was surprised that it was three in the afternoon already; had he just spent three hours with a man he knew so little about? Then the phone in his jacket pocket buzzed, and buzzed again. Two messages, two answers.
Harold put his cup down carefully in the saucer. "I'd best be heading back to the office," he said. "It's not all three hour lunches in the insurance business, you know." He pushed himself upright with a hiss. "Perhaps three hours was a little optimistic."
John stood, passed him the cane and Harold, after a moment, took it. John walked ahead, squaring his shoulders, forcing slightly tipsy bankers out of their path by being broader and more intimidating than them, and so they made it through the crowded dining room to the street.
A sleek, dark town car pulled up kerbside, and Harold turned to John. "That's for me," he said, and put out his hand.
John took it, feeling odd, knowing that he was planning to see Jessica, not knowing how specific Harold's surveillance was on her. "Thank you for lunch," he said. I haven't had a lot of opportunity just to sit and enjoy a meal, he wanted to say, but instead he gave Harold a brief nod and walked away.
> Not sure if I'll bother with this one, the first message read. Then, Can you remind me what's happening in it? Is it rtmi?
John had to google 'rtmi' to know how to answer that one. He didn't spend a lot of time in chatrooms.
> The last one went pretty badly. Probably better to get back to basics. He hit send, and thought about Jessica sitting in her car, probably in the hospital parking garage, reading his messages. It was very tempting to just hail a cab and head up there. That was definitely not a good idea. He shoved his hands in his pockets just in case he did it. He knew it was wrong to apologise, he knew not to start talking about how he felt. He hoped that this was a way for them to be close again.
> I'm still not sure if it's worth the trip, Jessica said. How do I know that we're not going to be covering the same material?
This was one of those nooks in Midtown that hipsters would describe eclectic but pearl-clutching grandmothers would call seedy: a store selling vintage vinyl, a marijuana dispensary, a body-piercing studio. Right now, John was passing a place described as an Artisan Leather Boutique. He stopped at the window and took a photo of some sturdy leather manacles on a stand. There was no way he was getting out of those without breaking a bone, he thought. As long as they were tight enough. And, even if it wasn't something she was interested in, it would give her a laugh.
In a few seconds, he had a reply:
> You'd better bring them.
John read it, grinned despite all the things surrounding the two of them, and went into the store holding John Rooney's credit card. This could be Harold's gift to the two of them.
He had a few hours before Jess would make it to the hotel, so he unpacked the gear, laid it out on the counter for Jess to see, and went to take a shower. While he washed, he idly stroked himself, thinking about Jess' hands, about how it felt to be helpless for her. He wouldn't think about her husband or the looming danger he posed, he wouldn't dwell on the reasons Jess had for going back to him. He was here for Jess, and that was enough.
Then, because he'd been seventy hours without solid sleep and because his belly was full of good food and wine, he sprawled naked on the bed and fell dreamlessly asleep. He woke to the sound of his phone buzzing.
> Which room?
He texted her the number, and rubbed his eyes, eying the time on his phone. He'd sacked out for two hours. The leather manacles gleamed on the counter when he put the lights on, and then he heard the elevator ding. His stomach gave a pleasant flip-flop and he opened the door a crack, his gun in reach just in case.
Jess stopped in front of his room. She wore a sundress far too cold for the season and her blue nurse's cardigan, with her name badge and watch still pinned on. She watched him in silence, her mouth tight, but she was there and John could barely stop himself reaching out, scooping her up.
She must have seen something of that in his expression, because she looked him up and down sceptically. "Do you have your hand on your gun right now?"
John glanced down at his naked front and back at her with an innocent expression, and Jess laughed. She pushed at the door and he stepped back, let her in. When she crossed the threshold and saw his gun sitting in the holster, well within reach, she shook her head.
"What were you going to do? Run down the corridor stark naked and waving a gun?"
John leaned against the wall. "It's not professional to wave a gun. You have to hold it menacingly. Besides, it wouldn't be the first time."
It was all right, it was all right, she was here. Things weren't perfect, but Jess was here and the magic between them was still flickering, and she was beautiful enough to drive all worry out of his head. Except, he reminded himself, except to be very, very gentle. Always. He opened his arms for her, an invitation to come closer and she stepped up to him. She touched his bare chest, uncertain, and he realised she was as anxious about this meeting as he was.
John took her hand in his and turned it over, where a thin white line still traced along her palm. He put his mouth to it and kissed it, and she sighed, curled her fingers against his cheek. "I'm sorry," he said. "I promise to be more careful. I promise."
"I know," said Jess. Her hand moved into his hair, stroking the temple where she'd pushed the glass. "I'm sorry, too."
The manacles were good quality, John thought as he tested them out. "Tighter," he said. "I can pop my left thumb out of joint and slide out of that."
Behind him, Jess pulled them up a couple of notches, so that John felt them close around his wrists. She kissed him between his shoulder blades while he strained in the cuffs, testing the strength of them, trying to slide free and failing. "I like them," she said. "They suit you. You look good like this." She pulled down on his hands, made him straighten out his fingers and checked them for colour and circulation.
John stood, patient and safe while she examined him all over, turning a little to watch her trail fingers over his skin. She took a very long time, touching each scar and mark, noting the new ones and making herself familiar with the old. When she had made her way all around him once, he reached out to kiss her and she stopped him, her eyes sad.
"Look at you," she said, stroking his cheek again. "You're beautiful. You're here, and you're alive, and you're beautiful." Then she kissed him, and he couldn't do anything to stop her, which was more important at the moment than the fact that he would let her do anything. She didn't have to tie him up for that.
Jess didn't want to push him on his back. "What if it hurts your wrists?" she said, so he sat and let himself drop gently onto the bed, caught his own hands at the small of his back. She sighed, at his stubbornness, and the way his bound wrists made him arch up. Then she knelt on the bed and slipped the straps off her sundress.
"Wait," said John, hoarse from being silent for so long. He realised he didn't want to see her, not because she wasn't beautiful, but because he knew he'd be examining every imperfection on her skin: was it a bruise? Had Peter done that? "Do you have a scarf or something? For a blindfold?"
Jess propped on the bed, confused and a bit startled. "Why?" she said.
John tried to find a way to explain. "I don't want to worry about you," he said. "It's not that I don't want to see you. I want to only see you. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah," said Jess. She stood up and faced him. "But I'm not going to do it. I want you to watch, John. You don't get to look away from me. Not once. I don't get to look away from you, ever. I see all your battle scars. You can't deny mine."
John felt a sound escape from him, half a sob, half a denial, and all the while, Jessica watched him mercilessly while she let the sundress pool around her ankles.
"Don't close your eyes, John," she said, and he opened them immediately, hadn't even realised he had closed them. She climbed on the bed, straddled his body, put her hands on his chest and then lifted them, surprised. "Are you trembling?" she said, amazement in her voice.
"Yes," said John. He felt no shame in it; he knew he wasn't a coward. "I want to kill him, Jess. I'm afraid if I see…" He couldn't do it. He couldn't say it. He closed his eyes then remembered what she'd said about watching her and he opened them again. She waited, sitting astride him, watching him with curiosity and fascination. He tried again for her, tried to put it into words. "I am afraid that if I kill him, I'll lose you," he said, finally. "And if I see that he's hurt you, I'll kill him. I won't be able to stop." He wasn't even hard anymore, just terrified that he would hurt her more than Peter ever had. And that it would still be the right thing to do.
Jess lay down beside him, and he rolled on his side so they were face to face. She reached out, brushed the corners of his eyes where they'd gotten wet, marvelled at the tears on her fingertips, then kissed him. Every way she touched him was gentle; it was unfair and wrong. John wanted her to be harsh and rough and demanding, but this was worse, this was a tiny knife sliding softly into his heart.
"Please," he said to her, and he didn't know what he was asking for. "Please, Jess."
"You walked away from me," she said. "In the airport, you walked away from me." She kissed him again, on his throat, and he tipped his head back obediently. "This is what it felt like when you turned your back on me that day."
John flinched, as if she'd hit him, and for a moment his body told him that he had been struck, that he needed to defend himself against her. He thrashed on the bed and she leapt back from him with a shriek.
"I'm sorry!" John said, frantically trying to still himself. "I'm sorry, Jess, please."
Jess grabbed her dress and stepped into it, pulling it up. "I'm leaving, John," she said. He could hear she was crying, and he tried to reach for her reflexively, forgetting he was still cuffed. "I'm going to drive myself home and get on with my life. Don't call me again."
"Jess, please, stay!" John got himself upright, but she opened the door without looking back. Even so, John made it there before she could leave. When he brushed her body with his, the contact made him jump as if she had shocked him.
"I'm sorry," he said, again, helpless. Even if his arms were free, he could never have grabbed at her or tried to hold her still. That was the point. She had disarmed him completely and deliberately.
The door locked as it closed behind her. He sat on the bed, hands still cuffed behind his back, gut churning and tears prickling at his eyes again, this time from shame.
Then he had to decide which was more humiliating: dislocating his shoulder so he could get the cuffs off, or phoning Harold with his toes.
He called Universal Heritage, gave his name as John Rooney, and somehow made his voice calm enough to badger the receptionist into connecting him with Mr Wren.
"Mr Reese." Harold seemed unsurprised to receive a call from John. "Is everything all right? Ah, I see you're quite close by."
"I..." John couldn't make words come out. "I.." Nope. No words. He shut his eyes – it was a relief, after keeping them open for Jess, to be sitting in the dark.
"Are you hurt?" Harold was walking; John could hear the rhythm of it, in his voice, in the rocking sound of his stride and the tap of his cane. "John, can you tell me, do you need an ambulance?"
"No." John was certain of that, at least. "I'm not hurt."
"I will be there in ten minutes," Harold said, his voice calm as always, despite John's suspicion that his own was more than a little hysterical.
Ten minutes were easily counted down. Six hundred seconds. John started, keying his breathing into the count, so that by the time that Harold knocked, he felt calmer, if a little heady.
"I'm here, Mr Reese," Harold said from outside. After a few moments, he said, "Is it all right to come in?"
"Yes," John said, air rushing out of him with a gasp, glad that the situation was about to change, despite what Harold would think of him. As soon as he was free, he was driving to New Rochelle and putting a bullet in Peter Arndt's brain. If Jess was going to hate him anyway, she may as well hate him in safety.
The door opened and John braced himself for… what? Harold's pity? Scorn? Whatever a person felt when they opened a door and saw someone caught by their own stupidity.
Harold merely paused a moment, then walked into the room and closed the door behind him.
"Come here," Harold said, and John rose off the bed, turned so he could see the stupid leather cuffs.
"I could get out of them without help." It seemed important suddenly that Harold knew he wasn't the only option John had.
"I'm sure you could," Harold said as he unbuckled the cuffs, eased them away from John's wrist. He made a tchh, presumably at the lines cut into John's skin by the tightness after all this time. "Nonetheless, I'm glad that you called; I doubt the agency would give you time to heal a dislocation properly." He had the cane tucked under his arm as he worked; John could see it in the mirror.
John rolled his shoulders, swinging each arm in turn to get the circulation moving. He was coming back to himself, like a computer rebooting. He'd dress, check his weapon, drive to New Rochelle. Get Peter out of the house – he had gambling debts, it would be easy enough, and then Jess wouldn't have to see.
"Are you all right, Mr Reese?" Harold touched his arm, and John wheeled on him, gun suddenly drawn. John hadn't even realised he had grabbed his weapon, didn't remember making the decision, and that was troubling enough to make him lower it, hold it loosely in one hand. If he didn't have control over who he aimed at, if that was happening unconsciously, he had no right to hold a gun at all. He put it down on the bed, then stared at it.
Harold had frozen stock still when the gun swung up to face him, but now he walked slowly and carefully past John to the bathroom, and fetched a robe.
"Here," he said, and draped it over John's shoulders.
John shrugged into it and realised that he had been naked for so long that he had forgotten. He picked up a loose sock, searched for its pair, gathered some clothes together.
"Has she left the island yet?" he asked, as he unlaced his shoes properly; he'd just kicked them off when he arrived.
Harold took John's jacket from where it had landed on the counter, and shook it out then hung it over the chair. "She's with Nathan right now. He'll most likely drive her home." At John's dubious expression, he waved a hand. "Or his driver will, though on the whole Nathan is cutting back on the booze. I think the work is good for him." He sat, perched on the arm of the chair, leaning into the cane. "What do you intend to do now, Mr Reese?"
John scruffed his hair. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't go and kill Peter tonight."
"Apart from the fact that murder is wrong?"
John scoffed at that. "I thought you knew what I did for a living."
Harold sighed and gazed for a moment at his shoes. Expensive, John noted. Bespoke. Eventually he reached inside his jacket for a phone, and switched it on. "Here," he said, holding it out. "If you really believe this is the best course of action, then call Jessica, and tell what you intend."
John took it, read Jessica's name in the contacts. "I won't give her a chance to tip him off," he said, but he couldn't stop staring at the screen. He realised he had never really seen Jess' name written with 'Arndt' appended to it.
"Then, afterwards," said Harold. "If it's the right thing to do, you'll have no problems explaining that to her. I'm not an expert in this kind of thing, but it seems to me that given the nature of your relationship with Jessica, it would be the honourable thing to do. Rather than, say, having him just vanish, leaving her wondering forever."
John stared at Harold's phone, imagining that conversation. Imagining the same conversation happening everywhere he had vanished a person, left a family waiting and worrying.
"The fact that you're hesitating tells me you're not quite as willing to accept the consequences of causing pain to someone you love. To someone who loves the man you want to kill." Harold's voice was incredibly, distressingly calm, given the way he was laying John open with words. "She does love him, after all. If you kill him, she will most certainly grieve, and it will affect the choices she makes for the rest of her life."
"Isn't that better than him beating her to death?" Saying it out loud was clarifying. John was the one who was called on to do things other people quailed at. He could do this, bear Jessica's anger, and take solace in the fact that she was alive to do it. He could do this, and accept that she would hate him. He could do this thing, even though it would cause her pain.
"There is also the fact that killing Mr Arndt will cause harm to you," Harold said.
"I don't think so," John said. "He's a civilian." It came out more harshly than he meant it to, but the thought of physically destroying Peter was extremely satisfying, the way downing a bottle of whiskey was satisfying, even when he knew he'd regret it. Even if it meant Jessica would know what he really was capable of.
"I'm not talking about physical harm." Harold was watching John intently, as if looking for something in his expression. John was glad he didn't know Harold wanted from him, because he'd give it in a moment, just to make him stop gazing inside John like this.
Eventually Harold sighed, leaned the cane against the wall, and pushed open the bathroom door. "I think you'll feel better if you washed and dressed," he said, and picked up John's shirt, shaking it into shape fussily.
Doing anything at all was better than standing still, so John stepped into the bathroom. He left the handgun on a stack of towels while he showered. He brushed his teeth. He shaved. He thought about how Jess would have to plan a funeral and a wake, have to manage the paperwork that comes with a sudden death. The insurance investigation, possibly a criminal investigation too. By the time he emerged, wrapped in a towel, his skin stinging from the hot water, he knew he wasn't going to kill Peter today.
While John had been showering, Harold had arranged for a new shirt and underwear, and for housekeeping to rush his suit through laundering. John had been dreading the moment when he slid his arms into that jacket; it was the one he'd crossed the border in. It didn't help that John remembered exactly where he'd sponged bloodstains out in a filthy gas station bathroom just inside the border.
The clean, crisp new shirt was cool against his skin, and gave him a kind of respite from uncomfortable thoughts, the way a cancelled appointment delays an unpleasant meeting. While they waited for housekeeping, John packed his overnight bag, checked his weapon, while Harold fussed with his phone. John wasn't sure what to do with the manacles – he didn't want them, but it would be imprudent to leave them here – so he pushed them back into their box, and with judicious shoving, managed to cram it into his case.
By the time the suit arrived, crisply clean and pressed, Harold reported that Jessica had left for New Rochelle with Nathan's driver. John nodded as he slid his gun into the holster and shrugged into the jacket.
"I can't see that you have a current assignment," Harold said, without looking up from the phone. "Do you have any plans?"
That made John laugh weakly. What kind of plans could he make? "I'm sure they'll be in touch as soon as they realise I'm at my leisure," he said. "Taxpayer's money, you know."
Harold nodded, still working on his phone. "You might want somewhere else to stay," he said, and hit send with his thumb.
John's phone buzzed in his jacket and he took it out. Harold had sent an address, nothing memorable, an apartment on the seventh floor of a building ten blocks distant from here.
"It's secure," Harold said, at John's questioning eyebrow. "The doorman will admit you, if you use the name Rooney."
"Why?" John was baffled as to why this address was any different to an anonymous hotel.
What Harold said next was absurdity. "Because you need a place where you feel safe." He picked up his cane and with a visible wince turned for the door. John stood still, watching him go. Then he heard the ding of the elevator. His long strides caught up with Harold before the man had stepped inside.
He had meant it to be an awkward elevator ride, had meant to intimidate Harold, filling the elevator up with posture and presence the way he would threaten a target. Somehow, though, it was oddly companionable. Harold leaned against the wall and gazed past John's shoulders until the elevator opened on the lobby.
John could see a long black town car idling in front of the revolving doors, surprised at how the gloom of evening had gathered. The doorman, on seeing them approach, hurried to open the car door, but as they were stepping towards the exit, a phone rang, the mechanical tone harsh in the quiet murmur of the lobby. Harold's careful footsteps halted an inch away from the sweeping curve of the spinning glass but he did not look around.
"This is not an appropriate time," he said, softly, to whom, John had no idea. There was nobody near. Harold was staring downwards, apparently talking to the carpet in front of him. John scanned the lobby, and saw that he was not the only one searching for the ringing phone. When he tracked the sound, it was coming from behind a collection of potted plants arranged in the corner by the glass wall. Dust on the pots suggested that they weren't moved often, and when he pushed the foliage aside, he saw that they provided discreet cover for an old public phone, with a blue faded plastic receiver.
He glanced back at Harold who watched him with a pained expression. The phone rang on, insistent, and a concierge detached himself from his desk to hurry over to the corner. John made a decision, stepped behind the plants, and picked up the receiver.
"Acceleration, Foxtrot, Bravo. County, Lima, Charlie. Escapist, Juliet, Papa." It was a recording, or at least, an assembled recording made from different voices, cut and pasted together like a ransom note. John listened to two complete cycles in the time it took Harold to limp over to the potted plants. John put his hand over the mouthpiece and examined Harold's expression through the branches of the potted tree: his face was closed, as distant and locked down as he had seen it, despite the fact that Harold had just helped a naked John escape from leather manacles.
"Is it a threat?" John asked. He still covered the mouthpiece, but he could hear the patched-together words repeating.
Harold closed his eyes a moment, then opened them again. "Not directly, no. It does mean that someone is in danger." He stared towards the corner of the lobby, his expression sour. "It must be something dire, for the call to be redirected outside normal parameters."
"This is it?" John said. His exhaustion and despair were ebbing with this morsel of intel dangling in front of him. He answered his own question, now that he had more pieces of the puzzle. "This software, you left yourself access, so it can give you the names of people in danger." He stepped past Harold, towards the revolving door.
"Not the names," Harold said, following in his wake. "And never the specific intelligence. As I said, we never know what the danger is, or what data has triggered the… software's response." He stopped just in front of the car, hesitating. The driver leapt out, hurried to open the passenger side.
John stepped up close behind him, mouth close to Harold's ear, voice low and menacing. "You can't stop now, Harold. I need to know how you operate, if you want me to trust you to keep Jessica safe. And you know I can tail you, you know I'm not going to let this go."
Harold sighed. "Yes, there's no need for dramatic effect, Mr Reese. I have no illusions about your skills or those of your partner. I would rather keep the chances of Ms Stanton coming across your activities as low as possible. " He slipped into the back seat and nodded for John to join him.
When the driver had dropped them on a corner, John wasn't sure what to expect. Then Harold pulled open a door off the street, and John caught it before it closed, ducked in behind him. It was an abandoned library, a book-scattered atrium, with high-ceilings softly lit by emergency light only. Harold walked a familiar path between the piles of books to a wide staircase.
"I hope you're bringing coffee!" a voice called down from the upper level. Harold froze, one foot poised above a step, and John sensed from the twitch in his shoulders that he wanted to turn around and walk away. Watching Harold's world reveal itself layer by layer was proving an excellent distraction from the mess he'd made with Jessica. He put his toes on the step below Harold's and stood close, looming over Harold's shoulder, waiting for whatever would happen next.
Harold spoke, his voice tight and unhappy. "Before you meet Grace, I would appreciate you keeping the more unsavoury details of your work to yourself."
Chapter Eight // Master Post
// Chapter Ten
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: Explicit
Words: 6K (this chapter) 80K overall.
Characters/Pairings: Jessica/John, Jessica/John/Nathan, John/Nathan, John/Harold, John/Kara, Harold/Grace, Rick Dillinger, Mark Snow, Grace Hendricks, Lawrence Szilard, Daniel Aquino
Warnings/Content: Pegging, D/s dynamics, Dubious Consent, Domestic Violence, Infidelity, Light Bondage, Threesome - M/M/F, Canon-Typical Violence, Alternate Universe: Jessica lives, Alternate Universe: Nathan lives, Bad BDSM Etiquette
Notes: This fic is complete at 80K and will be updated weekly. All the ships mentioned do happen, but some of them not for a long while. (Harold/John doesn't happen for a long while, for example, but it gets there.)
I've added 'Bad BDSM Etiquette' to the tags, because Jess and John are flailing a bit in this chapter.
Next week, I'm taking a short break to deal with some RL business, but I'll be back to regular posting on the 24th.
Dubcon warning is for the Kara/John relationship, which gets dicey from time to time.
Thank you to
lilacsigil and talkingtothesky, who both helped me get this behemoth finished.Title is from Iron and Wine's song, House by the Sea
Master post with chapter links
Chapter Summary:
Harold and John have lunch. John and Jess try to reconnect.
Overall Summary:
After he joins the CIA, John stays in touch with Jessica as best he can without endangering her marriage or alerting the agency. He doesn't realise that these breaks from his professional life are as much a respite for Jess as they are for him.
Meanwhile, Jessica's number keeps coming up and Nathan has a plan to keep her safe.
Also at the Archive
He managed to get stateside in late spring, with nothing worse than a broken toe. Kara he had left behind in Colombia, glued to the side of a cartel regionale in what had eventuated as a longer-term assignment. They'd staged John's death at her hand to establish her cover, and once he'd swum free from the concrete block to which he'd been cuffed (hence the broken toe), he was ordered back to the States and told to keep his head down. A few months ago, to make Jess laugh, he would have told her that part then busily kept his head down between her legs. Now he didn't know where he and Jess stood. Did she still want to see him? Was seeing her putting her at further risk? Or giving her respite from what was happening at home? He wrote and deleted several messages, but eventually sent their usual coded text. Simple and to the point. She could refuse if she wanted.
>Staff meeting today?
John found a hotel with a sturdy bed and, while he waited for an answer from Jess, decided to spend the morning spying on Universal Heritage Insurance. The company occupied half a floor in the Schroder Building, one of a hundred faceless companies staffed by well-dressed but unremarkable corporate clones. John took an elevator ride up to Universal's floor, into a lobby furnished with the right kind of bland but luxe furniture and vases of large and unimaginative floral arrangements. One of the receptionists, in the middle of a phone conversation, caught his eye and nodded acknowledgment of his arrival, and he in turn gave the standard brief smile and nod that indicated he was willing to wait.
Meanwhile, John browsed the photos on the wall: standard historical shots of the Board of Directors, all the way back to 1992. Harold was in every one, always at the back, always dressed a little more conservatively than he had been on the night they'd met: a less flamboyant check, a more subdued tie, no pocket square or silk lined waistcoat.
John smiled. To look at him, he would not have guessed that Harold would be able to pull off camouflage to that extent. For some reason, the calculated nature of the disguise pleased him.
Someone approached him and he spun to see the receptionist, out from behind his desk. The man's hands were folded politely in front of him, and he had an apologetic expression. "Excuse me, Mr Rooney?" he said, and John raised his eyebrows in answer, despite this not being an alias of his.
"I'm very sorry; Mr Wren is unfortunately late for your meeting; he's been unavoidably delayed with other business."
John let an easy smile crease his face. "That's no problem. Tell him I'll be in touch." He turned for the elevator but the receptionist called him back.
"Mr Wren asked if you would be free for lunch? He has a table at the Four Seasons for midday."
It was a good choice for a covert meeting: crowded enough to slip in anonymously, full of money-rattling narcissists who don't know anyone else exists in the world, and acoustically very difficult to bug. John put on a corporate smile.
"That would be great. Please tell him I'll meet him there."
> Did you get my message? Hope things are okay.
The Four Seasons was just starting to fill with groups of power brokers gathering for statement lunches. The maître d caught his eye, and he said, "I'm meeting Mr Harold Wren." While she checked her list, John scanned the room, saw Harold tucked by the wall in the Pool Room, and gestured to the maître d.
He was swiftly escorted across the crowded floor and seated at Harold's table.
"Mr Rooney," Harold said, pushing a folder towards him on the table. "I'm sorry I missed you at Universal. Perhaps you'd like to make an appointment next time you want to visit." His cane was propped against the wall, dark burled walnut with a black handle.
"I don't always get a lot of notice before I'm here, and I'd hate to disappoint." John took the folder and flicked through it: it was an identity package for the aforementioned Mr John Rooney, and a very neat one, too: passport, driver's licence, various credit cards, gym memberships and loyalty cards to the kind of places that a manscaping financier would prefer, and a set of car keys with a BMW tag. He put it down again and looked at Harold, eyebrows raised.
Harold took a sip of water. "I thought it would be useful for you to have a clean identity outside of the agency."
"Who says I don't?" A waiter slid plates in front of them, tiny bites of salmon with something bright green drizzled across. Another appeared beside John to pour wine, yet another hovered should they need anything extra.
"Indeed," Harold said. He dismissed the waiters with a brief gesture. "Are you planning to see Jessica while you're in the city?"
John ate with stoic steadiness, though he felt a coldness low in his belly suddenly. "Is she okay?"
"Yes, when I checked this morning," said Harold. He picked up his fork, turned the salmon pieces over in the sauce. "I know when she's clocked in at work. Her shift finishes at three, so I wouldn't be too worried yet if she hasn't answered any of your messages." He ate in small bites, gazing thoughtfully off into the distance, as if John ought not be troubled by the fact that Harold knew the minutia of Jess's life.
It was frustrating, needing this man's help, when he was so intrusive about it. At the same time, it was difficult to justify being insulted at Harold knowing so much about John, when the same electronic nosiness was keeping Jessica safe. The fact that Harold was polite and otherwise respectful made it worse. John would rather hate him, but the care he had taken to keep Jess safe made that impossible. It would have been easier if Harold were trying to recruit him. At least there'd be motive.
"She's met with Nathan a couple of times," Harold went on. "They're getting along well, actually." The way he said it didn't sound as if Harold was pleased with the fact.
John dredged the last piece of salmon through the green sauce. "How does that work, exactly? Does everyone you help end up on Nathan's Angler profile?"
"No, that's just Nathan." Harold's expression was wry. "I don't think anyone could pin him down to traditional monogamy," he said. Waiters appeared to clear the plates, and Harold picked up his wine glass while they worked.
John sipped his own wine. Then – and he didn't know why – he said, "And you?"
"Me," Harold said, drawing the word out, thoughtful again. His eyes flicked to the cane. "I am coming to the realisation that no matter how hard I try to convince myself, my life will always be very far from traditional."
John spent the entire entrée course trying to untangle that sentence. By the time that dessert came: he had reached the conclusion that Harold never gave away truths about himself without complicating them in ways that made truth worse than falsehood. They hadn't talked about much, really: weather, the impending summer, storms in the Gulf. A place that Harold had stayed once in Bavaria with a stuffed bear in his room, and a dish John had eaten in Krasnoyarsk that was made with jellied eels.
"Two things that shouldn't be together," John said, as dessert was laid down on the table: fruit sorbet and dainty curls of chocolate. At Harold's raised eyebrows, he said, "Jelly and eels. I'm not a fussy eater and I'm not squeamish, but that's just not okay. For me." Harold was listening carefully, and John was embarrassed to have expressed anything remotely personal, even though this anecdote couldn't hurt him, not unless Harold chose to lock him up with only a pot of jellied eels to sustain him.
Harold's phone chirruped softly while they lingered over coffee, and he picked it up. "Jessica has signed out of work now," he said.
John was surprised that it was three in the afternoon already; had he just spent three hours with a man he knew so little about? Then the phone in his jacket pocket buzzed, and buzzed again. Two messages, two answers.
Harold put his cup down carefully in the saucer. "I'd best be heading back to the office," he said. "It's not all three hour lunches in the insurance business, you know." He pushed himself upright with a hiss. "Perhaps three hours was a little optimistic."
John stood, passed him the cane and Harold, after a moment, took it. John walked ahead, squaring his shoulders, forcing slightly tipsy bankers out of their path by being broader and more intimidating than them, and so they made it through the crowded dining room to the street.
A sleek, dark town car pulled up kerbside, and Harold turned to John. "That's for me," he said, and put out his hand.
John took it, feeling odd, knowing that he was planning to see Jessica, not knowing how specific Harold's surveillance was on her. "Thank you for lunch," he said. I haven't had a lot of opportunity just to sit and enjoy a meal, he wanted to say, but instead he gave Harold a brief nod and walked away.
> Not sure if I'll bother with this one, the first message read. Then, Can you remind me what's happening in it? Is it rtmi?
John had to google 'rtmi' to know how to answer that one. He didn't spend a lot of time in chatrooms.
> The last one went pretty badly. Probably better to get back to basics. He hit send, and thought about Jessica sitting in her car, probably in the hospital parking garage, reading his messages. It was very tempting to just hail a cab and head up there. That was definitely not a good idea. He shoved his hands in his pockets just in case he did it. He knew it was wrong to apologise, he knew not to start talking about how he felt. He hoped that this was a way for them to be close again.
> I'm still not sure if it's worth the trip, Jessica said. How do I know that we're not going to be covering the same material?
This was one of those nooks in Midtown that hipsters would describe eclectic but pearl-clutching grandmothers would call seedy: a store selling vintage vinyl, a marijuana dispensary, a body-piercing studio. Right now, John was passing a place described as an Artisan Leather Boutique. He stopped at the window and took a photo of some sturdy leather manacles on a stand. There was no way he was getting out of those without breaking a bone, he thought. As long as they were tight enough. And, even if it wasn't something she was interested in, it would give her a laugh.
In a few seconds, he had a reply:
> You'd better bring them.
John read it, grinned despite all the things surrounding the two of them, and went into the store holding John Rooney's credit card. This could be Harold's gift to the two of them.
He had a few hours before Jess would make it to the hotel, so he unpacked the gear, laid it out on the counter for Jess to see, and went to take a shower. While he washed, he idly stroked himself, thinking about Jess' hands, about how it felt to be helpless for her. He wouldn't think about her husband or the looming danger he posed, he wouldn't dwell on the reasons Jess had for going back to him. He was here for Jess, and that was enough.
Then, because he'd been seventy hours without solid sleep and because his belly was full of good food and wine, he sprawled naked on the bed and fell dreamlessly asleep. He woke to the sound of his phone buzzing.
> Which room?
He texted her the number, and rubbed his eyes, eying the time on his phone. He'd sacked out for two hours. The leather manacles gleamed on the counter when he put the lights on, and then he heard the elevator ding. His stomach gave a pleasant flip-flop and he opened the door a crack, his gun in reach just in case.
Jess stopped in front of his room. She wore a sundress far too cold for the season and her blue nurse's cardigan, with her name badge and watch still pinned on. She watched him in silence, her mouth tight, but she was there and John could barely stop himself reaching out, scooping her up.
She must have seen something of that in his expression, because she looked him up and down sceptically. "Do you have your hand on your gun right now?"
John glanced down at his naked front and back at her with an innocent expression, and Jess laughed. She pushed at the door and he stepped back, let her in. When she crossed the threshold and saw his gun sitting in the holster, well within reach, she shook her head.
"What were you going to do? Run down the corridor stark naked and waving a gun?"
John leaned against the wall. "It's not professional to wave a gun. You have to hold it menacingly. Besides, it wouldn't be the first time."
It was all right, it was all right, she was here. Things weren't perfect, but Jess was here and the magic between them was still flickering, and she was beautiful enough to drive all worry out of his head. Except, he reminded himself, except to be very, very gentle. Always. He opened his arms for her, an invitation to come closer and she stepped up to him. She touched his bare chest, uncertain, and he realised she was as anxious about this meeting as he was.
John took her hand in his and turned it over, where a thin white line still traced along her palm. He put his mouth to it and kissed it, and she sighed, curled her fingers against his cheek. "I'm sorry," he said. "I promise to be more careful. I promise."
"I know," said Jess. Her hand moved into his hair, stroking the temple where she'd pushed the glass. "I'm sorry, too."
The manacles were good quality, John thought as he tested them out. "Tighter," he said. "I can pop my left thumb out of joint and slide out of that."
Behind him, Jess pulled them up a couple of notches, so that John felt them close around his wrists. She kissed him between his shoulder blades while he strained in the cuffs, testing the strength of them, trying to slide free and failing. "I like them," she said. "They suit you. You look good like this." She pulled down on his hands, made him straighten out his fingers and checked them for colour and circulation.
John stood, patient and safe while she examined him all over, turning a little to watch her trail fingers over his skin. She took a very long time, touching each scar and mark, noting the new ones and making herself familiar with the old. When she had made her way all around him once, he reached out to kiss her and she stopped him, her eyes sad.
"Look at you," she said, stroking his cheek again. "You're beautiful. You're here, and you're alive, and you're beautiful." Then she kissed him, and he couldn't do anything to stop her, which was more important at the moment than the fact that he would let her do anything. She didn't have to tie him up for that.
Jess didn't want to push him on his back. "What if it hurts your wrists?" she said, so he sat and let himself drop gently onto the bed, caught his own hands at the small of his back. She sighed, at his stubbornness, and the way his bound wrists made him arch up. Then she knelt on the bed and slipped the straps off her sundress.
"Wait," said John, hoarse from being silent for so long. He realised he didn't want to see her, not because she wasn't beautiful, but because he knew he'd be examining every imperfection on her skin: was it a bruise? Had Peter done that? "Do you have a scarf or something? For a blindfold?"
Jess propped on the bed, confused and a bit startled. "Why?" she said.
John tried to find a way to explain. "I don't want to worry about you," he said. "It's not that I don't want to see you. I want to only see you. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah," said Jess. She stood up and faced him. "But I'm not going to do it. I want you to watch, John. You don't get to look away from me. Not once. I don't get to look away from you, ever. I see all your battle scars. You can't deny mine."
John felt a sound escape from him, half a sob, half a denial, and all the while, Jessica watched him mercilessly while she let the sundress pool around her ankles.
"Don't close your eyes, John," she said, and he opened them immediately, hadn't even realised he had closed them. She climbed on the bed, straddled his body, put her hands on his chest and then lifted them, surprised. "Are you trembling?" she said, amazement in her voice.
"Yes," said John. He felt no shame in it; he knew he wasn't a coward. "I want to kill him, Jess. I'm afraid if I see…" He couldn't do it. He couldn't say it. He closed his eyes then remembered what she'd said about watching her and he opened them again. She waited, sitting astride him, watching him with curiosity and fascination. He tried again for her, tried to put it into words. "I am afraid that if I kill him, I'll lose you," he said, finally. "And if I see that he's hurt you, I'll kill him. I won't be able to stop." He wasn't even hard anymore, just terrified that he would hurt her more than Peter ever had. And that it would still be the right thing to do.
Jess lay down beside him, and he rolled on his side so they were face to face. She reached out, brushed the corners of his eyes where they'd gotten wet, marvelled at the tears on her fingertips, then kissed him. Every way she touched him was gentle; it was unfair and wrong. John wanted her to be harsh and rough and demanding, but this was worse, this was a tiny knife sliding softly into his heart.
"Please," he said to her, and he didn't know what he was asking for. "Please, Jess."
"You walked away from me," she said. "In the airport, you walked away from me." She kissed him again, on his throat, and he tipped his head back obediently. "This is what it felt like when you turned your back on me that day."
John flinched, as if she'd hit him, and for a moment his body told him that he had been struck, that he needed to defend himself against her. He thrashed on the bed and she leapt back from him with a shriek.
"I'm sorry!" John said, frantically trying to still himself. "I'm sorry, Jess, please."
Jess grabbed her dress and stepped into it, pulling it up. "I'm leaving, John," she said. He could hear she was crying, and he tried to reach for her reflexively, forgetting he was still cuffed. "I'm going to drive myself home and get on with my life. Don't call me again."
"Jess, please, stay!" John got himself upright, but she opened the door without looking back. Even so, John made it there before she could leave. When he brushed her body with his, the contact made him jump as if she had shocked him.
"I'm sorry," he said, again, helpless. Even if his arms were free, he could never have grabbed at her or tried to hold her still. That was the point. She had disarmed him completely and deliberately.
The door locked as it closed behind her. He sat on the bed, hands still cuffed behind his back, gut churning and tears prickling at his eyes again, this time from shame.
Then he had to decide which was more humiliating: dislocating his shoulder so he could get the cuffs off, or phoning Harold with his toes.
He called Universal Heritage, gave his name as John Rooney, and somehow made his voice calm enough to badger the receptionist into connecting him with Mr Wren.
"Mr Reese." Harold seemed unsurprised to receive a call from John. "Is everything all right? Ah, I see you're quite close by."
"I..." John couldn't make words come out. "I.." Nope. No words. He shut his eyes – it was a relief, after keeping them open for Jess, to be sitting in the dark.
"Are you hurt?" Harold was walking; John could hear the rhythm of it, in his voice, in the rocking sound of his stride and the tap of his cane. "John, can you tell me, do you need an ambulance?"
"No." John was certain of that, at least. "I'm not hurt."
"I will be there in ten minutes," Harold said, his voice calm as always, despite John's suspicion that his own was more than a little hysterical.
Ten minutes were easily counted down. Six hundred seconds. John started, keying his breathing into the count, so that by the time that Harold knocked, he felt calmer, if a little heady.
"I'm here, Mr Reese," Harold said from outside. After a few moments, he said, "Is it all right to come in?"
"Yes," John said, air rushing out of him with a gasp, glad that the situation was about to change, despite what Harold would think of him. As soon as he was free, he was driving to New Rochelle and putting a bullet in Peter Arndt's brain. If Jess was going to hate him anyway, she may as well hate him in safety.
The door opened and John braced himself for… what? Harold's pity? Scorn? Whatever a person felt when they opened a door and saw someone caught by their own stupidity.
Harold merely paused a moment, then walked into the room and closed the door behind him.
"Come here," Harold said, and John rose off the bed, turned so he could see the stupid leather cuffs.
"I could get out of them without help." It seemed important suddenly that Harold knew he wasn't the only option John had.
"I'm sure you could," Harold said as he unbuckled the cuffs, eased them away from John's wrist. He made a tchh, presumably at the lines cut into John's skin by the tightness after all this time. "Nonetheless, I'm glad that you called; I doubt the agency would give you time to heal a dislocation properly." He had the cane tucked under his arm as he worked; John could see it in the mirror.
John rolled his shoulders, swinging each arm in turn to get the circulation moving. He was coming back to himself, like a computer rebooting. He'd dress, check his weapon, drive to New Rochelle. Get Peter out of the house – he had gambling debts, it would be easy enough, and then Jess wouldn't have to see.
"Are you all right, Mr Reese?" Harold touched his arm, and John wheeled on him, gun suddenly drawn. John hadn't even realised he had grabbed his weapon, didn't remember making the decision, and that was troubling enough to make him lower it, hold it loosely in one hand. If he didn't have control over who he aimed at, if that was happening unconsciously, he had no right to hold a gun at all. He put it down on the bed, then stared at it.
Harold had frozen stock still when the gun swung up to face him, but now he walked slowly and carefully past John to the bathroom, and fetched a robe.
"Here," he said, and draped it over John's shoulders.
John shrugged into it and realised that he had been naked for so long that he had forgotten. He picked up a loose sock, searched for its pair, gathered some clothes together.
"Has she left the island yet?" he asked, as he unlaced his shoes properly; he'd just kicked them off when he arrived.
Harold took John's jacket from where it had landed on the counter, and shook it out then hung it over the chair. "She's with Nathan right now. He'll most likely drive her home." At John's dubious expression, he waved a hand. "Or his driver will, though on the whole Nathan is cutting back on the booze. I think the work is good for him." He sat, perched on the arm of the chair, leaning into the cane. "What do you intend to do now, Mr Reese?"
John scruffed his hair. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't go and kill Peter tonight."
"Apart from the fact that murder is wrong?"
John scoffed at that. "I thought you knew what I did for a living."
Harold sighed and gazed for a moment at his shoes. Expensive, John noted. Bespoke. Eventually he reached inside his jacket for a phone, and switched it on. "Here," he said, holding it out. "If you really believe this is the best course of action, then call Jessica, and tell what you intend."
John took it, read Jessica's name in the contacts. "I won't give her a chance to tip him off," he said, but he couldn't stop staring at the screen. He realised he had never really seen Jess' name written with 'Arndt' appended to it.
"Then, afterwards," said Harold. "If it's the right thing to do, you'll have no problems explaining that to her. I'm not an expert in this kind of thing, but it seems to me that given the nature of your relationship with Jessica, it would be the honourable thing to do. Rather than, say, having him just vanish, leaving her wondering forever."
John stared at Harold's phone, imagining that conversation. Imagining the same conversation happening everywhere he had vanished a person, left a family waiting and worrying.
"The fact that you're hesitating tells me you're not quite as willing to accept the consequences of causing pain to someone you love. To someone who loves the man you want to kill." Harold's voice was incredibly, distressingly calm, given the way he was laying John open with words. "She does love him, after all. If you kill him, she will most certainly grieve, and it will affect the choices she makes for the rest of her life."
"Isn't that better than him beating her to death?" Saying it out loud was clarifying. John was the one who was called on to do things other people quailed at. He could do this, bear Jessica's anger, and take solace in the fact that she was alive to do it. He could do this, and accept that she would hate him. He could do this thing, even though it would cause her pain.
"There is also the fact that killing Mr Arndt will cause harm to you," Harold said.
"I don't think so," John said. "He's a civilian." It came out more harshly than he meant it to, but the thought of physically destroying Peter was extremely satisfying, the way downing a bottle of whiskey was satisfying, even when he knew he'd regret it. Even if it meant Jessica would know what he really was capable of.
"I'm not talking about physical harm." Harold was watching John intently, as if looking for something in his expression. John was glad he didn't know Harold wanted from him, because he'd give it in a moment, just to make him stop gazing inside John like this.
Eventually Harold sighed, leaned the cane against the wall, and pushed open the bathroom door. "I think you'll feel better if you washed and dressed," he said, and picked up John's shirt, shaking it into shape fussily.
Doing anything at all was better than standing still, so John stepped into the bathroom. He left the handgun on a stack of towels while he showered. He brushed his teeth. He shaved. He thought about how Jess would have to plan a funeral and a wake, have to manage the paperwork that comes with a sudden death. The insurance investigation, possibly a criminal investigation too. By the time he emerged, wrapped in a towel, his skin stinging from the hot water, he knew he wasn't going to kill Peter today.
While John had been showering, Harold had arranged for a new shirt and underwear, and for housekeeping to rush his suit through laundering. John had been dreading the moment when he slid his arms into that jacket; it was the one he'd crossed the border in. It didn't help that John remembered exactly where he'd sponged bloodstains out in a filthy gas station bathroom just inside the border.
The clean, crisp new shirt was cool against his skin, and gave him a kind of respite from uncomfortable thoughts, the way a cancelled appointment delays an unpleasant meeting. While they waited for housekeeping, John packed his overnight bag, checked his weapon, while Harold fussed with his phone. John wasn't sure what to do with the manacles – he didn't want them, but it would be imprudent to leave them here – so he pushed them back into their box, and with judicious shoving, managed to cram it into his case.
By the time the suit arrived, crisply clean and pressed, Harold reported that Jessica had left for New Rochelle with Nathan's driver. John nodded as he slid his gun into the holster and shrugged into the jacket.
"I can't see that you have a current assignment," Harold said, without looking up from the phone. "Do you have any plans?"
That made John laugh weakly. What kind of plans could he make? "I'm sure they'll be in touch as soon as they realise I'm at my leisure," he said. "Taxpayer's money, you know."
Harold nodded, still working on his phone. "You might want somewhere else to stay," he said, and hit send with his thumb.
John's phone buzzed in his jacket and he took it out. Harold had sent an address, nothing memorable, an apartment on the seventh floor of a building ten blocks distant from here.
"It's secure," Harold said, at John's questioning eyebrow. "The doorman will admit you, if you use the name Rooney."
"Why?" John was baffled as to why this address was any different to an anonymous hotel.
What Harold said next was absurdity. "Because you need a place where you feel safe." He picked up his cane and with a visible wince turned for the door. John stood still, watching him go. Then he heard the ding of the elevator. His long strides caught up with Harold before the man had stepped inside.
He had meant it to be an awkward elevator ride, had meant to intimidate Harold, filling the elevator up with posture and presence the way he would threaten a target. Somehow, though, it was oddly companionable. Harold leaned against the wall and gazed past John's shoulders until the elevator opened on the lobby.
John could see a long black town car idling in front of the revolving doors, surprised at how the gloom of evening had gathered. The doorman, on seeing them approach, hurried to open the car door, but as they were stepping towards the exit, a phone rang, the mechanical tone harsh in the quiet murmur of the lobby. Harold's careful footsteps halted an inch away from the sweeping curve of the spinning glass but he did not look around.
"This is not an appropriate time," he said, softly, to whom, John had no idea. There was nobody near. Harold was staring downwards, apparently talking to the carpet in front of him. John scanned the lobby, and saw that he was not the only one searching for the ringing phone. When he tracked the sound, it was coming from behind a collection of potted plants arranged in the corner by the glass wall. Dust on the pots suggested that they weren't moved often, and when he pushed the foliage aside, he saw that they provided discreet cover for an old public phone, with a blue faded plastic receiver.
He glanced back at Harold who watched him with a pained expression. The phone rang on, insistent, and a concierge detached himself from his desk to hurry over to the corner. John made a decision, stepped behind the plants, and picked up the receiver.
"Acceleration, Foxtrot, Bravo. County, Lima, Charlie. Escapist, Juliet, Papa." It was a recording, or at least, an assembled recording made from different voices, cut and pasted together like a ransom note. John listened to two complete cycles in the time it took Harold to limp over to the potted plants. John put his hand over the mouthpiece and examined Harold's expression through the branches of the potted tree: his face was closed, as distant and locked down as he had seen it, despite the fact that Harold had just helped a naked John escape from leather manacles.
"Is it a threat?" John asked. He still covered the mouthpiece, but he could hear the patched-together words repeating.
Harold closed his eyes a moment, then opened them again. "Not directly, no. It does mean that someone is in danger." He stared towards the corner of the lobby, his expression sour. "It must be something dire, for the call to be redirected outside normal parameters."
"This is it?" John said. His exhaustion and despair were ebbing with this morsel of intel dangling in front of him. He answered his own question, now that he had more pieces of the puzzle. "This software, you left yourself access, so it can give you the names of people in danger." He stepped past Harold, towards the revolving door.
"Not the names," Harold said, following in his wake. "And never the specific intelligence. As I said, we never know what the danger is, or what data has triggered the… software's response." He stopped just in front of the car, hesitating. The driver leapt out, hurried to open the passenger side.
John stepped up close behind him, mouth close to Harold's ear, voice low and menacing. "You can't stop now, Harold. I need to know how you operate, if you want me to trust you to keep Jessica safe. And you know I can tail you, you know I'm not going to let this go."
Harold sighed. "Yes, there's no need for dramatic effect, Mr Reese. I have no illusions about your skills or those of your partner. I would rather keep the chances of Ms Stanton coming across your activities as low as possible. " He slipped into the back seat and nodded for John to join him.
When the driver had dropped them on a corner, John wasn't sure what to expect. Then Harold pulled open a door off the street, and John caught it before it closed, ducked in behind him. It was an abandoned library, a book-scattered atrium, with high-ceilings softly lit by emergency light only. Harold walked a familiar path between the piles of books to a wide staircase.
"I hope you're bringing coffee!" a voice called down from the upper level. Harold froze, one foot poised above a step, and John sensed from the twitch in his shoulders that he wanted to turn around and walk away. Watching Harold's world reveal itself layer by layer was proving an excellent distraction from the mess he'd made with Jessica. He put his toes on the step below Harold's and stood close, looming over Harold's shoulder, waiting for whatever would happen next.
Harold spoke, his voice tight and unhappy. "Before you meet Grace, I would appreciate you keeping the more unsavoury details of your work to yourself."
Chapter Eight // Master Post
// Chapter Ten