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st_aurafinaTitle: Buying the Time on My Knees, Chapter Eleven
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
Notes: This chapter has surprise!dentistry, show-typical stuff.
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.)
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:
Kara and John get a new mission with many complicating factors.
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
Mark slid the photos that John had taken in France over the pool table, lining them up. The pub was empty this early, but the street outside was already thrumming with traffic as Dublin woke up to a winter morning.
Kara pottered behind the bar, checking out the barkeep's shotgun, looking for secret stashes of money or drugs. She experimentally pulled a pint of stout, and pleased with the skill level required to fill the glass without spilling it over, quickly set up a line of pints that foamed gently.
"They're ISA," Mark said. "This team is Catalyst Indigo – I don't know all of the operatives, but this Wilson is a piece of work." He pointed to a weasel-faced man with slick hair, who had directed his team to search the chalet.
"Nice job with the grenades, by the way," he added. "They had to get rescue services to dig them out. Took a few days to get the mess squared away properly, and Ingram was back in the States by then."
John leaned against the wall while Mark perused his work. "This isn't ISA's job," he said. "Ingram's no terrorist threat. They're doing someone's dirty work."
Bored with pulling beers, Kara swiped a bottle of tequila and wandered over. "This guy I've seen at the White House," she said, pointing at an older man with a coldly calm expression. "He's personal security, I think."
"Hersh," said Mark. "I thought he was in recruitment – I know he trained most of Catalyst Indigo. Okay. Good work, John. I've got a lot to dig into here." He swept the photos together and slid them back in the envelope, and placed a folder in the middle of the table. "Here's your new assignment."
Kara swigged from the tequila and flipped the folder open. "Jesus, this little hamster?"
"Daniel Casey," said Mark. "He hacked into secure files and stole data, which he's trying to sell. Terminate him, get hold of the data if you can."
John picked up the rest of the file and flicked through it. "We're the second team assigned to this?" Kara held the tequila bottle in his direction and he shook his head. "What happened to the first team?" Casey didn't seem the kind of threat that could take out trained killers.
"They bought it in a car crash," Mark said. He reached for the bottle and took a mouthful. "Not sure if it was bad luck, or if Casey interfered with the onboard computer – he's a tech head, did a lot of white hat ops for the government, testing systems."
John glanced from one folder to the other. "Is this about Ingram?"
Mark was unsettled by the question, which meant he didn't know. "Does it mean you'll kill him differently if it is?" he asked, acid.
"Don't worry, Mark." Kara swiped the folder and tucked it under her arm. "I'll keep John in line."
On the plane, she said, "I know you're seeing Jessica."
John tried to find a place for that, the way she just said it, out in the open, but all he could do was bristle. "And?" he said, deliberately calm. "You've got your piece on the side, too."
"That's what I mean, John." Kara sipped her drink. "I'm trying to tell you maybe having a regular fucktoy has given me a change in perspective."
It didn't seem likely to John from the little he'd heard about this man, but since Kara knew about Jessica, he'd take any co-operation he could get.
"Okay," he said. "As long as you know I'm not up for a double date."
That seemed to amuse Kara, who laughed on and off for the whole flight. While the plane taxied on the runway at JFK, she said, "All I'm saying is I'll cover for you, if you cover for me." She held out her hand to shake. "Deal?"
Uneasy, John took her hand and shook it.
The Daniel Casey mission leapt off the rails when John saw Dillinger prowling the entry of Casey's hotel. Dillinger spotted him, too, but was smart enough not to do a double take. While Kara ogled Dillinger and ran through her list of things she wanted to do to him, John carefully manoeuvred himself out of the man's sight.
When his earpiece switched on with a soft tone, John jumped and Kara glanced at him, curious. He shook his head to indicate it was nothing.
"Mr Reese." Harold's voice was in his ear, quiet and calm. "I take from your presence here that your target is Mr Casey."
John scanned the buildings, trying to place Harold's position.
"I'm using the security camera over the door behind you," Harold said. "Mr Casey is our latest number. I think we can identify you as the threat to his life."
John leaned towards Kara and gestured at Dillinger. "Does Casey have the funds to employ someone like that to protect him? He's been on the run for a while, and he hasn't accessed his accounts since then."
Kara shrugged. "Who knows what he's stashed away? He's probably been selling his country out for years."
Harold waited for Kara to finish speaking. Then, when John straightened up, and the chance of her hearing the voice in his ear was less, he spoke. "Mr Casey has not betrayed his country. He was working for the government when it became expedient to eliminate him. Mr Dillinger volunteered to assist us with his protection." There was a pause, then he added, annoyed, "Well. Nathan volunteered Mr Dillinger, but I will admit, he is capable. More capable than Nathan, certainly."
John felt a chill that wasn't from the New York snow. He did not want Harold watching him work. It was an awkward moment, standing next to Kara, feeling his conscience tussle with his pride, and realising that he cared a lot what Harold thought of him. Maybe it was an extension of what he wanted to be for Jessica: a hero, a protector, strong and good. For a short time, working with Harold and Grace, he'd been that person.
Casey left his hotel room, hunched and cautious as he walked along the road, and John was glad to push Harold's presence to the back of his mind. John was calculating the best place to shoot Dillinger and maintain his own cover in front of Kara. The sudden appearance of a second extraction team was a welcome surprise even if it meant a three-way shoot-out, and a hostage in Kara's hands.
Harold kept thankfully quiet in his ear, if he was even listening anymore. That was a relief: John couldn't work and listen to that voice, not when he had Kara at his side and a mission to complete. It would get him, or Casey or Dillinger or all of them killed. When he had a second, he took the earpiece out.
He had a chance to speak with Harold while Kara had some alone time with their hostage. In the men's room of the empty office building they were using as a base, he slipped in the earpiece, found a new and unnamed contact in his call log and dialled it.
"Mr Reese," Harold said on the first ring.
John leaned against the bathroom wall and stared at his own reflection. "Reel Dillinger in," he said. "I nearly had to shoot him this afternoon."
"I'm afraid I don't have many options right now," Harold said. "It's him or nobody, and he did pull Casey out of trouble."
It occurred to John that he could go to the library right now, perhaps find Casey, certainly find Harold and interrogate him. He pushed his fingers against his eyelids, trying to sort the tangled strings of his life that had suddenly ensnared.
"Is this how it works?" he asked, surprised at how tired his voice was.
Harold sounded puzzled. "I'm not sure what you're referring to."
"You keep Jessica safe, and it gives you leverage over my missions." John weighed the possibilities up in his mind: would he betray his country to protect Jessica? Absolutely. Without a second thought. Harold must know that. "And then you extend the same deal to Casey." It was perfect. No wonder the ISA had tried to blow Nathan and Harold up.
Harold was silent for a long time. Outside the bathroom, John heard the Scottish man gurgle. Kara was back at work.
"Mr Reese," Harold said eventually. "I help Jessica because she needs help. I would do so regardless of her friendship with you. I will continue to do so, should you decide to kill Mr Casey. I help Jessica for Jessica's sake, not yours." The kindness in his voice, so unexpected, was at the same time an excoriating thing for John. He felt filthy, tired and hopeless, but he turned the earpiece off and went through the door to help Kara torture their prisoner.
The mission was difficult, and even more so with the sensation of Harold watching over John's shoulder, though he didn't hijack John's earpiece again. While he worked, he turned over options to get Casey clear. Casey wasn't the first target he'd managed to secrete away under Kara's nose, but he had to be much more careful, knowing that Harold and Dillinger could not be exposed.
He caught up with Casey outside the home of the man who was forging him new papers. By then, John had almost convinced himself that Harold was no longer eavesdropping, but when he drew his gun on the kid, he heard a soft noise on the earpiece. It wasn't a gasp, but it was a definite presence.
He was watching Casey manoeuvre the pliers in his mouth with a doubtful expression when Harold said, "I take it this is not your first time diverting a target."
His voice was odd, words spilling out loosely with emotionality that John hadn't heard before. He wondered if Harold was drunk.
"I'm not putting a bullet in a scared kid who did nothing wrong." Whatever else you might think of me, he added silently. On the asphalt in front of him, Casey sat cross-legged and sweating as he wiggled a molar loose.
"I'm glad," Harold said. "For Mr Casey's sake and yours. It's not that I doubt your integrity, you understand. Just that I am a realist. Not an Impressionist."
John frowned, uncertain about where this conversation was going.
"It's a joke," Harold said hurriedly into the sudden silence. "Oh, damn, I've ruined the punchline, haven't I? Grace will be appalled. The point is that there I'm well aware, Mr Reese, that your work requires you to do things you regret. And that those things take a toll on the person you are." His voice wandered, as if he were distracted, and John heard the thud-clunk of a car crossing the metal plates of a parking garage.
Casey had the first molar out now. He swayed where he sat, clammy and green with a trickle of blood at one corner of his mouth. John used a Ziploc bag to pick up the tooth, then pushed the pliers back into Casey's fumbling hands, guided them back towards his mouth.
Harold, meanwhile, kept talking in a long, rambling sentence interspersed with traffic sounds. "And yes, Mr Reese. I know you want to reassure me that you are just fine, but I am starting to believe that it's been a long, long, long…" He paused, evidently thinking of how long exactly he meant. "… long time since you really understood what those words are supposed to mean."
A horn blared over the line, and tires screeched. John winced. "Not sure you should be behind the wheel right now, Finch."
"S'that Harold?" Casey said. One side of his face was starting to swell. "S'he okay?"
"Why wouldn't he be?" John said.
In his ear, Harold made a wandering protest. "I am perfectly fine, Mr Reese, and I'll thank you not to point out any irony you think you may see in my statement because I think under examination you'll find that…" John cut the call off.
At his feet, Casey held up the pliers. "Take out the other one for me, and I'll tell you."
John didn't have to – he could point out that if Casey didn't have the fortitude to pull his own teeth, he wasn't likely to survive going on the run – but he'd lingered too long in this alley and he needed to get moving to ostensibly dispose of Casey's body. He took the pliers and put Casey in a headlock, pressed hard against John's thigh. Casey squeezed his eyes shut and opened his mouth. The second molar was out in the matter of a few minutes, and then safely tucked away.
When it was done, Casey tore strips from his t-shirt. While he packed them into his mouth, he muttered indistinctly. John thought he caught the name 'Dillinger'.
"What about Dillinger?" John said. Casey's face was already swelling, as hamster-like as Kara had dubbed him when they first got this assignment. He scrambled back to his feet, swaying slightly, and John steadied him, gripping his shoulder. When his colour came back, John passed him his duffel bag.
"Tell me about Dillinger," John said again.
"He drugged Harold," Casey said, thickly though the wadding in his mouth. "The laptop – Harold set up a sale, to get some of the heat off me. Dillinger decided to cash in so he doped up Harold's tea and stole the laptop for himself." He slung the bag over his shoulder. "He was meeting someone in Central Park."
"Get moving," said John, and left him.
He made it from Red Hook to Central Park in time to find Harold standing in the middle of a path, an uncertain expression on his face. Harold walked away, moving between the trees with awkward steps, and John trotted to catch up with him. When John caught him by the elbow, Harold jumped and winced with pain.
"Mr Reese?" he said. He moved stiffly and his reaction time was very sluggish. Pentobarb, John thought.
"How much did he give you?" John said, disturbingly angry about this betrayal. He hadn't considered Dillinger a great soldier, but he'd seemed competent and, if not loyal exactly, then well-paid enough to stay loyal.
Harold shook his arm free and kept walking. His steps were so loud in the night, feet dragging on branches and rustling dead leaves. It made John twitch.
"I didn't want him on this mission," Harold said. "We had nobody else to send, and Nathan… Nathan has been particularly annoying lately. It seems that Mr Dillinger decided to cut his losses and seek other revenue streams."
"What's he selling?" John said. He pushed himself ahead of Harold, so that he could at least clear a path for him, lead them towards safer, quieter territory.
Harold didn't answer, apart from an occasional sound of pain as his foot came down awkwardly or he wrenched his back.
"Okay," said John. "Can you at least tell me what it's worth? It'll give me an idea of the level of threat we might be facing."
Light from a street lamp fell between the trees, and John saw that Harold's mouth was grim, his eyes shadowed and hollow.
"That bad, huh." John heard voices at a point where the walking path made a crossroads. "Wait here, I'll go and scout." He walked forward through the trees, careful and quiet. He watched Dillinger negotiate with a group of Chinese men.
"You idiot," John said softly. "How do you think this comes out for you?"
He heard Harold's steps behind him, and was about to turn to admonish him when there was a gunshot, the quiet zip of a suppressor. Dillinger folded downwards with a surprised expression and a spreading red stain on his shirt.
John moved instinctively: identify the position of the shooter, get as much cover as possible, make sure Harold is safe. As he moved, John wondered briefly why he'd made this choice rather than take the shooter on himself, then he realised that if he caught a bullet, it would expose Harold, leaving him with no protection. He grabbed Harold by the shoulders and pushed him against a tree trunk, covering him with his own body. He was armoured, Harold was not. He felt Harold's breath on his neck, rapid and short with fear or pain.
Another shot, and John peered out from behind the tree trunk: the Chinese men scurried for their van while the shooter picked them off. The car accelerated away with a squeal of tires. The shooter appeared out of the darkness, took up a tactical stance – military-trained, John noted, not police – and fired. It was a tricky shot but the driver's head flicked back with the impact and the van left the ground in that slow-motion way of all traffic accidents. It rolled over and over, crumpling with each turn, eventually landing on all four wheels with a bounce.
The air rang with silence after the crash, then John heard the footsteps of the shooter. He kept Harold still, pinned to the tree with his own body.
Lying flat on his back, Dillinger moaned, the sound bubbling in his throat. Harold shifted against John, crunching leaves underfoot.
"Stay still!" John hissed in his ear. Out on the path, the footsteps stopped. John held his breath and slowly eased his gun from his holster. Pressed against his cheek, he could feel Harold's mouth opening to speak. John put a hand over Harold's mouth and met his eyes. He shook his head gently, and Harold blinked. The footsteps moved again, this time towards where Dillinger lay. The shooter spoke to Dillinger, words low and undecipherable. Harold's breaths came fast and panicked against John's palm; he was trying to move, to help Dillinger, but John was too strong. He held Harold in place, kept eye contact with him as the shooter fired twice more into Dillinger's chest. Harold's body jumped against John's as if he were the one being shot, and he squeezed his eyes shut. John didn't know why, but he rested his cheek on Harold's forehead and whispered to him, nonsense words that didn't mean anything.
"It's okay," he said under his breath. "It's okay – it was quick, he didn't know."
When John was certain the shooter had left, he moved back from the tree. Harold pushed at his chest to get free, stepped awkwardly to the side and was violently sick in the undergrowth. John kept his palm on the small of his back to stop him tipping over.
They had a fight when Harold refused to leave Dillinger dead in the park. John explained, patiently at first and then in frustration, that the shooter would be back soon, probably with a clean-up crew to go over the site for intel and prep the bodies for disposal.
"I won't leave him," Harold said, again. "For one thing, I can't have them tracing his work back to me. To the numbers. To Grace," he said with emphasis.
John found this logic deeply suspect. Harold was definitely in shock. Still, it was faster and easier to agree with him than to lift him bodily from Dillinger's side and carry him away. At the edge of the park he hotwired an electrician's van and, ignoring Harold's offers of assistance, hefted Dillinger's body into the back.
Harold, not to be deterred, climbed awkwardly into the passenger seat, and, too tired to argue with him, John simply drove away from the park and into the night.
As he drove through the darkness, he glanced at Harold's face, washed pale by the streetlights. Dillinger's death, Casey's flight, these had all taken a toll on him tonight. He was probably still full of Pentobarb, and anyway, how long had it been since the surgery Nathan had mentioned? John had to concentrate to add up the dates.
"Let me call Grace," he said eventually into the silence. "I can drop you off, go and take care of this myself."
Harold sat up straighter in his seat, his face sharper and more focused suddenly. "No," he said firmly. "I don't want her to know anything about this."
"She didn't know you were working this number? I thought that wasn't your decision to make? Isn't that the agreement you two worked out?"
Harold's expression was one of misery: regret and anguish and guilt, so intense and painful that John realised he'd forgotten that Harold was, after all, a civilian. This was very much not a thing he'd expect a civilian to cope with. He reached out and took Harold's hand, cold in his own. He squeezed it, laid it gently back in Harold's lap.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry. Let's just get this thing done."
The night took on a dream-like atmosphere. They had an odd conversation while driving, about the best places to bury a body this close to the city. Harold's ideas were largely theoretical, but there was some overlap with John's more practical experience.
Harold sat in the open door of the van while John cut into the ground with a shovel and started work. After ten minutes of digging, he slipped out of his jacket and passed it to Harold, then rolled his sleeves up. The earth was hard and packed with clay, and he was soon sweating.
"I didn't like him," Harold said. "He didn't deserve to die, but it feels disingenuous not to admit that I was not fond of him." He was waxy-pale, with a sheen of sweat over his forehead despite the cold. Still shocky, John thought.
John leaned on the shovel handle while he stared at the body, grey and still in the van. "He knew what he was getting into," he said. "Don't blame yourself for his stupidity." Harold's bewilderment only pointed out the vast differences between John and Harold's worlds. This – being out in the middle of the night, digging a grave for a man too foolish to save his own life – was a mundane situation for John, and yet a life-changing one for Harold.
"Tell me about Daniel Casey," he said, to change the subject, but Harold didn't answer. John pushed the shovel into the clay and heaved out another cubic block of earth.
Eventually, Harold spoke into the quiet. "You let him go."
John stood two feet deep, making calculated progress on the grave. The edges were clean and perpendicular, unlikely to collapse inwards.
"He wasn't the first, either," Harold said. "You have an established escape route, contacts, a planned destination. Why?"
John considered it, while he piled dirt outside the hole. "It was the right thing to do," he said. "I signed on to make my country safer, not to clean up the agency's mistakes."
"They don't deserve you." Harold rubbed his forehead, somehow leaving a smudge of dirt there, despite never actually touching the mud. "And you deserve better than them."
The hole was shoulder-deep now, and the cold from the damp earth was seeping through John's sweat-soaked shirt. "Maybe not at the start," he said. "But we're all in the same bed now." He heaved himself carefully up onto the edge of the grave, and then up onto his feet. Dillinger's skin was cold as John patted him down for identifying documents, though rigor was still some hours away. John took his wallet and weapons, his earpiece and phone, and then paused. It would be normal practice to shoot the victim in the face, take his fingerprints, destroy his teeth. It was an ugly process, and messy.
"Don't," said Harold, who apparently brought prescience to grave digging parties. "Nobody will find him out here – let him rest with dignity."
"You're the one obsessed about the evidence trail," John said. He leaned against the van. The chill in the air was beginning to goose-pimple his skin where he'd sweated through his shirt.
Harold leaned forward as if to rest his head in his palms, then jerked with obvious pain and closed his eyes instead as if simply not seeing the open grave would make it not exist.
John reached down and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "We're almost done here." He wrapped Dillinger in an old blanket he'd found in the van, lifted the body in his arms and rolled it into the grave. He picked up the shovel and went to the pile of earth, then glanced back at Harold.
"You want to say some words before I finish this?" he asked. It wasn't his practice – it wasn't as if he believed in anything anymore – but Harold was new to this.
Harold gave a tiny shake of his head. "That seems to be a thing people do to give themselves peace," he said. "I can't imagine what would work here."
John nodded and started to fill in the hole. When he was done, and was stamping down the cut pieces of scraggly grass-covered turf, he turned to find Harold standing very close to him.
"You okay?" he asked. Harold was still pale and definitely wobbly on his feet. He'd taken off his glasses, and his eyes were ridiculously huge.
Harold reached out for John's shirt to pull him close, pressing their bodies together despite the mud all over John's clothes. John didn't realise what was happening until Harold kissed him with an open mouth, furious and desperate.
John started, then cradled Harold's jaw gently as he pulled them apart again. Harold's skin was very cold.
Harold breathed heavily and his fingers clenched in the fabric of John's filthy shirt. "I should apologise for that, but I'm not going to," he said, his voice uneven. "I needed to touch someone alive, and you are so very alive, John."
"It's okay," John said. "It's okay." His hand still rested on Harold's jaw, and his fingers moved carefully against the stubbled skin. He thought of all the things Harold had seen him do today, and wondered how Harold could even imagine touching John. It left him with nothing to say, so instead he brushed at a smear of mud he'd left on Harold's cheek. It seemed fitting somehow that he left more dirt behind than he removed.
"We'd better get moving," he said, eventually. "You need to get out of the cold, and we both need a shower." John knew this reaction, he'd seen it before, he'd felt it before: an intense emotional response was entirely normal in this entirely abnormal situation. John could see Harold through this, get him home safely, make sure he was clean and warm. It went a little way towards making up for the things Harold had seen him do today.
Harold was quiet in the passenger seat while they drove back to the city, but gave directions to an address where they could clean up. The townhouse was expensively and stylishly furnished, with Wedgewood blue walls, but still had an impersonal, unlived-in feel. When John got back from ditching the van, Harold still stood in the middle of the hall, swaying slightly and staring at nothing.
"Come on," John said, and pushed him gently towards the bathroom. Bathrooms, as he discovered. Once Harold was facing the shower cubicle, he gathered himself.
"Thank you, Mr Reese. For your help tonight, and…" He paused, searching for the right words, rubbing at the streak of mud on his cheek. "For your understanding. There are clothes for you in the guest bedroom." Then he closed the door, definitively but politely, in John's face.
John peeled himself out of his ruined suit, and called to check in with Kara.
"You ditched that body yet?" Kara said.
Over the line, John heard a man whimpering. "Just cleaning up now," he said. "You okay? That sounds dramatic."
Kara laughed, a delighted sound. "Oh, that's my boo. Turns out he's a New Yorker after all, so I dropped in unexpectedly."
The whimpers increased in volume and John frowned. "Is that a good idea after this op? It was messy enough without you having another body to deal with."
"Don't worry," said Kara. "I won't kill him. He loves this. Practically begged me to give it to him hard. Listen." She did something and the whimpers became a sudden wail of anguish. "Shut up! Do you want me to leave? I can just stop, right now."
Over the line, John heard sobbing, then the man said, "No, please, please stay. I'll be good, I'll be good."
"See, John? We're both being very good, I promise."
John spared a thought for the nameless idiot who had gotten himself tangled up in Kara's idea of pleasure, then let it go. "Well, enjoy yourself." He hung up, turned the faucet in the shower, and stepped under the scalding water. His life was complicated enough. He didn't have the energy to deal with Kara's mind games.
When he came out of the bathroom in a suit that fitted with eerie perfection, Harold stood in the living room, talking on the phone. The room, with its blue walls and perfect cream furniture, felt cold and empty as a museum display.
"This is not a game, Nathan! Dillinger is dead. How long before there's a direct retaliation? This public gamble you've made with Mr Szilard and Doctor Aquino's lives – with Grace's life! – will eventually fail."
John had never heard Harold raise his voice before. Not even when they'd first spoken, when John had plucked the earpiece from Nathan's unconscious body and Harold had no idea what had happened, had he sounded so raw. John walked past to the liquor cabinet, selected two heavy glasses and poured them both a substantial drink.
Harold hung up on Nathan, and started at John's sudden appearance, apparently astonished to find him still here. Then he took the glass John proffered, and, moving gingerly, sat down on the cream daybed in silence.
John sipped his scotch and waited. In one of the pockets of the tailored suit, he could feel Daniel Casey's teeth, snug in their Ziploc bag.
"I am sorry for forcing my attentions on you," Harold said, eventually. "That was unspeakably rude, even allowing for the situation. Please accept my apologies."
John shrugged. "Sure. It's more common than you'd think. If I had a dollar for every graveside tussle I've been caught up in, I'd have…" He calculated. "Thirteen dollars."
Harold did not acknowledge the blithe tone, or take the opening John had given him to change the subject. "I know that you and Nathan have some kind of relationship," he said. "I apologise if tonight impinges on that."
There wasn't really any way to explain what John and Nathan had, nor what John and Jessica were involved in. "How did you put it that day?" John asked. "I've come to realise my life is very far from traditional." Speaking of which. "Is Grace going to be worried about you?" he asked, tentatively.
Harold gave a weak smile and held up his phone, where a long line of notifications were lit up on the screen. They were from Grace, and they grew increasingly frantic, filled with expletives and angry emoji. "I just don't know what to tell her," he said.
John reached for the phone, and Harold released it, after ghosting his thumb over the button to unlock it. John opened the messages and hit redial. Grace picked up on the first ring.
"I am really glad you're not dead, mister, because now I can come around and kill you for not picking up."
"Hey, Grace, it's John. Harold is fine," John said, hurriedly, before he incurred the same wrath that was radiating across the line. "We had a bad night – we lost Dillinger."
He heard Grace's anger dissipate instantly. "Oh, Jesus, John, I'm so sorry. Are you hurt? Is Harold okay? What can I do? Where are you? Should I come over?"
John glanced down at Harold, who still stared at the scotch in his glass. "I'm fine," he said, though he wasn't sure that was the truth. "I think Harold needs a bit of breathing space right now. It's a lot to take in."
Grace exhaled, a long, anxious breath she had obviously been holding onto. "Okay. Sure. I guess you're the expert on this stuff – oh, God, I didn't mean you're a murder expert, I'm sorry. I think – I think you're right. This is a lot. I'm going to have a drink – are you having a drink?"
"We are," John said. "I'll get Harold to call you as soon as he's up to it." He hung up, and pointed a finger at Harold's scotch. "Don't make me lie to Grace," he said.
On the sofa, Harold sighed and sipped his drink. "I didn't like Dillinger," he said, suddenly. "He stole from me, he drugged me, he put Mr Casey at terrible risk, but I can't stop trying to find a way I might have prevented his death."
John was about to explain again that it wasn't Harold's fault, when he heard the sound of a key in the front door, and drew his weapon, moving between Harold and the hall.
"It's only me," Nathan called from behind the living room door. "Tell John not to shoot me."
"I'll consider it," Harold said, grimly.
John holstered the gun and opened the door. Nathan pulled him into a hug, kissing him on the cheek. "That's for keeping Harold safe," he said. Then he planted one on the top of Harold's head, much to Harold's disgust. "And that? Is for never falling for my razzle-dazzle."
Harold snorted and took another sip of scotch, but for the first time tonight he seemed a little brighter.
Nathan walked around the sofa and flopped down beside Harold. "I've been an ass lately, I'm sorry."
"I have too much of a headache to roll my eyes," Harold said. "Please take it as said that I am doing it." He didn't complain when Nathan slung an arm across his shoulder, though. John passed Nathan a glass and sloshed two fingers of scotch into it.
"I'm sorry about Rick," Nathan said. He took a swig of scotch then added, "Well. I'm sorry I hired an idiot, and I'm sorry it got him killed."
Harold's back straightened and John saw the pain of that small movement cross his face. "We got him killed, Nathan."
"No, Harold," Nathan said, his voice patient. "He got himself killed when he stole your code and tried to sell it to the Chinese."
"If you had not pursued this ridiculous publicity campaign in the first place," Harold started, and Nathan groaned.
"I know. I know! But listen: that ridiculous campaign has kept everyone safe thus far. Okay, except for Dillinger, but come on. He tried to sell us out." He leaned back on the sofa and shut his eyes. "I don't want to fight about this. I always knew the loud and public strategy had an expiry date. Not even I can hold the public eye eternally and the moment their attention drifts, the government will try to make all of us disappear. Probably send poor John here to do it, too." He gave John a rueful grin. "I promise I won't hold it against you." There was something darkly cynical about his expression that gave John a chill.
"Don't involve John in this," Harold snapped. "Not with that tone of voice."
Nathan looked askance at this defensive response, then his gaze slipped to John, speculative.
John shifted, unwilling to be a pawn in this argument. The airy room felt suddenly close, crowded as it was with old resentments he had no part in, so he put down his glass and stepped towards the door.
"I'll get going," he said. "Stay safe, both of you."
Harold pushed himself upright, awkward and uncomfortable. "Wait, John, please."
John stopped with one hand on the door. "You know how to get in touch with me if you need to." Then he stepped out into the crisp morning air and left them to their fight.
Chapter Ten // Master Post // Chapter Twelve
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
Notes: This chapter has surprise!dentistry, show-typical stuff.
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.)
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:
Kara and John get a new mission with many complicating factors.
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
Mark slid the photos that John had taken in France over the pool table, lining them up. The pub was empty this early, but the street outside was already thrumming with traffic as Dublin woke up to a winter morning.
Kara pottered behind the bar, checking out the barkeep's shotgun, looking for secret stashes of money or drugs. She experimentally pulled a pint of stout, and pleased with the skill level required to fill the glass without spilling it over, quickly set up a line of pints that foamed gently.
"They're ISA," Mark said. "This team is Catalyst Indigo – I don't know all of the operatives, but this Wilson is a piece of work." He pointed to a weasel-faced man with slick hair, who had directed his team to search the chalet.
"Nice job with the grenades, by the way," he added. "They had to get rescue services to dig them out. Took a few days to get the mess squared away properly, and Ingram was back in the States by then."
John leaned against the wall while Mark perused his work. "This isn't ISA's job," he said. "Ingram's no terrorist threat. They're doing someone's dirty work."
Bored with pulling beers, Kara swiped a bottle of tequila and wandered over. "This guy I've seen at the White House," she said, pointing at an older man with a coldly calm expression. "He's personal security, I think."
"Hersh," said Mark. "I thought he was in recruitment – I know he trained most of Catalyst Indigo. Okay. Good work, John. I've got a lot to dig into here." He swept the photos together and slid them back in the envelope, and placed a folder in the middle of the table. "Here's your new assignment."
Kara swigged from the tequila and flipped the folder open. "Jesus, this little hamster?"
"Daniel Casey," said Mark. "He hacked into secure files and stole data, which he's trying to sell. Terminate him, get hold of the data if you can."
John picked up the rest of the file and flicked through it. "We're the second team assigned to this?" Kara held the tequila bottle in his direction and he shook his head. "What happened to the first team?" Casey didn't seem the kind of threat that could take out trained killers.
"They bought it in a car crash," Mark said. He reached for the bottle and took a mouthful. "Not sure if it was bad luck, or if Casey interfered with the onboard computer – he's a tech head, did a lot of white hat ops for the government, testing systems."
John glanced from one folder to the other. "Is this about Ingram?"
Mark was unsettled by the question, which meant he didn't know. "Does it mean you'll kill him differently if it is?" he asked, acid.
"Don't worry, Mark." Kara swiped the folder and tucked it under her arm. "I'll keep John in line."
On the plane, she said, "I know you're seeing Jessica."
John tried to find a place for that, the way she just said it, out in the open, but all he could do was bristle. "And?" he said, deliberately calm. "You've got your piece on the side, too."
"That's what I mean, John." Kara sipped her drink. "I'm trying to tell you maybe having a regular fucktoy has given me a change in perspective."
It didn't seem likely to John from the little he'd heard about this man, but since Kara knew about Jessica, he'd take any co-operation he could get.
"Okay," he said. "As long as you know I'm not up for a double date."
That seemed to amuse Kara, who laughed on and off for the whole flight. While the plane taxied on the runway at JFK, she said, "All I'm saying is I'll cover for you, if you cover for me." She held out her hand to shake. "Deal?"
Uneasy, John took her hand and shook it.
The Daniel Casey mission leapt off the rails when John saw Dillinger prowling the entry of Casey's hotel. Dillinger spotted him, too, but was smart enough not to do a double take. While Kara ogled Dillinger and ran through her list of things she wanted to do to him, John carefully manoeuvred himself out of the man's sight.
When his earpiece switched on with a soft tone, John jumped and Kara glanced at him, curious. He shook his head to indicate it was nothing.
"Mr Reese." Harold's voice was in his ear, quiet and calm. "I take from your presence here that your target is Mr Casey."
John scanned the buildings, trying to place Harold's position.
"I'm using the security camera over the door behind you," Harold said. "Mr Casey is our latest number. I think we can identify you as the threat to his life."
John leaned towards Kara and gestured at Dillinger. "Does Casey have the funds to employ someone like that to protect him? He's been on the run for a while, and he hasn't accessed his accounts since then."
Kara shrugged. "Who knows what he's stashed away? He's probably been selling his country out for years."
Harold waited for Kara to finish speaking. Then, when John straightened up, and the chance of her hearing the voice in his ear was less, he spoke. "Mr Casey has not betrayed his country. He was working for the government when it became expedient to eliminate him. Mr Dillinger volunteered to assist us with his protection." There was a pause, then he added, annoyed, "Well. Nathan volunteered Mr Dillinger, but I will admit, he is capable. More capable than Nathan, certainly."
John felt a chill that wasn't from the New York snow. He did not want Harold watching him work. It was an awkward moment, standing next to Kara, feeling his conscience tussle with his pride, and realising that he cared a lot what Harold thought of him. Maybe it was an extension of what he wanted to be for Jessica: a hero, a protector, strong and good. For a short time, working with Harold and Grace, he'd been that person.
Casey left his hotel room, hunched and cautious as he walked along the road, and John was glad to push Harold's presence to the back of his mind. John was calculating the best place to shoot Dillinger and maintain his own cover in front of Kara. The sudden appearance of a second extraction team was a welcome surprise even if it meant a three-way shoot-out, and a hostage in Kara's hands.
Harold kept thankfully quiet in his ear, if he was even listening anymore. That was a relief: John couldn't work and listen to that voice, not when he had Kara at his side and a mission to complete. It would get him, or Casey or Dillinger or all of them killed. When he had a second, he took the earpiece out.
He had a chance to speak with Harold while Kara had some alone time with their hostage. In the men's room of the empty office building they were using as a base, he slipped in the earpiece, found a new and unnamed contact in his call log and dialled it.
"Mr Reese," Harold said on the first ring.
John leaned against the bathroom wall and stared at his own reflection. "Reel Dillinger in," he said. "I nearly had to shoot him this afternoon."
"I'm afraid I don't have many options right now," Harold said. "It's him or nobody, and he did pull Casey out of trouble."
It occurred to John that he could go to the library right now, perhaps find Casey, certainly find Harold and interrogate him. He pushed his fingers against his eyelids, trying to sort the tangled strings of his life that had suddenly ensnared.
"Is this how it works?" he asked, surprised at how tired his voice was.
Harold sounded puzzled. "I'm not sure what you're referring to."
"You keep Jessica safe, and it gives you leverage over my missions." John weighed the possibilities up in his mind: would he betray his country to protect Jessica? Absolutely. Without a second thought. Harold must know that. "And then you extend the same deal to Casey." It was perfect. No wonder the ISA had tried to blow Nathan and Harold up.
Harold was silent for a long time. Outside the bathroom, John heard the Scottish man gurgle. Kara was back at work.
"Mr Reese," Harold said eventually. "I help Jessica because she needs help. I would do so regardless of her friendship with you. I will continue to do so, should you decide to kill Mr Casey. I help Jessica for Jessica's sake, not yours." The kindness in his voice, so unexpected, was at the same time an excoriating thing for John. He felt filthy, tired and hopeless, but he turned the earpiece off and went through the door to help Kara torture their prisoner.
The mission was difficult, and even more so with the sensation of Harold watching over John's shoulder, though he didn't hijack John's earpiece again. While he worked, he turned over options to get Casey clear. Casey wasn't the first target he'd managed to secrete away under Kara's nose, but he had to be much more careful, knowing that Harold and Dillinger could not be exposed.
He caught up with Casey outside the home of the man who was forging him new papers. By then, John had almost convinced himself that Harold was no longer eavesdropping, but when he drew his gun on the kid, he heard a soft noise on the earpiece. It wasn't a gasp, but it was a definite presence.
He was watching Casey manoeuvre the pliers in his mouth with a doubtful expression when Harold said, "I take it this is not your first time diverting a target."
His voice was odd, words spilling out loosely with emotionality that John hadn't heard before. He wondered if Harold was drunk.
"I'm not putting a bullet in a scared kid who did nothing wrong." Whatever else you might think of me, he added silently. On the asphalt in front of him, Casey sat cross-legged and sweating as he wiggled a molar loose.
"I'm glad," Harold said. "For Mr Casey's sake and yours. It's not that I doubt your integrity, you understand. Just that I am a realist. Not an Impressionist."
John frowned, uncertain about where this conversation was going.
"It's a joke," Harold said hurriedly into the sudden silence. "Oh, damn, I've ruined the punchline, haven't I? Grace will be appalled. The point is that there I'm well aware, Mr Reese, that your work requires you to do things you regret. And that those things take a toll on the person you are." His voice wandered, as if he were distracted, and John heard the thud-clunk of a car crossing the metal plates of a parking garage.
Casey had the first molar out now. He swayed where he sat, clammy and green with a trickle of blood at one corner of his mouth. John used a Ziploc bag to pick up the tooth, then pushed the pliers back into Casey's fumbling hands, guided them back towards his mouth.
Harold, meanwhile, kept talking in a long, rambling sentence interspersed with traffic sounds. "And yes, Mr Reese. I know you want to reassure me that you are just fine, but I am starting to believe that it's been a long, long, long…" He paused, evidently thinking of how long exactly he meant. "… long time since you really understood what those words are supposed to mean."
A horn blared over the line, and tires screeched. John winced. "Not sure you should be behind the wheel right now, Finch."
"S'that Harold?" Casey said. One side of his face was starting to swell. "S'he okay?"
"Why wouldn't he be?" John said.
In his ear, Harold made a wandering protest. "I am perfectly fine, Mr Reese, and I'll thank you not to point out any irony you think you may see in my statement because I think under examination you'll find that…" John cut the call off.
At his feet, Casey held up the pliers. "Take out the other one for me, and I'll tell you."
John didn't have to – he could point out that if Casey didn't have the fortitude to pull his own teeth, he wasn't likely to survive going on the run – but he'd lingered too long in this alley and he needed to get moving to ostensibly dispose of Casey's body. He took the pliers and put Casey in a headlock, pressed hard against John's thigh. Casey squeezed his eyes shut and opened his mouth. The second molar was out in the matter of a few minutes, and then safely tucked away.
When it was done, Casey tore strips from his t-shirt. While he packed them into his mouth, he muttered indistinctly. John thought he caught the name 'Dillinger'.
"What about Dillinger?" John said. Casey's face was already swelling, as hamster-like as Kara had dubbed him when they first got this assignment. He scrambled back to his feet, swaying slightly, and John steadied him, gripping his shoulder. When his colour came back, John passed him his duffel bag.
"Tell me about Dillinger," John said again.
"He drugged Harold," Casey said, thickly though the wadding in his mouth. "The laptop – Harold set up a sale, to get some of the heat off me. Dillinger decided to cash in so he doped up Harold's tea and stole the laptop for himself." He slung the bag over his shoulder. "He was meeting someone in Central Park."
"Get moving," said John, and left him.
He made it from Red Hook to Central Park in time to find Harold standing in the middle of a path, an uncertain expression on his face. Harold walked away, moving between the trees with awkward steps, and John trotted to catch up with him. When John caught him by the elbow, Harold jumped and winced with pain.
"Mr Reese?" he said. He moved stiffly and his reaction time was very sluggish. Pentobarb, John thought.
"How much did he give you?" John said, disturbingly angry about this betrayal. He hadn't considered Dillinger a great soldier, but he'd seemed competent and, if not loyal exactly, then well-paid enough to stay loyal.
Harold shook his arm free and kept walking. His steps were so loud in the night, feet dragging on branches and rustling dead leaves. It made John twitch.
"I didn't want him on this mission," Harold said. "We had nobody else to send, and Nathan… Nathan has been particularly annoying lately. It seems that Mr Dillinger decided to cut his losses and seek other revenue streams."
"What's he selling?" John said. He pushed himself ahead of Harold, so that he could at least clear a path for him, lead them towards safer, quieter territory.
Harold didn't answer, apart from an occasional sound of pain as his foot came down awkwardly or he wrenched his back.
"Okay," said John. "Can you at least tell me what it's worth? It'll give me an idea of the level of threat we might be facing."
Light from a street lamp fell between the trees, and John saw that Harold's mouth was grim, his eyes shadowed and hollow.
"That bad, huh." John heard voices at a point where the walking path made a crossroads. "Wait here, I'll go and scout." He walked forward through the trees, careful and quiet. He watched Dillinger negotiate with a group of Chinese men.
"You idiot," John said softly. "How do you think this comes out for you?"
He heard Harold's steps behind him, and was about to turn to admonish him when there was a gunshot, the quiet zip of a suppressor. Dillinger folded downwards with a surprised expression and a spreading red stain on his shirt.
John moved instinctively: identify the position of the shooter, get as much cover as possible, make sure Harold is safe. As he moved, John wondered briefly why he'd made this choice rather than take the shooter on himself, then he realised that if he caught a bullet, it would expose Harold, leaving him with no protection. He grabbed Harold by the shoulders and pushed him against a tree trunk, covering him with his own body. He was armoured, Harold was not. He felt Harold's breath on his neck, rapid and short with fear or pain.
Another shot, and John peered out from behind the tree trunk: the Chinese men scurried for their van while the shooter picked them off. The car accelerated away with a squeal of tires. The shooter appeared out of the darkness, took up a tactical stance – military-trained, John noted, not police – and fired. It was a tricky shot but the driver's head flicked back with the impact and the van left the ground in that slow-motion way of all traffic accidents. It rolled over and over, crumpling with each turn, eventually landing on all four wheels with a bounce.
The air rang with silence after the crash, then John heard the footsteps of the shooter. He kept Harold still, pinned to the tree with his own body.
Lying flat on his back, Dillinger moaned, the sound bubbling in his throat. Harold shifted against John, crunching leaves underfoot.
"Stay still!" John hissed in his ear. Out on the path, the footsteps stopped. John held his breath and slowly eased his gun from his holster. Pressed against his cheek, he could feel Harold's mouth opening to speak. John put a hand over Harold's mouth and met his eyes. He shook his head gently, and Harold blinked. The footsteps moved again, this time towards where Dillinger lay. The shooter spoke to Dillinger, words low and undecipherable. Harold's breaths came fast and panicked against John's palm; he was trying to move, to help Dillinger, but John was too strong. He held Harold in place, kept eye contact with him as the shooter fired twice more into Dillinger's chest. Harold's body jumped against John's as if he were the one being shot, and he squeezed his eyes shut. John didn't know why, but he rested his cheek on Harold's forehead and whispered to him, nonsense words that didn't mean anything.
"It's okay," he said under his breath. "It's okay – it was quick, he didn't know."
When John was certain the shooter had left, he moved back from the tree. Harold pushed at his chest to get free, stepped awkwardly to the side and was violently sick in the undergrowth. John kept his palm on the small of his back to stop him tipping over.
They had a fight when Harold refused to leave Dillinger dead in the park. John explained, patiently at first and then in frustration, that the shooter would be back soon, probably with a clean-up crew to go over the site for intel and prep the bodies for disposal.
"I won't leave him," Harold said, again. "For one thing, I can't have them tracing his work back to me. To the numbers. To Grace," he said with emphasis.
John found this logic deeply suspect. Harold was definitely in shock. Still, it was faster and easier to agree with him than to lift him bodily from Dillinger's side and carry him away. At the edge of the park he hotwired an electrician's van and, ignoring Harold's offers of assistance, hefted Dillinger's body into the back.
Harold, not to be deterred, climbed awkwardly into the passenger seat, and, too tired to argue with him, John simply drove away from the park and into the night.
As he drove through the darkness, he glanced at Harold's face, washed pale by the streetlights. Dillinger's death, Casey's flight, these had all taken a toll on him tonight. He was probably still full of Pentobarb, and anyway, how long had it been since the surgery Nathan had mentioned? John had to concentrate to add up the dates.
"Let me call Grace," he said eventually into the silence. "I can drop you off, go and take care of this myself."
Harold sat up straighter in his seat, his face sharper and more focused suddenly. "No," he said firmly. "I don't want her to know anything about this."
"She didn't know you were working this number? I thought that wasn't your decision to make? Isn't that the agreement you two worked out?"
Harold's expression was one of misery: regret and anguish and guilt, so intense and painful that John realised he'd forgotten that Harold was, after all, a civilian. This was very much not a thing he'd expect a civilian to cope with. He reached out and took Harold's hand, cold in his own. He squeezed it, laid it gently back in Harold's lap.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry. Let's just get this thing done."
The night took on a dream-like atmosphere. They had an odd conversation while driving, about the best places to bury a body this close to the city. Harold's ideas were largely theoretical, but there was some overlap with John's more practical experience.
Harold sat in the open door of the van while John cut into the ground with a shovel and started work. After ten minutes of digging, he slipped out of his jacket and passed it to Harold, then rolled his sleeves up. The earth was hard and packed with clay, and he was soon sweating.
"I didn't like him," Harold said. "He didn't deserve to die, but it feels disingenuous not to admit that I was not fond of him." He was waxy-pale, with a sheen of sweat over his forehead despite the cold. Still shocky, John thought.
John leaned on the shovel handle while he stared at the body, grey and still in the van. "He knew what he was getting into," he said. "Don't blame yourself for his stupidity." Harold's bewilderment only pointed out the vast differences between John and Harold's worlds. This – being out in the middle of the night, digging a grave for a man too foolish to save his own life – was a mundane situation for John, and yet a life-changing one for Harold.
"Tell me about Daniel Casey," he said, to change the subject, but Harold didn't answer. John pushed the shovel into the clay and heaved out another cubic block of earth.
Eventually, Harold spoke into the quiet. "You let him go."
John stood two feet deep, making calculated progress on the grave. The edges were clean and perpendicular, unlikely to collapse inwards.
"He wasn't the first, either," Harold said. "You have an established escape route, contacts, a planned destination. Why?"
John considered it, while he piled dirt outside the hole. "It was the right thing to do," he said. "I signed on to make my country safer, not to clean up the agency's mistakes."
"They don't deserve you." Harold rubbed his forehead, somehow leaving a smudge of dirt there, despite never actually touching the mud. "And you deserve better than them."
The hole was shoulder-deep now, and the cold from the damp earth was seeping through John's sweat-soaked shirt. "Maybe not at the start," he said. "But we're all in the same bed now." He heaved himself carefully up onto the edge of the grave, and then up onto his feet. Dillinger's skin was cold as John patted him down for identifying documents, though rigor was still some hours away. John took his wallet and weapons, his earpiece and phone, and then paused. It would be normal practice to shoot the victim in the face, take his fingerprints, destroy his teeth. It was an ugly process, and messy.
"Don't," said Harold, who apparently brought prescience to grave digging parties. "Nobody will find him out here – let him rest with dignity."
"You're the one obsessed about the evidence trail," John said. He leaned against the van. The chill in the air was beginning to goose-pimple his skin where he'd sweated through his shirt.
Harold leaned forward as if to rest his head in his palms, then jerked with obvious pain and closed his eyes instead as if simply not seeing the open grave would make it not exist.
John reached down and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "We're almost done here." He wrapped Dillinger in an old blanket he'd found in the van, lifted the body in his arms and rolled it into the grave. He picked up the shovel and went to the pile of earth, then glanced back at Harold.
"You want to say some words before I finish this?" he asked. It wasn't his practice – it wasn't as if he believed in anything anymore – but Harold was new to this.
Harold gave a tiny shake of his head. "That seems to be a thing people do to give themselves peace," he said. "I can't imagine what would work here."
John nodded and started to fill in the hole. When he was done, and was stamping down the cut pieces of scraggly grass-covered turf, he turned to find Harold standing very close to him.
"You okay?" he asked. Harold was still pale and definitely wobbly on his feet. He'd taken off his glasses, and his eyes were ridiculously huge.
Harold reached out for John's shirt to pull him close, pressing their bodies together despite the mud all over John's clothes. John didn't realise what was happening until Harold kissed him with an open mouth, furious and desperate.
John started, then cradled Harold's jaw gently as he pulled them apart again. Harold's skin was very cold.
Harold breathed heavily and his fingers clenched in the fabric of John's filthy shirt. "I should apologise for that, but I'm not going to," he said, his voice uneven. "I needed to touch someone alive, and you are so very alive, John."
"It's okay," John said. "It's okay." His hand still rested on Harold's jaw, and his fingers moved carefully against the stubbled skin. He thought of all the things Harold had seen him do today, and wondered how Harold could even imagine touching John. It left him with nothing to say, so instead he brushed at a smear of mud he'd left on Harold's cheek. It seemed fitting somehow that he left more dirt behind than he removed.
"We'd better get moving," he said, eventually. "You need to get out of the cold, and we both need a shower." John knew this reaction, he'd seen it before, he'd felt it before: an intense emotional response was entirely normal in this entirely abnormal situation. John could see Harold through this, get him home safely, make sure he was clean and warm. It went a little way towards making up for the things Harold had seen him do today.
Harold was quiet in the passenger seat while they drove back to the city, but gave directions to an address where they could clean up. The townhouse was expensively and stylishly furnished, with Wedgewood blue walls, but still had an impersonal, unlived-in feel. When John got back from ditching the van, Harold still stood in the middle of the hall, swaying slightly and staring at nothing.
"Come on," John said, and pushed him gently towards the bathroom. Bathrooms, as he discovered. Once Harold was facing the shower cubicle, he gathered himself.
"Thank you, Mr Reese. For your help tonight, and…" He paused, searching for the right words, rubbing at the streak of mud on his cheek. "For your understanding. There are clothes for you in the guest bedroom." Then he closed the door, definitively but politely, in John's face.
John peeled himself out of his ruined suit, and called to check in with Kara.
"You ditched that body yet?" Kara said.
Over the line, John heard a man whimpering. "Just cleaning up now," he said. "You okay? That sounds dramatic."
Kara laughed, a delighted sound. "Oh, that's my boo. Turns out he's a New Yorker after all, so I dropped in unexpectedly."
The whimpers increased in volume and John frowned. "Is that a good idea after this op? It was messy enough without you having another body to deal with."
"Don't worry," said Kara. "I won't kill him. He loves this. Practically begged me to give it to him hard. Listen." She did something and the whimpers became a sudden wail of anguish. "Shut up! Do you want me to leave? I can just stop, right now."
Over the line, John heard sobbing, then the man said, "No, please, please stay. I'll be good, I'll be good."
"See, John? We're both being very good, I promise."
John spared a thought for the nameless idiot who had gotten himself tangled up in Kara's idea of pleasure, then let it go. "Well, enjoy yourself." He hung up, turned the faucet in the shower, and stepped under the scalding water. His life was complicated enough. He didn't have the energy to deal with Kara's mind games.
When he came out of the bathroom in a suit that fitted with eerie perfection, Harold stood in the living room, talking on the phone. The room, with its blue walls and perfect cream furniture, felt cold and empty as a museum display.
"This is not a game, Nathan! Dillinger is dead. How long before there's a direct retaliation? This public gamble you've made with Mr Szilard and Doctor Aquino's lives – with Grace's life! – will eventually fail."
John had never heard Harold raise his voice before. Not even when they'd first spoken, when John had plucked the earpiece from Nathan's unconscious body and Harold had no idea what had happened, had he sounded so raw. John walked past to the liquor cabinet, selected two heavy glasses and poured them both a substantial drink.
Harold hung up on Nathan, and started at John's sudden appearance, apparently astonished to find him still here. Then he took the glass John proffered, and, moving gingerly, sat down on the cream daybed in silence.
John sipped his scotch and waited. In one of the pockets of the tailored suit, he could feel Daniel Casey's teeth, snug in their Ziploc bag.
"I am sorry for forcing my attentions on you," Harold said, eventually. "That was unspeakably rude, even allowing for the situation. Please accept my apologies."
John shrugged. "Sure. It's more common than you'd think. If I had a dollar for every graveside tussle I've been caught up in, I'd have…" He calculated. "Thirteen dollars."
Harold did not acknowledge the blithe tone, or take the opening John had given him to change the subject. "I know that you and Nathan have some kind of relationship," he said. "I apologise if tonight impinges on that."
There wasn't really any way to explain what John and Nathan had, nor what John and Jessica were involved in. "How did you put it that day?" John asked. "I've come to realise my life is very far from traditional." Speaking of which. "Is Grace going to be worried about you?" he asked, tentatively.
Harold gave a weak smile and held up his phone, where a long line of notifications were lit up on the screen. They were from Grace, and they grew increasingly frantic, filled with expletives and angry emoji. "I just don't know what to tell her," he said.
John reached for the phone, and Harold released it, after ghosting his thumb over the button to unlock it. John opened the messages and hit redial. Grace picked up on the first ring.
"I am really glad you're not dead, mister, because now I can come around and kill you for not picking up."
"Hey, Grace, it's John. Harold is fine," John said, hurriedly, before he incurred the same wrath that was radiating across the line. "We had a bad night – we lost Dillinger."
He heard Grace's anger dissipate instantly. "Oh, Jesus, John, I'm so sorry. Are you hurt? Is Harold okay? What can I do? Where are you? Should I come over?"
John glanced down at Harold, who still stared at the scotch in his glass. "I'm fine," he said, though he wasn't sure that was the truth. "I think Harold needs a bit of breathing space right now. It's a lot to take in."
Grace exhaled, a long, anxious breath she had obviously been holding onto. "Okay. Sure. I guess you're the expert on this stuff – oh, God, I didn't mean you're a murder expert, I'm sorry. I think – I think you're right. This is a lot. I'm going to have a drink – are you having a drink?"
"We are," John said. "I'll get Harold to call you as soon as he's up to it." He hung up, and pointed a finger at Harold's scotch. "Don't make me lie to Grace," he said.
On the sofa, Harold sighed and sipped his drink. "I didn't like Dillinger," he said, suddenly. "He stole from me, he drugged me, he put Mr Casey at terrible risk, but I can't stop trying to find a way I might have prevented his death."
John was about to explain again that it wasn't Harold's fault, when he heard the sound of a key in the front door, and drew his weapon, moving between Harold and the hall.
"It's only me," Nathan called from behind the living room door. "Tell John not to shoot me."
"I'll consider it," Harold said, grimly.
John holstered the gun and opened the door. Nathan pulled him into a hug, kissing him on the cheek. "That's for keeping Harold safe," he said. Then he planted one on the top of Harold's head, much to Harold's disgust. "And that? Is for never falling for my razzle-dazzle."
Harold snorted and took another sip of scotch, but for the first time tonight he seemed a little brighter.
Nathan walked around the sofa and flopped down beside Harold. "I've been an ass lately, I'm sorry."
"I have too much of a headache to roll my eyes," Harold said. "Please take it as said that I am doing it." He didn't complain when Nathan slung an arm across his shoulder, though. John passed Nathan a glass and sloshed two fingers of scotch into it.
"I'm sorry about Rick," Nathan said. He took a swig of scotch then added, "Well. I'm sorry I hired an idiot, and I'm sorry it got him killed."
Harold's back straightened and John saw the pain of that small movement cross his face. "We got him killed, Nathan."
"No, Harold," Nathan said, his voice patient. "He got himself killed when he stole your code and tried to sell it to the Chinese."
"If you had not pursued this ridiculous publicity campaign in the first place," Harold started, and Nathan groaned.
"I know. I know! But listen: that ridiculous campaign has kept everyone safe thus far. Okay, except for Dillinger, but come on. He tried to sell us out." He leaned back on the sofa and shut his eyes. "I don't want to fight about this. I always knew the loud and public strategy had an expiry date. Not even I can hold the public eye eternally and the moment their attention drifts, the government will try to make all of us disappear. Probably send poor John here to do it, too." He gave John a rueful grin. "I promise I won't hold it against you." There was something darkly cynical about his expression that gave John a chill.
"Don't involve John in this," Harold snapped. "Not with that tone of voice."
Nathan looked askance at this defensive response, then his gaze slipped to John, speculative.
John shifted, unwilling to be a pawn in this argument. The airy room felt suddenly close, crowded as it was with old resentments he had no part in, so he put down his glass and stepped towards the door.
"I'll get going," he said. "Stay safe, both of you."
Harold pushed himself upright, awkward and uncomfortable. "Wait, John, please."
John stopped with one hand on the door. "You know how to get in touch with me if you need to." Then he stepped out into the crisp morning air and left them to their fight.
Chapter Ten // Master Post // Chapter Twelve
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Date: 2019-09-01 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-13 05:37 am (UTC)