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st_aurafinaTitle: Buying the Time on My Knees (Complete)
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: Explicit
Words: 4.5K (this chapter) 87.5K 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 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:
Surrounded by old friends, John learns a new way of working.
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
New York in February was as unpleasant a change from a tropical island as John could imagine, but he stepped off the plane with a pleasant thrill of anticipation. He went straight from the airport to Times Square and found the nearest point to the centre. Once there, he planted himself, standing still in front of the many cameras. The place bustled and teemed with tourists, swirling in every direction, shouting in a dozen languages, and he saw the movement of the crowds like the waves of the ocean, imagined the gaze of the Machine like a ripple of light on the water. For the first time, he felt a solidity to his existence, that the waves moved around him rather than carrying him. He was grounded, and it was a good thing.
"I'm here," he said, after a while. "I'm ready to work."
At the door to the library, he hesitated, his chest suddenly tight. This was it, this was the beginning. It was suddenly a terrifying prospect: he had always imagined being able to help people, part of the reason he had walked away from Jessica so he could help people. It had made him into quite the opposite.
He wanted to start this properly, wanted it so badly that just before he opened the door, he considered retreating and vanishing back into the crowd. Then he scanned the building façade, found the camera that he was certain would be there, and watched the red diode blink slowly. Jessica was here, Harold was here. Nathan believed in him, as did Grace. He was wanted and respected and perhaps he was even loved. He could do this.
Harold waited for him at the top of the stairs, looking worriedly down. He was in his waistcoat, sleeves rolled up, and when John appeared through the door, it was just in time to see that expression of concern turn to a pleased smile. The rightness of being here pulled at John, gathered him up and pushed him forward at a run.
"Welcome home, Mr Reese. I wasn't expecting you immediately - I thought you might take some time to recover from the jetlag," Harold said with a smile, as John came up the stairs two at a time. When John got to the top, he took Harold's face in his hands and kissed him, breathed with him, let the final piece of himself fall into place, solid and safe and good.
"Well," Harold said, when John finally let go. He stroked John's hand against his cheek. "Or we could do that, I suppose."
It took a while to settle, even with Harold at his back, in his ear, in his bed, it still took a while for John to completely understand what it meant to save lives every day, to really appreciate how good it would feel. And how difficult it would be to take care not to hurt anyone. Difficult but fulfilling.
The first number, Diane Hansen, was a tricky prospect, an awkward push-pull between his old life and his new. John overshot a few decisions, took actions that Harold found too drastic (and got worryingly, confusingly upset about.) They argued over the guns, they argued over Detective Fusco, and each time, as John was certain that he'd made a ruin of the situation, Harold had taken him by the shoulders and brought their faces close.
"You'll find your way to it, I promise." He kissed John's knuckles, which he had only just taped together again after a fight. "Gentleness is not a thing you've been allowed to work with for a long time, but it is in you. I've seen it."
John leaned his head against Harold's and closed his eyes. Harold was right. John could adapt. He was pretty sure he could adapt. At least he could try until his energy was spent.
He talked it over with Jessica, once Diane Hansen had been escorted to an interview room with a number of FBI agents.
"Harold says it's going to take a bit to put the brakes on," he said, sitting cross-legged at her coffee table, which was spread with opened boxes of take-out. "He doesn't like the violence, and I get that, but there's this point where training takes over, where I just find the fastest way to the solution. And the fastest way gets kinda bloody."
Jess sat on the sofa, her own legs crossed, comfy in tracks, hair dragged into a pony-tail. "Makes sense," she said. "Imagine a surgeon having to work without a scalpel. In a crisis you're going to reach for the familiar strategies at first. But you're smart, you'll figure out new ways."
Worried, John filled his mouth with chicken and chewed.
Jess's place was small but secure; John approved of the doorman, and the elevator, which required a key.
"I was going to be so noble," Jess said, the first time he came to visit. "I was going to tell Harold I would go it alone, but…" she waved at the walls to express her amazement at NYC rental costs.
"It's okay," said John, leaning a hip on the sofa so she could squeeze past to the kitchen to make coffee. "You don't have to justify anything to anyone."
They weren't together, not as a couple at least, not at the moment, but John thought that the friendship they had put together was stronger anyway. Better, definitely, than the tenuous, fragile connection they'd kept alive through Jess's marriage.
"It's not that I don't want to fuck your brains out," Jess said, the second time he came over. He lay on the sofa with her that time, resting his head in her lap while they watched TV. John had a lot of TV to catch up on, it turned out, and Jess was taking the opportunity to bring him up to date.
Jess played with his hair while they watched some show with zombies. "You are definitely high on the list of people whose brains I long to fuck out, if only I had the urge to fuck anything," she said.
John rolled onto his back and caught her hand so he could kiss it. "Don't get me wrong: I loved having my brains fucked out. But I love this too. I love having time, and I love being here."
He was walking in another killer's footsteps, investigating the hit on the Whitaker family when a realisation washed over him, wave-like, warm and sweetly euphoric. You do not have to do these things anymore. Ever. What this killer had done, John would never have to do. Never make a family disappear, never kill a child. Never torture a parent. Never again.
He had to stop a moment, stare at the sky until his pulse slowed down and his eyes stopped watering. Then he was back at it, undoing as best he could the harm that had been done to Theresa Whitaker.
For that reason, and others, this case was difficult. Harold came too close to danger for John's peace of mind. And ultimately, there was no recompense large enough to make up for the murder of Theresa's family. Still, the profound rightness of it, the fact that he was a part of this, it made his head spin.
"You're happy," Harold said, that night. He touched a finger to the corner of John's eye, followed it with a kiss. "I like the way it looks on your face."
John rolled on his side to watch Harold. "I think I am happy?" he said, and was surprised when it came out as a question.
Harold laughed softly, kissed John's mouth before he'd finished, so that John felt the laughter against his skin. "I should be sad that you're not entirely sure what happy is," Harold said. "But I can't be, not when you glow like this."
Harold said these things, these strange and lovely things that made John curl towards him in the bed, made him want to be as close as possible to the person who believed in him this much.
"I should report you for lurking," Jess said when he joined the queue behind her at the food truck, but she was smiling. She was in Paediatrics this week, so her scrubs were pale blue with little teddy bears on them. Standing in the queue, looking at the nape of her neck above the line of frolicking bears gave John an inappropriate frisson of arousal.
Jess got herself coffee and a croissant that she nibbled on while he made his order, then she walked with him to a seat in the plaza outside the hospital doors.
"You're working a number, aren't you?" she said. "I'm starting to see it now." She brushed the back of his hand where it rested on the glass table. "You have this look when you're protecting someone. Like a guard dog on patrol. Ears pricked, eyes keen."
"Like a guard dog?" John said, mock-horrified, just as Harold said, in his ear, "I do see the similarities, actually. In the most complimentary way, of course."
John realised he was staring at Jess as a goofy grin started to spread across his face. He was here, he was busy, he was using his skills to make people safe. Harold was nearby and always at his back with support. Jess was alive and got to do the job she loved and excelled at. To distract himself he reached out and snatched the corner of her croissant, broke it off and ate it.
Jess let him, then took a bite herself. "Don't worry; it's only obvious to someone who knows you." She looked him up and down, measuring. "Otherwise, you look –" she pursed her lips "– good."
John brushed crumbs off his lapel, preening a little, to make her laugh. "I'm gathering intel," he said. "We're just starting out."
Harold spoke up in his ear. "Jessica might have intel of her own on our number."
John brought up Megan Tillman's image on his phone and showed it to Jess.
"I know she's one of the ER doctors," said Jess. "I haven't had much contact with her – only when we get an ER referral or post-op patient. She's good. Intuitive, takes the right kind of risks. Listens to her nurses, which says a lot about how she practices." She sipped her coffee and gazed over John's shoulder, thoughtful. "It's pretty easy to score shifts in ER; nurses are always happy to trade out. And nobody gossips like an ER nurse, it shouldn't be too hard to find out if she's in trouble."
"No," John said, automatically, and immediately regretted it because under the table, Jess landed a kick right on his shin. "Ow!" he said, and rubbed his leg. Even with rubber-soled shoes, that hurt.
"Harold, between us, who has the higher chance of gathering intel in a busy ER?" Jess said, holding her croissant out of John's reach. "A nurse or an ex-spy?"
Harold was sensibly silent on this matter. John felt a little abandoned.
"There's injured everywhere, most of them spilling out bodily fluids of various kinds – how are you with projectile vomit and sick babies, John? – then there's angry people, scared people, gangbangers, criminals. There's cops and paramedics and firemen, and that's on a quiet night. I've worked ER," she said. "I know how to stay safe. I know where the guards are, to duck when the bullets fly, how to talk down angry, high or drunk patients waving guns. I think I'm okay doing a little undercover so you can help a doctor."
John held up his hands in surrender. "You're right. I'm sorry. I thought I was out of the habit of being over-protective. Maybe guard dog duty brings out the worst in me."
Jess was still angry, he could tell, but hopefully his apology mollified her a little.
Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it, then sighed and stood. "I have to get back to the ward," she said. "You – " she pointed at John, her voice authoritarian suddenly – "behave yourself."
John grinned at her, mildly turned on by the tone of her voice. "Cross my heart," he said.
She smiled back, and gave him the rest of her croissant. Before she left, she bent down to the ear without the Bluetooth earpiece. "Good boy," she whispered, and ruffled his hair like he was a big, obedient dog.
John sat for a few moments after she left, to eat the croissant and gather his composure.
>Thanks for calling me on my bullshit, John texted later, outside Andrew Benton's apartment. I know perfectly well you can look after yourself. I really was in work mode.
>That's no excuse, he added, later, outside the apartment building where the Toreros were living. I'm just trying to explain. I know you're the expert on staying safe in a hospital. And, honestly, I'm pretty scared of baby vomit.
>Jerk, came the reply this time. And then, You're lucky you're so pretty.
John tucked his phone away with a little smile. Ahead of him, Fusco was scurrying nervously into the building to face the cartel. John let his smile widen into a bare-toothed grin and cracked his knuckles.
Harold had his head pillowed on John's chest, as he idly stroked John's softening cock. "Are you and Jessica going to resume your previous relationship?" he asked, as casually as if he were discussing a cleaning roster or the weather.
John twitched against Harold's touch; he was still sensitive, the sweat still cooling on his skin. They'd had a rare afternoon in bed, and Harold had made the most of it, making John come and come again, delighting in the way he responded, even when he was begging off from exhaustion.
"Uh," John said, and then, "Nghh," as Harold tightened around him, squeezed experimentally.
Harold propped awkwardly up on one elbow to kiss him on the cheek, sweet and tender, and as unlike what he was doing to John's cock as could be imagined. "I felt it was only fair to clarify things between us. You are very welcome to see other people – were you aware that I did?"
How was he getting hard again? John thrust upward into Harold's circling fingers and thumb. "Sure, ngh. I thought – with Grace."
"Among others," Harold said, and bit John's ear. John moaned and spilled again, a tiny spurt that gave little indication of the pleasure rolling through his body. When his breathing had settled and he could see again, he took Harold's hand and held it, so he couldn't be distracted again.
"Why did you tell me that now?" he asked, into the quiet of the room. "Were you worried that I would be angry? Jealous?" He tried to imagine being jealous of Grace, and failed miserably. Grace was a delight, an extrovert, someone who loved closeness and physical contact and the broad differences across the human race. It was difficult to picture her content with only one person.
Harold interlocked their fingers, formed a complicated mesh, then kissed them. "I suppose, if you were to take it badly, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."
"That was quite the spoonful, Harold." John let his head flop back on the pillow. "I don't know. Maybe. If she's happy, I'm happy. I can't ask for more than that."
Grace had been the one who made sure that John had down time, that he didn't work numbers seven days a week. She had come into the library one morning to find John sleeping on the sofa for the eighth day running, and she had made a noise of outrage so loud that it set him on his feet and reaching for a gun.
"Come with me," she said, and held out her hand, imperious. John checked over his shoulder and met Harold's eyes.
Harold shrugged, as if to say that he couldn't intervene. He was like this about Grace a great deal, furiously careful never to step in the way of her decisions. It made John wonder how that hospital bed conversation after the bombing had played out. Grace can't have been pleased at the discovery that Harold had kept her separate from the rest of his life.
In the library, John let Grace haul him up and drag him down to the street. She stopped in front of a long-shuttered boutique and glared into the security camera above the door.
"Look at him," she said, gripping his chin so it faced the camera. "Look how you've run him down."
"Um," said John. He didn't think he looked so bad.
Grace ignored him, expansive in her fury. "He needs rest. I know you learned bad habits from Harold, but real humans need to rest their bodies. Not just for the barest minimum that biology requires, but real, honest rest and recovery. So, one day a week, you're going to either find a number that I can manage on my own, or you're going to keep quiet."
"Grace," said John. He knew how this went. "People will die."
Grace turned his face to look at hers. "More people will die if you burn out," she said. "And don't give me that sad, noble expression. You're not a racehorse; you don't have to run until your heart explodes."
John had just been telling himself that he was fine, that he could handle this pace easily, that it was so much gentler than his work for the CIA. This must have shown on his face because Grace let go her grip on his chin and cupped his cheek instead.
"Oh, honey. Just because this is better than before does not mean you have to accept it wholesale, okay?" She wrapped her arms around him, and after a confused moment, he returned the gesture.
Grace let him go, and took his hand again. "Come on, I'll take you out for lunch."
Being taken out for lunch by Grace usually meant getting food from a random food truck and sitting down to eat it in a place that interested her. A lot of times, this meant Central Park, either crowd watching or at some event that had caught her attention. As this became a weekly tradition, John saw a lot of lunchtime theatre, amateur art displays and free musical performances. In early spring, he spent an afternoon with Grace in Queens, strolling under sweeping cherry trees.
"Isn't it amazing how many shades of pink you can see? We need more words for pink." Grace said. "There aren't as many trees here as there are in Brooklyn, but they let you get right up under the blossoms." To demonstrate, she stood with a low-hanging spray trailing over one shoulder. "Isn't it beautiful? Like being inside a cloud just as the sun goes down." She reeled him in so the blossoms brushed against his skin, fragrant and delicate. He breathed in the perfume, watched the dappled light dance on the two of them.
This was unlike anything he'd experienced in the past decade: a quiet moment of beauty for beauty's sake. Something shared with a friend, uncomplicated and easy. He closed his eyes and let the petals fall on his face. Beside him, Grace laughed with the delight of it all, and John felt shadows fall away. Not all of them – that would never happen – but more and more as time went on, the further he got from the agency.
When John got back to the library, Harold brushed the remaining petals from his shoulders.
"I see you had a festive time." There was no judgement in his voice, no disapproval, but those things were scrupulously absent, John thought, as if they'd been carefully erased from Harold's voice. He felt a prickle of worry, and even that was an easier thing, because the worry was for Harold, not about an immediate threat.
"It was interesting," he said, keeping his voice carefully light. "Here, bought you a peace offering." He passed Harold a packet of tea he'd picked up from one of the vendors, a brown paper envelope stamped with a duck. "Look, it even has a bird on it."
Harold took it the parcel and turned it over to read the label. "A peace offering is not required, Mr Reese."
John didn't say anything about the overly formal greeting. He sat down on the sofa. "Kinda feels like it is," he said. "But I'm not sure why, after everything you said about seeing other people."
Harold sat down suddenly beside him. "I know. I know. I'm as surprised as you. I thought I would be so sanguine about you getting close to Grace."
John took pity on him, slipped an arm across his shoulder. "We really are just friends, Harold."
"I'm glad that you're friends, I really am," Harold said. "But I can't help thinking that should you – the two of you – become something more, then, well." He paused a moment, then spoke quickly, tumbling the words out before his courage gave up. "If that were to happen, and if the two of you were comfortable with the idea, I would like to be a part of it."
Harold's body was tense, John could feel it all along his shoulders, where John's arm rested. "I mean, I can't speak for Grace," he said, gently stroking Harold's arm. "But I'm not hating that suggestion." Then he grinned, and put his hand on Harold's knee suggestively. "What happened to that spoonful of sugar with the difficult discussions?" he said.
"That would be lovely, Mr Reese," Harold closed his eyes with an appreciative sigh and leaned back on the sofa, legs slightly apart. "If you would be kind as to oblige."
John woke to the chirrup of a text coming in, then another on Harold's phone next to it. Beside him, Harold was still asleep, rolled on his good side, one knee propped on a memory foam pillow. They'd only been home for a few hours after getting their number safely onto a plane, and it had been a rough thirty-six hours before that.
John stretched an arm over Harold's sleeping form and grabbed his own phone. The text was from Grace. Perpetually a morning person – "Not really, but the light, you know?" – she had been getting the majority of calls when a new number came in. John wondered what her sketch had been for this one: he was building a little collection, tucking each one away in the front cover of a book on the Impressionists.
>I GOT ANOTHER ONE, she said, and then Oops! Shouting! Sorry! and the blushing emoji.
John called her, and when she answered, he heard traffic in the background. She was a little out of breath.
"Hey!" she said. He heard her heels on the road, crisp and purposeful. "I know you guys had a late night. Let me head to the library and get this one puzzled out. I can start the basics, at least."
"Thanks," said John. "We could use the sleep."
Harold shifted against him, blinking awake. John ran a finger down his back and over his hip; Harold reached up and caught his hand, squeezed it.
"We could use the sleep, could we?" Harold said, his voice hoarse.
John bent to kiss his shoulder blade, moved up his back to the base of his neck, breathed air warm and ticklish over his collarbone. He felt happy, a warm and energetic kind of happy, knowing there would be a person to save, knowing he was with someone he loved and who loved him back.
"We could use the sleep," he said, against Harold's skin. "Later." He moved his hand, still wrapped in Harold's, over Harold's belly and down to his cock, warm and hard under the blankets.
Harold groaned and thrust against him. "Later," he agreed, reaching for John, pulling him close to kiss him.
It wasn't really so much later – after all, a new number meant a new person in danger – but John slept a few more hours, this time with his head on Harold's chest and Harold's fingers in his hair. When he woke, he felt better rested, his muscles easy and relaxed against Harold's body.
"Good morning," said Harold. He gently stroked the hair at the nape of John's neck, smoothing the short hair there. "Grace has deciphered the name of our new number. Are you ready to go to work?"
John sighed and stretched his legs under the blankets, warm next to Harold's. "Always," he said. "What's up first?"
Harold showed him a photo of a woman, slender and stylishly, if conservatively, dressed. "She's a therapist," he said. "I think it's time you dealt with some of your issues. I've made an appointment for you this afternoon."
John pushed himself upright and took the phone from Harold. "Doctor Caroline Turing," he said, looking at the image, assembling his cover identity in his mind, getting ready to work. "She doesn't look like she's going to be trouble."
Chapter Sixteen // Master Post
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: Explicit
Words: 4.5K (this chapter) 87.5K 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 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:
Surrounded by old friends, John learns a new way of working.
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
New York in February was as unpleasant a change from a tropical island as John could imagine, but he stepped off the plane with a pleasant thrill of anticipation. He went straight from the airport to Times Square and found the nearest point to the centre. Once there, he planted himself, standing still in front of the many cameras. The place bustled and teemed with tourists, swirling in every direction, shouting in a dozen languages, and he saw the movement of the crowds like the waves of the ocean, imagined the gaze of the Machine like a ripple of light on the water. For the first time, he felt a solidity to his existence, that the waves moved around him rather than carrying him. He was grounded, and it was a good thing.
"I'm here," he said, after a while. "I'm ready to work."
At the door to the library, he hesitated, his chest suddenly tight. This was it, this was the beginning. It was suddenly a terrifying prospect: he had always imagined being able to help people, part of the reason he had walked away from Jessica so he could help people. It had made him into quite the opposite.
He wanted to start this properly, wanted it so badly that just before he opened the door, he considered retreating and vanishing back into the crowd. Then he scanned the building façade, found the camera that he was certain would be there, and watched the red diode blink slowly. Jessica was here, Harold was here. Nathan believed in him, as did Grace. He was wanted and respected and perhaps he was even loved. He could do this.
Harold waited for him at the top of the stairs, looking worriedly down. He was in his waistcoat, sleeves rolled up, and when John appeared through the door, it was just in time to see that expression of concern turn to a pleased smile. The rightness of being here pulled at John, gathered him up and pushed him forward at a run.
"Welcome home, Mr Reese. I wasn't expecting you immediately - I thought you might take some time to recover from the jetlag," Harold said with a smile, as John came up the stairs two at a time. When John got to the top, he took Harold's face in his hands and kissed him, breathed with him, let the final piece of himself fall into place, solid and safe and good.
"Well," Harold said, when John finally let go. He stroked John's hand against his cheek. "Or we could do that, I suppose."
It took a while to settle, even with Harold at his back, in his ear, in his bed, it still took a while for John to completely understand what it meant to save lives every day, to really appreciate how good it would feel. And how difficult it would be to take care not to hurt anyone. Difficult but fulfilling.
The first number, Diane Hansen, was a tricky prospect, an awkward push-pull between his old life and his new. John overshot a few decisions, took actions that Harold found too drastic (and got worryingly, confusingly upset about.) They argued over the guns, they argued over Detective Fusco, and each time, as John was certain that he'd made a ruin of the situation, Harold had taken him by the shoulders and brought their faces close.
"You'll find your way to it, I promise." He kissed John's knuckles, which he had only just taped together again after a fight. "Gentleness is not a thing you've been allowed to work with for a long time, but it is in you. I've seen it."
John leaned his head against Harold's and closed his eyes. Harold was right. John could adapt. He was pretty sure he could adapt. At least he could try until his energy was spent.
He talked it over with Jessica, once Diane Hansen had been escorted to an interview room with a number of FBI agents.
"Harold says it's going to take a bit to put the brakes on," he said, sitting cross-legged at her coffee table, which was spread with opened boxes of take-out. "He doesn't like the violence, and I get that, but there's this point where training takes over, where I just find the fastest way to the solution. And the fastest way gets kinda bloody."
Jess sat on the sofa, her own legs crossed, comfy in tracks, hair dragged into a pony-tail. "Makes sense," she said. "Imagine a surgeon having to work without a scalpel. In a crisis you're going to reach for the familiar strategies at first. But you're smart, you'll figure out new ways."
Worried, John filled his mouth with chicken and chewed.
Jess's place was small but secure; John approved of the doorman, and the elevator, which required a key.
"I was going to be so noble," Jess said, the first time he came to visit. "I was going to tell Harold I would go it alone, but…" she waved at the walls to express her amazement at NYC rental costs.
"It's okay," said John, leaning a hip on the sofa so she could squeeze past to the kitchen to make coffee. "You don't have to justify anything to anyone."
They weren't together, not as a couple at least, not at the moment, but John thought that the friendship they had put together was stronger anyway. Better, definitely, than the tenuous, fragile connection they'd kept alive through Jess's marriage.
"It's not that I don't want to fuck your brains out," Jess said, the second time he came over. He lay on the sofa with her that time, resting his head in her lap while they watched TV. John had a lot of TV to catch up on, it turned out, and Jess was taking the opportunity to bring him up to date.
Jess played with his hair while they watched some show with zombies. "You are definitely high on the list of people whose brains I long to fuck out, if only I had the urge to fuck anything," she said.
John rolled onto his back and caught her hand so he could kiss it. "Don't get me wrong: I loved having my brains fucked out. But I love this too. I love having time, and I love being here."
He was walking in another killer's footsteps, investigating the hit on the Whitaker family when a realisation washed over him, wave-like, warm and sweetly euphoric. You do not have to do these things anymore. Ever. What this killer had done, John would never have to do. Never make a family disappear, never kill a child. Never torture a parent. Never again.
He had to stop a moment, stare at the sky until his pulse slowed down and his eyes stopped watering. Then he was back at it, undoing as best he could the harm that had been done to Theresa Whitaker.
For that reason, and others, this case was difficult. Harold came too close to danger for John's peace of mind. And ultimately, there was no recompense large enough to make up for the murder of Theresa's family. Still, the profound rightness of it, the fact that he was a part of this, it made his head spin.
"You're happy," Harold said, that night. He touched a finger to the corner of John's eye, followed it with a kiss. "I like the way it looks on your face."
John rolled on his side to watch Harold. "I think I am happy?" he said, and was surprised when it came out as a question.
Harold laughed softly, kissed John's mouth before he'd finished, so that John felt the laughter against his skin. "I should be sad that you're not entirely sure what happy is," Harold said. "But I can't be, not when you glow like this."
Harold said these things, these strange and lovely things that made John curl towards him in the bed, made him want to be as close as possible to the person who believed in him this much.
"I should report you for lurking," Jess said when he joined the queue behind her at the food truck, but she was smiling. She was in Paediatrics this week, so her scrubs were pale blue with little teddy bears on them. Standing in the queue, looking at the nape of her neck above the line of frolicking bears gave John an inappropriate frisson of arousal.
Jess got herself coffee and a croissant that she nibbled on while he made his order, then she walked with him to a seat in the plaza outside the hospital doors.
"You're working a number, aren't you?" she said. "I'm starting to see it now." She brushed the back of his hand where it rested on the glass table. "You have this look when you're protecting someone. Like a guard dog on patrol. Ears pricked, eyes keen."
"Like a guard dog?" John said, mock-horrified, just as Harold said, in his ear, "I do see the similarities, actually. In the most complimentary way, of course."
John realised he was staring at Jess as a goofy grin started to spread across his face. He was here, he was busy, he was using his skills to make people safe. Harold was nearby and always at his back with support. Jess was alive and got to do the job she loved and excelled at. To distract himself he reached out and snatched the corner of her croissant, broke it off and ate it.
Jess let him, then took a bite herself. "Don't worry; it's only obvious to someone who knows you." She looked him up and down, measuring. "Otherwise, you look –" she pursed her lips "– good."
John brushed crumbs off his lapel, preening a little, to make her laugh. "I'm gathering intel," he said. "We're just starting out."
Harold spoke up in his ear. "Jessica might have intel of her own on our number."
John brought up Megan Tillman's image on his phone and showed it to Jess.
"I know she's one of the ER doctors," said Jess. "I haven't had much contact with her – only when we get an ER referral or post-op patient. She's good. Intuitive, takes the right kind of risks. Listens to her nurses, which says a lot about how she practices." She sipped her coffee and gazed over John's shoulder, thoughtful. "It's pretty easy to score shifts in ER; nurses are always happy to trade out. And nobody gossips like an ER nurse, it shouldn't be too hard to find out if she's in trouble."
"No," John said, automatically, and immediately regretted it because under the table, Jess landed a kick right on his shin. "Ow!" he said, and rubbed his leg. Even with rubber-soled shoes, that hurt.
"Harold, between us, who has the higher chance of gathering intel in a busy ER?" Jess said, holding her croissant out of John's reach. "A nurse or an ex-spy?"
Harold was sensibly silent on this matter. John felt a little abandoned.
"There's injured everywhere, most of them spilling out bodily fluids of various kinds – how are you with projectile vomit and sick babies, John? – then there's angry people, scared people, gangbangers, criminals. There's cops and paramedics and firemen, and that's on a quiet night. I've worked ER," she said. "I know how to stay safe. I know where the guards are, to duck when the bullets fly, how to talk down angry, high or drunk patients waving guns. I think I'm okay doing a little undercover so you can help a doctor."
John held up his hands in surrender. "You're right. I'm sorry. I thought I was out of the habit of being over-protective. Maybe guard dog duty brings out the worst in me."
Jess was still angry, he could tell, but hopefully his apology mollified her a little.
Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it, then sighed and stood. "I have to get back to the ward," she said. "You – " she pointed at John, her voice authoritarian suddenly – "behave yourself."
John grinned at her, mildly turned on by the tone of her voice. "Cross my heart," he said.
She smiled back, and gave him the rest of her croissant. Before she left, she bent down to the ear without the Bluetooth earpiece. "Good boy," she whispered, and ruffled his hair like he was a big, obedient dog.
John sat for a few moments after she left, to eat the croissant and gather his composure.
>Thanks for calling me on my bullshit, John texted later, outside Andrew Benton's apartment. I know perfectly well you can look after yourself. I really was in work mode.
>That's no excuse, he added, later, outside the apartment building where the Toreros were living. I'm just trying to explain. I know you're the expert on staying safe in a hospital. And, honestly, I'm pretty scared of baby vomit.
>Jerk, came the reply this time. And then, You're lucky you're so pretty.
John tucked his phone away with a little smile. Ahead of him, Fusco was scurrying nervously into the building to face the cartel. John let his smile widen into a bare-toothed grin and cracked his knuckles.
Harold had his head pillowed on John's chest, as he idly stroked John's softening cock. "Are you and Jessica going to resume your previous relationship?" he asked, as casually as if he were discussing a cleaning roster or the weather.
John twitched against Harold's touch; he was still sensitive, the sweat still cooling on his skin. They'd had a rare afternoon in bed, and Harold had made the most of it, making John come and come again, delighting in the way he responded, even when he was begging off from exhaustion.
"Uh," John said, and then, "Nghh," as Harold tightened around him, squeezed experimentally.
Harold propped awkwardly up on one elbow to kiss him on the cheek, sweet and tender, and as unlike what he was doing to John's cock as could be imagined. "I felt it was only fair to clarify things between us. You are very welcome to see other people – were you aware that I did?"
How was he getting hard again? John thrust upward into Harold's circling fingers and thumb. "Sure, ngh. I thought – with Grace."
"Among others," Harold said, and bit John's ear. John moaned and spilled again, a tiny spurt that gave little indication of the pleasure rolling through his body. When his breathing had settled and he could see again, he took Harold's hand and held it, so he couldn't be distracted again.
"Why did you tell me that now?" he asked, into the quiet of the room. "Were you worried that I would be angry? Jealous?" He tried to imagine being jealous of Grace, and failed miserably. Grace was a delight, an extrovert, someone who loved closeness and physical contact and the broad differences across the human race. It was difficult to picture her content with only one person.
Harold interlocked their fingers, formed a complicated mesh, then kissed them. "I suppose, if you were to take it badly, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."
"That was quite the spoonful, Harold." John let his head flop back on the pillow. "I don't know. Maybe. If she's happy, I'm happy. I can't ask for more than that."
Grace had been the one who made sure that John had down time, that he didn't work numbers seven days a week. She had come into the library one morning to find John sleeping on the sofa for the eighth day running, and she had made a noise of outrage so loud that it set him on his feet and reaching for a gun.
"Come with me," she said, and held out her hand, imperious. John checked over his shoulder and met Harold's eyes.
Harold shrugged, as if to say that he couldn't intervene. He was like this about Grace a great deal, furiously careful never to step in the way of her decisions. It made John wonder how that hospital bed conversation after the bombing had played out. Grace can't have been pleased at the discovery that Harold had kept her separate from the rest of his life.
In the library, John let Grace haul him up and drag him down to the street. She stopped in front of a long-shuttered boutique and glared into the security camera above the door.
"Look at him," she said, gripping his chin so it faced the camera. "Look how you've run him down."
"Um," said John. He didn't think he looked so bad.
Grace ignored him, expansive in her fury. "He needs rest. I know you learned bad habits from Harold, but real humans need to rest their bodies. Not just for the barest minimum that biology requires, but real, honest rest and recovery. So, one day a week, you're going to either find a number that I can manage on my own, or you're going to keep quiet."
"Grace," said John. He knew how this went. "People will die."
Grace turned his face to look at hers. "More people will die if you burn out," she said. "And don't give me that sad, noble expression. You're not a racehorse; you don't have to run until your heart explodes."
John had just been telling himself that he was fine, that he could handle this pace easily, that it was so much gentler than his work for the CIA. This must have shown on his face because Grace let go her grip on his chin and cupped his cheek instead.
"Oh, honey. Just because this is better than before does not mean you have to accept it wholesale, okay?" She wrapped her arms around him, and after a confused moment, he returned the gesture.
Grace let him go, and took his hand again. "Come on, I'll take you out for lunch."
Being taken out for lunch by Grace usually meant getting food from a random food truck and sitting down to eat it in a place that interested her. A lot of times, this meant Central Park, either crowd watching or at some event that had caught her attention. As this became a weekly tradition, John saw a lot of lunchtime theatre, amateur art displays and free musical performances. In early spring, he spent an afternoon with Grace in Queens, strolling under sweeping cherry trees.
"Isn't it amazing how many shades of pink you can see? We need more words for pink." Grace said. "There aren't as many trees here as there are in Brooklyn, but they let you get right up under the blossoms." To demonstrate, she stood with a low-hanging spray trailing over one shoulder. "Isn't it beautiful? Like being inside a cloud just as the sun goes down." She reeled him in so the blossoms brushed against his skin, fragrant and delicate. He breathed in the perfume, watched the dappled light dance on the two of them.
This was unlike anything he'd experienced in the past decade: a quiet moment of beauty for beauty's sake. Something shared with a friend, uncomplicated and easy. He closed his eyes and let the petals fall on his face. Beside him, Grace laughed with the delight of it all, and John felt shadows fall away. Not all of them – that would never happen – but more and more as time went on, the further he got from the agency.
When John got back to the library, Harold brushed the remaining petals from his shoulders.
"I see you had a festive time." There was no judgement in his voice, no disapproval, but those things were scrupulously absent, John thought, as if they'd been carefully erased from Harold's voice. He felt a prickle of worry, and even that was an easier thing, because the worry was for Harold, not about an immediate threat.
"It was interesting," he said, keeping his voice carefully light. "Here, bought you a peace offering." He passed Harold a packet of tea he'd picked up from one of the vendors, a brown paper envelope stamped with a duck. "Look, it even has a bird on it."
Harold took it the parcel and turned it over to read the label. "A peace offering is not required, Mr Reese."
John didn't say anything about the overly formal greeting. He sat down on the sofa. "Kinda feels like it is," he said. "But I'm not sure why, after everything you said about seeing other people."
Harold sat down suddenly beside him. "I know. I know. I'm as surprised as you. I thought I would be so sanguine about you getting close to Grace."
John took pity on him, slipped an arm across his shoulder. "We really are just friends, Harold."
"I'm glad that you're friends, I really am," Harold said. "But I can't help thinking that should you – the two of you – become something more, then, well." He paused a moment, then spoke quickly, tumbling the words out before his courage gave up. "If that were to happen, and if the two of you were comfortable with the idea, I would like to be a part of it."
Harold's body was tense, John could feel it all along his shoulders, where John's arm rested. "I mean, I can't speak for Grace," he said, gently stroking Harold's arm. "But I'm not hating that suggestion." Then he grinned, and put his hand on Harold's knee suggestively. "What happened to that spoonful of sugar with the difficult discussions?" he said.
"That would be lovely, Mr Reese," Harold closed his eyes with an appreciative sigh and leaned back on the sofa, legs slightly apart. "If you would be kind as to oblige."
John woke to the chirrup of a text coming in, then another on Harold's phone next to it. Beside him, Harold was still asleep, rolled on his good side, one knee propped on a memory foam pillow. They'd only been home for a few hours after getting their number safely onto a plane, and it had been a rough thirty-six hours before that.
John stretched an arm over Harold's sleeping form and grabbed his own phone. The text was from Grace. Perpetually a morning person – "Not really, but the light, you know?" – she had been getting the majority of calls when a new number came in. John wondered what her sketch had been for this one: he was building a little collection, tucking each one away in the front cover of a book on the Impressionists.
>I GOT ANOTHER ONE, she said, and then Oops! Shouting! Sorry! and the blushing emoji.
John called her, and when she answered, he heard traffic in the background. She was a little out of breath.
"Hey!" she said. He heard her heels on the road, crisp and purposeful. "I know you guys had a late night. Let me head to the library and get this one puzzled out. I can start the basics, at least."
"Thanks," said John. "We could use the sleep."
Harold shifted against him, blinking awake. John ran a finger down his back and over his hip; Harold reached up and caught his hand, squeezed it.
"We could use the sleep, could we?" Harold said, his voice hoarse.
John bent to kiss his shoulder blade, moved up his back to the base of his neck, breathed air warm and ticklish over his collarbone. He felt happy, a warm and energetic kind of happy, knowing there would be a person to save, knowing he was with someone he loved and who loved him back.
"We could use the sleep," he said, against Harold's skin. "Later." He moved his hand, still wrapped in Harold's, over Harold's belly and down to his cock, warm and hard under the blankets.
Harold groaned and thrust against him. "Later," he agreed, reaching for John, pulling him close to kiss him.
It wasn't really so much later – after all, a new number meant a new person in danger – but John slept a few more hours, this time with his head on Harold's chest and Harold's fingers in his hair. When he woke, he felt better rested, his muscles easy and relaxed against Harold's body.
"Good morning," said Harold. He gently stroked the hair at the nape of John's neck, smoothing the short hair there. "Grace has deciphered the name of our new number. Are you ready to go to work?"
John sighed and stretched his legs under the blankets, warm next to Harold's. "Always," he said. "What's up first?"
Harold showed him a photo of a woman, slender and stylishly, if conservatively, dressed. "She's a therapist," he said. "I think it's time you dealt with some of your issues. I've made an appointment for you this afternoon."
John pushed himself upright and took the phone from Harold. "Doctor Caroline Turing," he said, looking at the image, assembling his cover identity in his mind, getting ready to work. "She doesn't look like she's going to be trouble."
Chapter Sixteen // Master Post