![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
st_aurafinaTitle: Transfer of Tenancy
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: Mature
Words: 4058
Characters/Pairings: Harold/John, Background Shaw/Root
Warnings/Content: Demonic possession, body horror, broken bones, exorcism, whump with a happy ending
Notes: Written forargylepiratewd for Shipoween 2019
Summary: John is certain that there's something very wrong with Harold, and he's determined to put it right.
Also at the Archive
Things start to go wrong in front of the altar of St Augustine's Church. Their number is Martin Tillison: living rough on the street, obviously mentally ill, and currently holding a knife to Harold's throat.
John doesn't freeze or panic. There's no time for that. Without pausing in his stride, he raises his weapon and places a shot through the middle of Martin's forehead. Martin jerks and drops the knife, leaving Harold with a thin red line across his larynx.
The shot is still ringing in the air when Harold rushes at John down the main aisle, hands outstretched. "No!" he shouts at John, fists clenched, ready to strike. Behind Harold, the man with the knife is in the process of folding downwards, a surprised and oddly elated expression on his face.
John catches Harold by the wrists before their bodies collide. "Easy, Harold. It's okay. He can't hurt you now." He's never seen Harold react like this when they've lost a number. He's often angry, and often angry at John, but that anger is normally frosty cold. John wonders if it's because they're in a church, that this is some late-blooming clue to Harold's true identity, that he was raised a good Episcopalian and is horrified that they've desecrated a sacred place with blood.
Harold blinks, and looks awkwardly over his shoulder at the body. "I thought I saw…" Then he sighs and touches John's chest. "That poor man. I don't know what I saw, Mr Reese." There's a narrow thread of blood puddling into his collar, just above the knot of his tie, but he's otherwise in one piece. John's pulse starts to settle. Harold is alive.
"I know what I saw," John says. "He was about to slit your throat." He steps past Harold and puts a finger to Martin's neck, finds his pulse slowing and hiccupping. John does his job well, and Martin is too far gone for any paramedic to save him, so John does what he's done for soldiers he's known, and squeezes the man's hand, tells him it's going to be all right, stays with him for the last few seconds of his life.
Martin has symbols and prayers drawn on his skin, and the ink is blurring under sweat and smears of blood. John sees crosses of all varieties, Wadjet eyes, runes, stars, and prayers in at least three languages. When he lets Martin's lifeless palm slide away from his, the vivid, cheap blue ink there has transferred to his own skin. He wipes it against his leg. Harold doesn't need to see that. He's going to upset enough at losing a number. John is less troubled: he wishes he could have helped Martin, but not enough to sacrifice Harold.
Harold touches his shoulder and John stands. Poor Harold has blood spattered across his glasses, and John lifts them gently off, cleans them with the corner of his jacket. Sirens are close enough that he can see blue and red lights through the windows.
"I'd like to go home," Harold says, and lets John lead him away.
Things are wrong at home, too. Neither of them wants to touch the other, so they sit in bed, together but distant.
"Why did he do it?" Harold keeps saying. He says it now, knees drawn up under the covers, holding them tight as if keeping himself safe. "Why didn't I realise how sick he was? I could have gotten him the help he needed, before you had to…" He sighs and closes his arms tighter around his legs. "I wish I could have helped him."
Now that the adrenaline has faded, John's body aches, flu-like. The minor wound on Harold's neck has closed, but every time John sees it, his gut clenches. Guilt and misery sit heavy on his chest, at taking the life of someone he was supposed to protect, at letting Harold get so close to danger that John had no choice but to shoot a mentally ill man.
Harold could have died, he tells himself over and over. He can't stop himself imagining it: where would he be, if Harold died? Who would he be? The answer, of course, is nothing. You're nothing without that man, his brain says, and John agrees. He desperately wants to curl up against Harold, to feel him warm and alive against his chest, but he doesn't have the right to ask. Harold eventually settles down on his side and appears to be sleeping, so John tries to do the same.
Sleep is restless and fleeting, and John keeps catching movement out of the corner of his eye. Too much adrenaline. He's half awake when Harold gets out of bed.
"You okay?" John says, words muffled by his pillow, still shaking off unpleasant dream imagery where words erupt on Harold's skin like blood blisters, blue-black, puffy and glistening.
"Yes, but I think I'll do better to just make some tea and work," Harold says. "I can't stop seeing that poor man's face."
John drags himself upright, peeling the sheet away from his clammy, damp skin. "It wasn't your fault," he says.
"It wasn't your fault, either, John." Is Harold's voice sharp? Through the muzzy haze of sleep, John isn't certain. Then Harold sighs, and settles his glasses in place. "Though I know you'll blame yourself for it anyway."
There's a horrible distance between them. Harold stands less than a foot away from him, and yet they might as well be in different rooms. "I'll come and keep you company," John says. At least they can sit close on the sofa, John can put his arm around Harold's shoulders. Make them tea.
Harold shakes his head. "I'm not very good company, I'm afraid. If you don't mind, I'll take the time to catch up on research before I try to sleep again."
John nods, though his stomach lurches, unsettled, as Harold walks away. He tries to settle down to sleep again, waits for the reassuring familiarity of Harold's fingers on a keyboard. Instead, he hears the flick-flick of Harold rifling endlessly through one of his old books.
The next time he wakes, his body slams hard against the mattress, as if he's fallen from a great height. He thinks it's a dream – it has to be a dream – but the bed is still bouncing and beneath him, the sheets are icy cold. Then he realises there's a figure standing silent beside him. In less than a second, he's out of bed, gun pressed to their temple.
It's Harold, his expression shocked and weirdly fascinated. John reacts faster than he can process, pulling the muzzle clear of Harold's head, getting his finger free from the trigger, but still John gives a horrified shout.
"I could have shot you, Harold!" he says. "The hell are you doing, sneaking up on me?" He's angrier than he should be, but there's a horrible fear clawing at his guts, an instinct that is telling him that something is very, very wrong in this room.
Harold stares at John as if he has never seen him before. "I… I'm sorry," he says. John has the strangest feeling Harold is having trouble finding words to express himself.
John's heart is still pounding when he reaches across to cup Harold's cheek in a wordless apology for overreacting. Before he can make contact, John sees Harold flinch from the touch, and his stomach plummets. John's up and out of the bed, grabbing his clothes, his shoes, his gun while Harold watches in silence. He'd take the dog, but poor Bear is hiding in the kitchen, and John doesn't want to upset him any further. Bad enough that his owners are bickering.
He spends the rest of the night at the library, ostensibly cleaning his gear, but by the time Shaw and Root stroll in with coffee and breakfast he's got precious little done. Apparently he spent several hours just staring at the wall, thinking of nothing.
They've fought before, John reminds himself. This will blow over. It's just the stress of losing a number.
The next morning, Harold doesn't say a word when he comes in to work, and every time John tries to approach, tries to make things right for what happened last night, Harold hits a key that drops all the windows on his monitors to stop John from seeing his work. It's a throwback to the early days of working together, before they had found trust. Before they had found intimacy.
John gives up on trying to apologise – though he shouldn't have to apologise, that petty little voice in his head says – and gets on with helping the next number.
Harold stays crisply polite on the phone, every word carefully placed, as courteous as he would be with any stranger. John pushes through as best he can, though he is bristling. His instincts sense danger before he consciously realises, and he's learned to listen to those signals, to the prickle of hair and the creep of skin. They're telling him that things are not normal here, that Harold is not all right. That he's keeping things from John.
It disturbs John more than he expects. He moves through the city working his number, and nothing is okay. His temper is on edge, and every small frustrating thing drives him closer to rage: Fusco is unusually obstreperous and needs a good kick in the guts to get him in line. Locks won't pick and security systems won't disengage. The building super shows up at an inopportune time and John had to invent a lousy cover story for why he's in their number's apartment. His mind, his paranoid agent's mind, suggests Harold is sabotaging him, but that doesn't explain the burnt, sour taste of the takeaway coffee he buys. John throws the cup at the side of the food truck and stalks away.
When he discovers that Shaw is pulling double duty, watching his number as well as keeping an eye on John, his frayed temper snaps.
Shaw shrugs. "I'm just following orders, buddy. Don't blame me for your bad hair day. The important thing is that Mrs," she checks her phone for the name of the number because that's how Shaw rolls, "Bautista makes it home safe tonight."
John snatches her phone, and dodges the sharp jab Shaw immediately follows with. The fight is brief and vicious – Shaw doesn't ever pull her punches, at least that hasn't changed – and they both have bloody noses at the end of it, but John has her phone. She retreats to the end of the alley to drip blood in peace. John opens a line on her phone to the library.
"You know, Finch, if you don't trust me, at least have the decency to say it to my face."
Harold's voice is dry. "Mr Reese, if you have arguments with the way I work, at least have the decency to leave the rest of my team out of it."
Shaw's phone is the second thing John enjoys throwing today, and the sound of glass fracturing is beautifully musical.
He has no explanation for what has happened to Harold, for why Harold has become secretive and cold. Harold is not like that, Harold is forgiving and kind. Harold trusts him at the most basic level. What is affecting Harold, to turn their relationship as sour as that food truck coffee?
He's beating a confession out of Mrs Bautista's abusive boss when the realisation comes to him: that's not Harold. It's just not him. At the church, a vileness crept inside Harold Finch, corrupting him, turning him against John. He slams his fist down one more time, hard enough that bone gives in the man's jaw. It's very satisfying to be able to diagnose the problem.
"Mr Reese!" Harold's voice barks out of the earpiece. "Stop!" Over the line, John can hear Bear barking frantically. The atmosphere sounds a trifle frazzled at the library, which strikes John as hilarious. He smiles, drawing his arm up for one more strike, and this time when Harold speaks, it is low and calm, the way it used to be. The way it should be.
"John, please. Please come back to the library."
It's the first sign John's had that Harold is still in there, and the hope it generates galvanises him. He lets the bloodied, gasping man fall to the sidewalk and wipes his palms on his pants. If there's a way to get the evil out of Harold, John can find it. And if not, well, John has the strength to make sure Harold doesn't hurt anybody else. Harold would want it that way.
John's aware that Shaw is tailing him, but he doesn't care. He's so angry about Harold, about the thing that has infiltrated him, it's difficult to care about anything else. At the library door, though, it occurs to him that he could use a little backup. Who knows what the monster inside Harold has been planning all day. Hiding in the dark. Keeping all his secrets. He wipes his brow and his fingers come away damp, making the blood still on them sticky again.
"I know you're there, Shaw." He picks at the blood under his nails while he waits for her to step out from the shadows.
She stays a careful distance from him. John wonders what poison Harold has been whispering in her ear all day. "What's up, Reese?"
"Whatever he's told you is a lie," John says. "Harold is not a good person anymore. There's something evil inside him. A… a demon." He's surprised at such a fantastical word coming from his own mouth, but it feels right. "A demon," he says again.
She shrugs. "What are you going to do about it?" She's surprisingly calm about John's announcement.
John looks at the blood flaking off his fingers and thinks of the man in the church slowly folding downwards after John drilled a hole through his skull.
"Fix it," he says with growing determination.
It's icy in the library, and John's skin prickles with the chill. Someone's been burning incense, and there's fragrant smoke in the air: odd and chemical, resinous and oily. It catches in John's throat and burns there, despite the cold.
Root stands on the stairs, buried in a thick book with leather-bound covers. She snaps it shut as he passes, and gives him a curious look. John has his fist clenched to deliver a solid punch to her skull if she lets loose with one of her usual insults, but the door slams behind him and Root's head turns in that direction.
"Hey, Root!" Shaw says from the bottom of the stairs. "Miss me?"
John hates the way Root's expression lights up, hates the effortless way she bounds down the stairs to throw herself on Shaw. He can take care of that later, when he's sorted Harold's problem. He stalks forward and the chill of the library parts around him as if his body were a flame.
Harold stands at the end of the hall, lit from behind with light from his monitors. "Mr Reese," he says. "I'm glad you're here." He holds his arm out directly in front of himself, fingers closed in a fist. John's brain screams at him, tells him it's a weapon, tells him to run. It's further proof that Harold is not who he claims to be. John advances down the hallway, ignoring the growing panic inside him.
"Are you going to hurt me, Harold?" John rests his finger easily on his holster, not drawing yet, though he's so hot with anger the cold air is like a sharp slap to the skin. "Are you the killer in our relationship now?"
Harold's smile is sad and small. "No, John. I'm the bait." He opens his fist and from his fingers unspools a string of black beads hung with a small silver crucifix.
John's brain shrieks and he flinches away, tries inexplicably to cover his eyes. While he's processing this abnormal response, he hears a soft dragging noise in the corridor behind him. He wheels, gun drawn, to see a figure crouching low to the floor, busily scratching marks on the floor.
It's Root, scrawling a line of symbols on the linoleum with a thick piece of sidewalk chalk. This is incongruous enough that John doesn't shoot, merely tilts his head to follow her work. When the last one is in place, John is surprised by the push of air against his chest, as if a door has slammed shut.
"I'm so sorry, John," Harold says, as Root starts to chant. Then everything goes black.
The exorcism is as unpleasant as movies promise. Root delivers the ritual, carefully stepping syllable by syllable through Latin incantation as precisely as she does through code.
John is trapped in his chalk circle, the invisible barrier between him and Harold alternately sizzling with cold, or distressingly flesh-like in texture. The rage inside him takes hold of his limbs and walks him like a puppet round the perimeter, runs him at the barrier like a sprinter. John hits it so hard he splits his forehead, and blood trickles down his face. His tongue flicks out hungrily to swipe it up, and it keeps coming out of his mouth, much longer than it should be, until the tip of it brushes the point of his chin. Root's eyes widen, but she doesn't miss a word. Harold's expression is more complex: horror and compassion intermingled. Shaw is completely calm, holding John's gun up and ready, as if putting him down will be easy.
Every word Root says is like a whiplash in his mind. It stings, and John wonders why it's Root and not Harold doing the reading. Harold loves languages and ritual and history. Then a woman's name rips out of his mouth and Harold goes pale.
"Mother misses her little boy," John says. He says it dripping sarcasm. He says it with cruelty, and that, even more than the tongue, makes it clear what kind of what kind of evil is occupying his body.
It prowls the perimeter of the circle, loosing more secrets about Harold's past: they are all treated to a recounting of the day his mother died, the moment he realised his father had forgotten how to drive, his last fight with Nathan.
On the other side of the barrier, Harold's mouth goes tight and pale. John tries to tell him how sorry he is, how much he doesn't want these facts forced upon him, but instead, Grace's voice comes out.
"I know these sessions are supposed to help me through the grief, but I don't feel like I'm grieving," Grace says with John's mouth. "I'm angry. I'm angry all the time. This hurts, and wherever he is I want him to know what this is like, to be left behind by someone you love." This time when John hits the barrier, it's under his own steam. The impact sends him down into blackness again, and it's a relief.
When he wakes, his cheek is pressed flat to an unknown surface, cold and smooth and a grubby cream colour. Pressure crushes his chest, as if a large hand holds him in place. He stares at the paint, recognises the ceiling of the library and then he falls. A bone snaps in his arm when he falls, and the pain is red-hot and cleansing. He focuses on it, shifts his fingers to make the fracture scrape against torn muscle, and the beast that has made a home inside him steps into his vision. It looks like Kara, but a Kara viewed through a dirty window: hazy at the edges, a little grimy in places, hair dry and sparking. It smells like death by fire, cooked meat and char.
"What do you want?" he asks it. "What value can I possibly have, above him?" This is the thing that confuses him. Harold has always been the asset, the person with power and access and ability. John is nothing compared to him.
"What does anyone want?" says the thing. The voice is perfect, except for the odd crackle of static, like the hiss of fat hitting a hot pan. "A good time, lover. A bit of fun. And you have always been a bit of fun, haven't you?"
Realising he's found traction at last, John gives his broken arm a good squeeze. The pain makes him see sparks, and he hears Harold shout at him to stop. Shaw holds Harold at the waist, stops him from rushing into the circle. John tries to show her how grateful he is for that but Root's chanting has reached an apex, and the combination of John's pain and the liturgy makes the demon image of Kara twist and smoke.
"Looks like I'm out of here," it says, and reaches for him. Its kiss is hot and swampy with decay, and John knows he'll be forever rinsing that taste from his mouth. Then all his muscles give out at once and he collapses to the floor. As it dissipates, it whispers to him, "You know how easy it will be to come back, lover. You want me to, don't you? Well, all you have to do is ask."
There is coolness against his skin, and the smell of fresh linen. John opens his eyes, sees the tall narrow windows of one of Harold's safehouses, then closes them again. The next time he wakes, Harold is there with pain meds and a glass of water. John sits up too fast, he's so relieved to see him. He puts out an arm to stop himself from falling and that's when he discovers the fibreglass cast. It's neon green.
"I talked Ms Shaw out of using hot pink," Harold says, perching on the end of the bed. "But to be honest, I hope that wearing something so vivid will mean you have to stay out of the field for a little bit."
Everything is so normal, honest and clean and in focus. It's such a relief that John throws his good arm around Harold's body and buries his face in his chest, breathes the smell of him, feels the familiar texture of vest and shirt against his cheek.
"I'm so sorry," he says to Harold, his voice muffled. "I didn't want to know those things. I wish I could make myself forget them again."
Harold strokes John's hair, his hand warm on the curve of his skull. "John, if it means I have you in one piece, I would broadcast those things to the entire world." A kiss brushes the top of John's head. "Well, maybe not those private things about Grace. But that's not the point. What really matters, John, is that you are the person I love, and you are the person I trust. If you had asked, if you really wanted to know, I'd tell you anything. Quite willingly."
The air rushes out of John in a sound that is halfway a sigh, half a sob. Harold's arms tighten on his shoulders, his lips press against John's head again. John is sagging with relief, at the quiet inside himself, at the clean cool air, and it's all undeserved. He thinks about the way the demon crept inside him, how much of its evil felt natural, like nothing out of the ordinary, and what does that say about the person he is? No wonder that thing could just open a door into his mind. He's flawed in ways that put Harold in danger.
"I know you're going to blame yourself," Harold says into John's hair. "You always do when good things happen after bad. Have you considered the possibility that allowing yourself to accept help might be protective? Knowing that you are worthy of love is a kind of armour in itself. And you are, you know. Loved."
John closes his eyes, relaxes in Harold's arms for a moment. He's not sure he can do what Harold asks of him – he's not sure he can allow himself that luxury – but he knows he will try. The demon believes the worst of him, that was clear enough, but John realises that Harold believes the best. Maybe between the two, he can form a perfect defence.
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: Mature
Words: 4058
Characters/Pairings: Harold/John, Background Shaw/Root
Warnings/Content: Demonic possession, body horror, broken bones, exorcism, whump with a happy ending
Notes: Written for
argylepiratewd for Shipoween 2019Summary: John is certain that there's something very wrong with Harold, and he's determined to put it right.
Also at the Archive
Things start to go wrong in front of the altar of St Augustine's Church. Their number is Martin Tillison: living rough on the street, obviously mentally ill, and currently holding a knife to Harold's throat.
John doesn't freeze or panic. There's no time for that. Without pausing in his stride, he raises his weapon and places a shot through the middle of Martin's forehead. Martin jerks and drops the knife, leaving Harold with a thin red line across his larynx.
The shot is still ringing in the air when Harold rushes at John down the main aisle, hands outstretched. "No!" he shouts at John, fists clenched, ready to strike. Behind Harold, the man with the knife is in the process of folding downwards, a surprised and oddly elated expression on his face.
John catches Harold by the wrists before their bodies collide. "Easy, Harold. It's okay. He can't hurt you now." He's never seen Harold react like this when they've lost a number. He's often angry, and often angry at John, but that anger is normally frosty cold. John wonders if it's because they're in a church, that this is some late-blooming clue to Harold's true identity, that he was raised a good Episcopalian and is horrified that they've desecrated a sacred place with blood.
Harold blinks, and looks awkwardly over his shoulder at the body. "I thought I saw…" Then he sighs and touches John's chest. "That poor man. I don't know what I saw, Mr Reese." There's a narrow thread of blood puddling into his collar, just above the knot of his tie, but he's otherwise in one piece. John's pulse starts to settle. Harold is alive.
"I know what I saw," John says. "He was about to slit your throat." He steps past Harold and puts a finger to Martin's neck, finds his pulse slowing and hiccupping. John does his job well, and Martin is too far gone for any paramedic to save him, so John does what he's done for soldiers he's known, and squeezes the man's hand, tells him it's going to be all right, stays with him for the last few seconds of his life.
Martin has symbols and prayers drawn on his skin, and the ink is blurring under sweat and smears of blood. John sees crosses of all varieties, Wadjet eyes, runes, stars, and prayers in at least three languages. When he lets Martin's lifeless palm slide away from his, the vivid, cheap blue ink there has transferred to his own skin. He wipes it against his leg. Harold doesn't need to see that. He's going to upset enough at losing a number. John is less troubled: he wishes he could have helped Martin, but not enough to sacrifice Harold.
Harold touches his shoulder and John stands. Poor Harold has blood spattered across his glasses, and John lifts them gently off, cleans them with the corner of his jacket. Sirens are close enough that he can see blue and red lights through the windows.
"I'd like to go home," Harold says, and lets John lead him away.
Things are wrong at home, too. Neither of them wants to touch the other, so they sit in bed, together but distant.
"Why did he do it?" Harold keeps saying. He says it now, knees drawn up under the covers, holding them tight as if keeping himself safe. "Why didn't I realise how sick he was? I could have gotten him the help he needed, before you had to…" He sighs and closes his arms tighter around his legs. "I wish I could have helped him."
Now that the adrenaline has faded, John's body aches, flu-like. The minor wound on Harold's neck has closed, but every time John sees it, his gut clenches. Guilt and misery sit heavy on his chest, at taking the life of someone he was supposed to protect, at letting Harold get so close to danger that John had no choice but to shoot a mentally ill man.
Harold could have died, he tells himself over and over. He can't stop himself imagining it: where would he be, if Harold died? Who would he be? The answer, of course, is nothing. You're nothing without that man, his brain says, and John agrees. He desperately wants to curl up against Harold, to feel him warm and alive against his chest, but he doesn't have the right to ask. Harold eventually settles down on his side and appears to be sleeping, so John tries to do the same.
Sleep is restless and fleeting, and John keeps catching movement out of the corner of his eye. Too much adrenaline. He's half awake when Harold gets out of bed.
"You okay?" John says, words muffled by his pillow, still shaking off unpleasant dream imagery where words erupt on Harold's skin like blood blisters, blue-black, puffy and glistening.
"Yes, but I think I'll do better to just make some tea and work," Harold says. "I can't stop seeing that poor man's face."
John drags himself upright, peeling the sheet away from his clammy, damp skin. "It wasn't your fault," he says.
"It wasn't your fault, either, John." Is Harold's voice sharp? Through the muzzy haze of sleep, John isn't certain. Then Harold sighs, and settles his glasses in place. "Though I know you'll blame yourself for it anyway."
There's a horrible distance between them. Harold stands less than a foot away from him, and yet they might as well be in different rooms. "I'll come and keep you company," John says. At least they can sit close on the sofa, John can put his arm around Harold's shoulders. Make them tea.
Harold shakes his head. "I'm not very good company, I'm afraid. If you don't mind, I'll take the time to catch up on research before I try to sleep again."
John nods, though his stomach lurches, unsettled, as Harold walks away. He tries to settle down to sleep again, waits for the reassuring familiarity of Harold's fingers on a keyboard. Instead, he hears the flick-flick of Harold rifling endlessly through one of his old books.
The next time he wakes, his body slams hard against the mattress, as if he's fallen from a great height. He thinks it's a dream – it has to be a dream – but the bed is still bouncing and beneath him, the sheets are icy cold. Then he realises there's a figure standing silent beside him. In less than a second, he's out of bed, gun pressed to their temple.
It's Harold, his expression shocked and weirdly fascinated. John reacts faster than he can process, pulling the muzzle clear of Harold's head, getting his finger free from the trigger, but still John gives a horrified shout.
"I could have shot you, Harold!" he says. "The hell are you doing, sneaking up on me?" He's angrier than he should be, but there's a horrible fear clawing at his guts, an instinct that is telling him that something is very, very wrong in this room.
Harold stares at John as if he has never seen him before. "I… I'm sorry," he says. John has the strangest feeling Harold is having trouble finding words to express himself.
John's heart is still pounding when he reaches across to cup Harold's cheek in a wordless apology for overreacting. Before he can make contact, John sees Harold flinch from the touch, and his stomach plummets. John's up and out of the bed, grabbing his clothes, his shoes, his gun while Harold watches in silence. He'd take the dog, but poor Bear is hiding in the kitchen, and John doesn't want to upset him any further. Bad enough that his owners are bickering.
He spends the rest of the night at the library, ostensibly cleaning his gear, but by the time Shaw and Root stroll in with coffee and breakfast he's got precious little done. Apparently he spent several hours just staring at the wall, thinking of nothing.
They've fought before, John reminds himself. This will blow over. It's just the stress of losing a number.
The next morning, Harold doesn't say a word when he comes in to work, and every time John tries to approach, tries to make things right for what happened last night, Harold hits a key that drops all the windows on his monitors to stop John from seeing his work. It's a throwback to the early days of working together, before they had found trust. Before they had found intimacy.
John gives up on trying to apologise – though he shouldn't have to apologise, that petty little voice in his head says – and gets on with helping the next number.
Harold stays crisply polite on the phone, every word carefully placed, as courteous as he would be with any stranger. John pushes through as best he can, though he is bristling. His instincts sense danger before he consciously realises, and he's learned to listen to those signals, to the prickle of hair and the creep of skin. They're telling him that things are not normal here, that Harold is not all right. That he's keeping things from John.
It disturbs John more than he expects. He moves through the city working his number, and nothing is okay. His temper is on edge, and every small frustrating thing drives him closer to rage: Fusco is unusually obstreperous and needs a good kick in the guts to get him in line. Locks won't pick and security systems won't disengage. The building super shows up at an inopportune time and John had to invent a lousy cover story for why he's in their number's apartment. His mind, his paranoid agent's mind, suggests Harold is sabotaging him, but that doesn't explain the burnt, sour taste of the takeaway coffee he buys. John throws the cup at the side of the food truck and stalks away.
When he discovers that Shaw is pulling double duty, watching his number as well as keeping an eye on John, his frayed temper snaps.
Shaw shrugs. "I'm just following orders, buddy. Don't blame me for your bad hair day. The important thing is that Mrs," she checks her phone for the name of the number because that's how Shaw rolls, "Bautista makes it home safe tonight."
John snatches her phone, and dodges the sharp jab Shaw immediately follows with. The fight is brief and vicious – Shaw doesn't ever pull her punches, at least that hasn't changed – and they both have bloody noses at the end of it, but John has her phone. She retreats to the end of the alley to drip blood in peace. John opens a line on her phone to the library.
"You know, Finch, if you don't trust me, at least have the decency to say it to my face."
Harold's voice is dry. "Mr Reese, if you have arguments with the way I work, at least have the decency to leave the rest of my team out of it."
Shaw's phone is the second thing John enjoys throwing today, and the sound of glass fracturing is beautifully musical.
He has no explanation for what has happened to Harold, for why Harold has become secretive and cold. Harold is not like that, Harold is forgiving and kind. Harold trusts him at the most basic level. What is affecting Harold, to turn their relationship as sour as that food truck coffee?
He's beating a confession out of Mrs Bautista's abusive boss when the realisation comes to him: that's not Harold. It's just not him. At the church, a vileness crept inside Harold Finch, corrupting him, turning him against John. He slams his fist down one more time, hard enough that bone gives in the man's jaw. It's very satisfying to be able to diagnose the problem.
"Mr Reese!" Harold's voice barks out of the earpiece. "Stop!" Over the line, John can hear Bear barking frantically. The atmosphere sounds a trifle frazzled at the library, which strikes John as hilarious. He smiles, drawing his arm up for one more strike, and this time when Harold speaks, it is low and calm, the way it used to be. The way it should be.
"John, please. Please come back to the library."
It's the first sign John's had that Harold is still in there, and the hope it generates galvanises him. He lets the bloodied, gasping man fall to the sidewalk and wipes his palms on his pants. If there's a way to get the evil out of Harold, John can find it. And if not, well, John has the strength to make sure Harold doesn't hurt anybody else. Harold would want it that way.
John's aware that Shaw is tailing him, but he doesn't care. He's so angry about Harold, about the thing that has infiltrated him, it's difficult to care about anything else. At the library door, though, it occurs to him that he could use a little backup. Who knows what the monster inside Harold has been planning all day. Hiding in the dark. Keeping all his secrets. He wipes his brow and his fingers come away damp, making the blood still on them sticky again.
"I know you're there, Shaw." He picks at the blood under his nails while he waits for her to step out from the shadows.
She stays a careful distance from him. John wonders what poison Harold has been whispering in her ear all day. "What's up, Reese?"
"Whatever he's told you is a lie," John says. "Harold is not a good person anymore. There's something evil inside him. A… a demon." He's surprised at such a fantastical word coming from his own mouth, but it feels right. "A demon," he says again.
She shrugs. "What are you going to do about it?" She's surprisingly calm about John's announcement.
John looks at the blood flaking off his fingers and thinks of the man in the church slowly folding downwards after John drilled a hole through his skull.
"Fix it," he says with growing determination.
It's icy in the library, and John's skin prickles with the chill. Someone's been burning incense, and there's fragrant smoke in the air: odd and chemical, resinous and oily. It catches in John's throat and burns there, despite the cold.
Root stands on the stairs, buried in a thick book with leather-bound covers. She snaps it shut as he passes, and gives him a curious look. John has his fist clenched to deliver a solid punch to her skull if she lets loose with one of her usual insults, but the door slams behind him and Root's head turns in that direction.
"Hey, Root!" Shaw says from the bottom of the stairs. "Miss me?"
John hates the way Root's expression lights up, hates the effortless way she bounds down the stairs to throw herself on Shaw. He can take care of that later, when he's sorted Harold's problem. He stalks forward and the chill of the library parts around him as if his body were a flame.
Harold stands at the end of the hall, lit from behind with light from his monitors. "Mr Reese," he says. "I'm glad you're here." He holds his arm out directly in front of himself, fingers closed in a fist. John's brain screams at him, tells him it's a weapon, tells him to run. It's further proof that Harold is not who he claims to be. John advances down the hallway, ignoring the growing panic inside him.
"Are you going to hurt me, Harold?" John rests his finger easily on his holster, not drawing yet, though he's so hot with anger the cold air is like a sharp slap to the skin. "Are you the killer in our relationship now?"
Harold's smile is sad and small. "No, John. I'm the bait." He opens his fist and from his fingers unspools a string of black beads hung with a small silver crucifix.
John's brain shrieks and he flinches away, tries inexplicably to cover his eyes. While he's processing this abnormal response, he hears a soft dragging noise in the corridor behind him. He wheels, gun drawn, to see a figure crouching low to the floor, busily scratching marks on the floor.
It's Root, scrawling a line of symbols on the linoleum with a thick piece of sidewalk chalk. This is incongruous enough that John doesn't shoot, merely tilts his head to follow her work. When the last one is in place, John is surprised by the push of air against his chest, as if a door has slammed shut.
"I'm so sorry, John," Harold says, as Root starts to chant. Then everything goes black.
The exorcism is as unpleasant as movies promise. Root delivers the ritual, carefully stepping syllable by syllable through Latin incantation as precisely as she does through code.
John is trapped in his chalk circle, the invisible barrier between him and Harold alternately sizzling with cold, or distressingly flesh-like in texture. The rage inside him takes hold of his limbs and walks him like a puppet round the perimeter, runs him at the barrier like a sprinter. John hits it so hard he splits his forehead, and blood trickles down his face. His tongue flicks out hungrily to swipe it up, and it keeps coming out of his mouth, much longer than it should be, until the tip of it brushes the point of his chin. Root's eyes widen, but she doesn't miss a word. Harold's expression is more complex: horror and compassion intermingled. Shaw is completely calm, holding John's gun up and ready, as if putting him down will be easy.
Every word Root says is like a whiplash in his mind. It stings, and John wonders why it's Root and not Harold doing the reading. Harold loves languages and ritual and history. Then a woman's name rips out of his mouth and Harold goes pale.
"Mother misses her little boy," John says. He says it dripping sarcasm. He says it with cruelty, and that, even more than the tongue, makes it clear what kind of what kind of evil is occupying his body.
It prowls the perimeter of the circle, loosing more secrets about Harold's past: they are all treated to a recounting of the day his mother died, the moment he realised his father had forgotten how to drive, his last fight with Nathan.
On the other side of the barrier, Harold's mouth goes tight and pale. John tries to tell him how sorry he is, how much he doesn't want these facts forced upon him, but instead, Grace's voice comes out.
"I know these sessions are supposed to help me through the grief, but I don't feel like I'm grieving," Grace says with John's mouth. "I'm angry. I'm angry all the time. This hurts, and wherever he is I want him to know what this is like, to be left behind by someone you love." This time when John hits the barrier, it's under his own steam. The impact sends him down into blackness again, and it's a relief.
When he wakes, his cheek is pressed flat to an unknown surface, cold and smooth and a grubby cream colour. Pressure crushes his chest, as if a large hand holds him in place. He stares at the paint, recognises the ceiling of the library and then he falls. A bone snaps in his arm when he falls, and the pain is red-hot and cleansing. He focuses on it, shifts his fingers to make the fracture scrape against torn muscle, and the beast that has made a home inside him steps into his vision. It looks like Kara, but a Kara viewed through a dirty window: hazy at the edges, a little grimy in places, hair dry and sparking. It smells like death by fire, cooked meat and char.
"What do you want?" he asks it. "What value can I possibly have, above him?" This is the thing that confuses him. Harold has always been the asset, the person with power and access and ability. John is nothing compared to him.
"What does anyone want?" says the thing. The voice is perfect, except for the odd crackle of static, like the hiss of fat hitting a hot pan. "A good time, lover. A bit of fun. And you have always been a bit of fun, haven't you?"
Realising he's found traction at last, John gives his broken arm a good squeeze. The pain makes him see sparks, and he hears Harold shout at him to stop. Shaw holds Harold at the waist, stops him from rushing into the circle. John tries to show her how grateful he is for that but Root's chanting has reached an apex, and the combination of John's pain and the liturgy makes the demon image of Kara twist and smoke.
"Looks like I'm out of here," it says, and reaches for him. Its kiss is hot and swampy with decay, and John knows he'll be forever rinsing that taste from his mouth. Then all his muscles give out at once and he collapses to the floor. As it dissipates, it whispers to him, "You know how easy it will be to come back, lover. You want me to, don't you? Well, all you have to do is ask."
There is coolness against his skin, and the smell of fresh linen. John opens his eyes, sees the tall narrow windows of one of Harold's safehouses, then closes them again. The next time he wakes, Harold is there with pain meds and a glass of water. John sits up too fast, he's so relieved to see him. He puts out an arm to stop himself from falling and that's when he discovers the fibreglass cast. It's neon green.
"I talked Ms Shaw out of using hot pink," Harold says, perching on the end of the bed. "But to be honest, I hope that wearing something so vivid will mean you have to stay out of the field for a little bit."
Everything is so normal, honest and clean and in focus. It's such a relief that John throws his good arm around Harold's body and buries his face in his chest, breathes the smell of him, feels the familiar texture of vest and shirt against his cheek.
"I'm so sorry," he says to Harold, his voice muffled. "I didn't want to know those things. I wish I could make myself forget them again."
Harold strokes John's hair, his hand warm on the curve of his skull. "John, if it means I have you in one piece, I would broadcast those things to the entire world." A kiss brushes the top of John's head. "Well, maybe not those private things about Grace. But that's not the point. What really matters, John, is that you are the person I love, and you are the person I trust. If you had asked, if you really wanted to know, I'd tell you anything. Quite willingly."
The air rushes out of John in a sound that is halfway a sigh, half a sob. Harold's arms tighten on his shoulders, his lips press against John's head again. John is sagging with relief, at the quiet inside himself, at the clean cool air, and it's all undeserved. He thinks about the way the demon crept inside him, how much of its evil felt natural, like nothing out of the ordinary, and what does that say about the person he is? No wonder that thing could just open a door into his mind. He's flawed in ways that put Harold in danger.
"I know you're going to blame yourself," Harold says into John's hair. "You always do when good things happen after bad. Have you considered the possibility that allowing yourself to accept help might be protective? Knowing that you are worthy of love is a kind of armour in itself. And you are, you know. Loved."
John closes his eyes, relaxes in Harold's arms for a moment. He's not sure he can do what Harold asks of him – he's not sure he can allow himself that luxury – but he knows he will try. The demon believes the worst of him, that was clear enough, but John realises that Harold believes the best. Maybe between the two, he can form a perfect defence.