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st_aurafinaTitle: Days Like This
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: Teen
Words: 2002
Characters/Pairings: John Reese/Lionel Fusco, Harold Finch
Warnings/Content: Just a Regular Day in the Life of a Cop
Notes: Written forlivenudebigfoot in Chocolate Box 2020
Summary: Fusco knows it's going to be one of those days.
Also at the Archive
Fusco wakes with his heart pounding, and lies still a minute, trying to figure out what woke him. Then he realises there's a conversation going on in the living room. He slides his feet onto the floor and grabs his gun, starts moving towards the bedroom door.
The door is flimsy as fuck, like the rest of the apartment, so it's pretty easy to hear that the conversation is a one-way thing. Just one guy. Talking about explosives in Fusco's living room. That means Mr Fantastic has come a calling, and not for fun sexy times.
Fusco takes a breath and flicks the safety on. Not that he loves John's surprise visits, or anything, but they're past the point where this is a prelude to casual violence. Although, John does sound pissed off. He doesn't usually raise his voice with Glasses, but right now he sounds practically frazzled.
"Finch, it's a complicated timer. I know you're the electronics guy, but this is a detonator of some sort, and that's my area of expertise. All I need a quiet space to figure out what the hell it's supposed to do, okay?"
Fusco blinks, imagines John sitting on Fusco's battered sofa with parts of an IED strewn over the coffee table. The coffee table where Fusco's kid sits sometimes to eat pizza. His heartrate jacks up again, this time with anger, and he storms towards the door to throw it open in some majestic and rageful tirade. Instead, his foot snags on the pants he threw on the floor last night. He faceplants into the gritty carpet with a painful thud.
John is there in an instant, gun drawn, taking in the shadows of the room for any threat. He stares at Fusco lying there with his foot tangled in yesterday's pants, and then he leaves without saying a word.
On the floor, Fusco closes his eyes. It's going to be one of those days.
Court goes like this: an hour waiting for his case to be called, half an hour swearing in and giving testimony, then three hours sitting around as things get delayed and rescheduled. Fusco spends most of that time talking Finch through the labyrinthine process of navigating the State Records Building.
"Did you try under Nuisance Crimes?" he asks, sitting on the steps outside the courthouse, phone in one hand, coffee in the other. A drip of scalding coffee falls onto his pants, soaking through to the skin. He scrubs at it with his sleeve and peers at the bottom of the shitty paper cup to see if it's leaking, while Finch scrabbles through actual files made of paper for once.
"Fifteen people were killed in that fire, Detective. I think that somewhat exceeds the definition of a nuisance."
Yeah, the stupid cup is leaking. Fusco squashes his thumb over the tiny hole, and ignores the heat. "In the sixties, the definition of people was a little looser, Finch. It was a slum house; I can guarantee you there would have been detectives in those days perfectly happy to file it under Pest Control." Fusco debates swilling the whole cup down, steam and all. It's been a long day and it's only half past eleven.
Finch sniffs, outraged at both the inhumanity of man and the misfiling of documents. "I'll follow that lead. Thank you, Detective."
Fusco lifts his cup, ready to suffer for the caffeine hit, when John swipes it from him. Fusco tilts his head and watches with interest as John tilts it up to drink from it. A thin trickle of coffee falls from the bottom of the cup, but John is frustratingly nimble and jumps backwards before it hits his pristine white shirt.
"Huh," says Fusco. "So that's how it's done."
John favours him with a sour glare. Fusco laughs, grabs the cup from him and throws it in the trash.
"Come on, I'll buy you a fresh one." For John, he'll spring for new cups. "What are you doing here, anyway? You gonna chase someone down on the court steps?" It wouldn't be the first time.
John looks bashful, suddenly. "I, uh, I have a case in court." He clips his detective badge on his belt, and John Reese becomes John Riley, actual detective.
"Really?" says Fusco, and steps away to eyeball him. John's in standard Man in the Suit get-up, all expensive tailoring and open collar. Fusco pulls his own tie loose. "Here," he says, and loops it over John's arm. "The District Court judges get real antsy about presentation."
Fusco expects a mouthful of snark about polyester, but instead, John just looks miserable. "What?" Fusco says. "You're not nervous, are you?"
John doesn't say anything, which answers the question. Fusco grabs the tie from John's arm and threads it around the man's neck, turns up the collar, buttons the shirt, and knots the tie. "You'll be fine. You went to the briefings with your ADA?"
John nods, grim.
"Well, dummy, they won't let you fuck up on the stand, I promise. If they can get a goombah like me through without fucking up their case, you'll breeze through."
He pulls the tie up and straightens it, presses John's collar into place over it. This feels weirdly like he's sending a kid off to school for the first time. When he steps back to check John's appearance, he smiles and gives him the thumbs up. "Trust you to make a cheap-ass polyester tie look good."
The evening rounds out with a standoff on a roof. Twenty floors down, there are flashing lights and police cordons holding back crowds of well-dressed people worried for the state of their exquisitely curated exposed brick apartments. Fusco sits cross-legged on the paved surface of the roof, next to a fashionably ironic inflatable kiddie pool. There are fairy lights blinking softly on heart-shaped topiary plants. It would be a hipster paradise, were it not for the man in the sad, crumpled suit sitting on one of twelve barrels of fertiliser.
It's the fiftieth anniversary of the arson attack in 1964 that burned the original building to the ground. The man's grandparents and aunt were killed, and his father was traumatised to the point where the man's childhood home was a warzone. He's very calm, considering what's underneath him right now.
"I don't want to kill anyone," he tells Fusco. "I just want to destroy all their stuff. That hurts them more anyway, losing their stuff."
Fusco tugs at a sprig of leaves on the topiary heart nearest to him. "Yeah, I see that," he says. John prowls to and fro behind the man, creeping closer on silent feet over the sandstone pavers. It's good to have him there. It helps keep Fusco calm, which keeps their guy calm too.
"I'm not crazy," says the man. He and Fusco have built something of a rapport in the last ten minutes. They've talked about politics, global warming, the military industrial complex, the future. All the cheery stuff.
Fusco nods. "There's crazy, and there's crazy angry," he says. "I think you're pretty damn angry at the world. I don't blame you for that." He looks at the man, takes in his worn suit, the receding hairline, the tired eyes. "If you were crazy, you'd have your kids up here with you."
"How dare you!" The man is startled by this suggestion, and he slides a little way off his seat on the barrel. John appears behind him, silent and ready to take him down. Fusco gives a tiny shake of the head and John scowls but backs off.
"I would never hurt them," says the man. "I've worked so hard – you don't understand how much I've fought against hurting them – I'm not my father. They've had better childhoods than I have, better opportunities, a happier home."
"Not for much longer," says Fusco. At the man's outraged expression he holds up his hands, apologetic. "Sorry to piss you off, buddy, but it's the truth. You're a smart guy, you've planned this whole thing out really well. You wanna check out of the world, but it's still going to splash back on them. There'll be a police investigation, your wife will be interviewed. You might be held responsible for damages, that'll put your family in debt for the next couple of generations. Or we can walk out of here together, get you home to your kids and me to mine. You know what I think?"
The man shakes his head. "Tell me," he says, which is pretty fucking reasonable of him.
"I want to see you do the thing your father never could," Fusco says. "I want to see you ask for help."
"I can't do that," the man says, pleading. He doesn't see John at his shoulder, because John is that good at camouflage, even in a hipster rooftop garden. Fusco watches him get into the best position to grab the man's trigger. It always amazes Fusco, how quietly, how invisibly John can move. It used to terrify him.
"Yeah, I know," Fusco says. "I know hard it can be. Me, I'm lousy at it; I never expect anyone to help me, so I hardly ever ask. But I'm working on being better at it. You made all this –" he gestures at the barrels. "You're already ahead of me on motivation for change, that's what I'm saying."
Fusco knows it's going to be okay when the man starts to cry. When John reaches around the man, he surrenders the trigger easily, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. Fusco stands up creakily, helps the man off his perch of barrels and into the arms of the patrolmen waiting at the access door.
There's a bomb squad waiting for clearance to go disassemble the man's vintage bomb. A man in padded gear and a full facemask takes the trigger from John, and John gives him a nod, shows him open hands when he's clear.
"Come on," says Fusco, pulling John gently away from the professionals. "We need to get out of here before they give us something else to do."
They hang out in John's exquisitely curated exposed brick loft, drinking fancy soda water with slices of lime. Fusco props his butt against the arm of the sofa and wonders when Tall Dark and Handsome has time to buy himself limes.
"You're good at that," John says. "Talking people down."
Fusco sips his fizzy lime water to hide his smile, then chokes as the bubbles shoot up his nose. "Gotta work with you, don't I? Every day's talking you down from some crazy idea."
From where he's leaning against the wall, John gives him an acknowledging nod. "Fair enough." When he takes a mouthful of soda, it's not an inelegant mess. Fusco watches John's lips meet the glass, watches his throat move as he swallows. Yeah, that's not a bad way to end the day, ogling a fancy assassin in his fancy apartment, drinking his fancy water.
"I thought today was going to be one of those shitty days, you know?" Fusco watches the bubbles jostle the slice of green in his glass.
John snorts. "I could do worse than having you ass-up on the floor," he says.
"That so?" says Fusco. He puts his glass down carefully, pushes it to the centre of the coffee table so it doesn't get spilled. "Tell me more."
John laughs, and then moves with startling speed, grabbing Fusco by the shirtfront and pulling him in close for a kiss.
When Fusco gets to work in the morning, there's a box on his desk, small and square, with a neat little navy ribbon keeping it closed. He opens it, lifts off the cloud of tissue paper and peers inside. There's a tie in there, green and grey silk, folded neatly into a square. The tag says, "For your next court date." It's not signed. Fusco laughs, and tucks it into his pocket. He's had worse starts to a day.
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: Teen
Words: 2002
Characters/Pairings: John Reese/Lionel Fusco, Harold Finch
Warnings/Content: Just a Regular Day in the Life of a Cop
Notes: Written for
livenudebigfoot in Chocolate Box 2020Summary: Fusco knows it's going to be one of those days.
Also at the Archive
Fusco wakes with his heart pounding, and lies still a minute, trying to figure out what woke him. Then he realises there's a conversation going on in the living room. He slides his feet onto the floor and grabs his gun, starts moving towards the bedroom door.
The door is flimsy as fuck, like the rest of the apartment, so it's pretty easy to hear that the conversation is a one-way thing. Just one guy. Talking about explosives in Fusco's living room. That means Mr Fantastic has come a calling, and not for fun sexy times.
Fusco takes a breath and flicks the safety on. Not that he loves John's surprise visits, or anything, but they're past the point where this is a prelude to casual violence. Although, John does sound pissed off. He doesn't usually raise his voice with Glasses, but right now he sounds practically frazzled.
"Finch, it's a complicated timer. I know you're the electronics guy, but this is a detonator of some sort, and that's my area of expertise. All I need a quiet space to figure out what the hell it's supposed to do, okay?"
Fusco blinks, imagines John sitting on Fusco's battered sofa with parts of an IED strewn over the coffee table. The coffee table where Fusco's kid sits sometimes to eat pizza. His heartrate jacks up again, this time with anger, and he storms towards the door to throw it open in some majestic and rageful tirade. Instead, his foot snags on the pants he threw on the floor last night. He faceplants into the gritty carpet with a painful thud.
John is there in an instant, gun drawn, taking in the shadows of the room for any threat. He stares at Fusco lying there with his foot tangled in yesterday's pants, and then he leaves without saying a word.
On the floor, Fusco closes his eyes. It's going to be one of those days.
Court goes like this: an hour waiting for his case to be called, half an hour swearing in and giving testimony, then three hours sitting around as things get delayed and rescheduled. Fusco spends most of that time talking Finch through the labyrinthine process of navigating the State Records Building.
"Did you try under Nuisance Crimes?" he asks, sitting on the steps outside the courthouse, phone in one hand, coffee in the other. A drip of scalding coffee falls onto his pants, soaking through to the skin. He scrubs at it with his sleeve and peers at the bottom of the shitty paper cup to see if it's leaking, while Finch scrabbles through actual files made of paper for once.
"Fifteen people were killed in that fire, Detective. I think that somewhat exceeds the definition of a nuisance."
Yeah, the stupid cup is leaking. Fusco squashes his thumb over the tiny hole, and ignores the heat. "In the sixties, the definition of people was a little looser, Finch. It was a slum house; I can guarantee you there would have been detectives in those days perfectly happy to file it under Pest Control." Fusco debates swilling the whole cup down, steam and all. It's been a long day and it's only half past eleven.
Finch sniffs, outraged at both the inhumanity of man and the misfiling of documents. "I'll follow that lead. Thank you, Detective."
Fusco lifts his cup, ready to suffer for the caffeine hit, when John swipes it from him. Fusco tilts his head and watches with interest as John tilts it up to drink from it. A thin trickle of coffee falls from the bottom of the cup, but John is frustratingly nimble and jumps backwards before it hits his pristine white shirt.
"Huh," says Fusco. "So that's how it's done."
John favours him with a sour glare. Fusco laughs, grabs the cup from him and throws it in the trash.
"Come on, I'll buy you a fresh one." For John, he'll spring for new cups. "What are you doing here, anyway? You gonna chase someone down on the court steps?" It wouldn't be the first time.
John looks bashful, suddenly. "I, uh, I have a case in court." He clips his detective badge on his belt, and John Reese becomes John Riley, actual detective.
"Really?" says Fusco, and steps away to eyeball him. John's in standard Man in the Suit get-up, all expensive tailoring and open collar. Fusco pulls his own tie loose. "Here," he says, and loops it over John's arm. "The District Court judges get real antsy about presentation."
Fusco expects a mouthful of snark about polyester, but instead, John just looks miserable. "What?" Fusco says. "You're not nervous, are you?"
John doesn't say anything, which answers the question. Fusco grabs the tie from John's arm and threads it around the man's neck, turns up the collar, buttons the shirt, and knots the tie. "You'll be fine. You went to the briefings with your ADA?"
John nods, grim.
"Well, dummy, they won't let you fuck up on the stand, I promise. If they can get a goombah like me through without fucking up their case, you'll breeze through."
He pulls the tie up and straightens it, presses John's collar into place over it. This feels weirdly like he's sending a kid off to school for the first time. When he steps back to check John's appearance, he smiles and gives him the thumbs up. "Trust you to make a cheap-ass polyester tie look good."
The evening rounds out with a standoff on a roof. Twenty floors down, there are flashing lights and police cordons holding back crowds of well-dressed people worried for the state of their exquisitely curated exposed brick apartments. Fusco sits cross-legged on the paved surface of the roof, next to a fashionably ironic inflatable kiddie pool. There are fairy lights blinking softly on heart-shaped topiary plants. It would be a hipster paradise, were it not for the man in the sad, crumpled suit sitting on one of twelve barrels of fertiliser.
It's the fiftieth anniversary of the arson attack in 1964 that burned the original building to the ground. The man's grandparents and aunt were killed, and his father was traumatised to the point where the man's childhood home was a warzone. He's very calm, considering what's underneath him right now.
"I don't want to kill anyone," he tells Fusco. "I just want to destroy all their stuff. That hurts them more anyway, losing their stuff."
Fusco tugs at a sprig of leaves on the topiary heart nearest to him. "Yeah, I see that," he says. John prowls to and fro behind the man, creeping closer on silent feet over the sandstone pavers. It's good to have him there. It helps keep Fusco calm, which keeps their guy calm too.
"I'm not crazy," says the man. He and Fusco have built something of a rapport in the last ten minutes. They've talked about politics, global warming, the military industrial complex, the future. All the cheery stuff.
Fusco nods. "There's crazy, and there's crazy angry," he says. "I think you're pretty damn angry at the world. I don't blame you for that." He looks at the man, takes in his worn suit, the receding hairline, the tired eyes. "If you were crazy, you'd have your kids up here with you."
"How dare you!" The man is startled by this suggestion, and he slides a little way off his seat on the barrel. John appears behind him, silent and ready to take him down. Fusco gives a tiny shake of the head and John scowls but backs off.
"I would never hurt them," says the man. "I've worked so hard – you don't understand how much I've fought against hurting them – I'm not my father. They've had better childhoods than I have, better opportunities, a happier home."
"Not for much longer," says Fusco. At the man's outraged expression he holds up his hands, apologetic. "Sorry to piss you off, buddy, but it's the truth. You're a smart guy, you've planned this whole thing out really well. You wanna check out of the world, but it's still going to splash back on them. There'll be a police investigation, your wife will be interviewed. You might be held responsible for damages, that'll put your family in debt for the next couple of generations. Or we can walk out of here together, get you home to your kids and me to mine. You know what I think?"
The man shakes his head. "Tell me," he says, which is pretty fucking reasonable of him.
"I want to see you do the thing your father never could," Fusco says. "I want to see you ask for help."
"I can't do that," the man says, pleading. He doesn't see John at his shoulder, because John is that good at camouflage, even in a hipster rooftop garden. Fusco watches him get into the best position to grab the man's trigger. It always amazes Fusco, how quietly, how invisibly John can move. It used to terrify him.
"Yeah, I know," Fusco says. "I know hard it can be. Me, I'm lousy at it; I never expect anyone to help me, so I hardly ever ask. But I'm working on being better at it. You made all this –" he gestures at the barrels. "You're already ahead of me on motivation for change, that's what I'm saying."
Fusco knows it's going to be okay when the man starts to cry. When John reaches around the man, he surrenders the trigger easily, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. Fusco stands up creakily, helps the man off his perch of barrels and into the arms of the patrolmen waiting at the access door.
There's a bomb squad waiting for clearance to go disassemble the man's vintage bomb. A man in padded gear and a full facemask takes the trigger from John, and John gives him a nod, shows him open hands when he's clear.
"Come on," says Fusco, pulling John gently away from the professionals. "We need to get out of here before they give us something else to do."
They hang out in John's exquisitely curated exposed brick loft, drinking fancy soda water with slices of lime. Fusco props his butt against the arm of the sofa and wonders when Tall Dark and Handsome has time to buy himself limes.
"You're good at that," John says. "Talking people down."
Fusco sips his fizzy lime water to hide his smile, then chokes as the bubbles shoot up his nose. "Gotta work with you, don't I? Every day's talking you down from some crazy idea."
From where he's leaning against the wall, John gives him an acknowledging nod. "Fair enough." When he takes a mouthful of soda, it's not an inelegant mess. Fusco watches John's lips meet the glass, watches his throat move as he swallows. Yeah, that's not a bad way to end the day, ogling a fancy assassin in his fancy apartment, drinking his fancy water.
"I thought today was going to be one of those shitty days, you know?" Fusco watches the bubbles jostle the slice of green in his glass.
John snorts. "I could do worse than having you ass-up on the floor," he says.
"That so?" says Fusco. He puts his glass down carefully, pushes it to the centre of the coffee table so it doesn't get spilled. "Tell me more."
John laughs, and then moves with startling speed, grabbing Fusco by the shirtfront and pulling him in close for a kiss.
When Fusco gets to work in the morning, there's a box on his desk, small and square, with a neat little navy ribbon keeping it closed. He opens it, lifts off the cloud of tissue paper and peers inside. There's a tie in there, green and grey silk, folded neatly into a square. The tag says, "For your next court date." It's not signed. Fusco laughs, and tucks it into his pocket. He's had worse starts to a day.