Archive of Our Own

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

--Marcus Aurelius

Sometimes it was a real mystery why anyone would want to save the lives of some of the people whose numbers the machine gave them. Which was probably a good reason it wasn’t up to John. If it had been, there were a number of rapists, child molesters, gang members, politicians, members of the local media and otherwise unsavory persons that he would have happily left to fate. They never said thank you, anyway. He didn’t expect much--almost nothing, in fact--but when he nearly got his head blown off pulling some kiddie-fiddling pervert’s head out of the line of fire, it would have been really nice to not be yelled at by him.

His name was Robert Paulson and just as he was getting on John’s last frayed nerve, Shaw hit him in the back of the head and knocked him out. She wiped her hands together, looking pleased with herself, and said, “I saw that on TV. You know, the news? Been dying to try it.”

John sighed and picked Robert up off the ground. They were almost to the car anyway so he just put the unconscious man in the trunk. “That’s the thing they’re calling an epidemic, right?”

“More like a fad, really,” Shaw said. She went around to the driver’s side of the car and got in. “I’d like to try it on a skateboard sometime. Did you see that one?”

John got in on the passenger side and buckled his seatbelt. “Yeah. Can you ride a skateboard?”

“Never tried it,” Shaw said. She started the car and pulled away from the curb. “So, we delivering this sick fuck to Fusco?”

“The sooner the better,” John said. Child molesters made his skin crawl.

“Shoulda just let daddy kill him, you know,” Shaw said.

“Miss Shaw,” Harold spoke up in their ears, “we are not mercenaries. No matter what Mr. Paulson has done, we do not play God.”

Coming from Harold Finch, that was truly rich.

“It would be nice if we could pick the numbers sometimes, Finch,” Shaw said. “This guy? Killing him would have been a public service.”

“Be that as it may, we do not get to pick and choose.”

She shrugged. “Whatever.”

They very nearly had let Paulson die once they realized why his life was in danger. They hadn’t saved him out of any real moral conviction, either. Before they quite knew how it had happened, John had saved his life and Shaw had scared the holy hell out of his would-be assassin. It had just happened, as such things often did. John and Shaw both refrained from mentioning this to Harold though. Besides, what was bound to happen to him in prison made it rather a moot point.

“I’m hungry,” Shaw announced. “Let’s go drop this freak off. I’ve got plans.”

Shaw had been seeing Richard Giovanni, who, as it turned out, was not gay, off and on for over a month. She liked him, she said, because he was hot, fantastic in bed, not the slightest bit interested in getting married or procreating any time soon despite pressure from his mother to make her a grandma, didn’t seem to know or care what cuddling was and he didn’t cry. He was essentially the perfect man for Shaw. John assumed he was what she meant by plans and was glad enough to let someone else pay for her dinner.

“Mr. Reese?”

“Yes, Harold?”

“Ah… I have something to take care of this evening. I won’t be there when you get in.”

John raised an eyebrow at that. Not that Harold was going out to some mysterious somewhere for the evening, but that he felt obligated to inform him of it. He supposed it was what most people in relationships called progress. Since he had never before been with anyone as secretive and cagey as Harold Finch was, John was more or less winging it. Most of the women in his past, not including Zoe, had been honest, open books. That kind of honesty didn’t come easily to Harold--or John--but telling him he would be gone was an improvement over just not being there.

“Alright, Harold. I won’t wait up.”

Beside him, Shaw snorted laughter.

From the trunk there came the muffled sound of shouting and fists pounding. Paulson had woken up and from the sound of things he was not happy.

“Alright,” Harold said. “Enjoy your evening, Miss Shaw.”

He disconnected the call. John and Shaw sat in silence nearly all the way to their rendezvous point with Fusco.

“So, what, is Finch living with you now?” Shaw eventually asked.

“Sometimes,” John said evasively.

“Jesus,” she said.

John didn’t say anything aloud, but he mostly agreed with the sentiment. He had wanted more from Harold and he had definitely gotten it. After Daniel Nicholas Parker Lacox, or whatever the hell his name was (John would always think of him as Jack) messed him up so badly, Harold had moved in under the pretense of taking care of him. He left from time to time, as he was apparently doing tonight, on mysterious business, but he had gone from pointedly never spending the night with John to spending more nights with John than without him. John didn’t mind it anymore--was, in fact, getting comfortably used to his near-constant presence and his idiosyncrasies--but he still sometimes caught himself being surprised by it.

“It’s so weird,” Shaw said.

The banging and shouting from the trunk had died down. Paulson had tired himself out.

“It’s not that weird,” John said.

The apartment was empty when John got home, except for Bear, who was in the middle of his bed chewing on a new dinosaur bone and drooling all over the duvet. There were pieces of the paperback novel he had left on the nightstand strewn all over the floor. A John Sanford novel that Harold had sniffed at the first time he saw John reading it in favor of the as-yet-unfinished copy of Don Quixote like John had thrown out Bordeaux in favor of Arbor Mist. John bent over to pick up the shredded cover and sighed.

“I wasn’t done with this,” he told the dog.

Bear put his head down on the bed and whined, watching John with a pathetic, repentant expression.

John tossed it aside and took his coat off. “Get off the bed.”

Bear picked up his bone and hopped down to follow John as he removed his shoulder rig and put his gun away.

“You know he’s coming back,” John said. “Was that really necessary? I was enjoying that book.”

Bear wagged his tail happily and sat down.

“Harold’s going to have to reevaluate your taste in literature.”

Bear dropped the big rawhide bone at John’s feet.

“I’m not throwing that.”

Bear whined and pawed at the bone.

“No.”

John stepped around Bear and went into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. On his way, he kicked one of Harold’s pocket squares. It looked like Bear had been busy. The little swatch of colored silk could no longer properly be called a square at all. At least Bear hadn’t limited his destruction solely to John’s belongings.

“You’re a bad dog,” John told Bear. He dropped a piece of ham on the floor for him. The dog gobbled it up and sat at his feet eagerly waiting for more. “A very bad dog.”

He ate his sandwich with a beer at the counter, looking at the mess Bear had made of his apartment. He saw a few more things of Harold’s among the shreds of his ruined paperback. There was a maroon tie, an argyle sock, a pair of the glasses Harold pretended to need with one shattered lens.

After Lacox had butchered John, Harold had stayed with him a lot because John needed help and John was too messed up to force him to leave. Harold slept on the couch. Then one night Harold didn’t sleep on the couch, he fell asleep in bed beside John and John didn’t have the heart to wake him and make him move. Harold’s things started to migrate into John’s territory. A toothbrush, a comb, a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, a change of clothes, a robe. Before either of them realized it was happening, Harold lived there. They didn’t call it that, but that was precisely what it was. He had his own house somewhere out there still, sure. He likely had a hundred houses, but he lived with John. He put his clothes in the hamper in the bathroom, he did dishes, he slept in John’s bed, he complained about John’s eating habits and had little panic attacks when he woke up and found blood on the sheets or his clothes from one of John’s unhealed injuries.

They were back together without either of them ever saying a thing. They didn’t agree on it and there was no stated apology or forgiveness, it just happened. Of course, they hadn’t ever officially agreed that they were together in the first place, so in a strange way, it made sense for them. They weren’t emotional people. The trauma and stress of what had happened to John had pushed them back together, but they weren’t the type to sit down and discuss their feelings, and if John was honest, it probably would have happened anyway. It would have taken more time and a few more fights to get it straightened out, but ultimately John’s only other recourse was to walk away from him completely and that had never been an option. Besides, Harold had stopped doing that thing he did. He stopped jumping out of bed after sex and running out the door. This was possibly because they hadn’t yet had sex again after what had happened to John, but he was willing to give Harold the benefit of the doubt since he had been sleeping with him for about two months without doing it. He had stopped flinching at John’s casual touches. John saw the way he sometimes went very still and thoughtful, assessing the situation and still hesitating, but it was progress and he was trying. It counted for something.

John threw his crust to Bear and walked around the counter back into the main room. There was a thick hardcover book heavy enough to brain a bear cub with on a shelf behind the TV. John picked it up and paged to his spot, marked with a two of clubs, and carried the book to his bed.

“Guess it’s Don Quixote tonight after all,” he muttered.

Bear carried his bone over to the bed and lay down on the floor with it.

John turned on the beside lamp, piled the pillows behind his back, and started to read.

Two hours later, Harold hadn’t returned yet and John was bored. Miguel de Cervantes just wasn’t doing it for him. Something Harold was sure to scoff at, but it remained true just the same. He was sure Lukas Davenport could have kept him entertained, but unfortunately, Bear had eaten him down to the very last flyleaf page. He closed Don Quixote and looked down at Bear.

“You want to go for a walk?”

Bear hopped up with a soft, “Woof.”

“Alright.”

John got up and went to get the leash and Bear’s vest. He put them on the dog and they left using the stairs.

John was finding that he got restless pretty quickly now. Jack had cut him up pretty bad and some of his deeper cuts had left behind painfully sensitive scar tissue that still hurt in places. He had never been a couch potato or a homebody, but suddenly he had discovered that he couldn’t even dress himself without an hour’s advance notice, let alone do his damn job. Harold had tried to help, but a lot of the time he just got in the way, and John resented even the small amount of independence he lost by not being able to pull up his own pants or bend down to tie his own shoes. All of the laying around he had been doing had left him feeling like a wad of cookie dough. He was well enough now that he could work, but he definitely wasn’t in tip-top shape, either.

Then there was Jack. John intended to find him and make him pay. The memory of him--his pretty, sadistic face, his insane ranting voice--mocked him. It sat in the back of John’s mind all day long, every day, like a deep-rooted itch he couldn’t scratch, or a sore on the roof of his mouth he couldn’t make himself stop tonguing. While John was getting better, Jack was getting farther and farther away. John could almost feel him retreating and he had a hell of a head start already.

John was going to go after him and it was going to be soon now. Very soon.

But not tonight.

There was a pub about a mile from his place called Kelly’s. John went inside just looking for a beer and a place to sit for a minute with other people. He was blinded by the dim light for a moment when he stepped through the door.

“Why would you go visit her? That’s the part I don’t understand.”

Zoe?

John turned toward the sound of her voice and there she was, sleek and lovely, like she had just stepped off a page out of Vogue, looking about as out of place in a dump like Kelly’s as Princess Diana in a mosh pit. She was with Carter at a table and Shaw was nearby beating the pants off some guy three times her size at the pool table.

It was Shaw who answered her question. “I don’t know. Curiosity?” she leaned over the table and took a shot, sending two balls into one of the center pockets. She stood back up and smiled sweetly at the man she was playing. “I guess it’s your shot.” She turned to Zoe and Carter. “You know what’s weird though? That chick wants to fuck me. Bad. Now that’s pretty weird.”

“Of everything she’s done, that’s the weird part, huh?” Carter said. She lifted her beer to take a swallow and saw John. She finished drinking and raised her hand to him. “John, what are you doing here?”

John walked over to their table. “Taking Bear for a walk.”

The guy Shaw was playing pool with missed his shot and cursed. She reached over the table and took his money. “Just quit while you’re ahead, why don’t you?” He grumbled something under his breath, threw his cue down on the table and stormed off. Shaw turned back around and stood leaning on the pool table. “Speaking of strange bedfellows…”

Carter and Zoe exchanged looks. John just stood there, waiting for the punch line.

“We’re curious, John,” Shaw said. “Who bottoms?”

John blinked at her. “Excuse me?”

“Who. Bottoms?” she repeated slowly.

Zoe and Carter both looked mildly embarrassed, yet intensely curious.

John still didn’t know what Shaw was talking about. “I don’t understand the question, Shaw,” he said. He started by her toward the bar to order a drink.

“I mean you and Finch,” Shaw said. “In bed. Who bottoms? Because my bet’s on you.”

John halted and turned back. “What do you mean, your bet?” He looked around at each of them in turn. Zoe and Carter looked a little ashamed, but Shaw was grinning. “You’re betting on it?”

“Well, yeah,” Shaw said.

“I said Harold,” Carter told him, like she was assuring him that, as his friend, she was firmly in his corner about the whole thing.

John wasn’t completely sure how he felt about them placing bets and discussing his sex life with Harold. He wasn’t offended, exactly. Annoyed and a little puzzled by their interest though.

Playing along, he let his gaze fall on Zoe. “And you? What are you betting?”

“Oh, I’m not betting,” Zoe said. She was drinking a margarita and she lifted the glass to sip. “I could go either way.”

“What?” John said. He really didn’t know what else to say. Of all of them, Zoe was the only one he had ever had sex with, and therefore the only one in any position to actually know anything about John in that way, so her answer was a little surprising. “What do you mean, you could go either way?”

She shrugged. “I could see you as a bottom.”

“What?”

Shaw threw her head back laughing and toasted Zoe with her beer bottle. “That proves it. I’m right. Pay up, bitches.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Carter said. “Besides… I mean, it’s Finch.”

They didn’t actually seem all that interested in John’s answer on the subject. “I do not ‘bottom’ for anyone,” he said. “Not that it’s anyone’s business but mine.”

“And Harold’s,” Zoe said.

John scowled at her. “Yes.”

“Riiight,” Shaw said. “I’m so sure. You don’t have to be embarrassed about it, John.”

“Don’t you think I know?” John said.

Shaw chuffed a soft, dismissive laugh. “You don’t know shit.” She turned her attention to Bear, who was watching her with bright-eyed interest. “Does he?” she asked the dog. “Nope, he doesn’t know shit.”

Bear’s tongue lolled out in a doggy grin and his tail thumped the floor.

“Believe whatever you want, Shaw,” John said. “Excuse me, ladies.” He left them at their table and went to the bar. When he got there, he decided to take his drinks with him and bought a bottle of scotch to go from the bartender. It was given to him in a paper bag and John left.

Behind him as he was leaving, he heard Zoe say, “Doesn’t he seem a little sensitive about it?”

John sighed and left them there to discuss whatever it was they imagined he and Harold got up to in bed together.

Back home, he poured himself a drink and sat in a chair facing the windows along the west wall. He drank it while Bear rolled around on the floor at his feet with one of his squeaky toys. He watched the chess players in the park and waited for Harold.

It was late when Harold walked two blocks east from the library where one of his cars was waiting to pick him up. He had the driver drop him off a mile from John’s apartment and caught a cab to take him the rest of the way.

He didn’t know what he was doing. He should have let his driver take him home to his own house instead of continuing to play this game of leapfrog every day to stay with John when John didn’t need him anymore. John wasn’t completely better yet, but he was physically back to nearly a hundred-percent. He didn’t need Harold to be there the way he had needed someone those first weeks while he was recovering. John hadn’t told him to go, but Harold was getting comfortable, putting down insidious little roots, which was usually enough to have alarm bells blaring in his head. But there were no alarm bells, unless he counted the alarm bells going off about how strange it was that there weren’t any alarm bells, which was a little too neurotic even for him.

John showed absolutely no signs of throwing him out any time soon, either. If he had, it would have made leaving a lot easier, but John didn’t even seem to expect an apology from him. Not a verbal one, anyway. But John was very perceptive and Harold was sorry, so maybe John knew, and maybe without saying it aloud, he forgave him. That was what it felt like. Harold might never say it, but he was sorry and now he knew better; he cared. He would care no matter what and fighting it only made him more miserable. He didn’t have to like it, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Maybe John could forgive him for that, too.

Harold was really glad the bleeding had finally stopped and John’s wounds had healed over, though. No matter how sorry he was or how much he loved him, if he had to wake up in the morning with John’s blood all over him one more time, he might move out. Or relocate to the sofa. He had only screamed the first time, but it had still been traumatizing. John laughing at him certainly hadn’t helped.

What Harold had been working all day to find for John might help though. Harold didn’t really like death and violence, which was ironic when one considered the man he was with, but he liked the idea of John vulnerable and at the mercy of a madman a hell of a lot less. Besides, he wouldn’t have to see it himself; it would be enough for him just to know that Daniel Lacox was no more. Smudged out of existence like a typing error with whiteout. He didn’t like violence and death, but he wasn’t above vengeance and what Lacox had done was unforgivable. The idea that he was still out there doing it to others disturbed him. Taking care of such things was what John Reese did. Did it matter that John would probably enjoy it this time?

Not very much.

Harold could hear music playing in the apartment all the way down the hall before he reached the door. Jimi Hendrix from the sound of it. He didn’t bother to knock anymore, John knew he had a key and he had been using it for a while. He unlocked the door and went inside, then stood there and stared at the mess.

Bear heard the door open and close and came running to greet him. Harold patted him absently on the head and walked into the room.

“John?!” he called over the blasting music. “John?! Where are you?!”

John appeared around the corner coming out of the kitchen with a bottle of whisky in one hand and a brimming glass in the other. “Hey, Harold.”

Harold only knew what he said because he could read his lips. “John! Could you turn the music down?!”

“What?!” John called back. He crossed the living room to the entertainment center.

“I said--!”

Jimi Hendrix’s voice cut off.

“--could you turn the music down?!”

“You don’t have to shout,” John said. He was smiling though, so Harold decided he was teasing him. “Want a drink?”

“No, I do not want a…” Harold trailed off and walked over to John to peer into his face. “Are you drunk?”

John set the bottle down on top of the entertainment center and sipped from his glass. “Little bit, yeah.”

“Okay,” Harold said. He looked around at the floor where what looked like pages of a book and some of his clothes were strewn. “What happened here? That better not be one of my books.”

“Nope. You’ll be glad to know, it’s mine,” John said. “Bear got bored. I can sympathize. Because… so did I. So, I went out.”

“You went out?” Harold repeated.

“Mhmm. And yanno who I saw? You’ll never guess, so I’ll just tell you. Shaw and Zoe and Carter. They were at Kelly’s. Together.”

“Yes, well they are free to go where they want when they’re not working,” Harold said. He decided to save the information he had gathered on Lacox for later. The way John sounded (and smelled), he would promptly forget it right after being told about it anyway. “How many drinks did you have with the ladies before you came home and started on that?” He nodded at the bottle.

“None,” John said. He tipped his head back and drained his glass, the ice clinking against his teeth. He immediately poured another. “Took Bear for a walk. Thought I’d have a few drinks. There, I mean. Then I changed my mind.”

“Alright,” Harold said. “Why didn’t you clean this mess up?”

John shrugged. “Didn’t feel like it.”

“John,” Harold started, but John waved at him to hush.

“Who cares?” he said. “I’ll get it later. It’s not hurting anything. Just don’t step on any of it and fall.”

“I shall do my best to be extra careful,” Harold promised, amused despite himself. He left John standing there to put away his briefcase and take his jacket off. When he returned, John was still there, brooding into his lowball glass. “John?”

“Hmm?” He blinked and the solemn expression dissolved with a faint smile. “They were talking about us.”

“Who were?”

“The ladies.”

Harold’s eyebrows lifted. “Were they? In regard to what?”

“Sex,” John said. He sipped his scotch.

“You’re making that up,” Harold said.

John smirked. “I am not.”

“What did you say?”

“Not much.” John rolled a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “What’s to talk about? We’re not doing it anymore.”

“Because you were injured,” Harold said indignantly. John made it sound like them not having sex was his fault, which he definitely took issue with because it absolutely was not. “And a few other reasons, of course, all of which is none of their business, but mostly because you were injured.”

John made a musing huh sound in his throat and drank some more.

“John, what did you say?”

“Nothing. They’ve got a bet going about whether or not I bottom. Wasn’t completely sure what that meant, but I figured it out pretty quick.”

“They do not.”

“I guess they do.”

“And what did you say?”

“That I don’t.”

“Oh.” Harold didn’t know what else to say. The entire idea of something so personal also being something the women were arbitrarily placing bets on made him intensely uncomfortable. “Why did you say anything?”

“It’s not a secret anymore, Harold,” John said. “The secret’s out. Doesn’t matter. Not that there’s much to talk about… or that I would do that.”

He said this last with his eyes slanted at Harold like he expected some kind of outburst. Harold just stared at him, then turned and walked out of the room. John sighed.

“Harold, come on. Don’t be a…. girl about it.”

Harold came back from the kitchen and stood in the doorway. “Excuse me, John Barleycorn?”

John grinned. “See? You’re doing it.”

Harold glared at him, then huffed out a breath and went back into the kitchen. “You’re only encouraging them to gossip, that’s all,” he said. “And yes, I don’t like it. I am a very private person, you know that, and I thought you were, too.”

John walked over to lean in the doorway and watch him as Harold put the kettle on the stove and moved around the kitchen making something to eat. “I didn’t tell them anything, Harold. Calm down. It’s not like there’s anything to tell. We don’t exactly do anything all that interesting even when we’re doing anything.”

Harold stopped, put the knife he had been cutting baby carrots with down, and stared at John over the counter. “We don’t do anything interesting?” he said. “Like what, Mr. Reese? What would you like to do that we don’t do, hmm? Something with handcuffs perhaps? Or--”

“Jesus Christ. No, Harold,” John said, holding his hands up. “I’m sorry I mentioned it.”

Harold noted the wide-eyed expression of alarm on John’s face and began to smile. It was absurd. The entire thing was absurd. That he should be here, in this place with John Reese, of all people, preparing tea and making a chicken salad, the dog they shared in the other room likely defacing another novel while they were arguing about their sex life; it was utterly ridiculous. And John, he looked more startled and worried by how Harold was taking the news that their friends were talking about their private life than Harold had ever seen him look when in mortal danger.

“Look at us,” Harold said.

John took note of the little smile on his face and the abrupt change in his mood with a frown. “Yeah…?”

“Just… nothing. It’s just strange. We’re… domestic,” Harold said. He wasn’t sure what his point was, but it was still remarkable enough that it seemed worth mentioning.

John blinked and looked down at himself, looked at Harold, then shrugged and drank the rest of the whisky in his glass. “The modern-day odd couple,” he agreed. “I don’t think they were actually having sex either, come to think of it.”

Harold sighed. “John, if you’re trying to hint at something, consider the message received,” he said. “You’re not very subtle, you know.”

“I’ve been told that,” John said.

“I’m sure you’re current blood alcohol content might have something to do with that.” Harold ate a cube of chicken off the blade of the paring knife before he put the knife in the sink.

“You’re not really that subtle, either, Harold.” John put his glass down on the counter by the sink and sat down across from him. “What are you making?”

“Salad. I don’t feel much like cooking,” Harold said. “Are you hungry?”

“Better not,” John said. “You ever thrown up lettuce?”

“No.”

“It’s pretty gross.”

“Are you expecting to spend the evening throwing up?”

“Probably not. I didn’t drink that much.”

“Good.” Harold tore up some Romaine lettuce, threw the carrots, some spinach and grape tomatoes in a bowl with it and some chicken leftover from the night before, squirted it all with vinaigrette dressing and sprinkled it with cheese, then crossed to the dining table to sit while he ate it.

John got a beer out of the fridge and sat across from him at the table. “So, what was the big secret thing you had to do earlier?”

“I’m not telling you. That’s what makes it a secret,” Harold said. He put a bite of salad in his mouth and chewed.

John narrowed his eyes on him and drank some of his beer. “It’s a secret from me?”

It was until he was sober enough to retain the information. “Why don’t I tell you tomorrow?”

John was drunk but he wasn’t slow. “You mean when I’m sober.”

“Unfortunately, I think it’s information you should receive when you’re not drunk, yes.”

For a moment it seemed like John was going to argue about it. Then he shrugged and drank some more of his beer. The kettle on the stove shrieked and Harold got up to take it off the burner. He came back to the table with a teacup and saucer, dunking a vanilla chai teabag in it.

“That smells like a cinnamon bun,” John said. He finished his beer and put the bottle down on the table.

“Yes, well, you smell like a brewery.”

“Makes sense.”

Harold sat back down and put his teacup aside. “It’s not an altogether unpleasant odor.”

John smiled and rested his face in one hand on the table. “Thanks, Harold.”

“You’re welcome.” Harold picked up his fork and went back to his salad, trying to pretend that John wasn’t watching him eat with a lazy, drunken smile on his face.

Harold had just taken a sip of his tea and set the cup back on the saucer when John leaned over and kissed him. It was a little clumsy at first, a press of lips against the side of Harold’s mouth, but he got there in the end. It was the first proper kiss they had shared in months and even though John was a little drunk, it wasn’t awful. He tasted like the beer he had been drinking and scotch before that, and it mingled pleasantly with the lingering flavor of chai in Harold’s own mouth. John’s tongue stroking into his mouth had Harold leaning into the kiss and he moaned softly before gently pushing him away.

John made a soft sighing sound of frustration and sat back in his chair.

“It’s not no, John, just… not yet,” Harold said. He stabbed a tiny tomato and a slice of carrot with his fork. “Let me finish my dinner.”

“That’s not dinner, it’s a salad,” John said.

“I had a big lunch and I’m tired. I don’t feel like cooking and you don’t seem like you’d be capable of it at the moment. Besides, there’s chicken in it, therefore it is a meal.”

“Alright, whatever, eat your dinner.”

Harold went back to his food like nothing had happened. “Was Detective Fusco able to arrest Mr. Paulson with the evidence you and Miss Shaw provided?”

“Yeah. The guy cried. Said he was sick, he needed help. You know how they are.”

“Yes, though I doubt if there will be any help for him where he’s going.” Harold didn’t sound sorry about it either, and he wasn’t.

“No. Some justice for that little girl though,” John said.

“Prison justice.”

John smiled a little. “Yes.”

“Sadly, that’s not much consolation to the girl. Or her father.”

“No, I guess not, but he won’t be able to murder Paulson now, so he’ll actually be around for his little girl.”

“Cold comfort, I’m sure. But you’re right, of course.”

Harold finished his salad and put the bowl aside. John was watching him, but Harold smiled and picked up his teacup to drink his tea. John sat forward with his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth.

“John, do you have to stare at me that way?”

“What way, Harold?”

“Like a cat watching a mouse hole.”

John smiled, which did nothing at all to dispel the feline impression. Harold took a swallow of tea, put the cup down and stood. He held a hand down for John to take. “Come on then.”

Instead of taking his hand, John stood up and pulled him against him. Exactly like a cat pouncing, Harold had time to think, then he was being kissed and backed out of the kitchen toward the bed. When John got frustrated by the buttons on his vest, Harold pushed his hands away to unfasten them himself and caught his breath.

“John, do be careful.”

John pulled his shirt off over his head without bothering with the buttons and threw it aside. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I mean… I know, you know?”

Harold just stared at him. The scars on his body outlined the structure of the skeleton beneath his skin in morbid, pink lines. They would fade to glossy lines the same color as the rest of his skin in time, but now they were still fresh enough to be red and sensitive. Harold put a hand out and ran his fingers down John’s chest. The skin twitched under his hand as the muscle beneath tensed.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said.

John looked down at Harold’s hand on his scarred chest and frowned. “I’m fine,” he said. He put his hand over Harold’s to flatten his palm there and make him stop tracing the scars. “Harold, I’m fine.”

“I hate him,” Harold said with sudden vehemence. “Daniel Nicholas Parker Lacox, Nicholas Lassen, Jack--whatever he calls himself now. I hate him for this.”

John ducked his head to look Harold in the eyes. “I know,” he said. “And I’ll get him. I’ll make him pay. For this, for all the ones who didn’t get away.”

Harold took a breath and let it out. He nodded. He was agitated by the sight of John’s scarred body and the reminder of how close he had been to being one of the ones who didn’t get away, too. What mood there was, Harold was rapidly killing it.

Except John didn’t seem to think so. Maybe because John was kind of drunk. Under other circumstances, his inebriated judgment was not to be completely trusted any more than that of any other drunk person, but he really wasn’t that drunk and even Harold knew that the last thing he needed to go on thinking about was Lacox and his knives hacking up John’s already badly scarred body.

John still had a slight limp from the knife Harold had been forced to pull from his leg. It was almost healed and John had remarkable control over his own body under the worst conditions, but it had been one of the worst and even John couldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt even a little sometimes.

And Harold was still thinking about it.

He kissed John, hoping that might help. He had heard it often said that such things were good for distraction. It worked a little, but then he tripped and nearly fell backward over Bear as they were moving toward the bed. The helpless sensation of falling wiped everything else from his mind. John stumbled and caught him.

Bear slunk off with his head down, looking ashamed of himself. John snapped a command at him in Dutch and the dog hurried over to his bed and curled down in it with his ears back.

Harold straightened and tapped John on the shoulder. John let him go and Harold said, “Perhaps we should leave this for another time.”

John ignored him completely and started loosening Harold’s tie.

“Exactly how much of that alcohol did you consume before I came in?” Harold asked. He shrugged out of his vest obligingly enough but snatched his tie out of John’s hand when he would have thrown it on the floor. “Because I’ve heard… well, and in my experience, to be frank, sometimes one’s ambition can exceed one’s capacity to perform, depending on… um… how drunk one is.”

John snorted laughter and shook his head, amused by him. He tugged Harold’s shirt out of his trousers and began fumbling with the buttons. Before he could get annoyed and pop them off, Harold brushed his hands away and unbuttoned them himself.

“I’ve never been that drunk,” John said.

He cupped Harold’s face in his hands and kissed him. He tasted like good, smoky scotch whisky and Harold let himself be laid down on the bed. It wasn’t wonderful, and Harold was sure someone somewhere had made wildly exalted claims at some point that he had heard or read and believed about the ecstasy of make-up sex, but it was simply not true every time and this was one of them. It wasn’t awful. He was also sure that someone somewhere had explained to him once that sex was one of those things; even when it was bad it was still pretty good. He was almost positive that someone had been Nathan though, and such a statement was about as close as Nathan ever got to apologizing for something like, say, being disgustingly drunk and pawing at him like a clumsy virgin. John wasn’t that drunk. Harold had even seen him drunker than he was. It probably wasn’t even the alcohol. They had had sex when John was a little buzzed before and it didn’t seem to make a difference. Sometimes bad sex just happened and, even when it was something you wanted, it ended up disappointing everyone.

It didn’t really matter. Being with John and there being no anger between them anymore was enough sometimes. Besides, sex was a perk of being with someone, not the reason for it, at least not for Harold and, Harold was sure, not for John.

“I’m sorry,” John said after a while. He was laying on his back beside Harold with one arm over his face.

Harold had thought he was falling asleep. “For what?” Though he had an idea.

“For that,” John said, raising the arm not over his face to gesture with his hand. “That was bad.”

“Ah… I’m sorry,” Harold said. “I did try.”

“No, you were fine. It was me. I know it was me.”

“Well… it wasn’t that bad.”

“It was awful.”

“It was… fine.”

“I can do better.” John rolled onto his side to look at him.

Harold put a hand flat to John’s chest and lightly patted him. “Yes, I know,” he said. “We’ll try again later.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” John promised.

“I’m sure, but not right now.” Harold sat up. “I’m going to shower. You can make it up to me tomorrow.”

John rolled back onto his back and threw his arm back over his face. “Shit. Alright.”

Harold almost laughed at him, but he managed to suppress it. “Yes, I’m sure it’s a great wound to your pride,” he said. He got up and crossed the room to the bathroom, leaving John to sulk and hopefully pass out.

When he finished with his shower and was dressed for bed, his teeth brushed and his glasses put away, Harold emerged from the bathroom to find John sleeping on his side with a pillow bunched up under his cheek and the sheet pulled up around his hips. He slept on the side of the bed closest to the door. He pretended that he preferred it that way, but Harold knew John Reese could fall asleep in a ditch half full of rainwater and piss and that the only reason he insisted on sleeping there was because it put him between Harold and the door. Thus, between Harold and any potential danger.

Harold watched him sleep for a minute, then went to get his briefcase. He removed the information on Daniel Lacox that he had found for John and put it on the island counter in the kitchen where he knew John would find it the next day. Then he climbed into bed beside him and went to sleep.

John woke up early the next morning when it was still dark with cotton mouth and an annoying little hangover. Harold was asleep beside him and John was careful not to wake him as he slipped out of bed. He went straight to the kitchen, poured himself a glass of orange juice and drank it at the counter. When he was done, he drank a glass of water and went into the bathroom to clean up. His mouth tasted horrible.

He returned to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee and was standing at the sink, sipping another glass of water when he noticed the file on the island counter. Harold wasn’t careless with such things. He didn’t leave them laying around, which was why Bear usually ate John’s books when acting out instead of Harold’s priceless first editions. If something like this was sitting out, it was because Harold wanted him to see it.

John went over and flipped it open. Jack’s pretty face looked up at him from a photograph and John felt his jaw clench. He picked up the file and started to read. He was almost done when the coffee finished brewing. He put the file down and poured himself a cup. His anger was a cold, thin sheet of frost inside him. It was a familiar sensation, but not one he had felt as strongly since the last time he had seen Jack, looking down at him as John bled in his chair, scolding John for making him mess up his fucked up little ritual.

“You’ve been very bad, angel. Very bad. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

John smiled faintly around the lip of his coffee cup. He swallowed and murmured, “I told you, do it right.” He clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth with a soft tsk, tsk sound. “I’ll be seeing you, Jack.”

The newest address in the file for Daniel Nicholas Parker Lacox, who was now going by the name Daniel David Parker, was in Boston. If John left right away, he could be there in a little over two hours.

He would go after he finished his coffee. He might even pick up doughnuts on the way.

Jack was up to his old tricks in Boston. He seemed to have his eye on a pretty girl married a rich man from old money. Old money because they lived in the Beacon Hill area, but their lawn wasn’t immaculately groomed, their clothes were nice but simple and they didn’t drive a brand new flashy sports car. Flashy sports cars were for the nouveau riche. Her name was Lauria and John watched Jack stalk her for a little while before he got bored and went to a café for a bite to eat.

He ordered a steak, medium rare, and a dark beer that the waiter recommended to him. His food had just arrived when his phone rang. John checked it, saw that it was Harold and answered it.

“Hello, Harold.”

“John, where are you?”

“Boston.”

Harold was silent for a few moments, then he said, “So, I should expect you back late.”

John smiled. “Yes.”

“And I should contact Miss Shaw with anything that comes up.”

“Yes, Harold. Don’t worry. She can handle it.”

“It isn’t Miss Shaw I’m worried about.”

“Harold, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’m going to take care of it.”

“By ‘it’, am I to surmise that you’ve located Mr. Lacox?”

“Yes.”

“Please be careful, John.”

“Always.” John picked up his beer and took a swallow. “Anything else, Harold?”

Harold sighed. “Don’t you dare get yourself killed,” he said. He hung up.

John disconnected the call, returned it to his jacket pocket and ate his steak. When he was done, he drove to Lacox’s new house to wait for him.

The man didn’t have servants, but he wasn’t new money, according to Harold, his lifestyle just didn’t allow for them. Servants saw a lot and servants talked, and Jack moved around too much for any servants he might have had to be anything but strangers who owed him no loyalty. John slipped into the house through the back and no one was there to stop him.

He did a sweep of the property and found Jack’s knives and other toys of torture in a closet on the second floor. In the desk in the study, he found a thick file on Lauria and her husband. Her husband wasn’t Jack’s type; too short, a little sickly, blond. The wife was the target, but Jack did good research and that included the husband as well as other family. Lauria had parents in Acton, she was allergic to cats, she went to a fancy gym across town three times a week to work out with a personal trainer, met once a month with a book club, volunteered at a hospital every two weeks and her rich husband thought she was having an affair with a bartender at the country club. The evidence seemed to support this.

Jack wasn’t ready to take her yet. He would still watch her for at least a week.

John put the file away.

Jack came home a little after five p.m. He put his coat away and went into the kitchen to wash his hands and prepare himself something to eat. He was in his own home, his own territory, so he felt safe and let his guard down. He still sensed the danger he was in and started to turn around a moment before John hit him in the back of the head and knocked him out.

John stood over Jack’s prone body and smiled a little, thinking how pleased Shaw would be that he had followed her example and used her knockout technique. It worked like a charm, but he would have to tell her later how impractical it would be to try it from a skateboard. Jack would have had the drop on him if John had been on a skateboard.

He picked Jack up, sat him up in a chair at the end of his dining table, and put Jack’s hand’s on the table. He had unrolled Jack’s set of knives on the table earlier and he picked one up. It was a match for the one John still had that Harold had pulled out of his leg. He held both knives up and admired the shine of the blades as the cold frost of his anger became a thick crust of ice in his mind.

“You know, I don’t like hurting people,” John said. He thought about it, then said, “Actually, sometimes I do rather enjoy it. I think this is going to be one of those times.”

He took Jack’s right hand by the wrist and pulled his arm out in front of him so that he was leaning over the tabletop. Jack was still unconscious but he moaned, stirring. John drove the long blade of a knife into his hand, pinning it to the table. Jack came to screaming. He saw the knife protruding from the back of his hand and reached to take it out, but John seized his left wrist, fought with him to pull his arm out and drove the second knife through the back of that hand, too.

Jack’s screams rose higher and became frantic shrieks. In his panic, he pulled against the knives and the blades cut him, but his hands wouldn’t come free.

“Be quiet,” John said.

Jack didn’t even hear him. He gasped and kept screaming.

John sighed and hit him in the face. The screams cut off and became keening whimpers and moans. “That’s better,” John said. “Hello, Jack.”

“What are you doing?” Jack asked. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“It’s not very nice, is it?” John said. He pulled out the chair on Jack’s right and sat down at the table. “I didn’t like it either.”

Jack stared at him and his eyes cleared a little. The pain didn’t leave, but it was pushed back as his attention locked on John. “You,” he said, panting. He licked his lips and, incredibly, he smiled. “You’ve come back to me. I knew… you were perfect.”

John lifted his eyebrows, admittedly a little surprised. “Special, right?”

“Yes,” Jack said. “My angel. So beautiful.”

“Yeah, thanks,” John said. He was both amused and disgusted by the creature who was Daniel Nicholas Parker Lacox. “You know something about angels that people seem to forget, Jack?”

“Why do you call me that?”

John ignored the question. “Angels were killers. Angels fell and became the first devils.”

Jack’s bright eyes flashed. “Yes. Look at you. Look what I made you.”

John was surprised by his own laughter. “No.” He had been a killer a long, long time before ever encountering Jack and his games. If anyone got the credit for what John was now, it was Harold. “No, you didn’t make me.”

“How can you say that!” Jack screamed, half rising from his seat. The knives reminded him where he was and he sat back down, whimpering in pain. “Look at you. You’re beautiful. I made you beautiful.”

“There was a time I so easily could have been you,” John said. Flattery was nice and all, but Jack’s nonsense about his beauty was just insane. “There were a few times… I nearly was. I’ve killed a lot of people.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Jack whispered, sing-song. He laughed.

“I’m not going to play your game, Jack,” John said. “Who’s the better killer? It’s no contest, really.” He reached over and tapped the pommel of one of the knife handles. “I win.”

Jack’s lips skinned back from his teeth in a savage smile. “No. I win. Look at you. Do you think you’d be here now if not for me? Or that you’d do what you’re doing? Look what I’ve done to you. Look what I’ve turned you into.”

John rolled his eyes and twisted the knife in Jack’s right hand, wiggling it just a little bit. Jack screamed and his arms tensed and bunched with the instinctive desire to pull himself free to escape the pain.

“You said yourself, you improvised for me,” John said. “You didn’t plan. You acted impulsively. When you do that, you never know what you’re going to get. You got me. I admit it, I was surprised. I never expected it. But you got me, Jacky. It was a bad move.”

Jack opened his mouth to speak and John was suddenly tired of hearing his crazy bullshit. He hit him in the face and stood up. There was a slim bladed knife in the set, a fillet knife, and John selected it and stood there studying Jack. The clothes would have to go, or maybe just the shirt. He set the knife aside for the moment and picked up the fine set of sheers included with the knives.

“It never really bothered me much. Killing people,” John said. “I never really liked it much either. It’s interesting though, you know… it’s the difference between a person and an object.”

“And you’re going to turn me into an object,” Jack guessed.

“Yes, I think so,” John said. He went back down the table to him holding the sheers. “But I think we’ll play first.”

“Yes,” Jack said eagerly. “Oh, yes.”

Harold waited up for John to get home, but John didn’t get back until early the next morning around 3:15. Harold was awake and panicking. He had called John several times. He couldn’t remember how many, he had lost count, but John had turned his phone off or lost it. He never answered, and by three, Harold was ready to call Shaw, Carter and Fusco to go out and find him (or his body).

When John walked through the door, Harold was sitting at the desk with a cup of coffee by his left hand, talking to Shaw on the phone. “I am not overreacting, Miss Shaw, I-- John.”

“Hey, Harold,” John said. He put his keys down and turned to find Harold standing right there, glaring up at him. “Um. Are you alright?”

“Where the hell have you been?” Harold demanded.

John frowned at him. “I was in Boston. I thought you knew.”

“You were in Boston all day?”

“Yes.”

Harold scowled. “I called.”

“I was busy.”

“You could have answered the phone once so I would know you were alive.”

John chuffed a soft laugh and walked around him toward the bathroom. “Of course I’m alive.”

“John,” Harold snapped.

John turned back to him.

“That man nearly killed you. Do not dismiss my concern so--”

“Harold, I’m tired,” John said patiently. “I’m also here and obviously alive. Take a breath.”

Harold took a breath and huffed it out. He did it again and this time he was slightly more calm. “Fine,” he said. “What about Mr. Lacox?”

“Dead.”

“You’re sure?”

John smirked. “Very sure.”

Bear was asleep on the floor. He smelled John and woke up. When he saw him, he jumped up and ran across the wood floor, sliding a little on his way to him. John knelt to let Bear lick and bump against him in greeting.

“I was worried,” Harold confessed.

John looked up at him from the floor, smiling. “I know. I’m okay, Harold.”

“Do I want to know why it took you so long to deal with Mr. Lacox?”

“No.”

“Alright then.”

“Harold?”

“Yes, John?”

“I think Shaw’s still on the phone.”

Harold looked down at the cell phone in his hand like he had never seen it before. “Oh. Oh!” He lifted the phone. “Miss Shaw… I have to let you go.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Shaw said. She yawned loudly. “Tell Reese I said hi. I expect a full run-down later.”

They hung up and Harold put the phone in his pocket. He was getting ready to scold John some more when John stood up and kissed him. He was alive, Harold reminded himself. He was alive and Lacox wasn’t. That was all that mattered. The blood on the cuff of John’s white shirt wasn’t his blood, the weary look in his eyes hadn’t been put there by anything more perilous than a sleepless night. He was real and warm and there under Harold’s hands. He was safe.

“I called you when I was going to be late,” Harold said when John broke the kiss. “You could have at least done me the same courtesy.”

John laughed. “Next time I will.”