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It's still dark outside when something jabs Rook in the ribs and whines loudly.
"Your dog is on my bed," John complains. "I did not agree to this." There's a gritty displeasure in his voice, but it's grumbling and soft, rather than sharp and vibrating, so Rook can mostly ignore it.
Boomer whines again, turns in a circle and then shoves his wet nose into Rook's ear. As if he can't understand why Rook is not awake and alert already, why he's not immediately moving to find out what Boomer's trying to tell him, when he's being such a good boy.
"Someone's probably trying to get in touch with me," Rook grumbles, and drags his arm out from under John's body.
"Then perhaps you should go and find out who's so fucking impatient that they desperately need you at four in the morning," John tells him. "And take your dog with you."
Rook tries to remember where he left his bag. Boomer solves the problem by going out to the hall, finding the edge of the window and sitting down, giving a little huff of impatient discovery. Right, because Rook still can't use the door like a normal person. It's still dark as shit, but the radio helpfully crackles, a muffled voice coming from the left side pocket.
"Good boy." Rook pats Boomer, and fishes the source of noise out.
He takes it back to bed, it doesn't really matter if John's here, they've all become so used to watching what they say on the radio, convinced that the other side is listening in. John's turned the light on, and he's now lying on his back, hair half in his face, like he's posing for some sort of especially pornographic Greek painting. Rook suspects that if he'd been gone another five minutes he would have come back to find him jerking off.
Rook still isn't entirely sure how John is getting away with this, why Joseph is letting him have this. When Eden's Gate seems to be all about punishing people for having sex, or thinking about sex, or especially for trying to convince your body it's seventeen again, so you could spend all day doing increasingly obscene things to the man you're supposed to be fighting against.
He suspects that Joseph had a choice between forcing his brother to keep carving into the rapidly dwindling amount of bare skin he has left, or hoping that focusing John's obviously reciprocated desires could eventually convert Rook into one of the faithful. If that's true, Rook doesn't think Joseph Seed thought that one through all that well. John is volatile and possessive, and Rook gets attached easily, and has a talent for breaking absolutely everything between him and his goal. Combining the two of them together has a good chance of blowing up in everyone's face.
John has claimed most of the bed back, so Rook swings a leg over his waist, and sits on him instead. Which John doesn't seem to know whether to appreciate or protest, since Rook is clearly distracted
"Hey, Rook, you there?" Nick's voice is impatient but apologetic through the radio, so it's probably something that Nick thinks is important, and he's usually a pretty good judge.
Rook drops a hand and presses it down over John's mouth, which his eyes clearly object to, but is a very good look for him. Rook needs to try that again at some point, like the next time he's balls deep inside him. Crush all those choked-out insults and filthy demands John likes to give him back behind his teeth, so all he can do is make strangled, muffled noises in his throat. John's eyes narrow, and Rook's pretty sure his appreciation is showing.
He hits the button.
"Nick, yeah, I'm here."
John clearly isn't happy about being effectively muted, all throaty rumbles of annoyance. They drag all the way down Rook's spine, and tell him he's going to pay for this later, and John is going to enjoy it even if he doesn't. He should probably be more worried about that. When John's impatient lust and inability to say no to anything is all wrapped up with the angry need to punish him. But Rook has proven repeatedly that he likes John's painful enthusiasm more than is good for him. He's discovered lately that he likes an awful lot of things he shouldn't. Which might go some way to explaining why things in his life keep exploding, and why he keeps standing too close to things that might
"Shit, man, I'm sorry to wake you." Nick's apology is not as distracting as John sliding one tattooed hand around him, fingers spreading and curling tight.
"No, it's not a problem, what do you need?" Rook asks, and he's trying very hard to sound like he's listening and ready to be helpful.
"I wasn't going to bother you, but we have something of a situation down by the river." Nick's hurrying the words out, and Rook thinks maybe he's been trying to call him for a while. He usually has his radio closer, but today he'd dropped it with the rest of his stuff, too intent on getting John out of his clothes and into a bed.
John's other hands curls around Rook's wrist, very slowly draws his hand away, as if testing whether Rook will trust him enough to keep quiet on his own. Rook's honestly not sure whether he will or not. John's an unpredictable little shit, and he seems hellbent on making life difficult for both of them. But Rook lets him get his mouth free, he lets John pull his hand all the way down to the warmth of his chest, fingertips dragging on the slightly raised edges of the 'sloth' scar there. John says nothing, mouth wet and half-open, but he's smiling up at him like he knows that Rook's testing him.
"There are some people that have gone missing here, six in the last two days, we could really use your eyes on this."
John stops stroking him and reaches up, taps at the radio.
"You should let me talk to him," he says. As if that isn't the worst fucking idea ever.
"It's a pretty long stretch of river, Grace says she'll meet you by the green dock, if you want to lead the team."
Rook leans back out of John's reach.
"Anyone would think you were ashamed of me," John says, and he's smiling, but it's a touch too brittle to be amusement.
"Or I don't want to deal with the clusterfuck that would result from you losing your temper on an open radio," Rook points out. John's amusement would almost be worse, because it prods and pokes and digs into people's insecurities, until they're the ones that lash out. And paranoid as everyone around here seems to be all the time, Rook's pretty sure that in this case it's true that the frequencies are monitored.
The radio crackles, and Rook listens to Nick say his name again.
"Do you think your friends would think less of you, if they knew exactly where you were right now?" John asks quietly, hands falling to wrap around the hard edges of Rook's hips. "Do you think they would be disgusted? Do you think they would forgive you?"
Rook holds the radio aside, and considers the long, stretched-out expanse of John's chest.
"If you want to know what it's like to beg for forgiveness. Maybe next time you let me do what I did last night, I'll tape it, and then put it up for the whole county to see."
John's exhale hisses out of him through his teeth, and Rook feels the flexing jerk of interest underneath him. The way John struggles not to push up, not to drag him down.
"I would kill you," he says eventually, breathlessly. But John's hard underneath Rook now, and he knows that's a lie.
Rook raises an eyebrow at him, and hits the button on the radio again.
"Yeah, sorry, I'm good, I'll get my stuff together and meet you there."
He tosses the radio down.
"Have you been stealing people again, John, that sounds like something you'd do." Rook draws his hand free, climbs off of John's lap, ignoring the grumble of disappointment, and the way John's hand tries to draw him back, before it gives in and falls back to land on his chest.
John makes a noise that admits to nothing.
"I already let you have your deputy back," he warns him. "If any of your other friends are careless enough to get caught, I'm keeping them."
Rook's tempted to ask what made John decide to keep him.
"Well then I'll just find my way inside, break all of your things, and get them out again."
John gives a frustrated sigh, pulls himself to a sit so he can curl into Rook's shoulder.
"You're not rescuing them you know. I'm cleansing them of their sins, I'm trying to help them, and they will all find themselves atoning eventually, no matter how much you rail against it." John's voice is oddly gentle, like he's telling him something he's already explained more than once. As if Rook's constant need to pull people out of his grip is childish and ultimately pointless. John's convinced that he's helping people, that the threat is genuine and Eden's Gate's work is a necessary evil.
Rook's honestly doesn't know what to do with that much conviction. Sometimes it feels like John's belief, in Joseph, in Eden's Gate, in God, is the only thing holding all the pieces of him together. And Rook's already far too attached to the messy whole, so he still doesn't quite know how to touch that.
"I know I can make you see that eventually. I want to take your confession." John's voice drops on that, shivery soft like it's something he thinks about a lot. His hand curls on Rook's arm, draws him in close. It's not sexual for once, but it's the same flavour of rawness, of need and necessity. "But I want you to ask for it. I want to be the one you come to when you want to give that, the one you choose to help show you the path. I know you're not ready to join us, I know you're still fighting. But I have faith that you'll find your way eventually, that you'll join me. I can be patient."
"Until I piss you off and wake up tied to a chair with you slicing pieces off of me anyway?" Rook guesses. Because at this point he still thinks there's a fifty-fifty chance.
John's expression changes instantly.
"I have no idea why you have to be so difficult," he bites out.
"Because you're stupidly hot when you're pissed off?" Rook says honestly. "And I have no sense of self-preservation."
John's irritation wavers at the compliment, settles into something less sharp - his hand catches Rook when he moves to get off the bed, grips and then pulls, demanding.
"No," Rook tells him, which always serves to draw an unhappy tightness to John's face, like he resents Rook using the word on him. "If I let you drag me back into bed then I'm going to be late, and in no state to wade through a river, and avoid your half-blind minions, to rescue some idiot townsfolk who decided they absolutely had to go into the woods and practice some fucking astronomy or something, while the county was at war and on fire."
He picks up his jeans, gives an annoyed huff and looks under the bed.
"Where's my underwear?"
John points.
Rook finds it at the end of the bed, pulls it on and shakes out his jeans.
"And try not to slice anyone open while I'm having a riverbank adventure," he says. Because Rook is supposed to be a fucking deputy here and he feels like he has to at least make some sort of effort.
John pushes the sheets aside and follows him to the doorway, pinning him there with his long, naked body. He kisses Rook like he's still mostly angry, but can't let him leave without touching him.
"I have to test them," John says quietly, half explanation and half apology. He curls a hand round Rook's neck and holds him close. "I have to show them their sins so they can be whole. I'm trying to save them. I know you can't see that yet, I know you think it's cruelty, but it's all necessary."
Rook is already far too attached to this madness, because he doesn't stop him, he doesn't tell him he's fucking insane. He just crushes the words back into John's mouth, makes him stop talking. Because he knows damn well that's something he's going to have to deal with eventually, but it's going to be fucking messy and it's probably going to hurt. Rook kisses him until John pushes a hand into his hair, and sighs into his mouth, like he thinks Rook has forgiven him.
"Leave through the front door," John says tightly, because Rook knows he's sick of him sneaking out of the window. "And contact me later, so I know you're not dead."
John is convinced he's dead at least twice a week - though to be fair Rook does tend to escape death on a regular basis. Twice a week seems like an underestimation sometimes.
"Fine, I'll use the radio," Rook tells him.
John's eyebrows go up, surprised.
Rook smiles down at him, and he's kind of enjoying the way John's looking at him like he's the one who said something crazy for a change.
"If you can manage to contain yourself, while I suggestively threaten you."
John gives a shaky laugh, and he seems to like that idea even better.
"Well, that depends on how specific you get," he says, and his eyes are sharp and interested.
Rook thinks about it, can't help but think about it. He knows for a fact it's something he'd do, if he could be absolutely certain no one would listen in. He'd tell John exactly what he wanted to do to him, every obscene detail.
"Don't tempt me," he says simply, buckling his belt and grabbing his bag.
He leaves through the front door.