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Rook thinks a part of him had known that this was going to happen, eventually. Escaping from John the first time was mostly thanks to his new friends, the second time was a combination of luck and sheer determination, but escaping a third time is pushing it, even for him.
This time the ropes are tighter, the door to the stairs is shut and locked, and John is tucked in close, smiling like this was meant to be, no one else in the room to interrupt them, to distract John, to provide any means or opportunity for Rook to escape.
John already feels like a long line of vibrating anticipation, tattooed hands held out in front of him, as if revealing Rook for some grand purpose, admiring the enthusiastic, impenetrable knotwork that holds him to the chair. Rook thinks John's looking forward to this, that maybe he's been looking forward to it for a long while.
"So, how does this go?" Rook asks. He's never been the church-going sort, and the one his parents had gone to hadn't really had confession as a theme. "You torture me, and ask questions about all the bad things I've done?"
John shakes his head, like Rook has it all wrong, has it all confused. He reaches a hand out and settles it on Rook's shoulder, fingers warm through his shirt, flexing on the muscle, like they're resisting the urge to bite in.
"You're here to be unburdened of your sins, to have them pulled into the light, and revealed to you. Once you accept them, you can begin the path to atonement. You can be cleansed of their influence, and made clean. Then you can join our family, then you'll understand. This is for you, this is all for you."
John likes to talk an awful lot about being clean, but judging by the tools lying around, and the skin nailed to the wall, clean is the last thing people end up in this room. There's something deeply unsettling about a man who'd bring a knife to confession. Because it's far more of a promise right now than whatever nebulous salvation John promises.
Torture for his sins. Pain for his mistakes. When all Rook has been trying to do is help people, or trying to stop them from doing things they'll regret, tried his best to show them a better way, so they didn't end up in jail, or dead. He'd never expected the Seeds to make it so hard.
"And once I do this you just let me go?" Rook says, because he's not entirely sure that he believes that part. Or that he'll be in any state to drag himself out of here "You're just going to let me walk out of this room?"
John smiles wider, leaning in and bracing himself on the arms of Rook's chair, so that Rook can see every line of him picked out by the overhead lights. His eyes are too wide, too focused, there's sweat at his hairline, and the dip of his throat. For some reason John wants this, wants this enough to claw Rook open for it, and he doesn't know why.
"Once you confess, once your sins are revealed and accepted, you're free to leave this room, free to join us, free to show others the way. We're trying to save you, we're trying to show you how to save yourselves. This is a lesson you have to learn, if you have any hope for a future. And we care enough to teach it, when no one else will."
Rook remembers a man in a van asking once if the torture was optional, remembers a Peggie telling them the truth. There's no escaping this, there's no escaping John's need to make people bleed. Which isn't something that's easy to accept. The promise of it, the memory of it that permeates this whole room, in every streak of dried blood, curl of old flesh, and shining tool.
"How does it start?" Rook asks, trying not to look at any of it, trying not to feel it before it even starts. "You hurt me until I confess to something."
"You tell me about what makes you angry," John says simply, lifts his hands like it's a suggestion, an encouragement for Rook to share with him. "You tell me what feeds your wrath, Deputy?"
Rook sighs, frustrated, because for all that people keep laying that accusation on him, he isn't angry about any of this. He's mostly frustrated, and disappointed, and sad, that everything came down to this. A county tearing itself apart, a madman trying to save a people by breaking them open. It's all wrong, and it's all going to end badly, and Joseph just can't, or won't, or doesn't want to see it.
"I'm not an angry person," Rook says, though he doesn't think John will believe him. He has a feeling that John already has a version of him in his head, that he already knows what he expects - or wants - his sins to be, and it doesn't matter what Rook says.
He's proven right when his questioning glance gets him nothing but a flash of teeth, an impatient hand gesture.
Rook shrugs. "I guess I do sometimes have moments where I'm feeling a little annoyed, when people have done wrong and they escape punishment, or avoid it entirely. Injustice upsets me, I suppose."
"Injustice upsets you," John repeats, and Rook can hear his hand squeaking round the handle of the knife.
Rook probably could have phrased that a little better, he can see how that might have sounded flippant, unhelpful.
"I don't like seeing people hurt, I don't like seeing people abused, or taken advantage, it pushes me to fix it, to solve the problem."
John's smile is savage.
"Well, luckily I am adept at both hurting people and solving problems, and I can guarantee you that I will discover where your wrath comes from. What drives you. What infuriates you. I will find it and I will draw it out of you, mark it into your skin where there is no hiding from it, no denying it, you'll find it a relief, in the end." John leans down and in, hands on him, he tears his shirt open, buttons and fabric in pieces, chest bared for the world to see. "And I will bring it to the surface, I will make you whole."
John's smile, wide and encouraging, is an ugly fit for his promises. He has the wrong face for brutality.
The pain starts sharp and surprised, almost like Rook's skin doesn't notice until it's open. The worst comes afterwards, the waves that travel a sliding scale, follow the pain along, impossible to predict, to tense against. It makes pain feel like a boat on the ocean.
John asks him questions, questions that Rook has no answers to, questions that don't fit him. He asks him for pain that was done to him, pain he did to others, promises that were broken, friends who betrayed him. John digs for old wounds, wrongs never righted, he digs for revenge that might still be lurking inside him.
But none of that belongs to Rook, none of that is him.
John pulls at the pieces that Rook does give him, in a choked, breathless voice, pieces that aren't right, that aren't good enough, not what he wants, not what Rook needs to unburden himself of.
John stops and frowns down at him, the knife is wet now, shiny red on both sides. Rook isn't naive enough to believe that's the end of it, or even the real beginning. There's a muted distance to the pain now, an exhausted throb of memory that still hurts, it's just further away. He has a horrible feeling that John is actually good at this. That he knows how to promise and how to wait, between the parts where he peels you open.
"I was certain your sin would be wrath," John says softly, and Rook's not sure if he's disappointed or just confused. "All the destruction you've wrought, the lives you've taken." He comes closer, sinking to a crouch and frowning up at him, like he just wants to help him, just wants Rook to let John help him.
"Most of them shot at me first," Rook says quietly, once he can make his voice work again. "I used to be better at talking people out of violence, but the Peggies are persistent, and crazy." Some of them are also high as a fucking kite, determined to die for Joseph.
"They are devoted to our cause," John corrects, with an air of satisfaction, as if even the ones who died had been doing what was expected of them. "They joined willingly, sacrificed themselves for the Father."
Rook wonders if anyone remembers them, if anyone misses them, or the people they used to be.
"Lust then." John decides, as if from nowhere, straightening slowly and leaning into him. "Understandable, a man as popular as you, as friendly as you, must have desires, needs, demands not being met. Or perversions you're unwilling to admit to."
"I don't have any perversions," Rook protests.
John hurts him again, and there are accusations cracked out between the pain, bitten out in John's smooth voice. A scatter of desires that Rook might be hiding, a sliding scale of want in all tones and shades, from sweetly flirtatious to disturbingly obscene, and Rook can only shake his head, deny all of it, but he can't concentrate, he can't get anything between his teeth but air.
John's hands on him are damp, fingertips biting, demanding in short, clipped, barely controlled sentences. To know what he's ashamed of, the things he's wanted but never told, the things he's made people do for him. John bites it all out like an accusation, like he needs to know, needs to make Rook confess for his own peace of mind. A reassurance that everyone is the same, that everyone is broken, that everyone is willing to feed their own selfish needs, to destruction and beyond. John tells him it's alright, they're the same underneath, he understands, he'll accept him, Joseph will love him. Rook just has to tell him the truth and everything will be alright.
Rook vaguely registers blurting out memories from childhood, just to make it stop, the first time he realised he could feel things for people. How Kate Stanton's long, dark braids had always made him happy, and he'd always hoped she'd let him touch them one day. The way Chris Bell's big, gap-toothed smile made him look like a superhero, that he'd thought a lot about what it would feel like if he smiled against his face. He talks about kissing Luke Everson in the woods, laughing so hard it barely counted, but it had felt like an adventure anyway. How they'd promised to stay friends forever - until Luke fell out of a tree, and forever was no time at all.
The pain stops, leaves him breathless, throat papery and sore.
John catches a handful of his hair in wet, red fingers, tugs his head back until Rook is forced to look at him.
"I'm not talking about childhood crushes," he grates out, fingers tightening on every word. He feels angry in a way that Rook can't quite define. It's frustrated and personal somehow, like Rook's being difficult on purpose, refusing to give John something he needs. "Tell me the last person you lusted after. Someone you wanted, someone you couldn't have."
"I don't -" Rook coughs, makes his mouth work. "I don't just go around randomly fantasizing about people I don't know." Rook pulls at the grip in his hair, gets nothing but pain. "I'm a deputy, I have responsibilities, I can't just -"
John jabs the knife into the wooden workbench behind him.
"You're telling me that you've never lusted after anyone?" The curl of his mouth is all disbelief.
Rook stops pulling, gives in. "I'm not saying I've never had sex, that I've never been close to anyone. Is that what you want? Is that enough to be condemned by Joseph Seed? Fine, I've been in love, I've had sex. But I don't run around lusting after people. I honestly don't think about it that much when I'm not with someone. And when I'm with someone I think about them."
John doesn't believe him, that's clear enough.
"You don't idly imagine what it would be like to have someone under your hands, to have someone bending to your desires."
Rook pulls a face at him.
"I don't think bending someone to my desires is really my thing." Not the way John clips it out like an accusation. "You make it sound like a punishment."
John whole expression tightens, and he tugs at the knots securing Rook's wrists, until his hands protest in slow, unhappy thuds, and the stretch of his fingers drags skin against rope in a way that burns.
"Are you a proud man, Deputy?" John asks, a new accusation, a new sin.
Rook sighs, he doesn't know, he's always found the definition for that one fairly nebulous. Is it pleasure and satisfaction in your own work? An unwillingness to ask for help? A determination to keep your own dignity? Rook doesn't know, he didn't go to Sunday school, he didn't learn any of this. He tells John as much, which is clearly the wrong answer.
It hurts again, and Rook can feel John carving but he doesn't know what, doesn't know what he's been judged by. He drops his head and looks, finds an S, and an I, and an N. He chokes a protest when he realises he's being labelled, in angry impatience, in the greedy anticipation of sin.
He confesses to learning from anyone who'd teach him, to trying to do the right thing, not the cleanest thing, or the thing that would reflect best on him. He's always admitted when he was wrong, never cared how he comes across, as long as the right thing gets done, as long as no one has to hurt for it. He confesses to never being the best, but never letting that hurt him, because life is always about learning, it's about learning and being better. It's about fixing more things than you break, loving more people than you hate.
They go through the same thing for Greed, for Envy, finding nothing, Rook loses track of time. The accusation across his chest hurts, throbbing stings of pain on every breath.
"The longer you fight this, the harder it will be." John sounds frustrated now, he wants something and he clearly thinks that Rook is refusing to give it to him. How long have they been in this room?
"I don't know," Rook admits, blinking sweat out of his eyes and drawing air through his teeth until the stinging stops. "Tell me what you want, I didn't learn the definitions, I don't know what you want me to say. I don't know what you want."
"Sloth," John says, word enunciated carefully as he sinks to a crouch again, fingers on a bare unmarked piece of Rook's skin, shifting and pulling like he needs Rook to do this for him. "There must have been moment in your life where your idleness, your indecision was detrimental to others. A moment where you didn't act, where you indulged yourself, where you didn't use your talents when you should have done, when you could have done."
Rook frowns.
"No, I don't like sitting around, it makes me feel unproductive. And I try and help people as soon as they ask, I'm a deputy, that's my job. A small problem today could be a bigger problem tomorrow." He's rambling, he's rambling but for the life of him he can't stop. "I suppose I could have done more things, but I've always been happy just getting on with the work I'm given, doing it to the best of my abilities. If I took on more work I feel like I'd be trading quantity for quality." Rook laughs, a breathless cough of sound, because he knows he's oversharing now. He wonders if John even cares about all of this, or if he just wants to find the grubby, broken pieces of people.
John sighs out an irritated breath.
"Gluttony then, a history of over-indulgence? A history of taking more than your fair share, of being satisfied but demanding more nonetheless."
Rook sighs and thinks about it, he really thinks about it, because John will clearly keep him here all day until Rook confesses to something. Until he gets a word sliced into him. He doesn't think John cares which any more.
"Someone brought in cakes for the department once," Rook says desperately. "They were really good. I thought about having two."
"You thought about having two." John's voice is flat, and judging by his expression Rook is still disappointing him.
"But then I figured if I took another cake then there'd be less left for other people." Rook sighs. "So I found a recipe and tried it a couple of times and then took in cakes for everyone. Because if I'd wanted another cake then I'm pretty sure someone else would have done as well." Rook's aware he's rambling again, and he's aware that none of that is technically a sin. But his chest feels weirdly raw, and he just wants a minute - just one minute - where John isn't going to cut into him again. He just needs a minute to breathe.
John pinches the bridge of his nose.
"So, you once briefly thought about indulging yourself, and it made you feel bad enough that you learned to bake, and then shared the results with everyone - without actually giving in to the urge in the first place."
"It's actually harder than all those cake shows make it look," Rook admits, then stops and laughs, which hurts, hurts all the way through him, he feels light-headed and too hot. What the fuck is he even talking about? John doesn't care, he doesn't care about any of this. He just wants to judge him, he just wants to hurt him.
Maybe it makes him feel less broken inside.
"Why am I telling you this?" Rook mutters. "You don't care."
"And you didn't eat any of those subsequent batches of cakes," John says, with an irritated sort of certainty.
"No, they were for the department," Rook reminds him. "Why would I eat them?" Which he already realises is not what John wants to hear. Rook's not sure he has anything John wants to hear.
John Seed looks like he has no idea what to do with him.
"You must have sinned," he grates out, expression furious. "Everyone has sinned." He straightens, determination and restless anger spilling and overflowing like water. "I will find it, I will pull it out of you."
Life is very painful for a long stretch, and Rook confesses to a confusing selection of things. The time he accidentally broke Billy Durrel's games console, and saved up for half a year to buy him a new one. The time Amy Anderson wet herself in school, and Rook gave her his trousers so she had something to wear home, and he walked around in his shorts all afternoon. The stray dog he adopted with fleas, that his mom wouldn't let in the house so he built him a little house outside, and broke half his dad's tools doing it. The insects he collected but never had the heart to pin down, so he had to release them straight away. The bird that made a nest in the roof of the house, one of the babies ended up in a flowerbed and Rook broke his arm putting it back.
He stares at the ceiling and breathes pain, making noises through his teeth, while John slices the word 'sinner' into the back of his arm, demanding to know the people who'd hurt him, the people who'd disappointed him, trying to unpick wounds that Rook didn't have to give him. Showing too much of his own in the process. But everyone who'd ever hurt Rook, he'd forgiven. Because he'd seen anger eat people up, he'd seen jealousy destroy relationships, he'd seen the pursuit of money and expensive things turn into a need that couldn't be filled. People think the world hurts them, they think that the world is cruel, and it is, but it's not half as cruel as people can be to themselves.
Rook's eventually blinking up at John's face, breathless and more than a little sick, arm stinging where John has scored it through all the way up, branding him a sinner for want of a sin. He feels wrung out and fragile, and so very stupid about sharing so many childhood memories. But John's expression is a confused sort of bewilderment, a vibrating, angry denial
"One moment," he says, voice tight and strangely brittle, like Rook has upended his entire world, like everything he'd been taught was a lie. "Give me one selfish moment."
John looks so utterly devastated that Rook has the strangest urge to apologise.
"I'm sorry," he says simply.
"No man is free from sin." John leans in, fingers gripping Rook's jaw, tilting his head up. "No man lives a completely unselfish life. It's impossible. You're lying." There's a quiet sort of desperation creeping into John's voice. "You have to be lying." All the air is just gone out of him, as if Rook has broken something important.
As if John thinks he's broken something important.
"I forgive you too," Rook says quietly, tiredly. "You're angry enough for both of us."
John's still for a long moment, he looks utterly lost, like he has no idea what to do, no idea how to cope with this. Before the knife turns slowly in his hand, slips in under the rope holding Rook to the chair, slices it open. Then the knife is tossed aside, a clatter against metal, forgotten.
"Why are you here?" John asks, soft, almost like he's afraid of the answer. "What did you come here for?"
"I've been here my whole life," Rook tells him. "I'm a junior deputy with the Sheriff's department. I just wanted to help people, I just wanted to fix as many things as I could. That's all I've ever wanted."
God, Rook is so tired.
John leaves Rook to shift and gently rub at his wrists with shaking hands, while he fetches a long box from across the room. Then he drags a chair close, opens it, and sets it on a clean stretch of metal. It's full of gauze, small bottles, bandages and tubes of cream. Rook realises that John means to dress his wounds, and it seems strangely silly to escape before that happens.
Though Rook's not sure if that will fix him, his chest and arm both hurt enough to make it hard to breathe normally. A combination of sharp, knifing stabs and hot aches, Rook's damp with sweat, but his mouth is dry and he feels strangely soft, like he weighs nothing at all.
"I don't know what to do with you," John admits. He carefully lifts a hand to turn Rook's face, makes him look at him, forehead creased like he's working out how much of Rook he's peeled away, how much damage he's done. "I don't know what I'm suppsoed to do with you. I don't know how to guide you to Eden. You shouldn't -"
John bends in his chair and works antiseptic over the cuts, carefully, painfully, before covering and bandaging them, with as much skill as he scored them into him.
He tells Rook where he came from, how he lost his brothers before he found them again, how he ended up with the Duncans - and how that ended. John tells Rook how he was made, how he was broken, over and over again, how he tried to break himself afterwards, like it was the only thing he'd learned. He confesses his sins, and there are a lot of them. There are a lot of them, and Rook is in a quiet place where the pain is persistent, but not brutal, or constant, so he lets him talk it out.
Rook thinks this is John's confession. He's not sure why John is telling him all of this, why he's sharing the years of misery that cut furrows so deeply into him that even Joseph couldn't smooth them out. Rook is honestly amazed he still functions at all, that he didn't manage to kill himself years ago.
Eventually the words stop, and there's just John's silence, the sharpness of his expression, taut, like he's waiting for something.
"You think that makes you broken?" Rook asks eventually, because it's been long enough that he thinks he needs to offer words in exchange. "You think you have to bleed for everything you've ever done?"
John leans until the chair creaks, until the metal arms knock together, until his hands are curled at Rook's knees, like he wants to pull him in, keep him. He's close enough for Rook to feel the warmth of him, to hear the whispery shift of his shirt.
"Don't I?" John asks, quiet, so quiet, eyes fixed on him. There's none of the aggressive certainty, or the anticipation, that he'd worn at the beginning. Instead there's whatever lives under that, whatever John covers over with anger and violence, with loyalty to Joseph, whatever naked parts of him he can't bear anyone else to see.
It takes a long, strange moment for Rook to realise that John is expecting Rook to judge him.
He doesn't know what to say, doesn't know what to tell him, what John wants from him. But John seems to take his silence as something else entirely, and then there's no expression on his face at all. Eventually he gets up, he leaves the room, and Rook, in silence.
He leaves all the doors open.
John Seed lets him go.