Work Text:
Detonation
The relief didn’t come all at once. It moved through John Reese in slow, shaking waves, like the echo of an explosion that never happened. One second he had been certain he was going to die, the next he was standing in the quiet aftermath, Harold Finch’s hands still hovering near the wires, both of them staring at each other as if the world had just been returned to them.
For a long moment neither of them spoke.
Reese let out a breath that trembled on the way out. Finch’s glasses had slipped slightly down his nose, and there was a sheen in his eyes that he would later pretend was only the light. They were close—closer than either of them usually allowed—and the silence between them felt louder than the ticking bomb had.
“It appears,” Finch said quietly, voice not entirely steady, “that we have been granted a rather generous reprieve, Mr. Reese.”
Reese huffed a faint, breathless laugh. “Yeah. I noticed.”
Finch swallowed, then gestured awkwardly toward the vest still strapped to Reese’s torso. “You should… remove that. Carefully.”
Reese nodded. He shrugged out of his ruined jacket, letting it drop. His fingers worked the buttons of his dress shirt with the same calm efficiency he used in the field, but his hands trembled slightly. The shirt slid off his shoulders. He peeled the heavy bomb vest away and tossed it several feet aside with obvious disgust. They both watched it land. Neither of them moved for a second, as if it might still decide to kill them out of spite.
Finally, Reese bent down, picked up his shirt, ready to cover himself, to restore the armor between them. Finch tried very hard not to stare, and failed almost immediately. Reese had just begun buttoning it when Finch stepped forward without quite deciding to. His right hand came up and rested, very gently, against Reese’s bare chest. The contact was electric.
Finch felt the rapid thud of Reese’s heartbeat under his palm—fast, powerful, alive. Faster, Reese thought dimly, than it had been when he was wearing the bomb.
The touch sent something through him, something that had nothing to do with explosives and everything to do with the man standing too close, looking at him like he had almost lost him.
Finch didn’t move his hand away. If anything, it shifted slightly, fingertips brushing lightly over warm skin, as if reassuring himself that Reese was really there.
Reese’s breathing changed—deeper, heavier.
“Finch…” he said quietly, eyebrows lifting in warning, confusion, and something else he wasn’t ready to name.
Finch didn’t stop.
His hand moved slowly across Reese’s chest, almost reverently, like he was tracing the outline of something he had nearly never touched again.
Reese inhaled sharply. “Harold, you’re killing me,” he whispered, the words rough and breathless.
Finch looked up at him then, really looked at him, and whatever he saw there seemed to erase the last of his hesitation. The fear, the relief, the years of restraint, the constant possibility of loss—it all collapsed into that single moment.
Reese didn’t think anymore. He just moved.
His arms came up around Finch, pulling him close, one hand gripping the back of his jacket, the other sliding up to the back of his neck. Finch made a small, surprised sound that disappeared the moment Reese kissed him.
It wasn’t gentle.
It was desperate and intense and full of everything neither of them ever said—fear, relief, anger, loyalty, and something far more dangerous. Finch’s hands grabbed Reese’s shirt, then his shoulders, holding on like Reese might still disappear if he didn’t.
Reese kissed him like a man who had already died once that night and wasn’t going to waste the second chance.
When they finally pulled apart, they were both breathing hard, foreheads almost touching.
“Well,” Finch murmured softly, voice unsteady but warm, “that was… unexpected.”
Reese smiled. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Sometimes things happen that are just out of your control…”.[1]
Down in the streets, life went on as if nothing had almost detonated.
Up on the rooftop, something already had.
[1] Borrowed from „Prison Break“, where Alex Mahone said this in a press conference