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There was a mirror that belonged to Finch’s family. It had, for as long as anyone could remember. A family heirloom of sort, the kind that passed down through generations, generating legends and myths around itself.
The legend was: it drove people mad.
“It’s cursed,” his mother had told him when she found him lurking in the storage room one day. “People who see their reflection in it get trapped inside it. They lose their mind.”
“How do you know that?” A seven year old Harold had asked.
“My mother told me, and her mother before that.”
“How can you be sure, if you have never seen it for yourself?”
She had run her fingers through his hair, soothingly, and told him, “I know you are a curious boy Harry, but some risks are not worth taking.”
Harold did not believe in secrets that should not be explored. The mysteries of the world were scattered in details, and how would you ever find the precious gems hidden in cracks if you didn’t even try to look?
So he looked. The very same night, when his mother was asleep, he sneaked into the basement and ripped the old cloth covering the heirloom off of it, sneezing at the cloud of dust and wrinkling his nose at the cobwebs. He took his time, irrationally scared of the warning his mother had given him, and looked at the beautiful frame of the mirror first- wood, old and strong, twice the height of a little boy of seven. There was an engraving on the top of the frame, hand carved, in a language Finch could not decipher. It said: “Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi”
After running his fingers on the wood, appreciating the texture and cracks in it, he stepped back, took a deep breath and looked.
Abruptly he understood why it drove people mad. Why it was cursed. But he could not bring himself to regret it. Some things were worth getting trapped in the mirror for.
Mirror of Erised- what he had taken to call it, because of the first word of the engraving- destroyed his life. But also made it. After he first found it, he took to sitting in front of it all night, every night, and looking at himself playing with the classmates who bullied him, kissing the girl who had smiled at him that day, correcting the teachers and them appreciating him for it rather than calling him a nuisance. He stopped sleeping, because why would one need unpredictability of the dreams when you could enjoy them being played in front of you.
Most of the things he did over the years, were because the Mirror showed them to him. The first time he won a chess competition, was because he saw himself with the trophy and then struggled until he managed to be the best at it. He thought that the mirror showed him his destiny; that he was meant for great things and his reflections would guide him towards it. The first time he kissed a boy, his lab partner who appreciated his help rather than scoff at it, was because he had seen himself snogging him the night before. The circuits he built, people said they were inspired, and they were- because he did not imagine them; the mirror showed them to him.
It was a while before he realized that not everything he saw would come to fruition. And he cursed himself for it, saw it as his failures. It wasn’t the mirror’s fault that he could not be the school head boy, that he got punched in the face for standing up against bullies, that his memory circuit won’t work. It was Harold’s.
It took even longer before he figured out that the mirror did not show destiny at all. That comprehension came in the cruelest of ways. He was barely fifteen and he was an orphan. A car crash had killed him, as sure as it had taken his parents away from him. After the funeral, after realizing he was alone in the world and selfish, vicious people who called themselves his family would try to take everything he had left away from him, he had escaped to the storage and tried to figure out his next step by looking into the magic glass. He wanted to know what destiny had in store for him.
He saw his mother kissing his forehead, his father appreciating his genius with things that could be taken apart and built better, all of them driving towards the beach for the holiday. He beheld as his parents applauded him graduating from MIT, their faces proud; watched as they beamed at him receiving a Nobel Prize.
Harold ended up flinging a brass vase at the glass, wanting to hear it shatter, for taunting him with things that can’t be. He was disappointed when the vase fell to the ground, the glass undamaged. His mother had been right. It was cursed indeed.
That night, he changed his name, and gave himself wings. He became Wren, and flew away from his nest, mingling into the boisterous world- inconspicuous and hiding his secrets under his chest. The only thing he took with himself was the Mirror. It belonged with his family.
Over the next several decades, he only looked in the mirror a handful of times. Sometimes, it was easier to see what his heart desired in a clear reflection than to search his consciousness. Some things, he followed up on- graduating from MIT, building IFT, building the machine, proposing to Grace. Other things he repressed- confessing his love to Nathan, keeping the machine for himself, hacking into pentagon.
He never told anyone about the Mirror, safely stored in one of the highest security vaults, except once. When Grace had looked in it, tears streaming down her face, and blinked at him in confusion when he asked if she could see him… he realized that that way, lay heartbreak.
“Finch! Where are we going?” John asked, as he followed behind.
“There is something I want you to see,” Harold replied, trying to hide his anxiety behind a formal tone.
“Alright.” That was the thing about Reese, he never pushed. He waited till Finch was ready to part with the secrets.
The thing was, he didn’t even need to. Right now, Harold was about to reveal to him something he had vowed never to do again years ago. Last week, Harold had gathered his courage and stepped into the bank vault, for the first time since Nathan died, and found himself starting at the image of himself and Mr. Reese, with John looking at him from the corner of his eyes; the expressions on his face something akin to love. Harold’s face mimicked the same countenance.
It was a bad idea. He knew he shouldn’t drag Mr. Reese here. He remembered vividly what happened with Grace, and that the strongest of metal also cracks when struck exactly right- or wrong, depending on one’s perspective- but he also realized that he would not be able to give John what he deserved until he knew.
With heart in his throat, he went through the complicated process of accessing the vault where he had stored what had become the bane of his existence. Leading John to the basement of the building, he reached into his pocket, put in the key, scanned his finger print and entered the nine digit code. Then he paused, looking back at John, who stood with his body languid and fond expressions on his face. There was a hint of curiosity in his eyes.
Heaving a deep breath, he pushed the door open and stepped into the small room, and heard the door click shut behind him when Mr. Reese followed. He stood in front of the Mirror- the only article in the room-, closed his eyes, and slowly slid the overlaying cloth off it. John was leaning on the door, his eyes boring holes in Finch’s skull.
There was a long quiet, filled with stuttered breaths of Finch, and curious silence from John. When he could not take it anymore, he snapped.
“Mr. Reese, I would really rather you don’t tease me so.”
“I have no idea what I am supposed to say Finch.” His tone was genuinely baffled.
“What do you see?” he asked in hushed whisper.
“Hmm?”
“Don’t mock Mr. Reese. Please. What do you see?”
“It’s a mirror. A fancy mirror maybe, but I don’t understand what you are expecting?”
“Just…” He started suddenly and then deflated, eyes still shut, “Indulge me.”
“Alright,” John mused, and then Harold could hear him come closer, “I see you.”
Finch inhaled a quick breath, and then the shoulders he did not even realize were held tight with tension, relaxed somewhat.
“What else?” he muttered.
“You have your eyes closed, and are standing as if someone is leading you to gallows.” John’s voice moved closer, and Harold could feel his heat on his back, his breath tickling his ear. “Now, I see myself, behind you.”
“Oh.” This was an elaborate prank. He was sure John was telling him just what he wanted to know.
“I am standing behind you, a couple of inches taller, and because it’s so still here, I can see my breath ruffling your hair. Oh look. Your ears are red. Did I ever tell you how adorable it is when they do that?” John kept talking, and then Harold could feel John’s lips pressing behind his ear. “I have to say this is nice Harold. I have always known, but never had the chance to observe how your breath hitches, and your face flushes as I kiss you right-” a light suction, at the junction of neck and shoulder, “-here.”
Harold was a coward. He was panting, his breath coming in short puffs, his heart racing a mile a minute, but he could not bring himself to open his eyes. John’s arm encircled his waist, and he draped his body over his, his front flush against Finch’s back. The lips against his skin were stretched in a smile, as he wondered aloud. “I wonder what would happen if I bit your ear.” And he proceeded to do just that.
The moan that left Harold’s throat was completely involuntary, and his body sagged against the support Reese’s frame provided.
“Really Finch. If you wanted me to take you in front of the mirror. If you wanted to watch as I make a mess of you, all you needed to do was ask.” His voice was so devoid of any pretense, so achingly sincere, even while teasing, that Harold could no longer resist.
He opened his eyes, and for a moment his sight was blurred because how tightly he had closed them. With hazy vision he saw the reflection showing him pretty much what he had seen a week ago, and he was content. Even if he could not see what Reese was seeing, even if Reese would look at him with heat in his gaze but never the tender love the image had shown him, it was enough.
But then, when the view cleared, he saw that the John in the reflection stood much closer than it had last week, his one arm tightly around his waist. Reese moved his other hand to interlace fingers with Finch, and Finch both felt it, and saw it happen in the mirror. It was the eyes though, that gave him a pause. They were identical to what he had seen as his heart’s deepest desire, and had promptly categorized as something he would never have: soft, warm and fond, and full of tender devotion.
Feeling like he would suffocate if he did not see it for himself- not as a mirage of something that may never be- but with his own eyes, real and believable, he turned around in Reese’s arm and cupped his face in both his palms. Sometimes, reality was even more exquisite than the oldest of magic.
Mr. Reese had a fond smile playing at the edges of his lips as he said, “I don’t know why a mirror had you freaked out so much, but I have seen you many times Harold; seen and admired, and loved. It’s not like you to be body conscious. I don’t need to see both of us in a mirror to know I want this. To know that I want you.” When Harold did not- could not- reply to that, speechless, John touched their foreheads together, “It’s just a mirror Harold.”
“Yeah.” Finch inhaled in awe, “It is isn’t it? It’s just a mirror.” And then closed the few inches separating them and kissed John, pouring all of his wonder, adoration and passion into it.
Neither of them noticed, lost in each other, as the enchanted glass shattered behind them, and then the pieces vanished from the existence.
Finally, the curse was broken.