Chapter Text
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Elias was waiting for him in the small dark observation room, hands clasped behind his back. Harold was on the other side of the one-way glass, sitting on the bare narrow bed inside the brightly lit cell. He was sitting straight, shoulders back, eyes on the door; his face was expressionless. He was still fully dressed, suit neat, tie snug.
John couldn't help the tightening of relief in his gut. Seeing Harold alive, unharmed, made him feel better. But that was stupid: Elias had four men in the room at this moment, all armed, all wary, and John had spotted another two in the hallway. The bindings on his arms were secure: good ropework, elbow to wrist, behind his back, and looser loops hobbling his ankles. He had no weapons, no opportunities. If Elias wanted to kill them—
"The thing is," Elias said, turning towards him, "I really don't want to kill you, John. You or Harold. The two of you do good work. Honorable work. You save innocents. You make this city a little bit brighter. A little bit kinder." He smiled Charlie Burton's warm smile. "Harold plays a mean game of chess."
John didn't answer him, didn't respond. Elias studied his face a moment more. "I'm even prepared to tolerate the occasional operating costs associated with your work. On occasion I've even been of direct help to you. Really, I think I've been more than reasonable, John. But this — this was gratuitous."
"You were running guns through the Seaport," John said. "And you were going to kill an innocent man for finding out."
"Now they'll be running through New Haven," Elias said. "And we gave Mr. Wasio every opportunity to cooperate. I hope you know that if you'd made him disappear, if you'd even contacted me, brokered some kind of arrangement, we wouldn't be here. Frankly, even if you'd just taken out the guns. But you couldn't leave it at that. Instead, you went for the kill. Half of my dockside operations, ruined."
"Sorry to hear that," John said. "I heard it was more like three-quarters."
Elias was shaking his head slow, a pendulum swinging. "I make this city cleaner too, John," he said. "I hoped that maybe we had gradually come to an understanding. That you'd developed a sense of proportion about crossing my path."
"No," John said, and left it at that.
Elias nodded. "Right. But like I said, I don't want to kill you or Harold. Killing you wouldn't even be an adequate punishment, really, because you're both completely prepared to die at any time — something, by the way, which I admire tremendously. But that means a threat to your lives has no force. So what I need you to understand, John, is that there are worse things I can do to you than kill you."
He turned to the small cell, to Harold sitting there quiet and compact under the glare of the hot lights, and John felt a slow terrible clenching in his gut.
"Here's what's going to happen, John," Elias said. "We're going to untie your arms and escort you inside that room." He indicated the cell through the glass with one finger. "And there, you are going to rape Harold."
John stared at him. Elias turned around. His face was still wearing a veneer of calm reason, untroubled. "You aren't going to say a word," Elias said. "You won't explain, you won't say anything. Or, alternatively," he added, gesturing to the chair standing in front of the glass, "you can have a seat here, and the two gentlemen you saw out there in the hallway will go in and do it instead, while you watch."
John didn't move, didn't breathe. The two men on either side of him were holding his upper arms, tight. He couldn't have made it to Elias — not even with teeth, he couldn't get the fifteen seconds it would take to lock his jaws, rip open the jugular.
"It's up to you, John," Elias said. "I should mention, however, that both of those gentlemen have loved ones who've gone to prison for several years as a result of your most recent work, and I wouldn't expect them to have much consideration for Harold's comfort."
John stared past him at Harold, small in the open space of the room, pale, his face showing nothing. Harold would flinch when they pushed him down, held him down; when he realized what Elias's men were going to do to him. He wouldn't be expecting it. But after that, he'd — he'd go stoic, his face rigid, the way it got when he hurt himself working, one of the old injuries—
"Elias," John breathed, barely, "you really should kill me now."
"No, John," Elias said. "I won't kill you. You and Harold are going to walk out of here today. And you are both going to do so with the knowledge that I can imagine something you can't. That if you force me to do so, I can find something you can't endure. So that you keep that knowledge clearly in your minds, the next time you're faced with a similar situation."
John didn't move. He already knew what was going to happen. He could do this, for Harold. He was going to go in there, and he was going to carefully, gently, force Harold down onto the bed — Harold would struggle at first, bewildered, then horrified; John was already thinking how he'd immobilize him. And then he’d — do it, quickly.
And afterwards, once he'd gotten Harold safely back to the library, he was going to arm himself, go out and find Elias, and kill him. He'd be killed in the process, almost certainly, but that was acceptable. It was, actually, the only thing that would make this endurable.
"Have you decided?" Elias asked.
"I need a condom," John said.
"In the nightstand by the bed," Elias said. He nodded to his men. John felt them start to work open the knots. "Just so there are no misunderstandings," Elias added, as they untied him, "if some mischance should occur right now and you should be killed before you get in there, those men will be going in your place after all. I promised them retribution, one way or another."
John breathed deep. Feeling was prickling back into his fingers and arms as they unwound the cords. He looked through the glass at Harold, waiting, waiting, and he said, "Elias. You don't — you don't have to do this. The point is made. If you want an apology— "
"Sorry," Elias said. "It's too late for that.” He raised a hand, rolling something small between his finger and thumb: Harold’s earbud. He smiled as he slipped it into his own ear, tapped it, then pointed at John’s, still snugly in place. “Just in case you need to be reminded of the rules.”
Elias nodded to the other men, and they turned him and took him out into the hallway, past the two sullen men — big, heavily-built — and pushed him up to the door. There was a snub hard muzzle in the small of his back, and it might as well not have been there. The men were the gun, what they'd do to Harold. John shut his eyes and breathed deep. Harold would know the truth, before John died. It wouldn't make this any less a betrayal, any less horrible, but — he'd know.
He pushed open the door and went in. Harold's eyes widened, and he stood up, the relief in his face like a blow; John flinched from it, nauseated.
"John," Harold said, and then stopped, as if he'd already understood something was — wrong. John forced himself to move, not to think. He had to do this fast, or he wouldn't be able to do it at all.
He crossed to Harold and took him by the shoulders and moved him towards the bed. Harold stumbled a little, caught himself, and then moved with him, letting John push him down — trusting —
John's hands were shaking. He kept his eyes fixed on Harold's chest. He gripped the bottom of Harold's shirt, jerked it up, out of his trousers. He had to — he had to unbutton Harold's trousers, then he could push Harold face-down, and — no. The first button. That was the mission objective, nothing else: the first button. He made his hands move towards Harold's fly.
Harold went still. He was staring. John didn't look at his face. The button. His hands were shaking, and the buttons were snug, fuck Harold's bespoke suits, and this one was new, he'd only started wearing it a month ago, pleased when John had noticed, had said, Nice, Finch. I like the purple stripe — John was tasting salt, and he couldn't get the fucking button open —
Harold's hands closed on his. Lightly, not restraining. "Allow me," he said quietly.
John stopped. Harold unbuttoned himself, then after a brief look at John’s face sat on the edge of the bed to untie his shoes, which he stowed neatly under the cot. The trousers followed, Harold standing up again to shake them out and lay them over the nightstand, folded crisply along the crease. He turned to look questioningly at John, white shirttails hanging crumpled and listless over silvery boxers and argyle socks.
“Any time, John,” said Elias’s voice in John’s ear.
John’s hands moved to his own belt, his eyes on Harold’s face, willing him to understand before he had to move closer, touch him, show him. Harold’s eyes grew big, filling up the small round lenses of Mr Burdette's glasses. John ducked his head, grimacing against the tears that sent his own hands swimming before his eyes as he fumbled with the buckle, then moved on to his fly.
“Mr Reese?” Harold said. “Will you... can you please tell me—”
John jerked his head, teeth clicking against words he couldn’t say.
“John,” Elias chided. “Out of respect to your intelligence, I didn’t stipulate my rules down to the letter. Because I trust you to understand their spirit.”
John froze, bristling at the rebuke. He’d barely moved, let alone actually shaken his head. There was something off about Elias's voice as he continued his lecture. A glitch in the audio device, maybe.
“Isn’t that what you and Harold are all about? The spirit of the law? It’s not as if your recent interference in my affairs was done through legal methods, after all. Maybe I didn’t make myself clear: these—my men are very eager for revenge and I’m expending considerable energy keeping them in line. Consider this arrangement a compromise. To spare Harold a much crueler fate. Please don’t force me to rescind the offer.”
While Elias spoke, Harold had run the equations and drawn his conclusions and now his face was in lockdown mode. He understood what it was John had to do: John could read it in the set of his jaw, in the fine trembling that started in his knees when he turned back toward the cot. John caught a glimpse of scarring on his bad leg, the edges of curved white marks not quite covered by his boxers. Harold stumbled, barking a shin, but managed to twist and sit before he fell. He gripped his trembling knees, but his hands were trembling too and only compounded the shaking. Taking a series of slow, deep breaths, Harold removed his jacket, loosened his tie, undid two buttons of his collar. The fragile skin of his neck was flushed and pebbled with goosebumps. He opened his vest, too — a jaunty spring print in lilac and ivory — but kept it on, the shiny back still snug around his shoulders and waist, protective.
John’s pants were open now. He moved to the nightstand. Inside the drawer there was a roll of condoms, just like Elias said. Lubricated, mercifully.
“I don’t understand... why this...” Harold began, monotone, staring at the floor. “But. I know you wouldn’t be doing it unless it was absolutely necessary. And I—” Harold’s voice dried up. He swallowed a few times, blinking. Then he shrugged, shook his head, and looked up at John with pleading, watery eyes.
John felt an actual pang of anger. How could Harold look at him like that? As if this was optional, a choice John could be talked out of? As if John wouldn’t kill himself, happily, a hundred times over, if it meant this never had to happen? How could be possibly not understand? The foil packets were crumpling in his grip. Then he realized.
Harold did understand. Perfectly well. And Harold wouldn’t fight him. Not much, anyway. But he couldn’t just lie down.
So John pushed him.
Everything was simple now. Harold needed him to complete a task, and John was very good at doing what Harold needed.
Harold’s thin arms were braced against him, pushing but holding tight at the same time. John took advantage of the indecision and effortlessly rolled Harold onto his stomach. Pinned him down firmly, supportively, so he wouldn’t hurt himself with his half-hearted struggles. With one arm John dragged Harold’s boxers down to his ankles.
The other arm he curled around Harold’s throat, and squeezed.
A sleeper hold, no damage to the airway, just steady pressure on the arteries — Harold had begun to squirm underneath him — cut off oxygen to the brain, knock him out for six minutes, maybe seven, long enough, hopefully long enough for — the struggling began to weaken — just a few more seconds —
“Stop that, please,” Elias said sharply. “Now.”
Grieved, John let go of Harold’s throat, felt him wriggle back to alertness, gasping. Hard shivers were chasing up and down his back, and he must have dipped into unconsciousness before John let him go, because he asked with hopeful surprise, “Is it over?”
John suppressed the urge to bury his face between Harold’s shoulder blades and sob.
"I consider myself a patient man," said Elias. "But I’m going to have to make that strike two.”
Again, John was thrown by the pettiness, the caprice, and he fought down a spiral of panic. This was so, so, so wrong; how could they—how could he—have misjudged Elias so completely? Harold saw the best in people, but John should have seen it. He should have known.
He knew now.
John switched gears, rising to a straddling kneel behind Harold, gripping the naked thighs between his own to hold him in place. He shoved his own trousers down to his knees and pulled his soft cock out of his briefs. He felt the hopeful tension bleed out of Harold’s body. The last traces of resistance.
John closed his eyes and began pulling at himself with his other hand, blacking out the bright lights, the scratchy mattress, everything except the slide of skin on skin. He opened a packet, drizzled lubricant on himself. Harold was breathing light and quick. Arranging his wrists under his forehead to support his neck. He barely flinched when John took the opportunity to ease a slick finger inside him.
Finally John was ready for the condom. He kept jerking himself, harder, faster, wanting to bring himself as close as he could before — to make it quick, shorten it as much as possible—
“John.”
John shuddered at the voice in his ear, his erection shrinking a little.
Now. He had to do this now. He wanted more time to prepare Harold, but he had to do this now. He had to get this done.
John tore open the rest of the condoms, wanting every drop of lubricant he could get. He gave himself three more furious strokes and then he spread Harold open and sank inside, rocking softly. Harold whined, made an involuntary effort to squirm away, and again John’s erection threatened to quit.
This was going to be impossible. Impossible.
It wouldn’t have been a problem five years ago. He’d been younger, of course, but more importantly he’d been different. Before quitting the agency — before Harold — he’d been accustomed to this kind of thing. Accustomed to using others, and being used in return. Sex was a way to get closer to marks and assets, close enough to trick or steal or hurt. Sometimes he’d stare up at the ceiling, or down at whatever surface he’d been bent over, and wonder who exactly was raping who.
That wasn’t a question he wondered now.
John set his mouth and propelled himself back into those memories, letting them dig in sharper and deeper than he’d let them since before Harold found him. Letting himself go go blank and grim. Thrust into Harold with smooth efficiency. He picked up the pace, heard the slap of his sweat-wet skin against Harold’s, and it was helping, but it wasn’t enough, it would never be enough —
Harold had gone boneless beneath him. John hoped he had greyed out with shock. He thrust harder and rougher, trying to finish it, but Harold gasped and arched beneath him, alert after all—
John switched to different memories, tried picturing faces — no, that didn’t help — bodies, parts — from his past, whether actually known or only imagined — his first girlfriend’s thighs, his first boyfriend’s shoulders — that army fuck buddy with the ridiculous abs — the breasts and hips and curves of various Bond girls — Kara’s smile, on the rare occasions when he’d fooled himself into thinking she cared about him — Zoe — Joss — god help him, Jessica — nothing nothing nothing. No sparks, no flames, only ashes.
What he tried not to think about — fought thinking about — were the most recent fantasies. The ones where he unbuttoned layers of luxurious cloth in the warm, dusty light of the library — slid his hands inside to feel heat and endearing softness — sank his nose into a warm neck, felt strong hands in his hair, breathed in the savory freshness of expensive soap — the same scent that was in his nostrils now, mixed with the tang of fear-sweat — his cock jumped and his hips surged and — no no no, he couldn’t, he couldn’t, not like this, never like this —
Five years ago, John had also been accustomed to faking it. He arched his back suddenly, convincingly, snapped his hips forward a few more sloppy times, then went still with a swallowed grunt, the bouncing mattress falling quiet. Breathing heavily, he withdrew.
Harold was on his back in an instant, then in a teetering sit on the mattress edge farthest from John, all laser-focus on pulling his shorts back up. John stared at him numbly as he pushed himself, condom and all, back into his briefs. He zipped up and stood, already going soft in his pants.
“There’s a trashcan by the nightstand,” Elias told him solicitously. “No need for such a hurry; that can’t possibly be comfortable.”
“It’s fine,” John said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Harold jump at the sound of his voice.
“Did I say you could talk?” Elias asked with a sudden freezing anger. “The condom, John. Leave it in the trashcan.”
Slowly, expressionlessly, John obeyed, making no effort to either reveal or hide the fact that the condom was dry.
“I’m very disappointed,” Elias said, after a pause. “And that’s strike three, I’m afraid.”
The door opened and Scarface entered, armed, and flanked by the two men from the hall. They didn’t look so sullen anymore. The shorter one was rumpled, unshaved, with hair too gray for his face. He barely glanced at John before settling hot, zealous eyes on Harold.
“Elias,” John whispered, ready to promise, or threaten. Everything, anything. “I did what you—”
“No, John, you tried to cheat. Again.”
Harold was hunched over his bare knees, arm frozen in its reach for his trousers on the nightstand. Moving his eyes between the hard face of the gray-haired man and the serene expression of the other, larger, man. Who was sweeping Harold from wrinkled socks to his still-fogged glasses with a languorous gaze. And then smiled at him.
“Nice suit,” gray-hair sneered.
“Elias, please—” John said.
“HEY!” Scarface shouted, sending a tinny echo around the small room. He cocked the gun and leveled it at Harold’s head. “Boss said to shut up.”
John spread his fingers, acquiescent.
“Good. Now back up against the wall. All the way.”
He walked backward until his heels hit the wall, making the mirror behind him tremble.
“You,” Scarface said to Harold. “Lie down. And turn over.”
Harold hesitated only briefly before slowly easing himself back down flat on the cot. Scarface kept the gun trained on him.
“You promised,” John whispered helplessly, eyes on the gun, “you said you wouldn’t kill us. Wouldn’t kill him.”
“I did. And I won’t. Though by the end of the night Harold might wish I had.” John wanted to scream because he could hear the regret, heavy and sincere, in Elias’s voice. “But Anthony’s going to keep the gun out. Just in case.” Scarface was letting the shiny muzzle drift from the back of Harold’s skull down to his forehead. It came to rest at an oblique angle over his brow bone. “I think Harold would prefer to keep that eye, don’t you?”
Scarface threw a look at John, his dark eyes unreadable above a faintly curled lip.
“Please...” John tried again.
“Do you realize you’ve been talking to me, all this time, without permission? I’ve had to attach an additional penalty.” The sudden change in Elias’s voice sent John reeling again. It had turned cold, even mocking. Louder too, as if he were speaking to a crowd. “They’ll be along shortly. Don’t make me add more. In fact I think I’d better remove your temptation to cheat altogether. Take the earpiece out, John. And destroy it.”
John raised a hand to his ear, and at that moment Harold turned his head slightly, one wide blue eye catching John’s. There was a bottomless terror there, and a cry for help. Not for rescue, but for support. For strength.
John felt a cool, clean, quiet rushing in his head. The earbud made a tiny electric buzz when he stomped it into the concrete. His hands relaxed at his sides.
Grimly relieved, Scarface nodded at the two men looming at the foot of Harold’s cot.
“Okay, Mel,” he said.