Prompt Post 01

[the_machine_mod]

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Comments

John thinks about Grace a lot

[liviapenn]

Posting un-anon because this is basically copy/pasted from a comment I left elsewhere after 2x13 (not that it really has anything to do with the events of that ep...)

Okay, I know I'm the ONLY ONE WHO WANTS THIS, but I want Reese to be
like, "You know what? We have a GREAT LIFE. I'm really happy. *Harold*
thinks we walk a lonely road & etc., but he's wrong, it's possible to be
REALLY HAPPY in the batcave. 'Cause I'm really happy." And he constantly
thinks about going to Grace and filling her in on everything, and giving
her the choice, because obviously she would want to be with Harold, and
then bringing her to Harold-- like, thinking about it all the time,
imagining it fifty different ways, how best to break it to her, and what
would be the best way to spring it on Harold, because Reese is happy, and
HAROLD SHOULD BE HAPPY. (And there are things Reese can't do for him and
that's why he got Bear for Harold, because Harold needs AFFECTION, Harold
needs to feel connected to something, Harold needs to feel safe, like
there's someone who will ALWAYS be around to look after him and *depend*
on him and *need* him in a happy, uncomplicated way-- but, on the other
hand, a person would be better than a pet, a person could love Harold
like Harold DESERVES TO BE LOVED OMG REESE WANTS IT SO BAD-- so, yeah.
Grace! Reese just thinks about Harold and Grace all the time. ALL THE
TIME.)

Can end up being Reese/Finch, Reese/Finch/Grace, or Reese being happy for Grace/Finch, whatever the filler thinks...

Re: John thinks about Grace a lot

[(Anonymous)]

Would you be okay with a crack fill for this?

Reese/Finch - Reese undercover as a hooker

[(Anonymous)]

Subject line says it all?

Re: Reese/Finch - Reese undercover as a hooker

[(Anonymous)]

+1 for this!

Reese/Finch - baseball

[giandujakiss]

Finch loves baseball and Reese knows Finch loves baseball. So - something? Reese takes Finch to a game? A number comes up involving baseball? Anything, really?

Home Run (Reese/Finch) - not explicit, no warnings

[astolat]

"Are you busy this evening, Mr. Reese?" Harold said in his ear.

"New number?" John said, setting his basket on the checkout counter. "I can be there in fifteen."

"No, not a number," Harold said, mildly evasive.

"Then I can be there in twenty," John said, and started taking out the groceries.

"I'll meet you in Grand Central by the clock," Harold said.

They caught the 7 train heading to Flushing. Looking around at the crowd, dotted with caps and shirts and grown men wearing face paint, John raised an eyebrow. "I thought you weren't a Mets fan, Finch."

Harold blinked at him. "I'm not, Mr. Reese," he said.

Harold had prime seats right behind third plate, with a full view of the field and plenty of leg room. The Mets were playing the Phillies. Harold bought John beer and hot dogs and popcorn and threw in a free-of-charge detailed lecture about every single Phillies player, including ones that were out sick, and the team as a whole, providing an eye-glazing number of statistics and reference to at least fifty years of team history to back up his conclusions.

It was a beautiful, warm night. The Phillies won. Harold, who had drunk three beers, beamed with uncomplicated and unconcealed delight and spent the train ride home telling John all about what this meant for the two teams' respective playoff chances, statistically speaking. Four disappointed drunk guys glared at them from the other side of the train and eventually tried to pick a fight, so John even got in some exercise. Harold watched him fight and never even twitched from his seat, trusting John to keep him untouched.

The train rolled into Grand Central before the transit cops showed up, and they slipped off with the tides of people, washing up in the main room under the sprawl of the Zodiac on the ceiling.

Harold stopped a way into the room and tipped his whole body back to smile up at the constellations, still loose-limbed and easy. John put a hand in the small of Harold's back to take some of his weight and looked up too, at pinprick stars in a sea of green. He felt glowingly happy.

Harold righted himself and transferred the smile to John. "I'll see you in the morning," he said. "Happy birthday, John."

"Thanks," John said. He stood there and watched Harold make his way with the crowd flowing out towards the cab stand.

#

His next free day, he took Amtrak to Philadelphia. He'd decided to start with the city high schools, and he'd ruled out all the ones that hadn't graduated a white boy with a name starting with H in 1979 in the top ten percent of the class. That had left him with nine to try. His suit, his smile, and Detective Stills' badge got him into the libraries and access to the archived yearbooks. He had the picture of Harold and Nathan from MIT in his back pocket.

He got out of the first five quickly: Henry Rollins, Harry Proudweather, Hemingway Walker, Henry Goldman, and finally Henry Simpson and Henry Roth both at Central High. They all had pictures in their respective yearbooks, and none of them were Harold.

The sixth, closer to the stadium, slowed him down; the yearbook from 1979 was missing. He got excited at first, but the picture of Harold didn't ring a bell for any of the long-time staff, and then the art teacher said, "Henry Adams? No, that's not Henry. I had to cut an entire jar of glue out of his hair, my first year here. He was blond."

The seventh one was missing yearbooks too, which didn't feel like a coincidence. John started to appreciate just how far Harold had gone to cover his tracks. It was almost five o'clock by then, and the schools were closing. John chased down every employee in the building who'd been there more than thirty years; they all squinted doubtfully at the photograph, shook their heads, but the tiny old guidance counselor, who was evidently planning to drop in harness, said, "Harold Mitchell is who you're looking for?"

She took John back to her office and dug through a wall of filing cabinets to bring out a yellowed manila folder, and peered at it. "Well, I don't have a photograph," she said, "and I can't say as I remember his face, but he went to Oberlin." She let him photocopy the folder.

He rode the train back home reading it over. Harold Mitchell had a 3.8 GPA. He'd played piano and worked on the school newspaper. He'd been in the chess club, the math club, and the electronics club. "Hello, Harold," John said softly, to the thin faded pages.

He folded them up and slid them into a pocket as they pulled back in to Penn Station. When he got off the subway at his house, there was a message waiting from Harold on his phone: a new number.

It was three more days before he had any time to chase the lead any further, but Oberlin was too far for a day trip anyway; he paid a mercenary hacker on the darknet to break into the college records. He got the report almost at the same time as he wrapped the case: Harold Mitchell had an academic record, a degree in Chemistry granted in 1983, and an address in the alumni database — an address in New Jersey twenty minutes from the Lincoln Tunnel. John was hailing a cab five minutes after he and Harold parted ways.

He camped out against the side of the garage of the house across the street, yawning; and then an SUV pulled up and a harried-looking woman got out with three small kids, shepherding them up the front walk; John straightened, his stomach sinking, even before a second car pulled up and the three kids all yelled, "Daddy!" and broke for the man climbing out of it, who turned out to be the perfectly real Harold Mitchell.

John went back to Philadelphia the next day. The eighth school was also missing its yearbooks, and had no staff who'd been there that long. He managed to find the retired principal living only twenty minutes away, and she shook her head doubtfully over the photograph. "No, I don't think so," she said. "Henry Dale? No, I'm pretty sure Henry Dale was a much taller boy — yes. He was on the basketball team. That's right."

John went to his last-chance option, the worst of the schools, run-down and dark, with metal detectors and suspicious looks from the rent-a-cops on the door, and went looking for Harriman Jones. The yearbook for 1979 was missing, but so were the ones for a dozen other years. There were no old-timer teachers here; people did their twenty years and got out.

When John made a tired secretary in the office look up the records, it looked improbable: Harriman had mediocre grades in science, one outright F in Biology, his GPA pulled up by humanities courses. John shook his head; he'd gone down the wrong road somehow; he'd have to start over. Maybe Harold had ditched his original name completely. Just to be safe, John got Harriman's old address anyway and stopped by: the house was small and old and bright-painted, in a neighborhood full of small old houses; he tried the photo on a few of the neighbors, going around from porch to porch in the warm summer air.

"Is he in some kind of trouble?" It could have been an idle question: the woman was eighty-something, studying the photo with no obvious recognition, but John would have pricked up his ears if he could.

"I just have some questions for him. Did you know him well?"

She was old but still sharp; she gave him a hard considering look that gave nothing away. She was tall and had a British accent worn very thin and grey hair cropped short, straight shoulders and a faintly stern face, something unyielding in it. "Have you got a more recent photograph?"

"I'm afraid not," John said mildly. "That's why I'm tracking him down from this end."

Inside he was turning cartwheels; it almost didn't matter if she admitted it. She knew Harold, well enough to be willing to lie for him to the police.

"Hm," she said, dissatisfied. "Well, I can't see what you'd be interested in from when he was a boy. Good Lord, it's thirty years since he lived here."

"It's a long story," John said. "He lived at 139?"

"Yes," she said. She looked at him once more, then said, "You might as well come in, Detective."

Her name was Esther Lincoln. "I took care of him after school, starting when he was six or so," she said, settling down on the couch in the front room. "His mother had to work; my own children were only a little older. It was easy enough for me to do."

John took a polite sip and put down the coffee cup she'd given him. "His father — "

She snorted. "The usual story: a younger woman, trying to forget he wasn't twenty anymore. It ought to have been patched up, if Miranda had been sensible." John squirrelled the name away, another gold coin to hoard. "He came around a few times after they'd first moved in, trying. But she wouldn't have any of it: she was an idealist, I'm afraid. I don't think I ever heard his name so much as mentioned after they'd been here a year."

"And — Harriman?" John said, poking: he wanted anything, everything. "He was good in school?"

"By the numbers, yes," Lincoln said. "But it was really quite unpleasant for him. He was in a book all the time, and it wasn't that sort of place. It was all right for my boys, they were sport-mad." She indicated a few pictures on the mantle, and John stood up eagerly to look at them: mostly a stocky grinning family, father and three boys all over six feet, standing around her, but there was one with the three boys and another kid in it: with Harold in it.

He was maybe twelve, skinny and narrow-faced and clutching a book, the awkward ugly duckling of the bunch, but happy anyway, smiling. John picked it up, fighting back the urge to smile back at him that would have made Lincoln suspicious, rubbing his thumb over the smooth black wooden frame. The boys were all wearing Phillies caps.

"They did look out for Harry when they could," she said, "but they were brothers, not friends. He didn't do very well at having friends. He was like Miranda, that way: he expected too much of people. He wanted them to be extraordinary, and he didn't hesitate to show disappointment when they weren't. So of course, they tormented him unmercifully, and he didn't even understand why. He was always so bewildered by the cruelty."

She sighed, a soft clink of her cup as she put it down again. "Of course, they didn't know what was going on at home."

John turned around. "You mean the divorce?"

"Oh, no, that was long over by then," she said. "No, I mean when she was dying."

#

It was getting late by the time he went outside again: four o'clock. He stood on Esther's porch waiting for the taxi, looking over the street where Harold had lived.

"I don't remember the name of it," she'd said. "Something to do with blood, long and complicated and slow. She fell ill when he was twelve, and he was sixteen when she finally passed. He somehow persuaded the city to let him live alone, I'm not certain how."

John had a pretty good idea, himself. Sixteen-year-old Harry, breaking into city records, wiping away pieces of his own existence so he wouldn't be shipped off to the man his mother had written out of their lives ten years before. Building Harold Wren, who would appear fully-grown in MIT's student database, supposedly from a school three states away.

"I haven't seen him since my husband's funeral, four years ago," Esther had said. "We talk on my birthday and at Christmastime." She'd looked at him sharply. "Is he in trouble?"

"Not from me," John had said, quietly. He half wanted to tell her more. She hadn't said very much about it, but John was pretty sure that this had been Harold's home, those last two years, and a shelter before. Harold's voice was full of words she used, phrases, rhythms; faint echoes. He looked down at the note he'd scribbled down: the phone number she'd given him, and the return address on the last Christmas card.

The train back to Penn Station seemed to take a long time. John stared out the window, watching the trees and the power lines whip by. He'd gotten his answers; he'd found Harold. He didn't know where the urgency was coming from now, why he was still in such a rush to get there. Maybe it was because Harold had given this to him, like a present to unwrap. John just didn't get what was going to be inside.

It was dark by the time he got down to the Village. 122 Waverly was a wide townhouse, red stone and brick, mullioned windows. John stood on the street looking up at it, and then he slowly went up the steps and rang the bell.

There was a scraping of paws on the other side, a low eager bark; John's heart thumped as he heard Harold's muffled voice said, "Af, Bear." Harold opened the locks and swung it open and stood in the doorway, not surprised to see him.

John said, "Sorry it took me so long."

"Not at all, John," Harold said softly. "Would you — like to come in?"

John heaved a short, startled breath. But it made sense, of course. Harold had given him a home last time, too.

"Yes," he said. "Thank you," and crossed the threshold.

# End

AU - Werewolves are known, Reese is one

[(Anonymous)]

In a universe where everyone knows about werewolves and they exist as a minority group among humans, Reese is a werewolf. There are positive and negative stereotypes about being one, loyalty and protectiveness but also co-dependence, tendencies toward violence, etc. Reese is used to people treating him like a dog, but then he meets Finch. At first he thinks Finch is just another person who sees only the wolf, and not the man...

Re: AU - Werewolves are known, Reese is one

[lazulisong]

a short tumblr fill because GUS IS A DICK. i might do more later but I thought OP would like to see it too.




John as a wolf is very slightly silvered around his muzzle and a darker grey-black about the color of wetly burning wood-smoke everywhere else; his ruff is thick enough to bury Harold’s hand in soft, coarse fur and he is so tall that his shoulder reaches Harold’s waist. He’s sitting on his haunches beside Harold, watching Elias with unreadable eyes. He might be a statue, but if Elias moves within a certain distance of Harold, a low growl rumbles in his throat, a growl more vibration than actual sound.

Elias smiles benignly, keeps out of the radius John has chosen. “John’s control is very good,” he says. “I’ve never seen one of his type so calm on the full moon.”

John’s lip curls back to show just a hint of fang. Elias might be able to attack Harold before John brings him down, but John will bring him down for it, and Elias won’t survive long enough to see if he would change with the bite. Harold says, “He is always very composed,” and drops his hand on John’s head, curling his hand around his hard skull.

Avengers Crossover: John & Kara meet Clint & Natasha

[(Anonymous)]

Do the timelines match up to make this possible? DO I CARE? I do not.

Re: Avengers Crossover: John & Kara meet Clint & Natasha

[verovare]

I`m seeing both pairs having a mission. In the same city, in the same building but different targets, creating doble the caos and asking their respective handler WTH is happening.
:)

The Machine reaches out to Joss Carter

[bessemerprocess]

For reasons, The Machine needs Carter for something that it can't or won't let Finch and Reese know about, whether it be saving them, getting them to hook up, or just playing the most epic April Fools joke on them EVER.

Will Ingram, Boy Detective - Reese/Finch (possibly imaginary)

[(Anonymous)]

Will comes back to NYC, meets Reese (maybe while he is gleefully spending Finch's money), and is instantly suspicious. Because his uncle is awesome, alright, and he deserves better than some trophy boyfriend who wants him for his money and doesn't appreciate him. So he sets out to find out all he can about this John Rooney/Wiley/Reese/Warren person. Hijinks ensue.

Re: Will Ingram, Boy Detective - Reese/Finch (possibly imaginary)

[(Anonymous)]

omg this is an AWESOME prompt

Sam Shaw/Joss Carter, any

[bessemerprocess]

Shaw and Carter, meet, hit it off, have epic sex, and drive Reese and Finch crazy.

Bear, Bear being AWESOME

[bessemerprocess]

This time, Bear is the one who solves the number and saves the day.

Re: Bear, Bear being AWESOME

[aprilvalentine]

Would it count if it's a fic about a puppy mill owner that's the number and Bear helps? Cause I have one all plotted out.

The Machine is a matchmaker... but not for Finch

[(Anonymous)]

Finch sees that Grace is going out with somebody new... and upon investigation, realizes that The Machine set her up with this person. How & why? And what is Finch going to do about it?

Crime lord and enforcer - Finch/Reese

[liviapenn]

Based on this gif & tumblr commentary, the one where Finch has to go undercover as (or impersonate) some sort of super evil Lex Luthor type crime lord and Reese is his creepy right hand man bodyguard/enforcer. (Andthentheyhavesex.)

Fill: The Best Lies - Finch & Reese, Undercover as the Mob, Mature, No Warnings

[icarus_chained]

It didn't usually occur to John to consider what the world might have been like if Finch had been ... different. It'd long been his habit to consider the worst possible outcomes of a given situation, true, but with Finch ... There was something so fundamentally decent about Finch, about his compassion and his anger and his strained, desperate morality, that those thoughts just didn't emerge as often as they should.

What the world would have been like, if the man who made the Machine wasn't as kind as Finch was. What the world would have been like if Finch had been that bit more ... pragmatic.

"I'm not very fond of violence," Finch was explaining, almost gently, to the remains of the 'negotiating team' panting on the concrete floor in front of him. His mouth twisted in mild distaste, his cane reaching out to gingerly flick a gun away from one moaning man's hand. "It's an unfortunate necessity of our line of work, but I do prefer to avoid it where possible."

Two of them were dead, John thought, tallying them up absently, most of his attention keeping an eye out for back-up. He'd regretted the necessity, but nine-to-two odds weren't the best time to forego lethal intent. Still. Finch did have another seven to work with. Most of them only had minor injuries, though the heavyset one was going to need an ambulance fairly shortly.

"But to answer your question," Finch went on, leaning heavily on his cane, his weight settling heavily onto the stick, emphasizing his physical frailty even as his stillness seemed to emphasize his threat. "I have, in fact, watched someone die. Any number of people." He smiled, a crooked, pitch black expression. "Well. More usually I listen, but the point stands, I think. It's a matter of needing to be certain. And a matter of responsibility."

"What ... What the fuck ..."

John raised an eyebrow, breaking his casual sweep of the surrounding area to look down at the erstwhile spokesperson for this little tête-à-tête. The man was looking distinctly upset. And also distinctly more alarmed that he'd been a few minutes ago, when he'd been sneering down into Finch's face.

Finch smiled. Bleak and deadly, and if John hadn't known the man, if he hadn't known exactly what Finch was talking about and how much the opposite of what it sounded like it really was ... Well. Lets just say that for a software engineer, he made a far more convincing mob boss than anyone should be comfortable with.

"I have, as you intimated, never fired a gun," Finch said gently, standing over them. Not sneering, but then John rather thought they might have preferred a sneer to that sad, pained expression, the honest regret that couldn't bode well for anyone. "I've never killed anyone. I hold violence in a considerable degree of distaste, and always have. But ... there have been times when, despite my best efforts, it has emerged regardless. There have been times when people have had to die."

John shuddered internally, trying to block out the memory of Elias, and stepped up beside him. He put away his guns with calm, patient implacability, a silent threat to underscore the deep and genuine regret in his partner's voice. Finch looked over at him, only for a second, and John felt his hands clench under his coat.

"I always listen," Finch said, and it wasn't to them. Not really. "Every death. Recordings are a risk, of course. Evidence is always risky. But it's a matter of taking responsibility. It's a matter of knowing, at the end of the day, who pulled the trigger, who did nothing to stop it, who is responsible." He looked away, his eyes dark as he looked back down, as he met the pained eyes staring up at him with something closer to respect now than contempt, and closer to fear than respect. "You have no idea how many deaths I've been responsible for," he told their enemies softly. "How many lives I've seen ruined, how many empires I've seen destroyed. I have regretted it, every time. But regret changes nothing."

"Boss," John said. Very, very quietly, pained and uneasy himself, and letting it show. To them, it probably looked like he was trying to cut into Finch's tirade, trying to calm down his unstable master. To Finch, he hoped it looked like something else. Like an admonishment, like a reminder. Like forgiveness, as much as he had to offer. "We might want to wrap this up?"

Finch blinked at him, stiff and quivering, his hands white-knuckled on his cane. Finch stood there, with his rich, tasteful suit and his eyes full of death, over the blood and the bodies and the pained gasping of his enemies, and then ... Then he shook himself, startled and casual, as though shrugging off the quiet implication of untold deaths, and nodded faintly to himself.

"Of course," he agreed, light and casual. "Forgive me, John. You're right, as always."

He paused, stepping back to survey the damage as if seeing it for the first time, doing a very good impression of a man who's only just realised the slaughter he's responsible for. John followed him, as much to cover the sudden tremble in Finch's hands as anything. To hide the flare of Finch's nostrils, the faint nausea rising in his expression.

No point ruining the terror now.

"The girl?" he reminded, gruffly. Not that Finch would have forgotten. Not that Finch would ever forget the innocent lives on the line. But the man he was playing might. Harry Wright, the old-school mob boss up from the south, might forget the child he was bargaining for, in the heat of the moment and the freshness of two deaths. "We're on a timetable, boss."

Finch took a deep, almost inaudible breath. Steadying himself, reminding himself what they were here for. He flicked a tiny smile at John, silent thanks for the reminder, and carefully straightened his shoulders before stepping back around him to stand over his erstwhile opposite, and lean down to meet the man's eyes.

The kidnapper didn't return the favour, John noticed, with a certain bleak amusement. The man who ten minutes ago had been sneering at Finch for a cripple and an Ivy League daddy's boy trying to play in the real world now couldn't quite hold Finch's gaze. Not that John blamed him. A quick spurt of sudden death and a glimpse at the history in Finch's eyes would do that to a man.

"We'd like the girl returned to us," Finch said softly. "Her father is an old friend, and I'd very much hate to have to disappoint him. You understand?" He smiled, soft and crooked. "I know I don't really have to enumerate the consequences of that happening. Not after John's little demonstration just now. But just in case you might have any doubts?"

He straightened, took a step back, and held out a gloved hand towards John. Who casually handed him a flash drive, and directed his own dark smirk downwards, trawling across seven defiant stares and two permanently empty ones.

"This is a list of bank accounts and financial transactions I've been able to trace to your organisation," Finch explained, waving the drive casually. "As well as some businesses, private homes, contacts and other miscellany. Just what I've been able to scrounge up on short notice." He shrugged, vaguely embarrassed. "I'd have gotten more, but there's a limit to what I can do from out of town."

John grinned a shark's grin, shaking his head in bemusement. Much as earlier had been genuine regret, genuine pain, this now was genuine embarrassment. In twenty four hours, there was only so much digging Finch could do, even with the Machine, the NYPD and Zoe Morgan behind him. One of these days, John was going to have to talk to him about his perfectionist streak.

"You will deliver the girl to us," Finch said, and he wasn't casual anymore, he wasn't even remotely dispassionate. "You will bring her to me, in one piece, exactly as she was the last time her father saw her, within four hours. After that, for every ten minutes she's out of my sight, I start making calls, and you start losing money. Then property. Then business partners. If she is harmed, you start losing lives. And if she is killed ..."

He paused, his shoulders stooping as the silence fell thick and deadly around them, and eight pairs of eyes remained glued to his short, stiff figure. John watched them, out of the corner of his eye, and what he saw in their faces wasn't so much anger as stiff-jawed, rigid defiance. Not so much rage as fear, and the rapid realisation that they had bitten off significantly more than they could chew.

John wondered absently if they'd look the same if they knew what he knew. If they knew how much Finch was lying through his teeth, and how much he was telling the absolute, unadulterated truth. He wondered what he'd see in their expressions, if they knew that.

He wondered, too, what they saw when they looked at his expression.

"... I don't like violence," Finch said, very softly. "I will probably regret ordering your organisation wiped from the face of the earth. I will probably regret listening to your deaths. But I have never shied away from my responsibilities." He lifted his head, eyes soft and bleak, and stared directly at the leader. "I trust ... that I have made myself perfectly clear?"

No-one was particularly surprised when they nodded fervently.

And maybe some people were surprised, maybe they were downright stunned, when the daughter of a prominent Georgian businessman vacationing in New York was returned to her father's embrace within forty-eight hours of her kidnapping, alive and mostly unharmed and earnestly explaining how she had no idea who'd rescued her, but they'd put the fear of God into her captors. Maybe some people were shocked by that. But in their defense ... they hadn't seen what he'd seen.

"Have you ever thought about it?" John asked softly, as they watched the reunion from afar. Finch was tucked in close against his side, still shaking faintly with post-confrontation adrenalin, the shock of reaction still running through him. John looked down at him, thinking thoughts that should have occurred to him much more frequently than they had, wondering why they weren't as alarming as they should have been. "What things would be like if we were people like that? If the Machine had been made by those kind of hands?"

Finch was silent for a long, long moment, a shaking wall of heat against John's side. When he looked up, it was with that same sad, pained expression, that same regret. That same ... responsibility, that made something shake inside John.

"Every day, Mr Reese," he said, very quietly, his smile soft and bleak. "Except for those days when I wonder ... if it wasn't."

John closed his eyes, his smile tight and reflexive and black with pain, and reached up to wrap his arm around Finch's shoulders. "That one, I've never wondered," he offered softly, and held Finch close through the shudders of his reaction.

A pale reassurance, maybe, but true. Absolutely true. The best lies, they said, were those that contained all the elements of truth, only twisted to look like something other than what they were.

And at the end of the day Harry Wright, mob boss and murderer, had been one of the best lies John had ever seen.

Robot AU!

[omens]

THE ONE WHERE REESE IS AN ESCAPED/DEFECTIVE GOVT-ENGINEERED AI BUT FINCH IS THE BETTER ROBOT. Human robot. Better at being a robot, even as a human. >___> I just want Finch to tinker with Reese's insides okay, and Reese to have so many feelings for his metallic soullll. [Kara is probably a robot, too! I love Kara! Go anywhere with pairings/ratings/etc. BE FREE, robot prompt!]

Fill: Robot AU!, Reese/Finch overtones, No Warnings

[laurakaye]

John is having problems again. Nothing like before, of course; Harold would never let it get that bad, not as long as it was in his power, but John just wasn’t built to maintain a steady routine of the kind of stresses their work involves, and he’s gotten tenser and sadder than usual lately. Harold knows that if left alone long enough, it will result in exactly the kind of downward spiral that had happened the last time. Fortunately, Harold also knows exactly what he needs to do to fix things.

He should. He wrote the protocols himself.

John comes in to the library as usual, and Harold allows himself a half-smile at the bag of fresh muffins he brings with him. It’s astounding, really, the level of empathy that he displays. The CIA had no idea the treasure that they had wasted.

“Mr. Reese, could you assist me for a moment?” he asks, and of course John agrees. When he’s leaning over to reach the server rack Harold asked for help with, Harold says “the serpent has fled from the nest, Mr. Reese,” and John tumbles face-down onto the table and Bear is barking in alarm and Harold has to soothe him and shut him in the other room. What comes next will be delicate work, after all.

“There, now,” Harold croons, running a hand over John’s back, warm through his shirt. He is so beautifully made; It’s an indulgence, to let himself touch, but there’s nobody there to see. “Things will be all right, John, I promise.”

He moves a row of books from one of the shelves and unlocks the hidden safe that they were hiding, taking out the laptop (never networked, purpose-built and only ever used for this) and the interface cable. The original protocols had called for a wipe-and-restore after each mission, but Harold had never liked the idea; if you wanted drones you should use drones, if you wanted to build yourself artificial operatives you should permit them to learn and grow the same as the organic ones. All the constructed memories in the world couldn’t take the place of experiential learning.

He runs his fingers through the thick, soft hair at the base of John’s skull, searching for the hidden catch. It feels like a scar, but Harold knows how to unlock it, the precise twist of fingers impossible to do by mistake, and the tiny port rises from its hiding place. Harold smiles, and plugs the cable in.

John’s body twitches with the connection, and Harold pets him absently, already scanning the indicators on the maintenance console; just as he thought, there are lots of reds and yellows on the dashboard, but nothing severe enough to require direct edits.

Harold starts running the first maintenance routine, which compresses and archives traumatic memories. John won’t forget these experiences, but any negative emotions he connects with them will feel dulled and distant, as though they happened long ago. It’s a shame organic people can’t do the same; it’s a much more efficient process than therapy. While the routine runs, he checks the relationship matrices. The area devoted to Harold himself is larger than ever, sprawlingly connected to nearly every other memory node and taking up a large percentage of John’s nightly integration subroutines. Harold should really compress this node, but John is so high-functioning he can tolerate a few inefficiencies, and Harold finds a wild and tangled beauty in the web of John’s code. Anyway, he suspects that the wipe-and-restore protocols had been largely responsible for what happened to Kara, leaving her unprepared to cope without someone regularly trimming and tidying her mind when she finally broke free, leaving her vulnerable. Kara had been designed for loyalty and emotionless obedience to the mission; he’d traded much of that to give John more resilience and empathy. He’d succeeded beyond even his most ambitious goals, and John had soon developed a deep and steadfast loyal streak of its own, his self-preservation routines peppered with connections to his other primary nodes to the point that danger to Harold or Carter or Fusco or Bear triggered more intense responses than threats to himself.

It’s a pity, Harold often thinks, that he can’t connect to organic people like this, can’t hack into their firmware and determine their motivations and loyalties, look at the web of their lives and emotions sparkling like a net of stars. It would certainly make their jobs easier.

The maintenance routine finishes with a chime, and Harold scans the report with a smile. All the warning indicators are gone; John should feel much better when he wakes up. He turns on the low-level functions on John’s body, but not his consciousness, yet.

“Maintenance Protocol Seven, Mr. Reese,” he says, and the body activates with a tremor under his calming hand. “Not to worry, we’re almost finished. Stand up, if you please, and then move slowly to the armchair in the corner.” The body obeys, stiff and somewhat unnerving without its gentle and lively inhabitant. (He’d heard distressing rumors about the goings-on in the body development lab, but he prefers not to dwell on the possibilities.) Harold follows, staying close enough not to risk disconnecting the cable.

“Very good,” he says. “Now sit, please, slowly, and lean back. Arrange yourself comfortably. Maintenance Protocol Eight, Mr. Reese. When you awake you will remember helping me move the servers and then sitting down comfortably in this chair, where you drifted off for a pleasant and refreshing nap. Maintenance Protocol Eight ends.” He closes the console and removes the cable; by the time John wakes, eight minutes later, the laptop and cable have been re-stowed and Harold is ensconced at his desk with every appearance of having been there for hours.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Reese,” Harold says, eyeing him for signs of confusion or disfunction. “Did you have a pleasant nap?”

John blinks, and then smiles, sunny and uncomplicated the way he very rarely is. “Actually, yeah,” he says. “Sorry to conk out on you like that, but I feel great.”

“You should allow yourself more downtime,” Harold says.

John smirks. “Is this the ‘even computers need to defrag sometimes’ talk, Finch?”

“Indeed, Mr. Reese,” Harold says. He loves when John is sarcastic; the data webs it makes are so intricate and lovely. “And you are so much more than any mere machine.”

Artificial Intelligence, The Machine

[(Anonymous)]

The Machine's coming-to-terms with it's inhumanity (and humanity's irrational response to that), and/or other people's realisations of and reactions to that non-human sentience issue.

Reese/Finch - John never left the CIA

[(Anonymous)]

John never left the CIA. His new mission: Spying on the mysterious Harold Wren, who's keeping some secrets the CIA really wants to have...

Bonus points if both John and Harold are a little darker and a little more damaged here than they are in canon - John, after years of working a job he hates, forced to kill people for reasons that are never explained to him. Harold, after years of trying, and often failing, to save the numbers with only the help of a bunch of unreliable mercenaries who can never know what's really going on.

Extra bonus points if John tries to seduce Harold to gain his trust.

Reese/Finch - Reese gives Finch a massage

[(Anonymous)]

Reese starts rubbing Finch's back for him, and Finch both loves it (because Reese is so good at it, and Finch needs it so badly, because he should be getting regular massages with his fucked-up back but he's not because trust issues) and hates it (because it's embarrassing and kind of humiliating and sometimes he can't help making noises and he's perfectly aware that Reese is using this to fuck with their power balance) but for Reese it's really just about the fact that no one ever touches him, and he's completely starved for touch.

Re: Reese/Finch - Reese gives Finch a massage

[aprilvalentine]

Filled here... http://archiveofourown.org/works/964057

Reese/Finch - Mobsters make them do it

[(Anonymous)]

Bad guys force them to fuck.

One Way Glass (Finch/Reese) - explicit - consent issues

[astolat]

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 thought 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 friends 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 he realized what they were going to do to him; he wouldn't be expecting it. But after that, he'd — he'd go stoic, his face rigid and blank, the way it got when he hurt himself working, one of the old injuries —

"Elias," John said, 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. He'd hold Harold face down, press him into the pillow until he was half-smothered, short on breath, the closest John could get to anaesthesia, 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 said.

"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."

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, John," Elias said. "It's too late for that. Okay," he said to the other men, and they turned him and took him out, into the hallway, past the two sullen, cold-faced 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, 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 pants. He had to — he had to unbutton Harold's pants, 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 his pants. He paused and then looked at John, searching, and then slowly, carefully, set his hands on John's waistband. John shut his eyes, shuddering with the mercy of it, while Harold unbuttoned him with steady hands.

Harold hesitated again, afterwards, but then he made what John mentally called his in for a penny face, a quirk of mouth and eyebrow, and started taking off his tie. John found he could breathe again; he reached up with shaking hands and unbuttoned his own shirt. He took it off and turned to the nightstand while Harold took off his vest and his shirt. There were condoms and lubricant in the drawer.

It was Harold who drew him down, in the end. They lay face to face, pressed close on the narrow slab of the bed, and Harold kissed him first; Harold held John's head in his hands, with tenderness, and kissed him again and again. Harold stroked exploring fingers across his chest, thumbed a nipple, bumped fingers over his ribs, until John was breathless and hungry and shaking. And then Harold — and then Harold — slid the condom on, rolling it carefully down, and kissed John once more, before he turned onto his face.

John badly wanted to speak; he wanted to say Harold's name, wanted to say thank you, over and over and over. He pressed kisses to Harold's marred neck instead, down the length of his spine; then he pressed two slick fingers to Harold's hole.

"Oh," Harold said after a little while, sounding vaguely surprised. "Oh. What a strange sensation." After a moment he said, "A little to the left, please."

John tried a little to the left, and then Harold wanted them deeper, and wanted him to — to thrust, Harold making low, breathy gasps. "Your hand," Harold said, panting, " — no, your other hand," and gripped him by the wrist, demanding, and John wrapped his hand around Harold's cock and stroked him. He was sweating, the too-bright lights glaring against his back, the thick cheap cotton mat of the bed scratchy and hot.

Harold said, "All right, that's enough, I think; now, please," and John lined himself up with shaking hands and pushed in, a little, and then Harold said abruptly, "Do you know, I think I'd prefer without the condom, if you don't — "

John heard himself make a noise, wordless, helpless; he jerked out and pulled off the condom and shoved back in, the sweet hot slide of skin on skin, Harold making a low satisfied groan of approval, and John buried his face in the back of Harold's neck and fucked him, desperately, madly; Harold's hand was clenched painfully on his thigh, urging him on, his gasps beautiful, low.

Afterwards, John slid out and pressed his forehead between Harold's sweat-sticky shoulder blades and breathed in the smell of him. Harold was lying with his head braced against his folded arms, catching his breath in steady deep pulls. Finally he shifted his weight, and John sat up so he could turn over. Harold drew him down a second time, into his arms; Harold stroked his head gently, over and over, while John shivered with gratitude, and then Harold said, "The door is open."

John jerked up and looked: the door was standing wide open, no sign of anyone on the other side. He stood up and jerked his pants back on, shoved his feet into his shoes and tied the laces in a fast knot. He still didn't risk speaking; he waved Harold to stay in the room and stepped out. But the hallway was empty.

The observation room was empty, too. There was only a single video camera, aimed into the cell, small, the recording light still on. There was a post-it note tacked on: Remember: a sense of proportion.

He took the camera back with him. Harold was already fully dressed again, tucking his rolled-up tie into a pocket. He'd laid out John's suit jacket and shirt on the foot of the bed. He looked up as John came back into the room.

"They're gone," John said. His own voice sounded strange to him, like he hadn't used it in years, not just for half an hour. "There's no one here."

#

Back at the library, Harold hooked the camera to a standalone laptop. In the video, the door to the cell cracked open about two minutes after John had gone into the room. It happened before they'd even taken their shirts off. Elias bent over and peered into the camera and said, "Looks like you two have got the idea, so we'll let you have your privacy. Keep our conversation in mind, John." He straightened up; he and his men walked out, shadows moving past the scene in the cell.

On the screen, the two of them were undressing, lovers getting ready to go to bed together.

I can imagine something you can't, Elias had said. I can find something you can't endure.

Harold watched the video unblinkingly, leaning back in his chair, hands on the armrests. John stood behind him, hand on the back of his chair, while the universe of things he couldn't endure went on expanding like a blast cloud.

Harold reached forward to turn the video off as they lay down together. He sat back. His gaze was aimed somewhere at the keyboard, fingers of one hand playing a slow drum-roll against the arm of his chair.

"Now what?" John said, low.

Harold looked up at him, an ordinary look that went on too long: eyes soft, lingering; terrible warmth curled in John's stomach. He bent down and kissed Harold, again and then again. Happiness sank into him like claws, and he slid to his knees and rested his head into Harold's palms, held up to cradle him, cool against his skin.

John saw only one option, one ending: the heat-death of the universe in another small dark room, Elias equably and relentlessly shredding Harold in front of him before letting him go to the mercy of a final gunshot, one he'd have to fire himself. He didn't know how to go another way, but he didn't know how to travel that road, either, his terror exactly what Elias had wanted.

Harold's thumbs stroked over his temples. "There's nothing to be done," he said. "It's too late, I'm afraid; Elias has made his intentions clear." He sighed. "I suppose he could run," he added, "but we'd have to explain why, and I won't do that."

John raised his head, stared at him. Harold's face was drawn, but unafraid; he wasn't — "Harold," he said. "What are you talking about? What's going to happen to Elias?"

"Oh, any number of things might happen. A traffic light changing too soon as he's crossing the street. The wrong drug dosage dispensed at a pharmacy. A piece of construction equipment at a work site malfunctioning. An extreme power surge in electrical lines while he's walking over a metal grate. Or, for that matter, his number being given to — certain other people."

"The Machine," John said. "You think the Machine — "

"Will intervene? Oh, yes," Harold said. "The Machine has always taken a dim view of threats to the system, and this is certainly an extreme one. Elias isn't simply threatening to kill us," he added. "He's actively sought leverage to control us with. And someone who can control me — " Harold stopped, shrugged with his eyebrows and his mouth. "I'm — quite sure that the Machine will act."

He looked tired, his shoulders bent, unhappy. John closed his eyes and buried his face in Harold's lap. He wasn't sorry at all.

# End

Medieval-Fantasy AU, Finch/Reese

[(Anonymous)]

Generally, I want a Finch as a seemingly boring medieval low level crippled landlord, who actually is the BFF of a beloved earl/duke/whatever Nathan. However, he's actually a recluse wizard whom created the omniscient 'Machine'.
Anyways, he's forced out of his cover when news reaches him that Nathan was beheaded in the Capitol.

Meanwhile, in the slums of the Capitol... ex-Knight Reese continues to get drunk at 10am.

These two meet, proceed with the mystery of Nathan's execution. All the while falling in love!

Fill: For King and Country, Finch/Reese, [Teen] [Choose Not To Warn]

[killalla]

Dear Prompter,

I hope the following is close enough to the terms of your description to satisfy – it’s set in the Angevin Empire of Randall Garret’s Lord Darcy Mysteries. The millieu features an Anglo-French feudal nobility and a working magic system, however, its geo-politics are closer to the Age of Sail and its technology is closer to Victorian. It's also a bit on the long side (for my usual, anyway) so I've posted a link.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/747369

Reese/Finch Finch is funny/filthy over the phone; Reese is all "cut it out"

[(Anonymous)]

The intimacy of nonstop phone contact - Finch's voice is in Reese's ear ALL THE TIME.

Would love to read Finch just dropping in little porny lines at random moments & pretending it didn't happen.

Like Reese could get stuck in a closet having to listen in on a couple having sex and Finch could do the commentary.

"what are they doing now, Mr Reese? Has he wrapped her in his manly arms? Has he reverently touched her most private places?"

"Finch, I'm going to murder you."

"What's that, Mr. Reese? Finding it a little HARD to concentrate?"

Reese/Finch - Voyeurism

[giandujakiss]

Finch listens to everything - and Reese knows it, and uses it to tease and ultimately seduce him.

Re: Reese/Finch - Voyeurism

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not even sure where this is going to go, but here's a start:

Reese is used to being watched.

At his former job, he knew that all the surveillance techniques he learned were being used on him. He knew he didn't have a private life.

At first it felt oppressive. Then he learned not to care. And it didn't feel like anything at all.

But Finch isn't the CIA. Finch doesn't watch Reese because it's protocol. Finch watches Reese because… Well Reese isn't sure. He does it because he's paranoid, but paranoid of what exactly? Reese doesn't know.

All Reese knows, is that it doesn't feel the same. The CIA made him feel like they were allowed to know everything about him while he didn't know a thing about them. This isn't like that. It doesn't feel dehumanizing, it feels… Different.

*

One day, he strikes up a conversation at the dog park. Well. Someone strikes up a conversation with him, anyway. The owner of a really adorable sheepdog is chatting him up, saying it might be nice to get some coffee. Together.

"Your dog is so beautifully trained. Did you go to a school with him, or have you trained dogs before?"

The sheepdog owner - name: Aidan - takes Reese to a coffee stand nearby. Aiden reaches up to touch Reese's shoulder while they talk. Reese folds down over him, feels like he's playing make-believe with the normal world. Go to the park on a beautiful day, get his flirt on. Normal people do that.

It comes out of Reese's mouth before he even knows he's going to say it: "tell me, Aiden, do you live nearby?"

Aiden looks up at him from under his lashes. Runs his hand down the length of Reese's arm. "Yeah", he says.

*

Reese is pretty sure Finch is going to stop watching and listening at some point. Probably. He backs Aiden into a wall and puts his mouth on his neck; breathes in. Thinks that Finch couldn't possibly have a camera in Aiden's (pretty nice) apartment. He kisses Aiden. If anything Finch is only listening in. Reese sticks his tongue in Aiden's mouth. Aiden groans. Maybe Finch has already stopped listening in.

Reese leaves quickly, before even taking his coat off, and before getting to third base. He uses Bear as an excuse.

RPS

[(Anonymous)]

So we know that Caviezel is a) super self-destructive in pursuit of his ~art (how many times did he get whipped/have his shoulder dislocated/hypothermia/punched in the face by now? and b) a homophobic fundamentalist Christian.

I just really want a fic where Caviezel finds himself in love with a guy, and has to deal with this new horrifying thing he's learned about himself, and basically his entire self-image crashing and burning. Especially if the guy has no idea what's going on, but can tell that he's somehow off and really unhappy and maybe a bit more self-destructive than usual on set, and decides to take care of him, because he's not going to take care of himself.

Could be Caviezel/Emerson? But really any pairing would work for me here.

Re: RPS

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know anything about Caviezel's stance on homosexuality, but I believe he's an extremely devout Catholic.

Fundamentalist Christianity is very very different than Catholicism.

Slavefic AU

[(Anonymous)]

Instead of trying to have Reese killed in Ordos, the CIA disappeared him by selling him into slavery - somewhere like a brothel or the mines, somewhere unwanted slaves are sent to die.

By the time he goes back on the market, he's been hurt and abused for years, half broken, angry and distrustful. That's when Finch finds him (either in an auction just by chance, or because he's been looking for him since he disappeared.) Of course, Reese isn't really capable of trusting anyone by that point, and he keeps waiting for Finch to turn on him somehow even while Finch is trying to fix him by giving him a sense of purpose.

Re: Slavefic AU

[(Anonymous)]

+1! OMG please someone write this.

Fusco gets captured by bad guys

[(Anonymous)]

Fusco gets captured. He's not really expecting anyone to come for him. Meanwhile, Reese, Finch and Carter are tearing the city apart trying to get him back.

FILL: When You Least Expect It (graphic violence, teen/up)

[huggle]

Hi
Filled it for you here - not much tearing the city apart, and it's mostly Reese who rides the rescue, but I hope you like.

When You Least Expect It (3051 words) by Huggle
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Person of Interest (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Lionel Fusco & John Reese
Characters: Harold Finch, John Reese, Lionel Fusco, Joss Carter
Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Original Character Death(s)
Summary:

Fusco ends up in a bad situation. He's on his own, right? He knows that. No one is going to come for him.

Carter/Reese, huddling for warmth

[(Anonymous)]

There's only one bed in the hotel room (again). This time, it's really too cold not to share.

Fill: Booked Solid - Carter & Reese, huddling for warmth - General - No Warnings

[(Anonymous)]

"I'll sleep on the floor," Reese said.

There was only a single narrow bed in the room. The entire town was booked solid for some annual geek convention; the only reason they'd even gotten this room was that the heating didn't work. Joss couldn't actually see her breath, but it felt like she should be able to.

She looked at Reese, then down at the icy cold tile floor. "Don't be an idiot," she said.

*****

She felt painfully naked in a t-shirt and panties. She'd dithered over whether to keep her pants on, but she didn't have spare clothes, and she couldn't afford to show up in wrinkled clothes tomorrow. John, in briefs and an undershirt, seemed to have made the same decision. He'd looked completely unconcerned walking out of the bathroom, but from the way he was lying on the very edge of the bed, she suspected he wasn't any more comfortable with this than she was.

He was also leaving her the biggest part of the thin comforter, which couldn't possibly cover both of them properly, with them huddled on opposite edges of the bed like that. So chivalrous. She rolled her eyes and shifted a little closer. "Get under the goddamn covers," she said.

He did; it didn't help much. Joss was freezing, and she thought she could feel the occasional shiver from him, transmitted through the mattress. The clock was ticking loudly in the silence, minutes crawling by very slowly while her entire body stiffened up from the cold. This was ridiculous. Neither of them were going to get a wink of sleep this way, and they needed to be on top of their game tomorrow. They were both grown-ups, veterans, people who knew how to get shit done; they could handle this like the professionals they were.

"Roll over," she said, shoving at his shoulder. He blinked at her. In the faint city light filtering through the curtains she could just barely see the way he raised an eyebrow at her in question. She shoved him again, and this time he allowed her to roll him into his side, his back to her. Without giving herself any more time for second thoughts, she rolled up against him, her chest pressed to his back. She could feel the way his entire body went tense with surprise. "Shhh, go to sleep," she said.

Warmth was gathering quickly everywhere their bodies touched. Joss could feel her tight muscles beginning to relax, her entire body slack and happy with the pure animal pleasure of not being cold anymore.

Reese was still holding himself stiffly. He wasn't trying to pull away, but he wasn't relaxing at all, either. Her hand was resting against his side; she could feel the tightly controlled rhythm of his breath.

"Go to sleep," she said again.

She felt him forcing himself to relax, could feel the effort it took, the way he had to consciously unclench every single one of his muscles. She wondered how long it had been since anyone had touched him; how long since he'd let down his guard in front of anyone?

By the time his breath finally evened out into the deep rhythm of sleep, his body warm and easy against hers, she knew what a sign of trust it was. She leaned her face against the warm skin of his shoulder, smiling as she drifted off to sleep.

Reese in handcuffs

[(Anonymous)]

Any time, any place, any pairing!

Cuffed, Reese & Finch, Reese in handcuffs, General, No Warnings

[kayqy]

"This isn't funny," Reese said. He yanked at the cuffs holding his wrist to the bed. Unfortunately the headboard was solid cast iron, something he would commend if he weren't the one cuffed to it, and anything remotely able to be turned into a lockpick was far out of reach of his free arm.

"I'm not joking," said Finch. He continued packing the briefcase with money, having already hidden the tracker and recording device inside.

"I can make the drop," Reese insisted. "You don't have to risk it alone."

"I'll have Carter and Fusco for backup," Finch said. "And I think the fact that I could get those handcuffs on you at all is ample proof that you're in no condition to do it." He closed the case with a snap and locked it. "We can't afford to wait until the drugs are out of your system."

"They are out. I'm fine now."

"Then it shouldn't take more than half an hour for you to escape those cuffs and join us. Though by then everything should be wrapped up satisfactorially, so it would be a better use of your time to rest and recover." Finch picked up the case in one hand and his cane in the other, and turned to the door.

"Dammit, Harold, I can't just lie here doing nothing, not knowing what's happening to you!"

Perhaps Finch was right about the drugs still affecting him; that had been rather more honest than he'd intended. Reese was probably imagining the flinch in his steps, as well, before he turned, scooped Reese's phone off the desk, and tossed it onto the bed. "That will have to do until I can replace your broken earpiece."

Reese's mouth twisted in a vague approximation of a smile. "You don't have a spare?"

"That was the spare," Finch retorted. His face softened, just a bit, and he added, "I'll be fine, John. I promise."

Reese swallowed and nodded curtly, and Finch left, locking the door behind him.

As soon as Reese heard his footsteps fade in the distance, he grabbed the phone and hit it against the cast iron rails until the screen cracked into shards, and used the best one to pick the lock. Thirty minutes was a gross overestimation.

Reese/Finch, hand holding

[(Anonymous)]

holding hands! can be platonic or slashy, either way

FILL: HOLD (RINCH) [G] [CNTW]

[(Anonymous)]

John staggered towards the door. His legs went sideways, one, two paces left and then he lurched forward again, powered himself at the latch and burst through. The door splintered and bounced off of the wall and John heard a bewildered, hopeful "Mr Reese?" The windowless basement was a blind, blank pit of horror and John was at Finch's side, was cutting through the zip ties that bound him to a chair. Finch said again, "Mr Reese?"

He staggered again, went down on one knee, kneecap a hard crunch against the concrete. "Finch," he said. He was kneeling in front of Finch, scrabbling his bloodied hands at the chair leg where Finch's ankle was tied, and he was thinking finch finch finch and so that's all he said, too, just, "Finch," until Finch put his hand out and touched his head. Finch put his hand on John's head so gently.

And John swallowed back the dust and blood and terror in his throat and said, "I've got you now. Let me–I'm getting you out."

There was no one to stop them. He had finished them all.

They went to the library. John had stolen the car, thrown Finch into the back seat, and driven there before he'd calmed down enough to really think about going anywhere else. Finch had lain silent and slumped in the back seat, his eyes wide and blinking with his glasses gone. John hated that his glasses were gone. The petty indignity of it made him afraid for so much more, so much worse.

He hauled Finch out the car and wrapped his arms around him, half dragging him, half carrying him up to the old couch that sat hidden between two bookcases. Bear ran to them, came skidding to a halt at the sight of them. They must have looked wrecked. John was covered in brick dust and grime and he could feel the gritty congealing messes of war all over him, in his hair, stinging and clinging to scrapes in his skin.

Finch shook his head and said, "No, dear Lord, my back," and so John pulled all the cushions off of the couch and threw down a sleeping bag on top for good measure while Finch stood with one hand gripping a bookshelf. Finch's other hand just shook; John could see it out the corner of his eye and he hated seeing that, too.

He tugged Finch's sleeve. "You gotta lay down," he told him. Bear whined and ran in a little circle around Finch, until Finch shook himself and said, "What? Yes. Of course. On the floor? Mr Reese, I really think–"

John shook his head. He dropped down onto his knees again. He put his arms up and Finch clasped his hands for support, came down onto the cushions so they were both kneeling, holding hands really, and it was just then that Finch's face woke up, just then as they knelt there together the horror and the pain and the memory flooded into him and John could see it all coming and he pulled Finch down and held him down, held him close, one arm thrown over him and one hand still clasped in Finch's. They lay there on the old battered couch cushions and Finch said to him, "I've got you."