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It was a routine briefing, Harold's voice in his ear murmuring about derivatives and arbitrage and the history of Morgan Stanley, John poking back at him idly between photos, when Shaw broke in on the line and said acerbically, "Don't let me interrupt if you two aren't done flirting yet."
Harold fell silent. John paused, looking over the top of his camera without seeing the targets, feeling mildly annoyed at himself: he wanted a comeback, and an easy one wasn't coming. He wasn't sure why not. Maybe because he really hadn't been done.
Then Harold said, "Well, Ms. Shaw, I don't think we were quite finished, but naturally if you require assistance we're happy to interrupt," with just the right edge on assistance to make it sting. John smirked at thin air, satisfied, imagining Shaw's narrowed eyes.
"Never a good idea to get into a verbal match with a genius, Shaw," he told her cheerfully when they met up later that day. He shot another of the mercenaries as the man threw an arm over the hood of his car to take some wild shots at them.
She rolled her eyes at him while taking out the sniper who poked his head out of the second story window. "Shut up, Reese, I was right," she said. "You were distracted. The two of you need to get a room and work out your mutual admiration issues on your own time."
"I was getting the job done," John said, trying to be mildly indignant. But there was something uneasy trying to rear its head up in his gut.
"Look at your position again," she said.
He didn't have to go back physically. Shaw drove them home, and he rewound the morning in his head while he stared out the window, elbow braced on the windowsill, hand over his mouth. It was a clear night after a clear day: the skyline dazzling on the approach to the Midtown Tunnel, the Empire State Building in yellow and green. He'd secured a solid recon position on the roof across the street, full view of the target's office, the neighboring offices and the ones above and below, clear line of sight down the hallway to the elevators and stairwell, good concealment behind the water tower, shielded from three of the surrounding office buildings, and the fourth had been — shit.
His brain helpfully supplied the moment just as they plunged into the tunnel's alternate-dimension yellow light: a curtain sliding back across a window on the twenty-sixth floor on the west-facing building, someone getting in to work late who'd closed the blinds the night before against the afternoon sun. It would've been a risk worth taking if he'd had to, but there had been a shadowed spot a couple of steps to his left that would have given him only a slightly worse view, clearly a better overall choice under the new conditions. He hadn't moved because — he hadn't noticed. He hadn't noticed because —
They came out of the tunnel. Shaw whipped them through the city streets and pulled up to the curb hard on Lexington, four blocks away from the library, and stopped the car. "Take care of it," she said.
He didn't answer her; that was enough of an answer. He opened the door and got out. It was a cool, crisp night; people were out in light coats, drinking tall hot drinks. He glanced at the Starbucks on the corner as he walked past: pastries in the lit-up shelf, baristas smiling and handing cups over. The impulse presented itself: to stop in, to pick something up — enough for two. Initially it had been a calculation: he'd brought food to the office to learn Finch's preferences, get a sense of his appetite, how good he was at denying himself. Any information had been good information. Now John knew: Finch had a sweet tooth, avoided caffeine, didn't say no to any food he wanted but got bored eating easily: at the end of the day there were usually half-donuts in the trash.
At some point gathering information had turned into using information. Bringing food was now its own reward. Harold licking icing off the side of his thumb, two days ago, and pressing a folded paper napkin to his mouth. John swallowed. He walked past the coffee shop.
Inside the library, he stopped at the top of the stairs. Harold was sitting in front of his computers, not typing, not working. He had a hand resting idly next to the keyboard, fingers arched, suspended; as if he was about to start any minute now. His face was blank and remote, terminal windows scrolling in his glasses. Bear whuffed a greeting. Harold turned his head a fraction of a degree, acknowledging; he didn't meet John's eyes.
"You were listening," John said.
"Always," Harold said.
John swallowed again. Fear was sharp and hot in his stomach. "Your place or mine?"
Harold kept looking into the far distance. "Mine, I think," he said finally. He stood up.
#
Harold took him to a large condo on the Upper East Side, full of art that John could tell Harold didn't care about and books he didn't really like, and a level of impersonal clean only produced by daily maid service. Bear went straight to the waiting food bowl and water bowl; Harold went automatically for the fridge: whole wheat pasta with salmon and peas in a microwave-safe dish with reheating instructions written on the top, green salad in a bowl and fresh bread on the counter. There was plenty for two, and the food was good but generic; not someone who knew Harold's tastes. John nodded to himself: the place was easily discardable. He got plates.
After they ate, Harold took Bear out to the dog run on the roof. John stayed behind and cleared the table, washing the dishes unnecessarily before he put them in the dishwasher, to have something to do with his hands. Afterwards he did push-ups in the dark living room in front of the windows looking out on the glitter of the East River, and a light set of yoga stretches. He sat up when the door rattled. His breath came quicker. It was like stepping into a room with blackout curtains, sight unseen. Harold paused in the doorway to look at him. Bear came in; John distantly registered the scrabble of his claws on the tiled foyer floor until he settled down on his dog bed. He didn't look away from Harold's face. The last of the safe distance going: he wanted to cling to it, he wanted to rip through it.
Harold turned around and locked up. John was standing. He didn't remember getting up. Harold's shoulders rose and fell in a slight determined heave, then he turned around and came into the living room. He looked up into John's face, his glasses opaque with reflections, and John bent his head and kissed him on the mouth.
Harold hesitated, then kissed him back a little awkwardly, a mismatched slide. John pulled back, licking his lips. "I don't need it, Harold," he said, although he didn't actually know if that was true; he could do without kissing, he could do without sex, but he didn't know another good answer for this hunger, for wanting more of Harold than he already had; for wanting everything. "If you don't want — "
Harold lifted his arms in a minute shrug. "I don't think I could bear not to, now that — " He trailed off. He didn't need to finish it. "I don't see what else we can possibly do."
"We could — take it slow," John said.
"I doubt this will get any easier for dragging out the denouement, as it were," Harold said dryly. "It certainly won't become less distracting."
John tried to smile back an answer, acknowledge the gentle elbow-nudge to his ribs. He couldn't manage it. He stared down at Harold's mouth, already slightly more pink and flushed. Harold was looking at his mouth, too. His eyes slid helplessly up to John's, and then Harold reached up and cupped his face, and drew John down.
They stood kissing for a long time, working out how to fit their lips together. Harold's body in his physical space was strange and perfect at the same time. After a while, John realized vaguely that Harold was angling his head to catch a little more of John's lip, to scrape deliberately over the two-days' growth of beard, and something hot curled in his stomach. His hands tightened on Harold's arms.
Harold cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should — "
The bedroom was down the hall. They hung up their suits, put away shoes, took off socks and underwear. John stumbled over the process, found himself weirdly conscious. Being naked around Harold before, the couple of times he'd changed at the library, hadn't felt strange: no different than a barracks, though Harold had been vaguely embarrassed. Now he felt himself on display, available; wondering if Harold would want to look, to touch, to use; conscious of being in Harold's hands.
Harold paused and looked at him; John shook it off. There was no way out but through. "Do you want to — " He couldn't make himself say fuck me to Harold; it sounded all wrong. " — take me?"
He still felt strange saying even that, thinking about it: face down on folded arms, feeling the weight of Harold's body on top of him, Harold's cock pushing into his ass. Something in his gut twisted, kind of funny: he hadn't known he knew how to be afraid of anything anymore. Actually, that was oddly appealing, a kind of squirmy thrill. He thought about it deliberately: getting on his knees to make it easier, spreading wide, making himself soft and open, pushing back to help Harold get inside him.
Inside him. John shuddered, all over, and his mouth was suddenly dry with want and not just fear.
Harold eased him down: put a hand on his arm, then touched John's face, drew him down to another kiss, to another after that. He stroked John's cheek. "Given our lack of experience, I think perhaps we should moderate our ambitions slightly."
John breathed out and let Harold draw him to the bed; they lay down together, on their sides, and explored: Harold's fingers gentle on his body, careful. He stroked John's cock for a while, awkwardly. "It's considerably more difficult doing this to someone else," Harold muttered, sounding vaguely annoyed, as he changed hands once again. He darted a look up at John's face. "Are you even enjoying this?"
"Yes," John said. It was true, because he had Harold frowning down at him like he was an urgent problem to be taken apart and solved thoroughly; but realistically, he was going to start getting sore pretty soon. "Maybe some lubricant?" he offered.
"Hm, I wonder what I have..." Harold said, then, "Let me try something." He got out of bed and padded away down the hall. There was a faint sound of clinking glass from the kitchen, a stirring spoon. John pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and sighed, indulging himself in a brief fantasy of shoving Shaw off a third-story balcony some time.
"I haven't done this since I was in college," Harold said, coming back into the room with a small glass full of something that smelled like olive oil. John propped himself up on his elbows, half-despairing, half-curious. "But I do remember it as quite effective."
Harold poured it into the cup of one hand and then reached over and— "Oh, shit," John said, strangled, and fell back flat as he helplessly grabbed at Harold's hands around his cock. He wavered between a dozen options that immediately suggested themselves, then went for all of the above: he gripped down tight and desperately fucked Harold's hot, stinging-hot grip, fantastically slick and blazing and good and ow, fuck, hot, painful and wonderful — and thank god, six, seven thrusts did it, he was there, coming in spurts.
"Get it off me," he groaned immediately, letting his hands fall away; Harold was already frantically grabbing for a corner of the sheet, wiping him clean.
John curled over on his side, gasping, while Harold dashed for the bathroom and came back with a washcloth. "That wasn't at all the — John, are you all right?" He peered down anxiously at John's face, eyes large without his glasses.
"Yeah," John said, a little high. "You crazy college kids."
"I assure you, that was not my previous experience," Harold said, picking up the glass and sniffing at it. "I used the same amount of paprika; I suppose whatever my pantry is stocked with here is stronger than the stuff in the student lounge. Are you sure you're not — "
John flopped an arm at him weakly. "Oh, I'm not complaining," he said. "Maybe a little warning next time." He shuddered all over again, reveling in the idea; next time: he could have Harold do that to him again. John was pretty sure he could take it for longer if he was ready, and ride the edge — oh God, Harold could fuck him while he —
Harold was bent over him, still worried, but his mouth starting to work on a half-unwilling smile. John reached up and caught his shoulders and turned them both over, pressed Harold back into the pillows and slid himself down the bed and started to suck his cock. Harold was still mostly soft; it was easy to take all of him. John clumsily mouthed and rolled Harold's cock on his tongue, licked at the slit and the soft head, sucked hard and pulled off, listening satisfied as Harold's breath stuttered and hitched above his head. John tried to slide back down and nearly gagged himself. He tried to get it a little deeper again; Harold made a small faint noise of protest as his cock bumped John's teeth and the roof of his mouth.
John had to let it slide out; it slapped wetly against Harold's stomach, impressively swollen and looking highly unlikely to fit anymore. John wiped his mouth, panting. "This is a lot easier on the other end."
"Yes, I — I imagine," Harold said, dazedly. He was staring up at the ceiling with a bewildered, deeply confused expression that made John want to suck his cock for hours. Or straddle his hips and slide onto him, despite the size or maybe because of it: he'd feel it the whole time, the whole way down, and he'd get to watch Harold's face going even more wide-eyed and astonished at him, maybe crumpling a little in pleasure, forehead creasing and eyes drifting shut —
John shut his eyes and breathed out. Another time. "Slide down the bed a little," he said, getting enough room to stretch out next to Harold's side, getting a better angle. He wrapped a hand around Harold's cock. "I want you to come in my mouth — "
Harold made a small shocked noise and his cock spurted in John's hand, all over his face. John started laughing, helplessly, and put his cheek down on Harold's warm, splattered stomach, and stroked him gently through the rest of it with his thumb on the head of Harold's cock. Harold was laughing too, breathlessly, a hand on John's head and his belly quivering under John's cheek.
"Well," John said, getting the washcloth; he unfolded it and used the other side to wipe off his face, and cleaned Harold off too, "at least we can't get a lot worse at this."
"In my defense, there wasn't really much time for preparation," Harold said. "I'll find some books tomorrow."
"I didn't know they had that section in the library," John said, stretching out next to him and fitting himself into the shape of Harold's body; Harold put an arm around him and coaxed John's head onto his shoulder. His hand slid into John's hair, strong fingers curving over his scalp, unwinding the last of that tight, starved knot of hunger. John closed his eyes, relaxing helplessly, completely: the exhaustion after letting a forty-pound pack of gear slide off your back, at the end of a three-day forced march, finally home.
"Certainly," Harold was saying. "Of course, there's a history of controversy about the Dewey Decimal categorization of works involving homosexuality, but I believe there should be a reasonably wide selection under 613 — "
John slept.
# End