A date. Harold wants to take him on a date— and, oh, maybe they do want the same thing. Maybe Harold will accept all the longing that's been denied in John's heart for so long. The feelings he's always denied he has. The things he promised he would never tell Harold. But— but. Not yet. No, this might just be Harold being Harold. He always does things properly. If John is thinking about what he actually said instead of what John wanted him to say, he said "soulmate" as a generic. Whoever that was. He didn't say "you". This is not a personal comment to John, this is just because they happen to be soulmates.
But. Still. There's no denying that John wants this. He's not going to reject this offer. Maybe eventually Harold will decide that he wants to take John on a date. Maybe if he can be— "as ourselves"— Harold will want him, specifically. It's a terrifying thought. John isn't sure Harold will still want him after he learns everything John is at heart. After he realizes how hard it is sometimes for John to be good. But he can cross that bridge later. This is why he has to wait.
"Yes." He sounds too emotional. He needs to dial it back some. John takes a deep breath. "Yes, I would like that."
There is a difference, in that knowing he's his soulmate means it's utterly fruitless for Harold to try to keep his distance. More than that, he only gets one of these in his life; is he really going to spend what time he has left denying what John means to him? Pretending they're nothing more than business partners who've grown to be friends, as if that ever encapsulated what they were? Of course John is his soulmate because Harold already had this depth of feeling for him. He's just run out of excuses for shoving it under the rug.
There's something complicated happening in John, but Harold can't begin to piece apart what it is. So he focuses on the effusive agreement and lets out a shaky breath of his own. He wasn't really nervous about the possibility of rejection, but he was opening a new door within himself as he asked that. He was admitting to himself that he was open to more than the unstated unconditional trust they'd had thus far.
Trust was a prerequisite for intimacy, but it wasn't the same. And Harold has been so very parsimonious with his intimacy. Even with John.
"Good. Good, I'll arrange something." There's a small thrill that goes through him at getting to plan something for someone he cares about again, rather than just happening upon one another and agreeing to spend time together. Harold loves taking care of others, feels that getting to do it unencumbered is a gift given personally and directly to him, and it's perhaps impossible to hide how much he's looking forward to it.
"And of course, I would go to dinner with you," he adds belatedly, fulfilling his end of the bargain. His mind is abuzz with ideas, distracted. "Your turn for a question, now."
John can feel how Harold is thrilled by the prospect of their date. Of planning something just for them. This is different than just them going to eat, this is more than just treating John to a nice steak because John won't buy such a thing for himself. No, Harold is planning something. John feels anticipation building within him, but he'll have to be patient. This is so new, and they are so busy, all the time. He wonders if this is something that Harold is used to, has done for Grace, for anyone that was before her. Has he dated men before? Is this familiar territory for him? It's been so long since John has dated, well, anyone. It feels a bit foreign to think about now. He's certainly slept with men, but Jessica was the last person he dated and that was so long ago. He was an entirely different person back then. He's not sure how John Reese will do on a date. He'll have to find out.
His turn for a question. John has to think on it for a bit, but he knows Harold will be patient as he comes up with one. Finally he settles on one that he's wondered for a while but never thought he'd ask. "Why pick me? To help with the numbers."
John supposes he'll have to answer why he chose to work the numbers, but. If he's going to be with Harold in some capacity (which Harold seems to desire, maybe) then it's something they should discuss. Who John really is and what he's really done.
That question succeeds in wrenching his spinning thoughts to a halt. (An art museum would remind them both of Grace, but perhaps something unconventional-- the New York Public Library exhibitions? That's almost romantic in itself for the two of them--) Once again, John has made good use of his opportunity, pinpointed a question Harold would be extremely cagey about under normal circumstances. There's a delay before he responds, thinking through that whole time period.
It's hard to think back on now. It has the black oily feel of murky water, something far under the surface that he's been avoiding by bobbing along the top and ignoring what's below. If they're likely to die soon, why reflect on it? Why dredge up that time in his life, which was mired in hopelessness and struggle?
Harold had given up on anything except doing one last good thing before he died. And most of the time, he'd been failing at that.
"You lied to your partner," he says out of nowhere, and it should be abrupt, but his voice is soft and his body is still, his heart aching as he thinks of it. "Kara Stanton. You told her you killed Daniel Casey, but you let him go."
A momentary pause as he closes his eyes and summons up those memories again, willingly, for John, pulse picking up speed with relived anxiety. It doesn't seem like he needs to explain how he'd known that or how he'd been involved; John can guess, and it's not important. Not really. He set up this exchange and he meant it honestly, intends to give the real complete answer and not sidestep it with a smaller truth like he usually would. Usually he would stop there, if he even went that far, but Harold had felt how cracked open John was through their conversations and he owes him no less. It feels like he's peeling away a scab and letting a wound seep blood again.
"You were not the first person I worked with." This is hard, harder, to relive. He swallows. He lets out a shaky breath. "I--
"I had Jessica Arndt's number, and I wanted to save her. But there was nothing I could do. You probably won't remember, but I saw you in the hospital-- afterwards." The whole, complete truth... "I was in a wheelchair. And I thought--
"You were the first person with the skills to make a difference that I believed would understand why. Why it matters to save one person."
John takes a breath. Harold had— he had seen the picture in the safe. Of Jessica. He had suspected it then but— to hear confirmation— it still hurts to think of her. Poor Jessica, who he abandoned more than once.
But he can feel how hard this is for Harold. This moment is not about John's long running guilt and despair about Jessica, it's about the two of them, together. It's about Harold. And it's clearly a question that hurts. But he's answering anyways, is telling John the whole truth, all of it. This is more than just not lying. John rests his hand on Harold's thigh and runs his thumb across the wool of his pants. This is something that comforts John but he doesn't know if Harold will feel the same.
He wants to learn how to comfort Harold.
This line of thought from Harold isn't direct. It's not organized the way he usually is. Scattered points instead of a straight line. John can trace their shape, fill in those lines. Harold knew about Casey, Harold worked with someone else. So it was probably Harold's previous associate that tried to keep Casey out of their hands. Casey was an irrelevant and... got lucky. John could mire himself in these memories the way he's asked Harold to, but he wants to be a support for Harold in this moment, so he drags himself away from the thought.
"Thank you for telling me." It's as simple as that. Harold had told him, and John is thankful. He is thankful, for the truth and for Harold's bravery. He doesn't need to push Harold more.
It's one thing to rationally and logically think that if this is going to work, he needs to give John an opportunity to ask all the questions Harold would normally dodge or duck or evade. He's learned from Grace, he's just never had a chance to put it into practice, hadn't really thought he ever would. But it's still another thing to give those answers, honestly and completely, with his whole heart. His eyes are closed and he absorbs the gratitude, the lack of pushing for more.
The absence of expectation makes him want to give. It's a deeply natural feeling for Harold, one he normally has to suppress or at least mask somehow with anonymity, but here he doesn't have to. Air across the wound, letting it breathe.
His hand covers John's on his leg, skin warm and dry and reassuring.
"You proved me right. Over and over again. The time before I found you--" He opens his eyes, smiles just slightly, each heart beat a pang as he realizes how fortunate he'd been. How much John had truly changed his life.
"It was a dark time for me. I never expected to find a way out of that. But... I can see that, with you."
This thing Harold is telling him— it's— John has to brace himself as the wave of Harold's words, Harold's emotion hits him. Harold is telling him that John has lifted him up. Has shown him some way forward. It's not something— he's not that kind of person. The thing that Harold sees in him is not something that John can see in himself. He just... he just might as well do some good in this world since he hasn't succeeded in doing himself in yet.
How can he explain that to Harold? How can he make him understand? John cannot lead him anywhere. There is no light left in him to shine on Harold's path. Harold is so far ahead of him, it's all John can do to follow along, chase after the sound of his voice. He doesn't know how to say any of this, but he has to, because he owes Harold his honesty. Because he wants Harold to know where they truly stand.
"I don't know what you see in me. I'm not— a good person. I've done so many terrible things and the numbers are just... but... I am with you. I don't know what that means, but I am." It's a bit choked off at the end, but John does a good job of holding himself together while saying it. He takes a deep breath and tries not to feel too miserable, the way he does when he looks at himself too carefully.
Harold struggles for words, uncharacteristically inarticulate when it comes time to express his own feelings. He's always struggled with human interaction, how to make himself known and understood. In his own way, training the Machine made more sense to him than talking to any organic person, because there's a fundamental logic to how machines operate that tracks along his same lines.
He feels John hating himself and he wants so acutely to salve it.
"I won't argue with you about how good you are, or what you've done, though I believe you are good, and you've done the best you could." He won't argue, but it must be said aloud, so there is no doubt in John about Harold's position on the topic. There's no heroes, no villains, just people like them doing what they can in their own lives, making sense of an infinite, chaotic universe that provides them no answers.
"But since you started working with me, I've believed I could do something good. After Nathan died, I... didn't know if I'd ever been capable of that."
He laces his fingers between John's on his thigh, squeezes them tightly.
"We can do so much more together than we can do alone. If there's a definition of soulmates that makes sense to me, it-- it must be that."
'Nathan' as in... Nathan Ingram? He had been the founder of IFT, had been in that picture he'd found with a much younger Harold. There was Ingram's son who Harold had been involved with early on... but John doesn't know much more than facts. Ingram— he should really call him Nathan, he supposes. He clearly means something to Harold, to refer to him so impersonally seems... wrong, now. Nathan had died in a terrorist attack, that ferry bombing. John has to wonder how that fits in with the Machine.
But he knows how much it cost Harold to talk about Grace, so he'll save his questions about Nathan for another day. For now he'll just take Harold's comment as fact.
The distraction of Nathan Ingram aside, John has to actually absorb the rest of what Harold has said. This isn't about John, this is about Harold. He realizes that it's somewhat self centered, to take this thing that Harold has shared about himself and twisted it to be about how John isn't worthy. He wasn't trying to, he's just— he supposes he didn't understand where Harold was coming from. What he was really saying. What he is saying, about how John has given him a chance to redeem himself. John feels like he still doesn't see the full picture, that he's missing something, but he can be that. He can be Harold's tool for good. That's something he can try to live up to. If the numbers are Harold's redemption then this purpose, being Harold's instrument, can be John's own. It's really what he's been doing, just a little more formal.
"I will be by your side," John reiterates. "We'll do this together."
He'd said Nathan's name once, and that seems like enough. Seems like it's not possible to say more, his throat closing up. Of course-- of course, John understands, doesn't ask. He's awash with gratitude. Is this what it's like for everyone to find their soulmate? Is that what all the hubbub and drama and over-the-top romances in media are about?
Harold doubts it. He thinks that he has gotten especially lucky, that John is particularly perfect, just for him. He's aware that maybe everyone feels this way when they find their soulmate, maybe this is selection bias, but he can feel it somehow. He can feel that he and John have gotten through the thorny difficult parts already and what remains is to make use of what time they have.
"No more questions," he says, rather than turning it back on him. "Would you-- that is, would you watch an old movie with me until we're both tired?" He almost says, The time I have with you is precious, but rethinks it in an effort to get their overly intense evening back to an easier place.
"I know we can't do this all the time, but I'd like to have a small piece of this with you. When we can."
A tiny corner that they carve out for each other when it's possible, the normal life they cannot have because of their own decisions, long past and now paying for. But occasionally -- every so often -- they can give this to each other as a gift, a thing they could never deserve but can only exchange freely.
John is relieved when Harold calls an end to the questions. He'd been... it would have been fair to ask John the same, but he's not sure he had a good answer to give. The reason for starting the numbers is so far from why he still does them today and while he thinks Harold would understand that, he doesn't particularly want to have to explain it right now. This is why they're soulmates. Harold understands.
He thinks back to the whole evening, how Harold has catered to him the whole time, has given and given and given. The invitation to his home, pulling him back from the edge of a breakdown, giving him the space he needs, holding him close when he wants, answering all these questions... John wishes he had something to give Harold in return. He doesn't think— he wonders if maybe his own answers, his own gestures, have been enough. Maybe when John is thinking This is why we're soulmates, Harold is thinking the same.
He can at least give him his honesty, quiet and sincere.
"I want this, too. We can watch a movie, or we don't even have to do anything. I'll be happy if we're together. Put whatever you want on."
They watch the Maltese Falcon. It's a classic Harold has seen a number of times, so it isn't too demanding; he's able to sink into the couch and feel John's strong toned form in casual clothes against him and try to sink that into his memory, too. He tries to convince himself not to feel any urgency, the message he'd been trying to get across to John, that there is time enough for this.
But is there? He had four years with Grace; he doesn't think he's going to get four years with John.
They part to sleep separately, Harold taking things as slowly and incrementally as he had every step of their relationship to this point. But he does take further steps: he plans dates for John, things John would like doing that are simpler and quieter, things Harold enjoys like the New York library exhibitions after all. In practice it doesn't look like much has changed from the outside, except they spend more time together than before, and occasionally Harold glances a touch, skin-to-skin, that he initiates, and once in a while when he judges it's safe enough he leaves a small note on his forearm for John to find. Nothing revealing or dramatic, just signs that he's thought of him when they're apart.
After Detective Carter dies and Harold finds John crumpling into a bloody mess in a motel room, holding a gun with a shaking hand-- after Detective Carter dies and John, hollow-eyed, insists on leaving and Harold can't find his voice to refute it-- after Detective Carter dies and Harold stands mutely at her funeral looking at her ex-husband and her son, crying, and Detective Fusco is blank, a piece of carved rock--
After Detective Carter dies, he keeps leaving little notes.
Today he doodles an outline of a bird with a brush pen, one of the few things Harold has any talent at drawing, and this from repetition and effort. He draws a northern flicker, a species of migratory woodpecker common to Colorado, and shades in the black barring in the feathers carefully. The focus helps keep his mind off of all the words he'd like to write instead, which he senses John doesn't want to see or hear. And then, for the first time, he uses a color: just a dash of red for the crest, one swipe.
The whole drawing is perhaps two inches in diameter, right over the pulse on his left wrist.
All these little moments building up between them have made John greedy for more. Every little touch from Harold is a thrill, suffuses him with something warm, something that eases his mind. He returns his own sometimes, a privilege he gets now; to be able to reach out and touch Harold when he wants, how he wants. He lets his hands linger a bit longer than is professional. When Harold writes to him John responds, maybe just a word or two, or a symbol, to show that he's gotten the message, that it means something to him. A couple times, heart jumping in his chest, he sends Harold something of his own, just a mark or symbol; just an "I'm thinking of you." He is, so often, thinking about Harold.
And then Joss is killed. Joss dies in his arms and John doesn't even feel his own wound, the only thing he feels is the stabbing pain in his heart. It's different from when he found out Jessica was dead, he felt numb then, this is so acutely painful. He holds her and doesn't cry, doesn't cry, but can feel himself falling apart, broken and crumpling.
In the aftermath, in Harold's safehouse, he awakens and realizes there is something still holding form in him, something he can lean his entire weight on. He will kill Alonzo Quinn, then he will kill Patrick Simmons. It's so simple.
He almost gets there, too. Almost crosses the finish line, but stumbles at the end. His gun doesn't fire. John isn't sure if it's defeat or his injuries that cause his collapse, and yet he turns instinctively towards Harold, towards his voice, towards the hands reaching for him. Harold says he's dying and John believes it. In the end, in his final moments, Harold is with him. That's how he wants it to be.
And then he wakes up.
John has nothing, this time. Just lays in the bed and listens to the machines that have been keeping him alive. Listens to Harold talk, but he has nothing to say. He has nothing but the stabbing pain he feels with every heartbeat. He knows how to solve that. But he can't do it here, he couldn't stand to walk past a payphone, to walk down the street and think "Joss would have been here, Joss would have seen that." So he leaves. He goes to Colorado because he knows a place there, knows a hole he can crawl into.
One of the benefits of Harold paying him so well (even if he gives most of it away) is that he has more than enough money to drink all day. More than enough to go for days. To stagger back to his motel and collapse in bed, to wake up and do it all again.
John catches sight of the bird drawing as he's reaching for his latest drink. He pulls his sleeve up just a bit, just enough that he can stare at it, and the ache he feels in his chest shifts. Longing. He wants to see Harold. He wants to curl up and burry his face in Harold, to feel Harold wrap his arms around him, to have Harold soothe him gently. But he can't go back. He can't face the numbers, can't face New York. He just can't.
Instead he curls his hand around his wrist, fingers bracketing the drawing, and stares, drink forgotten.
John doesn't write him back but Harold keeps track assiduously of whether he's been wiping off his doodles and words. He hasn't been. At all. Sometimes Harold has to wipe his arm clean to write the next thing, because he is trying to be cautious, he doesn't want to cover their skin, but in balancing caution and concern he keeps himself to his left forearm, top and bottom.
Harold gives him a week of private grief and then decides that's enough. He doesn't ascribe to tough love philosophy but he also knows what he'd been up to a week after Nathan's death, after this father's death, and if this isn't the same then it's certainly not that much better, not after the state he'd found John in. If nothing else he wants to check on his physical recovery, and he's not about to take John's words for it.
The life they live, there's no one to tell he's leaving; he just packs a single bag and picks an identity and flies to Colorado. Between the GPS signal in John's phone and the fact that he's still using his same credit cards, that and how he never wipes off Harold's ridiculous bird doodles, Harold figures he can't mind being found too much. John knows how to drop out of his sight if he wanted to. All he'd have to do is ask, even; he thinks they still have that much trust. He considers sending Detective Fusco instead, wonders if maybe it's him John doesn't want to see, can't stand the reminder of-- but he won't be such a coward as to send someone else to speak to his soulmate for him.
He occupies his worried mind while flying with another bird doodle, having bought out two first class seats to ensure no one would be sitting next to him. (He is not in the mood for nosy well-wishers catching him writing to his soulmate.) This time he draws a lark bunting, the Colorado state bird, in a subtle hint.
It's the kind of thing he amuses himself with but doesn't expect John to pick up on, not with the unceasing wash of blurred grief coming through the bond. They've never pushed its limits, almost as if speaking directly of it would whisper it out of existence, but Harold trusts what it tells him.
He books a room at John's low-end motel and another at a nicer one with a concierge, leaves his bags at the low-end one in the room adjoining John's, and then makes his way to the dive bar the GPS signal tells him John is presently at. Out here in nowhere, Colorado, a full suit would stand out, so he's wearing khakis and a rather grandfatherly cardigan, no tie. It makes him look dour but hopefully unmemorable.
Of course, there's no chance John will mistake him, and he isn't trying, doesn't want to startle him. He waits until John catches sight of him and they make eye contact across the bar before he makes his way over to sit beside him. He has a beer he hasn't touched with him and he doesn't even try to make things casual.
"I'll leave if you want me to," is all he says, quietly, respectful.
As Harold approaches John knocks back his current drink and motions for another one. Of course Harold would be here. Of course he would come find him. Of course.
Instead of looking at Harold, John looks at the bird drawing on his arm. He runs his thumb over it. He doesn't know what to say. How to explain the pain he feels. He wonders if Harold can feel it, is fairly sure he'll have picked up on it after a week. He doesn't know what to do. Sitting next to Harold feels like finding a lone fire in a blizzard. John isn't sure if it's enough, but it's something; a small comfort, perhaps. He feels like turning towards Harold, hiding his face in Harold's shoulder. Maybe Harold would hold him, maybe he'd run his fingers through John's hair, maybe he'd give John a soothing touch.
He doesn't do that though. He's drunk enough that he really doesn't care about being overly clingy in public, but he doesn't know how to ask for it. Even though he can think about the motion his body isn't responding.
"What kind of bird is it." His voice sounds strange in his own ears, a bit hoarse from lack of use over the past while and the alcohol he's been drowning himself in, day in and day out.
Harold is wrapped up in sadness himself, though it's likely a fainter echo against the intensity that John is trying to drown in alcohol. He knew it was a possibility -- a strong possibility -- that getting others involved in their crusade would leave them dead, but in Carter's case, he feels that attributing her death to them is doing her a profound disservice. To the end, she'd been doing what she wanted to do; they'd never persuaded her to budge an inch she didn't want to move.
But he still feels the loss. Another piece of his life carved away, another good woman making a difference lost to the pointless selfish cruelty of others. And here's John, lost completely, and Harold doesn't know how or if or when he can find his way back. If he never wants to work the numbers again, fine -- Harold won't stop, but he won't ask John to do something he doesn't want to do -- but he's not going to let him go. Not unless he's told to leave.
John doesn't tell him to leave, so he lays his left hand on the bar counter and deftly undoes the cuff button with his right. He folds the cloth back just enough to show the edge of the latest drawing, lines starker and sharper on his skin, real ink soaked in. Maybe the reminder that they share the same skin will do something, he doesn't know; but it comforts him.
"The lark bunting is the state bird of Colorado," he explains in a smooth, even voice, Finch giving intel but one note softer. "This is a male; they have extensive sexual dimorphism. They're known for impressive vocal displays as they travel their migratory route through the state."
A moment's pause, before he deliberately adds, "They're socially monogamous. No matter how many mating partners they might have, once they bond, they always return to their partner lark."
John holds his new drink between his fingers as he listens to Harold talk. He doesn't fidget with it, doesn't turn the glass, doesn't drink it, just holds it. It's quiet at this hour, it'll be another hour or so until people start trickling in for the evening, and the bartender is busy at the other end. Maybe giving them space. All things John has catalogued, despite the fact that he's trying to turn himself off. Parts of himself that are so ingrained. Things that are invaluable to what he does— has been doing. Has done. Past tense.
His reflex is to ask if that's what they are. "Socially monogamous." Bonded. But— of course they are. There's no one for him but Harold. Not even Joss, who he realized, that night in the morgue, that he loved in a way— not the way he loves Harold, who he wants in this moment to engulf him like the expanding sun, to just burn all of this away— but had wanted to see her smile, to hear her laugh, to be part of that in some way.
He can still remember the phone ringing in the dark of the night.
He doesn't know what to do.
"I don't want to leave you, but I don't know how to be there." There being, of course, New York, but also there as in the Library. The numbers. Walking past those payphones. The endless cycle of life and death that they're powerless to control. That they believed they could impact in some way. The lies they told themselves.
He's immensely relieved that tactic worked, that John hasn't rejected him or lashed out. Harold thinks he would probably deserve it -- some days he questions more seriously than others why he's still alive, what he's even doing here when so many people keep dying around him; he's been answering ringing phones for so long now -- but right now he's pulled himself into one cohesive form in order to support John.
Harold's all too conscientious of them being in public, of the bartender keeping tabs on them at least as customers, possibly inferring their status as soulmates based on some obvious cues. He wanted to meet John where he is, but he doesn't want to stay here.
"We can be somewhere else," he tells him quietly, unable to totally remove the plaintive note from his voice, Harold's scratching insistent ache to take care of John. "We don't have to be there. My support is not-- not contingent on you working for me."
Harold covers John's hand on his drink with his own, just a light touch, barely there but present. An offer. The cuff on his shirt sleeve drawn back a few inches, revealing a stripe of wrist.
That breaks what's left of John's composure, weakened as it is by the days of drinking. He takes Harold's hand and presses it to his cheek, a silent plea, feels Harold's warm palm against his skin, and doubles over under the weight of everything.
Harold is offering— he's saying. Is he saying? That he'd quit the numbers for John? Leave New York City behind? Leave even Grace? Where would they go? What would they do? What is he without the numbers? He can't see that. Can't see a future for himself. He needs Harold to tell him what to do. Who to be. Harold offered him this job, surely Harold can see his future again.
"I don't know what to do," he admits, quietly, brokenly, just loud enough for Harold alone to hear. His eyes are screwed shut and he just focuses on where he's pressing Harold's hand against his face.
Oh, he's very drunk to be doing this in public, isn't he. Harold feels his heart twist over. He always wants to defer to John's wishes, will push himself into knots to make happen whatever John wants or needs, but when he's openly asking for direction like this, there's no longer any reason to suppress his innate instinct to take control. Harold has a million thoughts and plans and ideas at all times and he isn't afraid to make his best guess and put it into action.
He wouldn't give up the numbers completely for John -- that wasn't what he meant to offer -- but instead a break, a short while to put themselves back to rights. And if John still didn't want to return after that, well, he'd figure that out.
Harold is through giving up what few things he has of his own. John chief among them.
"Just come with me, please."
He carefully slides off of his bar stool without pulling his hand away, and fumbles to pull out a credit card from his pocket and set it on the counter. He looks pointedly at the bartender until they come over to take it from him and close out John's tab, and the whole while he leaves his hand gently pressed against John's face, his bearing and demeanor suddenly cloaked with aloof stubborn reserve. They're being quiet enough -- and John is so clearly trashed so early in the day -- that they get silent service and mostly courteous glances away as Harold pockets his card, withdraws his hand, takes John by the arm and guides him out. There's a rental car outside he'd driven over himself.
John is aware of what Harold is doing, but there's a certain fuzziness to it. It says something about his habits that he's feeling the drink this much, that it's been long enough that he's lost noticeable tolerance, but he also realizes that he doesn't have time to sober up fully before he shows up again, given that he's been emptying the bottle in his motel room before the bar opens. He'd gotten used to operating like that for a while, back before Harold picked up and gave him a new life, so he still feels rather in control of the situation. He watches him pay for the drinks, realizes what Harold is going to do before he does it, withdraws his own hand from Harold's even though he misses the contact desperately.
Maybe he is drunk.
He lets Harold guide him outside and folds himself into the passenger seat with ease and does his seatbelt without any fumbling. He remembers this, too: even with this much alcohol he's still very much in control of his body; anyone watching wouldn't be able to tell the condition he's in.
And then he just sits and lets Harold take control of the situation. Wherever Harold is taking him is where he'll go.
Harold is not fooled in the slightest -- he's been John's eyes and ears far too many times to fall for something like his control over his physical body being an indicator of his mental state -- but he doesn't comment on it as he drives them away.
Instead he keeps up a seemingly idle chatter about the types of birds he's drawn on John's forearm over the past week. It makes him think painfully of his father and how he would do something just like this for Harold, so many times; but the pain is lanced through with something pure and sweet, a kind of gratitude for having had his father at all. He doesn't expect John, drunk as he is, to be fully paying attention or absorbing what he's saying, but the words come nonetheless, like a habit he didn't know he had finally let free.
He stops when they get to the nicer hotel he'd booked. It's still not nice enough to have a valet (this is nowhere, Colorado, after all) so Harold parks and then takes John by the elbow to guide him in. He already has a key card for his room, so he doesn't have to check in. They'll go back to get their things from his motel later.
"You should sleep for a while and then take a shower," he informs him as they ride the elevator up, arm still laced through his at the elbow.
John does listen to Harold talk about birds on the drive. He doesn't lean against the side of the car, he really is quite in control of his body, but he watches Harold more than the road. He lets Harold drive them through the town and listens, though he reflexively does things like check the mirror for a tail; he doesn't even notice that he's doing it.
Once at the hotel, which is decidedly not the one where he was staying at, and he's very confident Harold knows about, Harold guides him inside and John just lets him take the lead. He's glad for the return of Harold's hand, can feel the ghost of his warmth through his jacket, can feel the weight of his touch on his elbow. It's a relief, surrendering to Harold's instruction like this. He doesn't even acknowledge Harold's directions, just lets himself be led down the hall and ushered into a hotel room.
He doesn't spare too much attention to it, but does map out the crucial pieces of information: location of the beds in relation to the door, heavy objects that could be used as weapons. There are two beds which is both a relief and a disappointment. Relief because it means he doesn't have offer to sleep in the bathtub, but disappointment because one bed meant a small chance he could get Harold to lay down with him.
If he's thinking that, he realizes, then he really does need to sleep this off.
John chooses the bed closer to the door and almost reaches for his gun before he remembers that he left it behind in New York. He covers for the start of that motion by reaching down and pulling his shoes off. The bed covers get only a moment of consideration before he leaves them as they are and simply lays down on top of the bedspread; if something happens he doesn't want to be tangled up in the sheets.
"If you need to go out or if someone knocks on the door, wake me up." It's doubtful that anything is going to happen in the middle of nowhere, Colorado, but this is Harold. John is always cautious with Harold. He doesn't wait for an answer, just lays on his side facing the door, closes his eyes, and starts with a breathing exercise before he drops off all too quickly.
Harold would not want to bet against John in a fight or in being sufficiently paranoid even while inebriated (maybe especially not then?) so he doesn't challenge any of it. He at least has his own personal bag with him so he has a laptop and a couple books to keep him occupied while John sleeps. He would be more baffled and amazed at John's ability to seemingly push himself into sleep on command, but he's, somewhat shamefully in retrospect, observed it himself several times already through his remote monitoring.
He takes a few minutes in the bathroom to splash cold water on his face until his nerves settle. He'd found him, he hadn't pushed him away, he's... he's here with him again. It feels like the adrenaline surging since Detective Carter's death and John's subsequent disappearance has never really stopped. Harold is not used to operating under strained conditions for that long, and he feels suddenly exhausted, his actual bones weary and mind turned to sludge.
He'd planned to pull a chair over and read beside John's bed until he woke up again -- it's early afternoon, for God's sake -- but as he goes to sit, he looks at John's sleeping face, a sight he's sure very few get to see these days, and he imagines never seeing it again.
Not like this; only through screens, probably. Harold knows himself and knows he'd try to keep tabs on John wherever he was and whatever he was doing, but he doesn't want that.
He wants to shed his shoes and belt and cardigan and slide into bed beside him, taking an extra pillow from the second bed to prop up his bad leg. The relief that hammers through him is profound, like a narrowly averted disaster, heart thudding with an awareness of mortality and how very little he can truly control. One loss avoided, for now. For once, with the solidness of the foundation they've built bolstering him, Harold does what he wants to do without second-guessing it.
He crawls into bed beside John and closes his eyes to disallow himself from checking if John notices or reacts before he falls asleep.
The movements in the room don't disturb John, but the bed dipping does. His brain is immediately processing the information in his half awake state, but deems it not a threat and he drops back into sleep without giving it too much thought.
When next he wakes he's forgotten all about it, lost in that haze between moments of sleep. He thinks based on the light in the room that it's been a few hours, afternoon has shifted into early evening. John is, unfortunately, quite a bit more sober now. He feels awful. This is the price he has to pay for nearly a week of inebriation. He remembers how this felt the last time they were in this situation: John coming out of his drink because Harold decided to enter his life.
And speaking of, where is Harold? John's view is of the door, but he can't hear the sound of a keyboard or the turning pages of a book. Instead all he hears is soft breathing, and from— behind him? Cautiously, John rolls over in place, and is stunned breathless by what he sees: Harold asleep on the bed with him.
He's seen Harold asleep before, but not like this. At his desk, still all buttoned up, jerking awake at John's approach. Here his glasses are off, he has no suit to wear as armor, he's just... asleep. His face looks so different, and yet he's still definitively Harold. There's this unguardedness to him, a wall that's been let down by sleep.
John hasn't forgotten the second step of Harold's instructions, and logically he knows he should get some food in him, but he doesn't want to waste a moment of this precious situation. What he wants to do— to let his fingers brush Harold's cheek, to see him wake slowly, to turn that gaze upon John, to hold this moment between them. Maybe, if he was feeling particularly bold, he would kiss Harold gently, so gently; it feels like it would be appropriate in this moment. But he does none of that. He just watches Harold in silence, etching this moment into his mind.
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But. Still. There's no denying that John wants this. He's not going to reject this offer. Maybe eventually Harold will decide that he wants to take John on a date. Maybe if he can be— "as ourselves"— Harold will want him, specifically. It's a terrifying thought. John isn't sure Harold will still want him after he learns everything John is at heart. After he realizes how hard it is sometimes for John to be good. But he can cross that bridge later. This is why he has to wait.
"Yes." He sounds too emotional. He needs to dial it back some. John takes a deep breath. "Yes, I would like that."
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There's something complicated happening in John, but Harold can't begin to piece apart what it is. So he focuses on the effusive agreement and lets out a shaky breath of his own. He wasn't really nervous about the possibility of rejection, but he was opening a new door within himself as he asked that. He was admitting to himself that he was open to more than the unstated unconditional trust they'd had thus far.
Trust was a prerequisite for intimacy, but it wasn't the same. And Harold has been so very parsimonious with his intimacy. Even with John.
"Good. Good, I'll arrange something." There's a small thrill that goes through him at getting to plan something for someone he cares about again, rather than just happening upon one another and agreeing to spend time together. Harold loves taking care of others, feels that getting to do it unencumbered is a gift given personally and directly to him, and it's perhaps impossible to hide how much he's looking forward to it.
"And of course, I would go to dinner with you," he adds belatedly, fulfilling his end of the bargain. His mind is abuzz with ideas, distracted. "Your turn for a question, now."
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His turn for a question. John has to think on it for a bit, but he knows Harold will be patient as he comes up with one. Finally he settles on one that he's wondered for a while but never thought he'd ask. "Why pick me? To help with the numbers."
John supposes he'll have to answer why he chose to work the numbers, but. If he's going to be with Harold in some capacity (which Harold seems to desire, maybe) then it's something they should discuss. Who John really is and what he's really done.
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It's hard to think back on now. It has the black oily feel of murky water, something far under the surface that he's been avoiding by bobbing along the top and ignoring what's below. If they're likely to die soon, why reflect on it? Why dredge up that time in his life, which was mired in hopelessness and struggle?
Harold had given up on anything except doing one last good thing before he died. And most of the time, he'd been failing at that.
"You lied to your partner," he says out of nowhere, and it should be abrupt, but his voice is soft and his body is still, his heart aching as he thinks of it. "Kara Stanton. You told her you killed Daniel Casey, but you let him go."
A momentary pause as he closes his eyes and summons up those memories again, willingly, for John, pulse picking up speed with relived anxiety. It doesn't seem like he needs to explain how he'd known that or how he'd been involved; John can guess, and it's not important. Not really. He set up this exchange and he meant it honestly, intends to give the real complete answer and not sidestep it with a smaller truth like he usually would. Usually he would stop there, if he even went that far, but Harold had felt how cracked open John was through their conversations and he owes him no less. It feels like he's peeling away a scab and letting a wound seep blood again.
"You were not the first person I worked with." This is hard, harder, to relive. He swallows. He lets out a shaky breath. "I--
"I had Jessica Arndt's number, and I wanted to save her. But there was nothing I could do. You probably won't remember, but I saw you in the hospital-- afterwards." The whole, complete truth... "I was in a wheelchair. And I thought--
"You were the first person with the skills to make a difference that I believed would understand why. Why it matters to save one person."
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But he can feel how hard this is for Harold. This moment is not about John's long running guilt and despair about Jessica, it's about the two of them, together. It's about Harold. And it's clearly a question that hurts. But he's answering anyways, is telling John the whole truth, all of it. This is more than just not lying. John rests his hand on Harold's thigh and runs his thumb across the wool of his pants. This is something that comforts John but he doesn't know if Harold will feel the same.
He wants to learn how to comfort Harold.
This line of thought from Harold isn't direct. It's not organized the way he usually is. Scattered points instead of a straight line. John can trace their shape, fill in those lines. Harold knew about Casey, Harold worked with someone else. So it was probably Harold's previous associate that tried to keep Casey out of their hands. Casey was an irrelevant and... got lucky. John could mire himself in these memories the way he's asked Harold to, but he wants to be a support for Harold in this moment, so he drags himself away from the thought.
"Thank you for telling me." It's as simple as that. Harold had told him, and John is thankful. He is thankful, for the truth and for Harold's bravery. He doesn't need to push Harold more.
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The absence of expectation makes him want to give. It's a deeply natural feeling for Harold, one he normally has to suppress or at least mask somehow with anonymity, but here he doesn't have to. Air across the wound, letting it breathe.
His hand covers John's on his leg, skin warm and dry and reassuring.
"You proved me right. Over and over again. The time before I found you--" He opens his eyes, smiles just slightly, each heart beat a pang as he realizes how fortunate he'd been. How much John had truly changed his life.
"It was a dark time for me. I never expected to find a way out of that. But... I can see that, with you."
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How can he explain that to Harold? How can he make him understand? John cannot lead him anywhere. There is no light left in him to shine on Harold's path. Harold is so far ahead of him, it's all John can do to follow along, chase after the sound of his voice. He doesn't know how to say any of this, but he has to, because he owes Harold his honesty. Because he wants Harold to know where they truly stand.
"I don't know what you see in me. I'm not— a good person. I've done so many terrible things and the numbers are just... but... I am with you. I don't know what that means, but I am." It's a bit choked off at the end, but John does a good job of holding himself together while saying it. He takes a deep breath and tries not to feel too miserable, the way he does when he looks at himself too carefully.
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Harold struggles for words, uncharacteristically inarticulate when it comes time to express his own feelings. He's always struggled with human interaction, how to make himself known and understood. In his own way, training the Machine made more sense to him than talking to any organic person, because there's a fundamental logic to how machines operate that tracks along his same lines.
He feels John hating himself and he wants so acutely to salve it.
"I won't argue with you about how good you are, or what you've done, though I believe you are good, and you've done the best you could." He won't argue, but it must be said aloud, so there is no doubt in John about Harold's position on the topic. There's no heroes, no villains, just people like them doing what they can in their own lives, making sense of an infinite, chaotic universe that provides them no answers.
"But since you started working with me, I've believed I could do something good. After Nathan died, I... didn't know if I'd ever been capable of that."
He laces his fingers between John's on his thigh, squeezes them tightly.
"We can do so much more together than we can do alone. If there's a definition of soulmates that makes sense to me, it-- it must be that."
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But he knows how much it cost Harold to talk about Grace, so he'll save his questions about Nathan for another day. For now he'll just take Harold's comment as fact.
The distraction of Nathan Ingram aside, John has to actually absorb the rest of what Harold has said. This isn't about John, this is about Harold. He realizes that it's somewhat self centered, to take this thing that Harold has shared about himself and twisted it to be about how John isn't worthy. He wasn't trying to, he's just— he supposes he didn't understand where Harold was coming from. What he was really saying. What he is saying, about how John has given him a chance to redeem himself. John feels like he still doesn't see the full picture, that he's missing something, but he can be that. He can be Harold's tool for good. That's something he can try to live up to. If the numbers are Harold's redemption then this purpose, being Harold's instrument, can be John's own. It's really what he's been doing, just a little more formal.
"I will be by your side," John reiterates. "We'll do this together."
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Harold doubts it. He thinks that he has gotten especially lucky, that John is particularly perfect, just for him. He's aware that maybe everyone feels this way when they find their soulmate, maybe this is selection bias, but he can feel it somehow. He can feel that he and John have gotten through the thorny difficult parts already and what remains is to make use of what time they have.
"No more questions," he says, rather than turning it back on him. "Would you-- that is, would you watch an old movie with me until we're both tired?" He almost says, The time I have with you is precious, but rethinks it in an effort to get their overly intense evening back to an easier place.
"I know we can't do this all the time, but I'd like to have a small piece of this with you. When we can."
A tiny corner that they carve out for each other when it's possible, the normal life they cannot have because of their own decisions, long past and now paying for. But occasionally -- every so often -- they can give this to each other as a gift, a thing they could never deserve but can only exchange freely.
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He thinks back to the whole evening, how Harold has catered to him the whole time, has given and given and given. The invitation to his home, pulling him back from the edge of a breakdown, giving him the space he needs, holding him close when he wants, answering all these questions... John wishes he had something to give Harold in return. He doesn't think— he wonders if maybe his own answers, his own gestures, have been enough. Maybe when John is thinking This is why we're soulmates, Harold is thinking the same.
He can at least give him his honesty, quiet and sincere.
"I want this, too. We can watch a movie, or we don't even have to do anything. I'll be happy if we're together. Put whatever you want on."
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But is there? He had four years with Grace; he doesn't think he's going to get four years with John.
They part to sleep separately, Harold taking things as slowly and incrementally as he had every step of their relationship to this point. But he does take further steps: he plans dates for John, things John would like doing that are simpler and quieter, things Harold enjoys like the New York library exhibitions after all. In practice it doesn't look like much has changed from the outside, except they spend more time together than before, and occasionally Harold glances a touch, skin-to-skin, that he initiates, and once in a while when he judges it's safe enough he leaves a small note on his forearm for John to find. Nothing revealing or dramatic, just signs that he's thought of him when they're apart.
After Detective Carter dies and Harold finds John crumpling into a bloody mess in a motel room, holding a gun with a shaking hand-- after Detective Carter dies and John, hollow-eyed, insists on leaving and Harold can't find his voice to refute it-- after Detective Carter dies and Harold stands mutely at her funeral looking at her ex-husband and her son, crying, and Detective Fusco is blank, a piece of carved rock--
After Detective Carter dies, he keeps leaving little notes.
Today he doodles an outline of a bird with a brush pen, one of the few things Harold has any talent at drawing, and this from repetition and effort. He draws a northern flicker, a species of migratory woodpecker common to Colorado, and shades in the black barring in the feathers carefully. The focus helps keep his mind off of all the words he'd like to write instead, which he senses John doesn't want to see or hear. And then, for the first time, he uses a color: just a dash of red for the crest, one swipe.
The whole drawing is perhaps two inches in diameter, right over the pulse on his left wrist.
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And then Joss is killed. Joss dies in his arms and John doesn't even feel his own wound, the only thing he feels is the stabbing pain in his heart. It's different from when he found out Jessica was dead, he felt numb then, this is so acutely painful. He holds her and doesn't cry, doesn't cry, but can feel himself falling apart, broken and crumpling.
In the aftermath, in Harold's safehouse, he awakens and realizes there is something still holding form in him, something he can lean his entire weight on. He will kill Alonzo Quinn, then he will kill Patrick Simmons. It's so simple.
He almost gets there, too. Almost crosses the finish line, but stumbles at the end. His gun doesn't fire. John isn't sure if it's defeat or his injuries that cause his collapse, and yet he turns instinctively towards Harold, towards his voice, towards the hands reaching for him. Harold says he's dying and John believes it. In the end, in his final moments, Harold is with him. That's how he wants it to be.
And then he wakes up.
John has nothing, this time. Just lays in the bed and listens to the machines that have been keeping him alive. Listens to Harold talk, but he has nothing to say. He has nothing but the stabbing pain he feels with every heartbeat. He knows how to solve that. But he can't do it here, he couldn't stand to walk past a payphone, to walk down the street and think "Joss would have been here, Joss would have seen that." So he leaves. He goes to Colorado because he knows a place there, knows a hole he can crawl into.
One of the benefits of Harold paying him so well (even if he gives most of it away) is that he has more than enough money to drink all day. More than enough to go for days. To stagger back to his motel and collapse in bed, to wake up and do it all again.
John catches sight of the bird drawing as he's reaching for his latest drink. He pulls his sleeve up just a bit, just enough that he can stare at it, and the ache he feels in his chest shifts. Longing. He wants to see Harold. He wants to curl up and burry his face in Harold, to feel Harold wrap his arms around him, to have Harold soothe him gently. But he can't go back. He can't face the numbers, can't face New York. He just can't.
Instead he curls his hand around his wrist, fingers bracketing the drawing, and stares, drink forgotten.
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Harold gives him a week of private grief and then decides that's enough. He doesn't ascribe to tough love philosophy but he also knows what he'd been up to a week after Nathan's death, after this father's death, and if this isn't the same then it's certainly not that much better, not after the state he'd found John in. If nothing else he wants to check on his physical recovery, and he's not about to take John's words for it.
The life they live, there's no one to tell he's leaving; he just packs a single bag and picks an identity and flies to Colorado. Between the GPS signal in John's phone and the fact that he's still using his same credit cards, that and how he never wipes off Harold's ridiculous bird doodles, Harold figures he can't mind being found too much. John knows how to drop out of his sight if he wanted to. All he'd have to do is ask, even; he thinks they still have that much trust. He considers sending Detective Fusco instead, wonders if maybe it's him John doesn't want to see, can't stand the reminder of-- but he won't be such a coward as to send someone else to speak to his soulmate for him.
He occupies his worried mind while flying with another bird doodle, having bought out two first class seats to ensure no one would be sitting next to him. (He is not in the mood for nosy well-wishers catching him writing to his soulmate.) This time he draws a lark bunting, the Colorado state bird, in a subtle hint.
It's the kind of thing he amuses himself with but doesn't expect John to pick up on, not with the unceasing wash of blurred grief coming through the bond. They've never pushed its limits, almost as if speaking directly of it would whisper it out of existence, but Harold trusts what it tells him.
He books a room at John's low-end motel and another at a nicer one with a concierge, leaves his bags at the low-end one in the room adjoining John's, and then makes his way to the dive bar the GPS signal tells him John is presently at. Out here in nowhere, Colorado, a full suit would stand out, so he's wearing khakis and a rather grandfatherly cardigan, no tie. It makes him look dour but hopefully unmemorable.
Of course, there's no chance John will mistake him, and he isn't trying, doesn't want to startle him. He waits until John catches sight of him and they make eye contact across the bar before he makes his way over to sit beside him. He has a beer he hasn't touched with him and he doesn't even try to make things casual.
"I'll leave if you want me to," is all he says, quietly, respectful.
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Instead of looking at Harold, John looks at the bird drawing on his arm. He runs his thumb over it. He doesn't know what to say. How to explain the pain he feels. He wonders if Harold can feel it, is fairly sure he'll have picked up on it after a week. He doesn't know what to do. Sitting next to Harold feels like finding a lone fire in a blizzard. John isn't sure if it's enough, but it's something; a small comfort, perhaps. He feels like turning towards Harold, hiding his face in Harold's shoulder. Maybe Harold would hold him, maybe he'd run his fingers through John's hair, maybe he'd give John a soothing touch.
He doesn't do that though. He's drunk enough that he really doesn't care about being overly clingy in public, but he doesn't know how to ask for it. Even though he can think about the motion his body isn't responding.
"What kind of bird is it." His voice sounds strange in his own ears, a bit hoarse from lack of use over the past while and the alcohol he's been drowning himself in, day in and day out.
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But he still feels the loss. Another piece of his life carved away, another good woman making a difference lost to the pointless selfish cruelty of others. And here's John, lost completely, and Harold doesn't know how or if or when he can find his way back. If he never wants to work the numbers again, fine -- Harold won't stop, but he won't ask John to do something he doesn't want to do -- but he's not going to let him go. Not unless he's told to leave.
John doesn't tell him to leave, so he lays his left hand on the bar counter and deftly undoes the cuff button with his right. He folds the cloth back just enough to show the edge of the latest drawing, lines starker and sharper on his skin, real ink soaked in. Maybe the reminder that they share the same skin will do something, he doesn't know; but it comforts him.
"The lark bunting is the state bird of Colorado," he explains in a smooth, even voice, Finch giving intel but one note softer. "This is a male; they have extensive sexual dimorphism. They're known for impressive vocal displays as they travel their migratory route through the state."
A moment's pause, before he deliberately adds, "They're socially monogamous. No matter how many mating partners they might have, once they bond, they always return to their partner lark."
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His reflex is to ask if that's what they are. "Socially monogamous." Bonded. But— of course they are. There's no one for him but Harold. Not even Joss, who he realized, that night in the morgue, that he loved in a way— not the way he loves Harold, who he wants in this moment to engulf him like the expanding sun, to just burn all of this away— but had wanted to see her smile, to hear her laugh, to be part of that in some way.
He can still remember the phone ringing in the dark of the night.
He doesn't know what to do.
"I don't want to leave you, but I don't know how to be there." There being, of course, New York, but also there as in the Library. The numbers. Walking past those payphones. The endless cycle of life and death that they're powerless to control. That they believed they could impact in some way. The lies they told themselves.
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Harold's all too conscientious of them being in public, of the bartender keeping tabs on them at least as customers, possibly inferring their status as soulmates based on some obvious cues. He wanted to meet John where he is, but he doesn't want to stay here.
"We can be somewhere else," he tells him quietly, unable to totally remove the plaintive note from his voice, Harold's scratching insistent ache to take care of John. "We don't have to be there. My support is not-- not contingent on you working for me."
Harold covers John's hand on his drink with his own, just a light touch, barely there but present. An offer. The cuff on his shirt sleeve drawn back a few inches, revealing a stripe of wrist.
"You don't have to be alone with this, John."
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Harold is offering— he's saying. Is he saying? That he'd quit the numbers for John? Leave New York City behind? Leave even Grace? Where would they go? What would they do? What is he without the numbers? He can't see that. Can't see a future for himself. He needs Harold to tell him what to do. Who to be. Harold offered him this job, surely Harold can see his future again.
"I don't know what to do," he admits, quietly, brokenly, just loud enough for Harold alone to hear. His eyes are screwed shut and he just focuses on where he's pressing Harold's hand against his face.
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He wouldn't give up the numbers completely for John -- that wasn't what he meant to offer -- but instead a break, a short while to put themselves back to rights. And if John still didn't want to return after that, well, he'd figure that out.
Harold is through giving up what few things he has of his own. John chief among them.
"Just come with me, please."
He carefully slides off of his bar stool without pulling his hand away, and fumbles to pull out a credit card from his pocket and set it on the counter. He looks pointedly at the bartender until they come over to take it from him and close out John's tab, and the whole while he leaves his hand gently pressed against John's face, his bearing and demeanor suddenly cloaked with aloof stubborn reserve. They're being quiet enough -- and John is so clearly trashed so early in the day -- that they get silent service and mostly courteous glances away as Harold pockets his card, withdraws his hand, takes John by the arm and guides him out. There's a rental car outside he'd driven over himself.
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Maybe he is drunk.
He lets Harold guide him outside and folds himself into the passenger seat with ease and does his seatbelt without any fumbling. He remembers this, too: even with this much alcohol he's still very much in control of his body; anyone watching wouldn't be able to tell the condition he's in.
And then he just sits and lets Harold take control of the situation. Wherever Harold is taking him is where he'll go.
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Instead he keeps up a seemingly idle chatter about the types of birds he's drawn on John's forearm over the past week. It makes him think painfully of his father and how he would do something just like this for Harold, so many times; but the pain is lanced through with something pure and sweet, a kind of gratitude for having had his father at all. He doesn't expect John, drunk as he is, to be fully paying attention or absorbing what he's saying, but the words come nonetheless, like a habit he didn't know he had finally let free.
He stops when they get to the nicer hotel he'd booked. It's still not nice enough to have a valet (this is nowhere, Colorado, after all) so Harold parks and then takes John by the elbow to guide him in. He already has a key card for his room, so he doesn't have to check in. They'll go back to get their things from his motel later.
"You should sleep for a while and then take a shower," he informs him as they ride the elevator up, arm still laced through his at the elbow.
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Once at the hotel, which is decidedly not the one where he was staying at, and he's very confident Harold knows about, Harold guides him inside and John just lets him take the lead. He's glad for the return of Harold's hand, can feel the ghost of his warmth through his jacket, can feel the weight of his touch on his elbow. It's a relief, surrendering to Harold's instruction like this. He doesn't even acknowledge Harold's directions, just lets himself be led down the hall and ushered into a hotel room.
He doesn't spare too much attention to it, but does map out the crucial pieces of information: location of the beds in relation to the door, heavy objects that could be used as weapons. There are two beds which is both a relief and a disappointment. Relief because it means he doesn't have offer to sleep in the bathtub, but disappointment because one bed meant a small chance he could get Harold to lay down with him.
If he's thinking that, he realizes, then he really does need to sleep this off.
John chooses the bed closer to the door and almost reaches for his gun before he remembers that he left it behind in New York. He covers for the start of that motion by reaching down and pulling his shoes off. The bed covers get only a moment of consideration before he leaves them as they are and simply lays down on top of the bedspread; if something happens he doesn't want to be tangled up in the sheets.
"If you need to go out or if someone knocks on the door, wake me up." It's doubtful that anything is going to happen in the middle of nowhere, Colorado, but this is Harold. John is always cautious with Harold. He doesn't wait for an answer, just lays on his side facing the door, closes his eyes, and starts with a breathing exercise before he drops off all too quickly.
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He takes a few minutes in the bathroom to splash cold water on his face until his nerves settle. He'd found him, he hadn't pushed him away, he's... he's here with him again. It feels like the adrenaline surging since Detective Carter's death and John's subsequent disappearance has never really stopped. Harold is not used to operating under strained conditions for that long, and he feels suddenly exhausted, his actual bones weary and mind turned to sludge.
He'd planned to pull a chair over and read beside John's bed until he woke up again -- it's early afternoon, for God's sake -- but as he goes to sit, he looks at John's sleeping face, a sight he's sure very few get to see these days, and he imagines never seeing it again.
Not like this; only through screens, probably. Harold knows himself and knows he'd try to keep tabs on John wherever he was and whatever he was doing, but he doesn't want that.
He wants to shed his shoes and belt and cardigan and slide into bed beside him, taking an extra pillow from the second bed to prop up his bad leg. The relief that hammers through him is profound, like a narrowly averted disaster, heart thudding with an awareness of mortality and how very little he can truly control. One loss avoided, for now. For once, with the solidness of the foundation they've built bolstering him, Harold does what he wants to do without second-guessing it.
He crawls into bed beside John and closes his eyes to disallow himself from checking if John notices or reacts before he falls asleep.
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When next he wakes he's forgotten all about it, lost in that haze between moments of sleep. He thinks based on the light in the room that it's been a few hours, afternoon has shifted into early evening. John is, unfortunately, quite a bit more sober now. He feels awful. This is the price he has to pay for nearly a week of inebriation. He remembers how this felt the last time they were in this situation: John coming out of his drink because Harold decided to enter his life.
And speaking of, where is Harold? John's view is of the door, but he can't hear the sound of a keyboard or the turning pages of a book. Instead all he hears is soft breathing, and from— behind him? Cautiously, John rolls over in place, and is stunned breathless by what he sees: Harold asleep on the bed with him.
He's seen Harold asleep before, but not like this. At his desk, still all buttoned up, jerking awake at John's approach. Here his glasses are off, he has no suit to wear as armor, he's just... asleep. His face looks so different, and yet he's still definitively Harold. There's this unguardedness to him, a wall that's been let down by sleep.
John hasn't forgotten the second step of Harold's instructions, and logically he knows he should get some food in him, but he doesn't want to waste a moment of this precious situation. What he wants to do— to let his fingers brush Harold's cheek, to see him wake slowly, to turn that gaze upon John, to hold this moment between them. Maybe, if he was feeling particularly bold, he would kiss Harold gently, so gently; it feels like it would be appropriate in this moment. But he does none of that. He just watches Harold in silence, etching this moment into his mind.
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