Person of Interest Fic: Tempered Ego
Summary: New Year's resolution: Finch could, perhaps, be a little less stubborn about accepting help. At least when it came to John.
Fandom: Person of Interest
Words: 2,378
Warnings: Descriptions of mild hypothermia and chronic pain
Pairings: None - gen John and Finch friendship
A/N: Written for @chibicheeberson! Tis the season for me to write all my stupidly indulgent hypothermia!fics. What poor fandom will be my next victim? Only time will tell...
Where to Read it: Below the cut or on AO3 (AO3 recommended for formatting)
Tempered Ego
Finch instinctually reached for his mug of tea—now stone cold—and halted, an awful spasm running through his left thigh and up into his lower-back. It was a familiar sensation, causing his fingers to curl claw-like before they retreated, digging into the fine material of his jacket because he had to grip something. Finch cautiously tried to look to his right—and no. His neck was in a similar predicament. Which was to say, useless.
He wasn’t usually one for extreme demonstrations, but Finch allowed himself a brief moment of frustration, gnashing his teeth and pounding once on his thigh. Even that was a limited movement though. The tension that had crawled into his shoulders wouldn’t allow for anything else.
This was far from the first time he’d gotten lost in work at his desk, keeping his body locked in the same, uncomfortable position until it finally rebelled, but Finch had sworn that this would be the last time...just as he’d sworn the time before that, and twice before that... he could no longer afford to indulge in full days of incapacitation, as he had when the only requirements made of him were long baths and self-appointed physical therapy. Now though... now a number could come in at any moment, and Finch was no longer entirely hidden from—
“Finch?”
He shut his eyes. From the world. Or rather, Finch’s world...all of it condensed into one solemn, deadly man.
“Good evening, Mr. Reese,” he said, hoping that a clipped tone would deter him. It was a long-shot, but if the man was even half as exhausted as he should have been after chasing down Ms. Walken (literally, the woman was a drag racer and hadn’t had any qualms about using her skills on the open road) then he should have been more than happy to drop off his gear, give a perfunctory ‘good night,’ and clear the hell out.
Which was why the distinct sound of Mr. Reese moving deeper into the library caused Finch to twitch. His footsteps didn’t turn into the spare room where he kept his weaponry. They didn’t even pause by the small kitchenette where he’d normally fix himself a late cup of coffee. No, rather they made a beeline for Finch himself.
He was just in the process of trying to smooth out his features when Mr. Reese’s profile swam into view.
“What are you still doing here?” he barked, the tone making Finch jump.
Mr. Reese’s presence and the new pain running through his back were like shots of adrenaline, clearing out just enough of the wool in Finch’s mind for him to take stock of his surroundings. All at once he noticed the temperature and was shocked to feel an awful frigidness in the library, a deep-seated cold that had numbed his feet and left the exposed skin of his hands looking translucent... ah. So that’s why he’d stiffened so badly. Understanding the source wasn’t exactly reassuring though. Careful attention paid to sounds beyond the soft whirring of monitors (and Mr. Reese’s anxious breathing) revealed a harsh, high-pitched wind just outside. Another careful turn of his head, this one successful, and Finch was able to see a staggering blaze of white.
He boggled, momentarily forgetting his pain. They were on the second floor and though he couldn’t see the street, Finch counted at least a foot on the window’s sill—and growing quickly. A tiny, shocked part of his mind informed him that the count would be higher if so much of the snow weren’t being blown about. In short, the weather was quite horrifying out there.
However had he missed that?
Mr. Reese wanted to know the same, still waiting impatiently for Finch’s answer. Except the answer was already here, literally, hovering over Finch with one hand twitching on the desk like it wanted to grip his wrist... or the butt of a gun. Redesigning Mr. Reese’s earpiece to be nearly invisible—small enough to go undetected, large enough not to get lost—was no easy task, and Finch had apparently lost himself in the work completely.
Of course he had. This was John.
“It’s quite alright,” he murmured, and forced himself to stand.
It was a mistake. Immediately Finch’s leg began to buckle, the pain in his back rocketed up, and he would have fallen—planting face first into his computer—if firm hands hadn’t gripped him tight, one on his waist and a whole arm over his upper back. Finch’s vision swam for a moment, bright spots blending with reflections from the snow, and for one horrible moment he thought he might pass out.
He was simply being dramatic though. Everything was fine after a moment. Two and Finch could stand on his own again. Three and he felt fingers at the back of his neck, tentatively trying to ease out the pain. Finch pulled back with a glare.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t touch me without my consent, Mr. Reese,” he said. Finch very deliberately ignored his own voice: high-pitched and a little shaky.
To his credit, Mr. Reese immediately gave him some space. The hands on him flew off (Finch immediately felt their absence) and Mr. Reese took a step back, leaning casually against the table. Except there was nothing casual in his sharp gaze, running over every inch of Finch’s body as he struggled to find his footing.
Mr. Reese held up four fingers, ticking them off one-by-one. “One, you have a migraine,” he said, then tilted his head at Finch’s expression. “I can tell by the creases, right here,” and Mr. Reese ran fingers briefly above his eyes before returning to their previous position. “Two, you haven’t eaten. Three, your back and leg are acting up. Four—” Mr. Reese paused, letting the last accusation hang a moment. “You’re so exhausted you didn’t notice the damn blizzard outside, Finch.”
The words were harder than Finch would have expected. Anger covering up... something, something he might have been able to decipher if the world hadn’t started titling again. As it was, Finch was all too aware that he was these things and more: tired, aching, cold, hungry... enough that he actually felt nauseous. Sweat had begun to gather in the seams of his fine suit despite the temperature, and Finch had a moment of clarity: he’d faint or worse if he didn’t leave. Right now.
Tonight was not a night for company.
“While I appreciate you laying out my numerous, physical defaults, Mr. Reese, I think I’d prefer to take my leave now. Excuse me.”
The sarcasm was biting and Finch dished out as much of it as he could, hoping that it would make up for the wobble in his gait. Still, he managed to snag his coat from the chair with one hand, bending—excruciatingly—to get his bag. He was dimly aware that he hadn’t yet filled it with any of his papers or his laptop, but perhaps Mr. Reese wouldn’t notice.
He didn’t. But that was only because he was staring at Finch with a completely dumbfounded expression…which quickly hardened.
“You’re not going out in that,” he stated.
“I assume you’ll be doing the same. Unless you plan to spend the night in this drafty place.” Finch was already making his way slowly towards the door, sheer stubbornness the only thing keeping him moving. He thought about tossing out a petulant, “Try to stop me,” but Mr. Reese might do just that. He didn’t take well to challenges, especially when it involved keeping Finch safe.
They were both a little stupid like that.
He felt it too, despite his claims that he’d never be any good at deciphering human emotion: how Mr. Reese’s gaze followed him too closely to be anything other than concern. How he made a sound when Finch paused (too much weight on one side) as if his pain was truly shared. Finch knew, logically, that help was being offered in the way Mr. Reese kept his body open and his mouth shut. A part of him wanted to accept it... a larger part insisted on calling it charity.
Weakness. Embarrassment. Pity.
Besides, it wasn’t as if this was any different from what Finch had dealt with before. As far as he was concerned, Mr. Reese was like the pills tucked away in the lowest drawer of his desk. Useful perhaps, wanted even, but ultimately addictive and therefore dangerous.
Finch had and would do without.
“Good day, Mr. Reese. I expect you here bright and early tomorrow morning. Don’t think that the Numbers will stop coming just because of a bit of snow. The city might sleep, but we most certainly do not.”
He shouldn’t have looked back, even if it was the polite thing to do. Finch definitely wasn’t sleeping with that expression in his mind’s eye.
“Night,” Mr. Reese murmured, too soft for the likes of him. Finch grit his teeth and left.
***
He made it two and a half blocks.
Normally Finch wouldn’t be walking this much regardless, but the snow had interrupted the flow of the city more than he had anticipated. His normal subway line was down due to a crack in the rail and all the cabs in New York were either in use or already off for the night, due in no small part to a little thing called Common Sense. Finch wondered suddenly if he had any of it at all. He wasn’t very feeling very charitable with himself, not when he was seated on a frozen bench in the middle of the park.
It was his bench, the one he came to when he needed to think, code, observe... and it had been here for him now, again, seconds before Finch would have collapsed from pain and cold. It certainly wasn’t ideal. The snow that had gathered on the bench now seeped into his fine suit, penetrating limbs that had long gone numb. Yet oddly Finch didn’t consider this to be too much of a problem. He’d stopped shivering a while ago—a wonderful change of events—and really, this nw cold was having a surprisingly positive effect on the spasms in his back and leg, like a strange, reverse heating pad. He’d just stay here then until... something. Something had to occur eventually, right? Or maybe it wouldn’t. Perhaps Finch would remain here indefinitely, a fixture of the park where happier people could pass him by and pigeons could defecate on his jacket.
The image made him titter. It sounded brittle beneath the wind.
“You know, I’ve never heard you laugh before.”
Oh?
Wasn’t that just a fascinating thing to picture. A part of Finch, some small part buried deep under pain and half an hour of exposure, bit out that he was hallucinating because really, what were the odds of Mr. Reese finding him out here? Why, so slim that the only logical explanation would be that he’d been followed, which in turn suggested a concern on his employee’s part... and though an image of his expression bubbled up briefly in Finch’s mind, that logical nature asserted itself once more. No. Such a thing was quite impossible. Mr. Reese had gone home a while ago, right? Right. No doubt to think on things entirely unrelated to him. Unless, of course, it was to imagine a less pitiful boss.
The possibility made Finch chuckle again, in the same way he sometimes smiled involuntarily at misfortune.
Still, this Mr. Reese did make quite the mirage, all hard, black lines against the snow. He looked like something dark in an otherwise soft, gorgeous world, and all Finch’s muddled mind could come up with was that—
“—it should be the reverse,” he said.
Maybe this fake Mr. Reese didn’t agree because as he knelt beside the bench he looked so very angry. Oh, most wouldn’t have been able to tell, though Finch prided himself on seeing behind that mask. Sometimes at least. And he might have thought that Mr. Reese was angry with him (going so far as to flinch back from that stare) if it weren’t for the hand that came to rest on his shoulder.
“You’re a real pain tonight, you know that?”
Finch let out a rush of breath that clouded between them. Mr. Reese’s hand was warm, even through his jacket.
Warm enough to be real.
“Oh,” he said again, aloud this time. Finch didn’t know what else to give him.
Though maybe Mr. Reese didn’t need anything. He certainly seemed to be in the giving mood tonight, a whole slew of new sensations: an arm around his shoulders, another beneath his knees, the curl of his body pressed up against Mr. Reese’s chest. It was a position that should have appalled him, had he been conscious enough to reject it. As it was, Finch found a surprising balance, in which the cold numbed his pain and Mr. Reese dispersed the cold. It was in this pocket of perfection that he slept, their footfalls steady as they tread back the way they came. The crunch of boots in snow was soothing.
There were moments he woke, snippets Finch remembered on the days he was willing to remember. There was some jostling as they mounted the library stairs, the expected difficulty as he was stripped of his wet clothes, though thankfully only those deemed absolutely necessary to his health. Waking late the next morning, piled beneath a mass of blankets and (he blushed to see) Mr. Reese’s coat, Finch was equally thankful that there was no smug note waiting for him, asking in Mr. Reese’s heavy penmanship why his ego hadn’t let him use this bedroom in the first place. In fact, there was nothing beside him except his glasses, his abused bag... and those pills he kept hidden in the bottom drawer of his desk.
Finch’s hand shook as he opened the bottle and he blamed it entirely on residual cold.
“Very well,” he said to the empty library. Finch took a deep breath before swallowing two. “Very well, John.”
After all, Mr. Reese wouldn’t be the first addiction his life.
Perhaps, like marking every payphone he passed, this one would do some good.