I dedicate this piece to @slayingbells, for helping me bounce ideas around until this monstrosity was more or less under control. And so, I humbly offer you dark!Finch, the sadist, the killer, the artist that signs each piece by hand and knows a masterwork when he sees it.
John made a mistake on the last mission, let a man slip. He ended up dead, but it was too close. He had put Harold’s entire cover at risk. The moment he made the door, he knew what was facing him.
Harold had been at the kitchen bar, a glass of scotch in his hand. He doesn’t drink. It was only a full finger perhaps, but it was more than Harold had in a year. He sets the glass aside as John enters, ice clinking against crystal and John finds himself thirsting.
“You know what you did.” Harold says quietly.
John goes to him, dropping to his knees beside him. He doesn’t beg forgiveness as, perhaps, he ought. Instead John crosses his hands behind his back and bows low. When his nose is pressed to the plush carpet, he stops.
John remains that way until Harold speaks.
“At the very least you know your place.” He’s gone back to his glass, the sound of the ice making John shiver. “You’ve been making mistakes.” Harold continues, turning slightly, shifting his weight to his better leg. “I wonder if perhaps you have grown too contented with your place here.” He muses. “Perhaps it is time we reestablished your position in this relationship.”
John says nothing. Harold is not asking for his permission.
The glass clinks as Harold drains it and there is a little noise. Ice cold blooms across the back of John’s bare neck, a droplet of what he assumes to be water sliding down the side of his throat and lingering until it falls away. The sensation is so unexpected John arches, shoulders pushing up even as he struggles to remain still.
The whimper that escapes him is a mistake.
Harold’s shoe rests against the space between his shoulder blades and John is forced back down. It’s his weaker leg, there’s no weight behind it. It would be nothing to throw him off. But John remains, Harold forcing him to turn his face aside so he can breathe as he’s pushed against the floor.
“You want to be put in your place.” Harold surmises, “Just as much as I want to put you there. Say it.”
He’s not asking. But he never needed to.
“I want to be hurt.” John murmurs, just loud enough to be heard, “I need you to make me inhuman.”
Harold laughs. It’s a nice sound, even now, light and pleasant. “You don’t need my help to make you inhuman, Mister Reese.” He gives a little push to John’s back with his shoe, just enough to bow John’s body to the near side of uncomfortable. “You managed that all your own years ago.”
His words are cutting and John lets them hurt. Harold releases him, dumping the remaining ice into the sink with a crash.
“Go to the play room and wait.” Harold orders, turning to rinse out his glass. He’s not actively paying attention to John, but he knows better. John only rises enough to shuffle on all fours down the short hall to the room they’ve rarely used lately. He sits in the middle, unsure of what Harold has planned. He’s still dressed but no doubt Harold will take care of that. In the meantime, John sits on his heels and slumps forward, boneless. He stays that way until Harold opens the door. He melts back down, bowed for Harold.
Harold shuffles around for a few moments, examining the wall of implements.
“Sit back, arms out.” He orders. When John sits back, he keeps his head down and raises his arms as he’s told. Harold buckles on the leather cuffs, preciously soft, though he straps them tight enough to leave marks.
The fine silver chain between them is stronger than it seems and Harold drags him forward by it, off balance and falling to his belly. It takes everything he has not to pull his arms back to break his fall. That is not his choice.
Harold hooks the chain against the wall, over John’s head, and prods a John with his shoe until he climbs onto a low couch placed there just for him, and shifts onto his back. Pushing John’s legs apart, Harold buckles a strap around John’s thigh, just above the knee and a bar keeps his legs parted when he does the other side. The bar always pushes John. Wide open and unable to defend himself, he couldn’t deny Harold access to his body if he tried. Not that he would dare try.
He says nothing, watching Harold test the straps with the tip of his finger. “I considered leaving off the gag.” Harold says conversationally, “But I know you can’t be trusted. I think the ball, perhaps. You’re so pretty when you’re a crying, drooling mess.” John whimpers. Harold tucks his pocket square into John’s hand, his only escape, and forces John’s mouth open to press a ball gag past his lips.
The paddle leaves John’s ass hot red and throbbing. Following up with a thin cane is agony on his tender flesh. He cries out, screams against the gag filling his mouth. Harold is quiet for the most part, focused on his work here as much as he is at the keyboard. When he does speak, his displeasure is still evident.
“Present your shoulders.” He orders.
John’s body is heaving, his shoulders are shaking and forcing them back is near to impossible. The gag is wet, saliva slicking John’s mouth out of his control.
“You’re a filthy mess.” Finch tells him, striking across his shoulders with a crop, only once. When John doesn’t let his shoulders fall, he returns to the neat arrangement of tools on the wall. The crop is tucked away lovingly and a Finch takes a short whip down from it’s peg. “I was quite well practiced before the incident.” He says softly, stroking over the handle, leather worn smooth by use, “I had a darkness in me even then.” It uncoils in his hands and though John cannot see it, he can hear it sigh apart. He screams in his bonds, pulling desperately.
Finch is no longer playing.
The first blow is barely off the skin, the whip crack drives John forward even though it hasn’t touched him. Finch hmm’s quietly and adjusts his stance. The next swing is perfectly on mark. The blow slices open the skin and John sobs into the gag, breath broken as the cut begins to bead and then spill. Six times, Finch snaps the leather end against his back and six times he draws a hard line of blood across John’s back, three horizontal lines along the bottom of each shoulder blade.
John is collapsed with the final blow and can bear no more. The fingers clenched tight around the pocket square in his hand begin to loose and his forehead rests against the bench he was placed on.
He is defeated.
The pain is a hum in his ears, blood rushing through him and endorphins desperate to soothe him. It’s not enough. Each breath pulls the cuts wide and though the ache in his bottom had dimmed in the heat of the whipping, it returns full force to leave him dizzy. He doesn’t hear Finch put away the whip. Doesn’t hear him return to his side and only when Finch pushes his knees apart to remove the bar does he realize he’s being untied.
It’s just as well that Finch takes his time putting away the spreader, John is a single nerve rubbed raw and hot and every motion burns. When the cuffs come away, his arms fall to his sides, numb. Or perhaps they ache as well. John doesn’t imagine he could know anything less than the fire in his back.
The pocket square is still in his hand.
Harold plucks it from his fingers and tucks it into his pocket. “Get up and come to the bath.” He orders, leaving John alone in the room.
John wants to stand and follow him. He urges his body to obey, it’s easy, he tells himself, just stand up.
His body disagrees.
He does rise, sore and aching, and makes his way to the washroom. Harold has the first aid cart they keep on hand rolled out. The tray on top has bandages, gauze and two bottles, one of which John recognizes as antibacterial salve. The other is darker, unfamiliar.
“Sit.” Harold gestures to the low rolling chair he has out. John obeys as best he can. Sitting is a nightmare but when he leans his arms against he back of the chair, the wounds in his shoulder stretch and he whimpers.
“Hush.”
John obeys.
Harold turns his attention to the bottles. “This is tincture of Iodine.” He says, picking up the dark bottle, “If I pour this into those little cuts, they will scar.” He sets the bottle beside the salve and folds his hands. “You will pick which of these I will use.”
John looks at the little bottle and realizes the implications of what he is being offered. “The shoulders.” He says softly, keeping his eyes low, “You cut that pattern into the men you have me dump in the river.” Harold doesn’t respond, doesn’t seem to have heard John at all. “It’s your signature.”
“It is your choice.” Harold is still cold and John knows this decision will seal his fate.
His fingers tremble as he reaches out and picks up the Iodine, holding it out to Harold.