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pharmacokinetics; a branch of pharmacology dedicated to determining the fate of substances administered externally to a living organism.
The walls of the vault are soundproof, solid steel. The only entrance is a heavy door with five thick bolts that are controlled by an electric lock. While their captors move around the room, the handcuffs on Harold's wrists are slowly warming against his skin. In the middle of the room, John is handcuffed to the leg of a metal desk, a bruise blooming on his temple. He holds himself very still, all of his energy contained in the tense lines of his body.
Rodgers and his men unload thick stacks of dollar bills from safes in the wall and stuff them into black sports bags. "You get to try our brand new recipe," Rodgers says, winking at his colleague, a bodybuilder type with his eyes hidden behind large, black shades. Private security, probably.
Rodgers, their latest perpetrator, runs a successful business selling drugs to college kids at parties. It seemed like an excellent plan to surprise them while moving a large amount of their profits, catch them right along with their drug money. Harold had tagged along to override the electrical security locks: he is painfully aware that it was probably his presence that distracted John enough for one of Rodgers' security guys to get a decent blow to his head in.
“We would find it rather difficult to harm you, being locked up in a high security vault in the basement of a bank,” Harold observes dryly.
Rodgers' bodyguard produces a plastic bag full of pills and opens it. Rodgers puts a hand on his arm. “Let's give them the good stuff, Tony, what do you say?”
His bodyguard grins and waggles his eyebrows. He fishes a smaller bag out of the pocket of his jacket. “Sure thing, boss.” He approaches John.
"Free drugs? How nice of you," John says. For a second, it looks like he will bite the outstretched hand that is offering him a small, white pill.
"Mr. Reese," Harold says, trying to convey I would much rather have you drugged than shot.
John grits his teeth. He is clearly itching for a fight, but he is outnumbered by far, and Harold is acutely aware that their chances are not getting better the more they resist. John has no weapons and has taken a hit already, it seems unwise to provoke another confrontation. John smiles sweetly when Rodgers' bodyguard feeds him the pill, like he is imagining how it would feel to knock his teeth out.
John's eyes flare when the man approaches Harold, but Harold shakes his head almost imperceptibly. Harold lets the bodyguard drop a pill onto his tongue and swallows it without complaint. It will certainly be kinder to his back than getting knocked unconscious and lying on the floor in an awkward position.
"Guess we'll leave you to it, then," Rodgers says. He leaves the bag with pills on the table, maybe ten or twelve left. "Free samples, in case you get a taste for it. You know what this stuff does to you, right? Gets you so horny you think you'll climb out of your skin. I'd love to stay and watch, actually: I think despite the handcuffs it's pretty obvious who gets to bend over for whom."
Harold suppresses a shudder. John has turned his face away, his hands clenched into fists.
"It's insanely popular at parties," Rodgers goes on with a sadistic gleam in his eye. "People can't get out of their clothes fast enough, start fucking right there on the dance floor."
Harold licks his lips. When he had considered being drugged, he had assumed that the substance would be a stimulant or hypnotic, similar to his – admittedly very limited – experience with Ecstasy. He did not predict this turn of events.
Rodgers' men carry out the cash they have picked up from the vault. On his way out, Rodgers leers at Harold. "Have a good time," he says, and gives him a dirty wink.
The massive vault door slowly closes behind him with a metallic screech and the clattering of bolts.
"Are you alright?" John asks, already picking his handcuffs.
"I believe that there is a way to override the security system from the inside," Harold says. His voice has a hysterical note to it that embarrasses him, like a stutter. "There is a panel by the door that might give me access."
John's handcuffs clatter to the floor. He walks over to Harold, who holds out his hands mechanically, his gaze fixed to the control panel. "Oxygen supply should not be a problem, there are air vents above, but we have to assume that security personnel might show up, or maybe there is a silent alarm –”
John's fingers brush Harold's wrists while he is working to unlock the cuffs, and Harold blinks up at him. With a rush, Rodgers' words come back to him: Gets you so horny you think you'll climb out of your skin. Christ.
The handcuffs slide open and John takes them off. His fingers linger on Harold's skin, checking for rawness or bruises. Harold clears his throat. “There is something wrong with the air conditioning,” he says.
John's gaze flicks up to Harold's face, then away again. “I don't think there is,” he says, carefully neutral. Oh. Harold nods, a little dazed. The heat in his face is caused by something else, then.
John lets go of Harold's hands. “I think I'll be over there,” he says, his mouth twitching into an unhappy smile. “Just to be sure. Why don't you work on that lock?”
“Of course, yes,” Harold says. The loss of contact feels wrong, somehow, and it gets even worse when John turns his back on him and goes to stand in the opposite corner, facing the wall like a student in class who has been misbehaving.
“I really don't think that this is necessary, Mr. Reese,” Harold says. He busies himself with the electronic lock. Surely Rodgers exaggerated the effects of the substance; Harold and John are disciplined, rational men who won't be swayed by some designer party drug.
“We don't know what kind of stuff they've given us,” John says. “There are some substances that cause exactly the kind of effect that Rodgers described. They are used for interrogation, sometimes.”
Harold pulls out some of the wires from the control board. John's words register distantly, like a television turned on in the background. Harold has a general idea of what he is trying to achieve with the circuits, but he finds it hard to focus. John's voice sounds rougher than usual, throaty, and there is something in the tense lines of his shoulders that has Harold worried.“Do you have personal experience with that?” It takes about two seconds for Harold to regret asking that question, but by then it is too late.
A moment of silence. John is still facing the wall, his arms braced against the cool steel. “Kara and I got drugged like that once,” he says.
Harold stares at the mess of wires, the little blue display. What was he trying to do? How did he plan to get the door open? He shakes his head, trying to clear it. “What did you do to deal with the effects? Any remedies that proved useful?”
More silence. Harold turns around. John has his head turned away from Harold. “We sweated it out,” John mutters, shifting from one foot to the other.
Harold nods, even though John is facing away from him. “I see,” he says.
–
John presses his palms against the cool wall. He leans forward until his forehead is resting against the steel, smooth and solid. Maybe he should do some breathing exercises, try to keep his heart rate down.
“And what did you do to deal with the effects? Any remedies that proved useful?” Harold asks.
John grits his teeth. We spent the whole night fucking desperately, he thinks. He can't say that.
Getting away from their captors had been difficult enough, half drugged out of their minds as they were, running through the desert in the darkness until they could see city lights again. The real challenge came after: Kara told him to go for a run, swim laps, jerk off until he could think again.
They hadn't even lasted an hour before Kara was basically kicking down his door and tearing at his shirt. The two of them had been evenly matched, at least: she pushed him down onto the bed and gripped his shoulders while she climbed onto his cock; his hands left bruises on her hips. Kara bit his shoulder while they were rutting desperately, half mad with need. Coming hadn't been a relief as much as a necessity. Skin contact had made it more bearable: they didn't bother to get dressed at all.
At some point, Kara went into the bathroom to shower, assuming that the effects had worn off. It took about ten minutes until she was dragging John with her under the spray and he was fucking her against the wet, slick tile, her strong thighs wrapped around him, her fingernails digging into his shoulders.
The effects had lasted for eight hours at least, until they were too spent and sore to move, dozing in a sweat-slick heap on John's hotel bed.
The room is eerily quiet, and John turns around to realize that Harold has stopped working on the lock and is staring at him instead. “I don't think I can focus,” Harold says, frowning. He looks down at his hands and back to John, as if to say: See? What do I do with this?
“We need to get out of here, Finch,” John says. “There is no way we can get that door open except for the override.”
Harold reaches up to loosen the knot of his tie and undo the first two buttons of his shirt. John quickly averts his gaze.
“I think that maybe,” Harold says, “I could find a solution if I only managed to clear my head for a short moment.”
John needs a moment to grasp the implication. He has to suppress a noise that threatens to rise out of his chest. “Do it,” he grits out, backing as far into the corner as he can.
–
The idea seems logical under the circumstances, and the mechanics are easy enough, but still Harold can't quite bring himself to go through with it. “I realize that this isn't ideal,” he babbles, while John apparently tries very hard to make himself invisible. “And I would honestly prefer a different course of action if there was one, but I'm afraid I'm rather out of ideas.”
Harold catches a glimpse of the muscles shifting under the fabric of John's shirt and quickly turns to face the panel again.
“I don't see what other choices we have,” John says. He sounds like he wants to punch something, and it makes Harold irrationally, helplessly angry.
“Trust me, Mr. Reese, I dislike the idea as much as you do,” Harold says. He makes an effort to unclench his own jaw.
There is no point in denying the obvious: Harold is aroused, the fabric of his pants stretching obscenely over his erection. What is even worse is the constant flood of images in his mind, half-remembered dreams and John's crooked smile and correcting John's pose for a suit fitting, Harold tracing the lines of a seam with his fingers.
“Harold,” John says, and Harold can't place the tone: is it encouragement, or anger, or something else?
Harold squares his shoulders and then deftly unbuttons his pants. He can't think, with desire thick on his tongue like thirst, and if he has to masturbate in front of John – his colleague, his friend – in order to save them from their precarious situation, well. Humiliation is preferable to being in police custody any day.
–
“Harold,” John says, clenching his hands into fists.
He is very deliberately not thinking about the open buttons of Harold's shirt, the pink flush high on his cheeks. By now, John regrets every private, shameful fantasy he has ever allowed himself: Harold's capable fingers unzipping him, stroking him. Harold ordering John to his knees, his hands on John's face while John sucks his cock. Harold in bed beside him, his face naked without his glasses, gasping into John's mouth.
Harold is right: the only way out of the door is for Harold to manage a clear thought or two, and John remembers how impossible that was while trying to resist the effects of the drug, that all he could think about was the sweet promise of release, the gnawing hunger for skin and touch.
John shifts position and the fabric of his clothes slides against his crotch, a barely-there touch that has him biting back a moan: The idea of Harold, shoving a hand down his pants and getting himself off right there, with John in the room, confined to his ridiculous corner, is driving John absolutely insane. John is half-tempted to put his fingers into his ears and squeeze his eyes shut. At the same time, he is painfully aware that he will memorize every small gasp to replay it later in privacy, with his hand down his pants.
Harold is not moving, and the silence stretches out like a tightrope between them, precarious, tense.
“Will you just get on with it,” John says, finally, his patience fraying at the edges. He instantly regrets his sharp tone. He turns his face to Harold, trying to gauge his reaction.
–
Harold feels ridiculous: standing with his pants undone, his hand hovering uselessly in the air, he feels like he is about to make a fool of himself.
“Will you just get on with it,” John says, and Harold stares at him: he had not expected John to communicate his dismay quite as clearly.
“I am well aware that watching me masturbate is not your deepest, hidden desire,” Harold snaps, aiming for maximum ridicule to convey how absurd the idea is, “But if you could just maybe –” not make this any more difficult than it already is, Harold was going to say, but then John makes a noise like somebody punched him in the gut and the words shrivel and die in Harold's throat.
He can see John's face now, and John doesn't look disgusted at all: he looks stricken, sick with a guilt that makes no sense to Harold until he rewinds his last words in his head. “What?” Harold asks, his voice on the edge of hysteria.
John looks like he is in physical pain. “I wasn't going to say anything,” John says. “I didn't know if you were interested in anyone, if you would even consider – with me.” He sounds like a record that skitters and skips. “There was Grace, and I didn't. I knew I couldn't have this,” John finally manages, like the words are dragged out of him by force.
Harold feels sick to his stomach, not at the confession, but at the circumstances under which it is extracted from John: like a shameful secret dragged out into the light. “Come here,” Harold hears himself say, and miraculously, wonderfully, John does.
–
John crosses the room like in a dream, some fever-induced hallucination. He is helpless to do anything but to look at Harold's face: the soft set of his mouth, a kindness in his eyes that John is sure he does not deserve.
“This isn't how this conversation was supposed to go,” Harold says wryly. He reaches out to touch John's shoulder and it takes all of John's restraint not to lean into the touch, to sink down to his knees and kiss Harold's hands.
“If I had been aware,” Harold starts, then resolutely shakes his head. “Well, it is of no consequence now. We will have time to sort this out once the immediate danger is behind us.”
Harold's hand slides up to John's neck. His thumb brushes John's Adam's apple, and something about the touch of skin on skin is making John dizzy, reckless. “This is the point where you tell me that you're not attracted to me, Harold,” John says. There is a painful, numb smile on his face.
A number of different emotions chase across Harold's face: surprise, concern, understanding. “Oh, John,” Harold says. He seems to consider and discard multiple replies. Then, finally, he pulls John down to him by the collar and fits their mouths together. John is too stunned to kiss him back, and then the reality of the moment hits him and he draws back, shaking.
“Harold, you're not yourself,” John says, his stomach twisting. “It's the drugs, you're not thinking clearly.”
Harold's hand is still resting against John's skin, and this close, he can smell the tea and wool smell of Harold's clothes, the faint tang of his cologne. It drives John half out of his mind with desire; he has no idea how Harold can stand it.
–
“I don't believe that the drugs can fake attraction,” Harold says. It's not the word that he wants, but his mind is too hazy to offer him an alternative. He is thinking about something else, something above the desire for physical closeness, something more like devotion, or awe.
Harold moves his hand away and John flinches almost imperceptibly. When Harold had allowed himself to imagine this – John's lips on his, the feeling of John's skin under his hands –, he didn't think of a vault, of being drugged or locked up. He had imagined long afternoons spent in John's bed, with the sun falling in through the opened blinds, John's body heavy and sated next to his.
Harold takes a deep breath. “We really need to do something about this door,” he says. “I really need to do something about this door so that we can get out of here. It seems reasonable to postpone this conversation under the circumstances.”
John's pupils dilate like he only just remembered what Harold had been planning to do. He looks down at where Harold's fly is gaping open: just a split second glance before he tears his eyes away. “Yeah, I'll be over there,” John says. He walks away slowly, like he has to fight himself every step of the way.
Harold palms his cock through the fabric and nearly groans with relief: surely, finding an appealing image to work with won't be a problem, if anything, he should be worried that it might be over embarrassingly quick.
–
John paces. He keeps his eyes trained on the wall, tries to drown out the noise with his footsteps, but there is no point: he is so attuned to every small hitch in Harold's breathing, every minor noise of discomfort. Even more than that, John's mind is spinning with possibility: Harold wouldn't lie to him, surely, not outright and not about something like this. The only question is how much the drugs influence him. John can't bear the thought that Harold might regret his words later, when he can think again.
The sound of flesh on flesh is too loud in the room, and John balls his hands into fists, tries to follow a breathing pattern. Harold gasps softly, a sound not purely pleasure.
John remembers how his first orgasm on the drug hit him: a cool wave of relief followed by a few minutes of clarity. He noticed the cut on Kara's temple that they should clean and bandage, their clothes strewn in a path on the floor, Kara panting next to him as if they had raced each other all the way back to the hotel.
Harold makes a distressed noise and something in John snaps to attention immediately. He crosses the room again before he can talk himself out of it.
“John,” Harold says, red-faced and wrecked, his hand wrapped around his cock, “I don't think that I can.“
–
Touching himself feels good for a few selfish, blissful moments, before reality comes crashing back in. Harold leans against the wall, panting. He is hard and aroused, but the firm grip on his own cock doesn't feel like enough: the idea that he might climax sometime soon seems ludicrous; all that Harold can think about is the heavy metal door and John's stricken face and an aching need clawing at his stomach.
Harold runs his thumb over the head of his cock, works himself with firm strokes, but it is of no use. A noise of frustration escapes him, unbidden. “John, I don't think that I can,” Harold blurts, horrified at himself.
Then John is there with him, eyes wide like a startled animal. “It's okay,” John says. It is beyond Harold where John takes the certainty when clearly, nothing is okay at all.
“I am so sorry,” Harold says, meaning this and everything.
The lines around John's eyes get deeper when he smiles, even his regretful half-smile, and then he says: “Don't be.” His hand comes to rest on Harold's shoulder, and Harold feels like the touch might burn him up even through the fabric.
He steps forward without meaning to, and then John's arms are around him, his hands stroking soothing circles on Harold's back. Harold can feel John's heart racing, a wild staccato beat in his chest.
“Do you want me to touch you?” John says somewhere above Harold's ear.
Harold presses his face against John's chest, the smooth white fabric of his shirt, his own skin fever-hot. Yes yes yes yes, Harold thinks, as if the situation wasn't awful enough without asking even more from John.
“Okay, yeah, okay,” John says softly, sincerely.
For a moment, Harold wonders if he has spoken out loud. Then, humiliatingly, he realizes that he has been rubbing his exposed cock against John's leg, rutting against his thigh, his hands clenched in the fabric of John's shirt.
John leans down to kiss Harold's forehead, a brief, startling display of affection. “I'm gonna help you, and you're going to get us out of here, okay?” He carefully removes Harold's desperate grip on his shirt, his hands warm and endlessly gentle.
Then John sinks to his knees in front of Harold, wraps his hand around Harold's cock and sucks the tip into his mouth. Harold gasps in pleasure and surprise. John is as skilled at this as every other physical task that Harold has seen him perform, coaxing Harold closer to release with every wet lick, every firm stroke of his calloused hand.
Harold lets a hand rest on John's head and gently pets his hair, trying to communicate his gratitude even through the pleasant fog that suffuses his brain.
–
The ground is cold under John's knees and his jaw is starting to ache. Out of practice, he thinks, bitterly, it's been too long since he even allowed himself to do this much with a stranger in some back alley in the sickly green light of a neon sign, but it's good, too. Harold's fingers rest lightly on his scalp, touch him tenderly. John drinks in the noises Harold makes, breathy sighs and gasps, the taste and weight of him on John's tongue.
“Oh yes,” Harold says, followed by a ragged inhale, his fingers combing through John's hair.
John pulls off but keeps his hand wrapped around Harold's cock. He feels dizzy, maybe from the drug or maybe from Harold, so close to falling apart in front of him.
“It's okay,” John says. Christ, his voice is a mess. “Harold, it's fine,” John says urgently. If he could make himself say: Come on, Harold, come for me or It's okay, you can come in my mouth, he would.
Instead, John takes Harold's cock into his mouth again and takes him deeper down his throat, and Harold groans and puts a hand on John's shoulder to steady himself. “John, I'm going to come, you might–“ Harold says, probably about to suggest that John should pull off, which, yeah, not happening.
Hearing his name under these circumstances is almost enough to make John shudder and spill in his pants. He wants to hear Harold say it again: John hollows his cheeks and uses his tongue in that way that made Harold sigh before, and Harold makes a desperate noise and comes. John licks him clean after, and then carefully tucks him back into his pants and buttons him back up. John gets to his feet, hoping that Harold's new found clear-mindedness won't extend to the very visible bulge in John's pants.
Harold, instead of snapping his fingers and working on the lock with a sudden game plan, lets himself sink against John, his cheek resting against John's chest.
“Thank you,” Harold says, muffled by the fabric.
“Sure,” John says, touching the back of Harold's head. My pleasure, he is smart enough to just think and not say.
Harold moves back then: he has to straighten his glasses which have nearly been knocked off his nose, and he still has a dazed expression on his face.
“Oh, of course, I am a moron,” he says, and walks straight over to the door.
–
The terrible need has been purged from his system for a moment, replaced with the satisfaction of orgasm and brief flashes of memory: John, kneeling in front of him, looking up from under his lashes, his lips wrapped obscenely around Harold's cock –
Harold rewires the panel and tries his best to push the thoughts away. He will have time to sort this mess out, later, in privacy, where he is not at risk of fantasizing himself back into a state of useless arousal.
John has moved to the desk in the middle of the room. He palms the plastic bag with pills and puts it into his jacket while Harold busies himself with the lock. After a few minutes of thorough self-restraint – now Harold knows how it feels to get blown by John Reese, a little collection of facts that might star prominently in any further fantasies he will entertain, the panel beeps and Harold hears the click click click of the bolts unlocking.
“I think that should do it,” Harold says.
“Let's get out of here, then,” John says. He touches Harold's elbow and leads him through the door.
–
Harold selects the closest safehouse and takes them there: the car, mercifully, is still parked where they left it. John is disturbingly quiet all the way up to the apartment, a modest little place Harold rents under the name Sparrow. John places the plastic bag with pills on the table without a word, then he produces a small bottle of water from the fridge that he makes Harold drink before retreating to the window to sip on his own water.
John draws the curtains shut, and for a moment, Harold is alarmed that they might have been followed. It seems to just be an old habit, though: John checks the street outside through a gap in the curtains, then turns his back to the window, apparently satisfied. “I should probably get home,” John says without looking at Harold.
“Don't go,” Harold blurts. He puts down the empty water bottle with a dull plastic noise. “That is, you don't have to go unless you want to, or consider it a responsible decision, which, as I just demonstrated, it probably is.”
John's mouth twitches into a barely-there smile. “I think I already took enough advantage of you today, don't you?”
That is not what Harold expected John to say. At all. Harold wonders if maybe this is all a very strange dream, if maybe he will wake up at his desk in the library with a stiff back and a headache any minute. “I all but begged you to touch me,” Harold says, in disbelief.
John looks miserable. “You weren't yourself, Harold. Maybe you still aren't. I should have protected you.”
“John,” Harold says. “If anything, I was the one who took advantage, as you probably remember, you were the one who got on his knees for me–“
“I wanted to,” John says. His hands are shaking. “I know I said it was because I wanted to help get us out of there, but I. I wanted to.”
The words float in the air between them like glittering dust in the sunlight. Harold doesn't remember the last time John admitted to wanting something. Maybe he never has.
“Come here,” Harold says and John doesn't hesitate: he walks over and sinks down to his knees next to Harold, his knees hitting the hardwood floor, his head bowed.
Harold runs his hands through John's hair the way he did before, in the vault, and John makes a blissful noise and leans his forehead against Harold's thigh. “Do you want to stay with me?” Harold asks.
John's body tenses, like he's sensing a trap. “Just tell me what you want, John,” Harold says, his thumb sliding down to stroke the skin behind John's ear. He's not playing fair, he knows, but then again, he had a really bad day.
“I wanna be with you,” John says, slurring the words, his eyes heavy-lidded, his face hidden against the fabric of Harold's pants.
“Alright,” Harold says. “Alright.”
–
John steps out of the shower and wraps a towel around himself. He feels better, not like he might lose his mind with arousal any minute. Maybe the adrenaline kick of their escape helped, or the fact that he got to put his mouth on Harold, hold him close after. It's been a few hours since they got dosed, maybe the effect is wearing off.
John towels his hair dry and puts on boxers and a t-shirt. While a part of him is absolutely convinced staying is a mistake, mostly he is relieved that Harold didn't send him away. The thought of curling up alone in his bed, hugging a bottle of Scotch to dull the ache, is not really tempting.
When he walks out of the bathroom, Harold has already crawled under the covers. He wears soft-looking pajamas in a lush, dark green, his hair is still wet from his own shower earlier, plastered to his head. He looks at John, then quickly averts his gaze. “Do you have a preference?”
John blinks. Harold motions to the bed, and John realizes that he means which side John prefers to sleep on. Harold is sitting propped up against the headboard on the left side of the bed himself, a pillow supporting his back.
“It's fine, I'm not picky,” John says. “I'd sleep on the floor if you'd want me to.”
Harold's expression is pure disbelief. “I am concerned that you even entertained the notion,” he says.
John shrugs. He has considered all kinds of things: the couch, the floor, the bathtub. He could understand if Harold didn't want to take any risks: while John feels better, more clear-headed, he can't promise what will happen if he gets too close again. He won't end up humping Harold's leg, he doesn't think: he wouldn't share a bed with Harold if he thought that he couldn't control himself, but the yearning for closeness is still fresh in his mind. John walks around the bed and slides under the covers. They feel nice and soft against his skin, and he sighs involuntarily.
Harold watches him closely. “Do you still feel it? The effects of the drug?”
John clears his throat. “It's kinda hard to tell,” he says.
Harold nods. His lips are pressed together thoughtfully, and John wants to reach out and caress the worried lines away from his forehead.
“The idea of spending time apart from you is profoundly unappealing,” Harold says. He reaches out to place his hand on John's shoulder, and John leans into the touch. He turns onto his side to get closer to the warmth of Harold's body.
“Yeah,” John says, his mouth dry. “Maybe we should try to get some sleep, see how we feel tomorrow.”
Harold removes the pillow from behind his back and puts it down flat on the bed, then slowly, carefully, maneuvers himself into a comfortable position. “You're too far away,” he says, displeased, and John laughs.
“Guess the drug is still in our systems,” John says. He snuggles close, presses himself against the line of Harold's body.
Harold's eyes widen a little. “I guess so,” he says. “Is this a problem? Should we–”
Yeah, John thinks, maybe we should: sleep on opposite sides of the room, talk about this, whatever Harold was going to say. But Harold is also looking at John's mouth, and his hands stroke careful patterns over John's back.
“Will you just stop talking for one second?” John asks, leaning in. He puts his arms around Harold and kisses him, and Harold sighs and melts against him.
–
John dreams about locked rooms with the floor covered in white pills and thick metal bolts blocking the door like a cage. He opens his eyes. It takes him a moment to place his surroundings: the bed is not his, and neither are the windows. There is the soft glow of city lights and the low droning of traffic below. Harold's safehouse.
John shifts. He is sprawled on top of Harold, his right arm slightly numb where Harold fell asleep on it. John carefully removes it from under Harold's shoulder, flexing his hand to get rid of the needles and pins. The outlines are clearer now: there is light coming from a different room, probably the hallway or a bathroom. John doesn't remember leaving a light on. He doesn't remember anything after he closed his eyes and his head hit the pillow, really.
Harold's body is warm and solid next to his, and John sighs and moves closer again. He lets his hand wander over Harold's side, the softness of his belly under the smooth fabric of his pajama, the skin of his throat and jaw, slightly rough with stubble. Harold sighs and pulls him closer. John can't tell if he's awake or not. Harold's leg moves and John suddenly, humiliatingly realizes that he's hard and that Harold's leg is just too tempting not to rub up against. Christ. So much for 'out of our systems', John thinks distantly.
There is a little voice in his head that tells him that it's different, that it wasn't like that, before: the drugs he and Kara were on were making him feel something that wasn't part of him, not really. Sure, he and Kara had slept together a few times, keyed up and high on their way back from a mission, but he never wanted her like he wanted Harold in that vault, breathless and desperate, like he might die if he didn't get close. This feeling is something else completely, a well-known ache: like he would crawl under Harold's skin and live there, if he could.
John is on his way to disentangle himself and make a beeline for the bathroom when Harold stirs again, his eyelids fluttering. “John?”
“It's fine, go back to sleep,” John says through gritted teeth. The movement is giving him shameful, perfect friction, and he can't help himself from thrusting up against Harold's thigh. Clearly, not jerking off in the shower when he had the chance to was a mistake.
“Is everything alright?” Harold asks, his speech slurred, lines on his face from the folds of the pillow.
Harold reaches behind him and flicks on the lamp on the bedside table. He reaches for his glasses and puts them on, squinting at John. John tries to stay perfectly still, but whatever Harold needed to see, he already has.
“Hello,” Harold says, one corner of his mouth curving up.
“Hey,” John says. He runs his hand over Harold's shoulder. “Weird couple of hours, huh.”
Harold reaches out to tug at the front of John's shirt, and John follows: Harold kisses him, sweetly, with his lips closed. When they part, Harold says: “You said that you couldn't have this. That you knew you couldn't have this. Why?”
John feels like somebody is shining a flashlight directly into his face. He moves back, putting distance between them. Harold doesn't try to stop him, releasing the grip on John's shirt. “You never said anything,” John says, hating how defensive he sounds.
“Neither did you,” Harold says, raising an eloquent eyebrow at him.
“I don't want to do this, Harold,” John says. “Not now. We're not in a state to discuss these things.”
“You mean you'd like to wait until tomorrow so we can do our very best repressing them?” Harold pushes his glasses up his nose. “I don't see why, frankly.”
John makes a frustrated noise and scrubs at his face. “You are the most difficult, exhausting person I have ever met,” he says. ”We were drugged, Harold. Maybe we should talk about this with a clear head.”
“I don't want to fuck you,” Harold says, and it punches the air cleanly out of John's lungs. It takes a moment for the room to stop spinning. Something must show on John's face, because Harold quickly adds: “By which I mean, I don't want to any more than I usually do. So I assume my head is clear enough by now?”
“Don't joke about this,” John says, a warning. His instinct is to run, suddenly; he already locates his clothes from his peripheral vision. His shoes? He can probably do without the jacket. He needs to get out, get some air: this was fine, curling up together until the worst of the chemical storm in their bodies has passed, but John can't get used to this, he can't get too attached to how this feels, because – because –
“John,” Harold says. He doesn't try to touch John, which is good: it's like he knows that John would bolt the second he put a hand on him. “I have wanted you before today, and I still do. I have cared about you long before today, and I still do. If I had known that you wanted this from me – that you wanted me – I would have taken you back to this apartment a long time ago.” He looks around. “Or not this one, specifically. A nicer one. With a park outside, and a Jacuzzi bathtub.”
And just like that, the spell is broken: John lunges forward to kiss him, his hands on both sides of Harold's face. Harold's hands on him are good, now, keeping him grounded. John makes little, pleading noises and licks into Harold's mouth. He rolls himself half on top of Harold again, careful to support his own weight.
When they pause for air, Harold strokes John's face, the shell of his ear. “I am myself,” Harold says, “I understand all of this with perfect clarity.”
John never thought that there might come a point in his life when he would find these words unbearably arousing, but god, he does.
“Harold,” John says, convinced that he is going to lose his mind if he has to wait a second longer, “I could really use your help here.”
To make his point very clear, he rubs himself against Harold's thigh, the warmth of skin under the fabric intoxicating. Harold slides a hand down to cup John through his underwear and John mindlessly pushes his hips against him, leaning down to nibble at Harold's neck.
“Well, it would certainly help if you could hold still for a second,” Harold says, in that exasperated tone he uses when Bear is chewing on priceless first editions again. Harold puts his hand on John's left hip and pushes him onto his back in one swift move. John makes a noise of protest that Harold ignores completely, then he tugs off John's boxers.
John lies on his back, panting. He tugs at the fabric of Harold's pajamas: if they are doing this, John wants all of it, every inch of skin.
“Yes, yes, I am getting to it,” Harold mutters, rucking up John's shirt to get his hands on John's chest and nipples.
John is completely incoherent by the time Harold reaches down to close a hand around John's cock and stroke him in a steady, perfect rhythm. John whimpers and thrusts up into Harold's hand, and oh, he could come like this, let himself fall apart under Harold's touches. Instead, John takes Harold's hand and guides it lower, down to his hole: he doesn't think he'd be able to ask even if he did, well, remember language.
Harold, horrifyingly, says “Yes, alright, don't move” and leaves, which was not at all what John was trying to accomplish. As it turns out, Harold moves to the edge of the bed to rummage around in his drawer and produce a small bottle of lube. John lets his head fall back onto the pillow, trying to catch his breath. “Harold, please,” he says, and then Harold is right there again, stroking him with one hand and applying lube with the other, cool and slick on John's skin. John spreads his legs and lets them fall open.
Harold takes him apart as thoroughly as he disassembles one of his computers. ”Ssh, it's okay, I've got you, it's all fine,” he says, fingering John until he is shaking all over, his eyes stinging with tears.
“Oh god,” John moans, his hands gripping Harold's shoulders, and then Harold strokes him through the white-hot bliss of his orgasm with patient hands, until John lies wrung-out and gasping, too overwhelmed to speak. Harold cleans him with a wet washcloth and wraps John up in soft sheets and warmth, and holds him until John falls asleep again. This time, he does not dream of anything at all.
–
“Dr. Tillmann? Yes, I am calling about the drugs I sent you. I was wondering if the lab analysis–”
Dr. Tillmann sounds like she always does: friendly, but vaguely tired. “I am not sure if I got the right sample, Harold,” she says. “The lab technician ran the analysis yesterday, and the results were a little surprising.”
Harold leans back in his chair. On the couch, John is napping in the sunlight, his novel on his stomach. “Yes, well, it is rather unusual, I suppose. The substance is some kind of party drug that supposedly enhances sexual desire.” Harold winces. It's been two weeks and he still frowns at every single painkiller he has to take. He wonders if he will ever swallow a pill again without being reminded of that particular day. Not that the aftermath was too troubling, really, and he certainly won't complain about the end result.
“You don't understand: the pills you sent me weren't drugs at all. The analysis showed primarily monosaccharides, with no psychotropic components at all.”
“I don't think I'm following,” Harold says.
“They were sugar pills,” Dr. Tillmann says on the line. “Now, maybe if they are sold as some kind of, what did you say, sex drugs? I guess the placebo effect could go a long way to explain the effects. There are interesting studies that show that in some patients–“
“I am very sorry, Dr. Tillmann, but I believe I have to go. Thank you so much for your help.”
“Anytime,” she says before hanging up.
Harold sits in his chair for a long time. The plastic bag with pills is still in his bottom drawer, he only took out a few of the pills to get them analyzed. Harold looks over at John, comfortably spread out on the couch. Harold sighs. Then he opens the drawer, reaches for the bag and drops it into the trashcan, covering it with some loose papers for good measure. Maybe some things are better left alone.
– fin