Fic: Harmless Observation 7/9, Reese/Fusco
He winds up spending 24 hours under observation, which is 24 hours longer than he would have liked to be trapped in the hospital. His symptoms begin to fade after only five, and by the time he gets home, the sun has gone down and the throbbing in his skull has faded to a dull, tender ache. He’s got a head full of stitches and he's taking meds for the pain. It’s under control.
Reese wasn’t waiting for Fusco when he got released. That’s acceptable, he supposes. After all, his instructions were to wait for Reese at home. But still, it’s been a whole day. You’d think he could spare a minute to bring Fusco’s car back. But maybe it’s for the best that he didn’t. Fusco's in no state to drive. He keeps getting distracted by things, the slant of light through a window, the faces of passersby. He can't believe it's all still here, that he's still here to see it. Every so often, he’s almost laid low by the knowledge that he might get to see his son again.
Then again, he might not, Fusco thinks sadly. He has a suspicion about what happens next.
To that end, he packs a suitcase. Just a few sets of clothes, enough to tide him over for a week or so. His razor, his reading glasses, his gun. A photo of his son. In the inside pocket of the case, he tucks the wedding band that he never wears. He thought he'd have more he'd want to bring when his whole life got yanked up by the roots, but now he just can't think of anything else he needs. His toothbrush, he guesses, but he's going to need that if he ends up staying the night, so it's just sitting in limbo on the bathroom sink. He puts his suitcase in the front room, by the door, ready to go.
It’s not that he wants to leave. As fucked up as his life has become, he’s never even thought about running away. But all HR is probably gunning for him now, and he’d rather not be killed for nothing. Even if he did try to stay, he doesn’t know that Reese will take no for an answer this time. He doesn’t know how long his apartment will be a safe place to wait.
He wishes Reese would get here already.
He spends about twenty minutes watching the door, debating with himself about whether or not to try and have a shower before Reese comes over. He's not supposed to get his stitches wet just yet, but he can smell the blood in his hair and it's driving him crazy. Reese will probably want to get going quickly. He should stay in the front room, alert and ready. Fusco starts up the coffee maker, sits nearby tapping his fingers on the counter as the percolator bubbles cheerfully.
There's a layer of grit on his skin that he wants off now or he feels like he's going to start clawing at himself.
He kills about forty-five minutes in the shower, letting warm water pound over his shoulders and back, relaxing muscles he didn't know he was still clenching tense. He watches as weak pink traces swirl in the drain, and he lets the water go until it long after it runs cold. The water pours over him again and again until his flesh pimples, ashen with the chill. He feels scarred, unfinished. The shakes return, deeper than cold, and he braces his palms against the tile and just rides them out.
He’s huddled against the shower wall, dripping, and he thinks, “He kissed me.” It’s something that keeps occurring to him throughout the day. It’s not a thought he can hold in his head for longer than a few minutes at a time.
When he finally forces himself to get out, he dresses warm and dark and simple. T-shirt, jeans, sneakers, jacket. Comfortably anonymous. His mediocre suits that always mark him as a cop stay in the closet, probably to remain there until he’s been disappeared long enough that the landlord can clear the apartment out and rent it to someone else. Those, he won’t miss.
It’s past one in the morning, and Fusco is starting to worry. Reese hasn’t shown up. Reese hasn’t even called him just to say he’s alive. At this point, Fusco would be happy if he looked out the window and saw his car spinning its wheels against a spurting fire hydrant, driver’s side door hanging lazily open, because at least then he’d know that Reese wasn’t dead.
He takes a scalding gulp of coffee, confident in the knowledge that he won’t be able to taste anything for a few days.
Fusco’s wondering if maybe he should call Finch and ask what’s up, but then he remembers the last time he called Finch behind Reese’s back, how much that pissed him off. Then he thinks, even if Reese did save his life, he deserves to get pissed off from time to time. He’s just about to make the call when there’s an urgent knock at the door. A series of polite but insistent taps.
Fusco gets up warily, crosses to the door, puts his eye to the peephole.
Reese’s face is shadowed with bruises, brightened with red-purple vibrant scrapes. Maybe it’s nerves or an overabundance of energy, but he’s pacing in front of the door, movements liquid, body alive with power. He’s wearing the marks of a beating like it’s war paint. His eyes flick to the peephole, vivid and anxious.
It’s strange; Fusco’s been waiting for him for hours, painfully eager, but now that he’s here, Fusco just wants to make him wait. It must be this, the peephole, the rare chance to watch Reese unobserved. It’s unfair, how well he wears being beaten and alone. Especially since Fusco has this suspicion that over the course of their acquaintance, he’s embarrassed himself plenty when he thought he was alone. Fusco’s kind of been avoiding mirrors since he got home, but he’s willing to bet that he doesn’t look half so pretty beat to shit.
The anxiousness in Reese’s eyes is spreading to the corners of his mouth, to the edges of his movements. He knocks again, harder this time, shaking the door a little on its hinges. Fusco has this idea that he won’t open the door; he’ll just hang around and watch as Reese becomes more frantic, as his composure cracks, until he just fucking snaps. Then Reese pounds on the door again and calls out, “Lionel!” in a voice so hoarse and desperate that Fusco can’t help but fumble for the deadbolt.
When he swings the door wide, Reese’s game face is back on. He’s placid, unconcerned. A moment ago, he looked as though he might break down the door, but now he’s withdrawn, standing just outside the threshold, like stepping through might burn him. Reese’s mouth draws itself into a slow smirk. “You’re looking well.”
“You’re no oil painting yourself. What the hell happened to your face?”
He shrugs, unruffled. “I had some business to take care of. Had to play hardball.” The smirk sharpens momentarily, becomes wicked. “We have things to discuss. May I come in?”
Fusco stands aside, notes Reese’s momentary hesitation before passing through the door. He knows they’re both thinking about what happened the last time they were here together. He wishes he was smarter, more apprehensive. He remembers Reese begging him not to be so trusting. As he locks the door in the wake of Reese’s passage, he lets go of those thoughts.
Still, it’s not really a surprise when Reese turns on him and pushes his back against the door once it closes. Not violently, not like usual. It’s more like Reese gathers him there, holds him together. After the initial positioning, Reese doesn’t even grab at him, just places a hand against the wall on either side of Fusco’s shoulders, lets his body keep him there. “What did they say at the hospital?” he asks, conversational.
“Concussion,” he replies, following Reese’s lead. Let’s pretend that this is normal. “I’m supposed to ice it, pop a couple of pills every 8 hours, that kind of thing. It’s going to be fine.”
“No lasting damage?”
“They want me to check in a week from now, to be safe, but that’s what it looks like.”
“Good.” Reese’s hand leaves the door, moves to brush Fusco’s face, halts in midair, hovering uncertainly. “Do you mind if I…?”
“Go ahead,” he says. He wants to know where this is going.
Reese’s touch is light, running along the seam of the stitches on Fusco’s forehead, the tips of his fingers never pressing, pinching, or snagging. He’s just tracing the path, taking stock of every injury. “Oh, Lionel,” he breathes, “they really did a number on you, didn’t they?”
Fusco hazards a smile. “You should see the other guys.”
Reese smiles back at him, leans close. “I have seen them. You came off better.”
“What’d you do to them?” It’s a stupid question. Reese’s hand is on his face. He can see the scrapes on his knuckles.
“It’s better if you don’t know,” Reese says. He strokes the side of Fusco’s face with two fingers, careful and direct, turning his head to get a better look at a purple bruise along his jawline. “Just be happy they’re not your problem anymore.”
Fusco swallows hard. “So, what happens now?”
“Now? You take a break. Heal up a little. You should call Simmons soon. Tell him that they turned on you at the warehouse, and when you woke up, the reporter was dead and the pictures were gone. That’s almost true.” Reese tilts his head. “Alright? You seem concerned.”
“No! No, I’m just surprised. I kind of thought you’d make me leave the country or something.” A tentative bubble of hope rises in his chest. “Doesn’t Simmons know? Don’t they all know I work for you?”
“They don’t.” Reese leans on him, settles in to tell a story, and Fusco wonders if he shouldn’t offer Reese a seat, but he knows he’d miss that warm pressure, the all-encompassing touch. “Hardly anyone knew.” He slips one hand inside Fusco’s jacket, plucks at the hem of his shirt but goes no further. “They didn’t want to spread that information around until after you were dead. According to Detective Novak, if they made that picture common knowledge, there would have been a debate about what to do with you.”
“What? Why?”
Reese says this against his ear, lips just brushing the skin. “They tell me you’re well-liked.”
“Yeah,” he breathes. “I guess so.”
“I guess so,” Reese repeats. “I guess most of HR thinks you’re a stand-up guy. And Novak guessed that even if that picture surfaced, there are some who would give you the benefit of the doubt. It’s not exactly clear-cut, that picture. You could be manipulating me. I could be threatening you.”
“You were threatening me.”
“Threatening you with what, Lionel? Safety?”
“Well, when you put it like that…” he grumbles, trying to ignore the hot breath on his ear, the hand still pressed against his ribs, fingers feeling him out, prodding for bruises.
Reese returns to his explanation. “The responders didn’t even know that you and I were working together; they just spotted me near your apartment. They were lead to believe that I was targeting you.”
“You were targeting me.”
He presses on. “There were six of HR’s men, in total, who knew about the photo and the order to have you killed. That includes the three that were sent to deal with you. Leaving three for me to find. Finch was…reluctant to help, but eventually, I tracked them all down. It’s just you, me, and Finch that know. And it will stay that way.” Reese pulls back, stares at him thoughtfully. “I suppose, in retrospect, it would have been easier to simply relocate you. It would have been my first instinct. But then I’d have to find myself a new corrupt cop, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. I lucked into you. And besides, I thought you made it clear that you didn’t want to go.” He casts a sidelong glance at the suitcase, sitting expectantly beside them. “Did you have a change of heart, Lionel?”
“I didn’t want to die,” he admits. “And I thought that even if I tried to stay, you’d force me.”
Reese nods, still looking at the suitcase. “That was the plan,” he says. He picks up the suitcase, turns around and walks into the living room, sets it on the coffee table, sits down.
“But you didn’t go through with it.” Fusco is still propped against the door, now forgotten.
“No,” Reese says, popping the suitcase open. “No, I didn’t.” He stares intently at the contents, begins to rummage.
“What are you doing?”
Reese looks up, a shirt wound loosely in his fingers. “I want to see what you thought was worth bringing.”
Fusco approaches slowly as Reese dissects his suitcase, yanks out the innards. He lays the necessaries in a row off to one side: the razor, the glasses, the gun. He takes greater interest in the clothes, folds and unfolds them, lets their worn and woven textures run through hands. He digs the wedding ring out of an inside pocket, spins it on the coffee table until speed transforms it into a faint golden smudge shimmering on the pitted, chipped wood. It’s a good spin. It takes a long time for the ring to return, rattling, to stillness.
Reese barely touches the picture of Michael. He sets it reverently down in the bottom of the now mostly-empty suitcase and looks away, as if ashamed of having seen it.
“It’s not much,” he says, finally.
Fusco shrugs and says, “I didn’t know what I was packing for.” He thinks for a moment. “Where would you have sent me? Or can’t you say?”
“I can’t say.” Reese pauses. “My place.”
They take a very long silence together, the first since Reese came in. For once, Fusco thinks it isn’t because they don’t know what to say to each other. He thinks they both know exactly what to say, and their pride or their fear won’t let them. Fusco does have his pride, even if it is only a meager, crippled thing that’s been dragged through the dirt too many times to count. He clings to what little he has.
But he’s willing to relinquish a bit, just so he can say the really important thing.
“Thank you,” he says. “I mean it. For everything. Even the creepy shit, a little. Just. Thanks.”
Reese doesn’t say anything, but his curled hand covers his mouth momentarily, like he’s suppressing a smile or a yawn. “Have you slept since?” he asks.
“A little,” Fusco says. “At the hospital. Just a couple of hours.”
“How’d that go?”
“Not great. Shitty dreams.”
“They’ll pass,” Reese assures him. He inhales. “You’ve been making coffee,” he says, accusingly.
Fusco protests, “I was waiting up for you.”
“And now I’m here. Try to wind down and get some sleep. I’m staying the night.”
“Do I get a say in this?”
“No,” Reese says, pleasantly.
Fusco thinks about fighting it just out of spite, but then realizes how much he doesn’t want to win, how much he doesn’t want to spend the night flinching awake at every sound, feeling for the gun on his nightstand. “There’s more coffee in the pot if you want some,” he says, returning to his room.
“Thank you, Lionel.”
Back in his room, he starts to ease himself out of his clothes. His muscles and joints are still sore; he wonders if he should take another shower, let the heat ease him up, dent his water bill a little more. He’s definitely not going to sleep, not like this, no matter how tired he’s getting. Not with caffeine speeding through him, making him edgy and panicked.
Of course, there’s Reese to think about.
“You want something for your face?” he calls through the closed door. “I don’t know if I have much, but there’s rubbing alcohol and a first-aid kit in the bathroom.”
“Thank you,” Reese says again.
Fusco listens in, hears the bathroom door open, the clatter of plastic pill bottles as Reese ransacks the medicine cabinet, his footsteps as he stalks back out into the living room. Without really thinking about it, Fusco has pulled on the same t-shirt and boxers he wore last time Reese was here.
He guesses he just really wants a do-over right now.
When he comes out, Reese is sitting at the coffee table, looking into the first-aid kit, perturbed. He holds up a scroll of Batman-themed Band-Aids in response to Fusco’s puzzled stare. “I am not wearing these on my face,” he says, firmly.
“Sorry about that. They’re my son’s.”
“I’m sure,” he says. There’s a teasing glint in his eye.
Fusco ignores him. “Take them or leave them. They’re all I’ve got.”
“I’ll go without,” Reese says. He gives Fusco a very long look, traveling up and down bare arms and legs, drawn to the dark blossoms of bruises and scrapes. “What about you?”
“Took care of most of it at the hospital,” he says as Reese takes his hand, traces the raw sign the cuffs left on his wrist. Reese turns his hand palm up, staring at the lines and creases like he’s trying to read their halting, tentative future. “I don’t even remember getting half of these.”
Reese presses his mouth to the center of Fusco’s palm for a long second. He straightens up, doesn’t let go of Fusco’s hand. His eyes are plaintive.
Fusco laughs nervously. “Are you going to go crazy again?” he asks.
Reese doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring at him, eyes wide and yawning with need.
“Well?” Fusco asks, voice gone very, very soft. “Are you?”
Reese leans forward with a sigh, head resting against Fusco’s stomach, arms wrapped around him. It’s not forceful, not a grab. He doesn’t even stand; he just hangs on. “Where?” Reese asks.
“Not here. My room.”
Reese’s fingers are tangling in the back of Fusco’s shirt, one hand dragging resolutely down. “When I first saw you cuffed to that chair,” he says, “I thought you had already died. I thought I was too late.”
Fusco’s not sure what to say to that. He knows the gravity of that confession, the fears and hopes it represents. He’s not sure if he can match those. He’s not sure he has it in him to talk about how he fears for Reese when he should fear for himself, how he never stopped missing Reese in the months they weren’t talking, how he was about to die and when he was running through the things and the people that were important to him, Reese kept coming up and coming up. He doesn’t know how to say any of that. What he does say is, “Get in my goddamn bed.”
That works.
***
A/N: Next time on Harmless Observation, a completely gratuitous sex scene.
Reese wasn’t waiting for Fusco when he got released. That’s acceptable, he supposes. After all, his instructions were to wait for Reese at home. But still, it’s been a whole day. You’d think he could spare a minute to bring Fusco’s car back. But maybe it’s for the best that he didn’t. Fusco's in no state to drive. He keeps getting distracted by things, the slant of light through a window, the faces of passersby. He can't believe it's all still here, that he's still here to see it. Every so often, he’s almost laid low by the knowledge that he might get to see his son again.
Then again, he might not, Fusco thinks sadly. He has a suspicion about what happens next.
To that end, he packs a suitcase. Just a few sets of clothes, enough to tide him over for a week or so. His razor, his reading glasses, his gun. A photo of his son. In the inside pocket of the case, he tucks the wedding band that he never wears. He thought he'd have more he'd want to bring when his whole life got yanked up by the roots, but now he just can't think of anything else he needs. His toothbrush, he guesses, but he's going to need that if he ends up staying the night, so it's just sitting in limbo on the bathroom sink. He puts his suitcase in the front room, by the door, ready to go.
It’s not that he wants to leave. As fucked up as his life has become, he’s never even thought about running away. But all HR is probably gunning for him now, and he’d rather not be killed for nothing. Even if he did try to stay, he doesn’t know that Reese will take no for an answer this time. He doesn’t know how long his apartment will be a safe place to wait.
He wishes Reese would get here already.
He spends about twenty minutes watching the door, debating with himself about whether or not to try and have a shower before Reese comes over. He's not supposed to get his stitches wet just yet, but he can smell the blood in his hair and it's driving him crazy. Reese will probably want to get going quickly. He should stay in the front room, alert and ready. Fusco starts up the coffee maker, sits nearby tapping his fingers on the counter as the percolator bubbles cheerfully.
There's a layer of grit on his skin that he wants off now or he feels like he's going to start clawing at himself.
He kills about forty-five minutes in the shower, letting warm water pound over his shoulders and back, relaxing muscles he didn't know he was still clenching tense. He watches as weak pink traces swirl in the drain, and he lets the water go until it long after it runs cold. The water pours over him again and again until his flesh pimples, ashen with the chill. He feels scarred, unfinished. The shakes return, deeper than cold, and he braces his palms against the tile and just rides them out.
He’s huddled against the shower wall, dripping, and he thinks, “He kissed me.” It’s something that keeps occurring to him throughout the day. It’s not a thought he can hold in his head for longer than a few minutes at a time.
When he finally forces himself to get out, he dresses warm and dark and simple. T-shirt, jeans, sneakers, jacket. Comfortably anonymous. His mediocre suits that always mark him as a cop stay in the closet, probably to remain there until he’s been disappeared long enough that the landlord can clear the apartment out and rent it to someone else. Those, he won’t miss.
It’s past one in the morning, and Fusco is starting to worry. Reese hasn’t shown up. Reese hasn’t even called him just to say he’s alive. At this point, Fusco would be happy if he looked out the window and saw his car spinning its wheels against a spurting fire hydrant, driver’s side door hanging lazily open, because at least then he’d know that Reese wasn’t dead.
He takes a scalding gulp of coffee, confident in the knowledge that he won’t be able to taste anything for a few days.
Fusco’s wondering if maybe he should call Finch and ask what’s up, but then he remembers the last time he called Finch behind Reese’s back, how much that pissed him off. Then he thinks, even if Reese did save his life, he deserves to get pissed off from time to time. He’s just about to make the call when there’s an urgent knock at the door. A series of polite but insistent taps.
Fusco gets up warily, crosses to the door, puts his eye to the peephole.
Reese’s face is shadowed with bruises, brightened with red-purple vibrant scrapes. Maybe it’s nerves or an overabundance of energy, but he’s pacing in front of the door, movements liquid, body alive with power. He’s wearing the marks of a beating like it’s war paint. His eyes flick to the peephole, vivid and anxious.
It’s strange; Fusco’s been waiting for him for hours, painfully eager, but now that he’s here, Fusco just wants to make him wait. It must be this, the peephole, the rare chance to watch Reese unobserved. It’s unfair, how well he wears being beaten and alone. Especially since Fusco has this suspicion that over the course of their acquaintance, he’s embarrassed himself plenty when he thought he was alone. Fusco’s kind of been avoiding mirrors since he got home, but he’s willing to bet that he doesn’t look half so pretty beat to shit.
The anxiousness in Reese’s eyes is spreading to the corners of his mouth, to the edges of his movements. He knocks again, harder this time, shaking the door a little on its hinges. Fusco has this idea that he won’t open the door; he’ll just hang around and watch as Reese becomes more frantic, as his composure cracks, until he just fucking snaps. Then Reese pounds on the door again and calls out, “Lionel!” in a voice so hoarse and desperate that Fusco can’t help but fumble for the deadbolt.
When he swings the door wide, Reese’s game face is back on. He’s placid, unconcerned. A moment ago, he looked as though he might break down the door, but now he’s withdrawn, standing just outside the threshold, like stepping through might burn him. Reese’s mouth draws itself into a slow smirk. “You’re looking well.”
“You’re no oil painting yourself. What the hell happened to your face?”
He shrugs, unruffled. “I had some business to take care of. Had to play hardball.” The smirk sharpens momentarily, becomes wicked. “We have things to discuss. May I come in?”
Fusco stands aside, notes Reese’s momentary hesitation before passing through the door. He knows they’re both thinking about what happened the last time they were here together. He wishes he was smarter, more apprehensive. He remembers Reese begging him not to be so trusting. As he locks the door in the wake of Reese’s passage, he lets go of those thoughts.
Still, it’s not really a surprise when Reese turns on him and pushes his back against the door once it closes. Not violently, not like usual. It’s more like Reese gathers him there, holds him together. After the initial positioning, Reese doesn’t even grab at him, just places a hand against the wall on either side of Fusco’s shoulders, lets his body keep him there. “What did they say at the hospital?” he asks, conversational.
“Concussion,” he replies, following Reese’s lead. Let’s pretend that this is normal. “I’m supposed to ice it, pop a couple of pills every 8 hours, that kind of thing. It’s going to be fine.”
“No lasting damage?”
“They want me to check in a week from now, to be safe, but that’s what it looks like.”
“Good.” Reese’s hand leaves the door, moves to brush Fusco’s face, halts in midair, hovering uncertainly. “Do you mind if I…?”
“Go ahead,” he says. He wants to know where this is going.
Reese’s touch is light, running along the seam of the stitches on Fusco’s forehead, the tips of his fingers never pressing, pinching, or snagging. He’s just tracing the path, taking stock of every injury. “Oh, Lionel,” he breathes, “they really did a number on you, didn’t they?”
Fusco hazards a smile. “You should see the other guys.”
Reese smiles back at him, leans close. “I have seen them. You came off better.”
“What’d you do to them?” It’s a stupid question. Reese’s hand is on his face. He can see the scrapes on his knuckles.
“It’s better if you don’t know,” Reese says. He strokes the side of Fusco’s face with two fingers, careful and direct, turning his head to get a better look at a purple bruise along his jawline. “Just be happy they’re not your problem anymore.”
Fusco swallows hard. “So, what happens now?”
“Now? You take a break. Heal up a little. You should call Simmons soon. Tell him that they turned on you at the warehouse, and when you woke up, the reporter was dead and the pictures were gone. That’s almost true.” Reese tilts his head. “Alright? You seem concerned.”
“No! No, I’m just surprised. I kind of thought you’d make me leave the country or something.” A tentative bubble of hope rises in his chest. “Doesn’t Simmons know? Don’t they all know I work for you?”
“They don’t.” Reese leans on him, settles in to tell a story, and Fusco wonders if he shouldn’t offer Reese a seat, but he knows he’d miss that warm pressure, the all-encompassing touch. “Hardly anyone knew.” He slips one hand inside Fusco’s jacket, plucks at the hem of his shirt but goes no further. “They didn’t want to spread that information around until after you were dead. According to Detective Novak, if they made that picture common knowledge, there would have been a debate about what to do with you.”
“What? Why?”
Reese says this against his ear, lips just brushing the skin. “They tell me you’re well-liked.”
“Yeah,” he breathes. “I guess so.”
“I guess so,” Reese repeats. “I guess most of HR thinks you’re a stand-up guy. And Novak guessed that even if that picture surfaced, there are some who would give you the benefit of the doubt. It’s not exactly clear-cut, that picture. You could be manipulating me. I could be threatening you.”
“You were threatening me.”
“Threatening you with what, Lionel? Safety?”
“Well, when you put it like that…” he grumbles, trying to ignore the hot breath on his ear, the hand still pressed against his ribs, fingers feeling him out, prodding for bruises.
Reese returns to his explanation. “The responders didn’t even know that you and I were working together; they just spotted me near your apartment. They were lead to believe that I was targeting you.”
“You were targeting me.”
He presses on. “There were six of HR’s men, in total, who knew about the photo and the order to have you killed. That includes the three that were sent to deal with you. Leaving three for me to find. Finch was…reluctant to help, but eventually, I tracked them all down. It’s just you, me, and Finch that know. And it will stay that way.” Reese pulls back, stares at him thoughtfully. “I suppose, in retrospect, it would have been easier to simply relocate you. It would have been my first instinct. But then I’d have to find myself a new corrupt cop, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. I lucked into you. And besides, I thought you made it clear that you didn’t want to go.” He casts a sidelong glance at the suitcase, sitting expectantly beside them. “Did you have a change of heart, Lionel?”
“I didn’t want to die,” he admits. “And I thought that even if I tried to stay, you’d force me.”
Reese nods, still looking at the suitcase. “That was the plan,” he says. He picks up the suitcase, turns around and walks into the living room, sets it on the coffee table, sits down.
“But you didn’t go through with it.” Fusco is still propped against the door, now forgotten.
“No,” Reese says, popping the suitcase open. “No, I didn’t.” He stares intently at the contents, begins to rummage.
“What are you doing?”
Reese looks up, a shirt wound loosely in his fingers. “I want to see what you thought was worth bringing.”
Fusco approaches slowly as Reese dissects his suitcase, yanks out the innards. He lays the necessaries in a row off to one side: the razor, the glasses, the gun. He takes greater interest in the clothes, folds and unfolds them, lets their worn and woven textures run through hands. He digs the wedding ring out of an inside pocket, spins it on the coffee table until speed transforms it into a faint golden smudge shimmering on the pitted, chipped wood. It’s a good spin. It takes a long time for the ring to return, rattling, to stillness.
Reese barely touches the picture of Michael. He sets it reverently down in the bottom of the now mostly-empty suitcase and looks away, as if ashamed of having seen it.
“It’s not much,” he says, finally.
Fusco shrugs and says, “I didn’t know what I was packing for.” He thinks for a moment. “Where would you have sent me? Or can’t you say?”
“I can’t say.” Reese pauses. “My place.”
They take a very long silence together, the first since Reese came in. For once, Fusco thinks it isn’t because they don’t know what to say to each other. He thinks they both know exactly what to say, and their pride or their fear won’t let them. Fusco does have his pride, even if it is only a meager, crippled thing that’s been dragged through the dirt too many times to count. He clings to what little he has.
But he’s willing to relinquish a bit, just so he can say the really important thing.
“Thank you,” he says. “I mean it. For everything. Even the creepy shit, a little. Just. Thanks.”
Reese doesn’t say anything, but his curled hand covers his mouth momentarily, like he’s suppressing a smile or a yawn. “Have you slept since?” he asks.
“A little,” Fusco says. “At the hospital. Just a couple of hours.”
“How’d that go?”
“Not great. Shitty dreams.”
“They’ll pass,” Reese assures him. He inhales. “You’ve been making coffee,” he says, accusingly.
Fusco protests, “I was waiting up for you.”
“And now I’m here. Try to wind down and get some sleep. I’m staying the night.”
“Do I get a say in this?”
“No,” Reese says, pleasantly.
Fusco thinks about fighting it just out of spite, but then realizes how much he doesn’t want to win, how much he doesn’t want to spend the night flinching awake at every sound, feeling for the gun on his nightstand. “There’s more coffee in the pot if you want some,” he says, returning to his room.
“Thank you, Lionel.”
Back in his room, he starts to ease himself out of his clothes. His muscles and joints are still sore; he wonders if he should take another shower, let the heat ease him up, dent his water bill a little more. He’s definitely not going to sleep, not like this, no matter how tired he’s getting. Not with caffeine speeding through him, making him edgy and panicked.
Of course, there’s Reese to think about.
“You want something for your face?” he calls through the closed door. “I don’t know if I have much, but there’s rubbing alcohol and a first-aid kit in the bathroom.”
“Thank you,” Reese says again.
Fusco listens in, hears the bathroom door open, the clatter of plastic pill bottles as Reese ransacks the medicine cabinet, his footsteps as he stalks back out into the living room. Without really thinking about it, Fusco has pulled on the same t-shirt and boxers he wore last time Reese was here.
He guesses he just really wants a do-over right now.
When he comes out, Reese is sitting at the coffee table, looking into the first-aid kit, perturbed. He holds up a scroll of Batman-themed Band-Aids in response to Fusco’s puzzled stare. “I am not wearing these on my face,” he says, firmly.
“Sorry about that. They’re my son’s.”
“I’m sure,” he says. There’s a teasing glint in his eye.
Fusco ignores him. “Take them or leave them. They’re all I’ve got.”
“I’ll go without,” Reese says. He gives Fusco a very long look, traveling up and down bare arms and legs, drawn to the dark blossoms of bruises and scrapes. “What about you?”
“Took care of most of it at the hospital,” he says as Reese takes his hand, traces the raw sign the cuffs left on his wrist. Reese turns his hand palm up, staring at the lines and creases like he’s trying to read their halting, tentative future. “I don’t even remember getting half of these.”
Reese presses his mouth to the center of Fusco’s palm for a long second. He straightens up, doesn’t let go of Fusco’s hand. His eyes are plaintive.
Fusco laughs nervously. “Are you going to go crazy again?” he asks.
Reese doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring at him, eyes wide and yawning with need.
“Well?” Fusco asks, voice gone very, very soft. “Are you?”
Reese leans forward with a sigh, head resting against Fusco’s stomach, arms wrapped around him. It’s not forceful, not a grab. He doesn’t even stand; he just hangs on. “Where?” Reese asks.
“Not here. My room.”
Reese’s fingers are tangling in the back of Fusco’s shirt, one hand dragging resolutely down. “When I first saw you cuffed to that chair,” he says, “I thought you had already died. I thought I was too late.”
Fusco’s not sure what to say to that. He knows the gravity of that confession, the fears and hopes it represents. He’s not sure if he can match those. He’s not sure he has it in him to talk about how he fears for Reese when he should fear for himself, how he never stopped missing Reese in the months they weren’t talking, how he was about to die and when he was running through the things and the people that were important to him, Reese kept coming up and coming up. He doesn’t know how to say any of that. What he does say is, “Get in my goddamn bed.”
That works.
***
A/N: Next time on Harmless Observation, a completely gratuitous sex scene.