Ficlet: Person of Interest

[marbleglove]

So I couldn't resist. Partly in response to sevencorvus' challenge on pofinterest-fic.

Rabbit Garden
Fandom: Person of Interest
Pairing: Finch/Reese
Rating: G
Summary: Valentine's Day, a follow up to Sucker for Surveillance

 

Valentine’s Day was a useful day for a spy and John had taken regular advantage of it in the past. As a personal holiday, it was depressing given his completely lack of personal relationships, romantic or otherwise. But professionally it was a free pass to act as secretive and as nosy as he wanted because people projected romantic motivations on what would be the most suspicious of behaviors on any other day.

There was no number today, though, for Reese to take advantage of the leeway. But that just meant that he gave Fusco a day off and spent a day following Finch himself.

While John was taking advantage of Valentine’s Day, it became increasingly apparent that Finch was, too.

He was making trips around the city, slipping into and out of businesses by different doors, and John was hard pressed to stay on him.

It was as hard as any surveillance job he’d ever run but also the one with the least pressure. If he got caught, Finch would call him on his phone to let him know that he’d been caught but there wouldn’t be any major repercussions, like a bullet to the chest.

While Finch wasn’t likely to kill him, John’s own curiosity might well do him in.

Also, it was a whole lot of fun.

But, what in the world was Finch up to?

A farmers’ market for fresh vegetables, a private butcher for two prepared rabbits, and a winery. If John didn’t know better he’d think that Finch was preparing to cook a romantic dinner. That’s certainly what all the shopkeepers thought.

But John did know better.

There was no way that Finch had a romantic partner that John didn’t know about.

No way.

Still, Finch had apparently reserved the roof patio of a building that Reese hadn’t even been aware had a roof patio, and he’d lugged up a bag of charcoal and a cooler out to the patio by himself, waiving away the building manager.

John half wanted to yell at the building manager for allowing an obviously limping man to do that, but half knew that if any building manager had ever tried to assist John himself after some injury, he would have been vicious in his rejection of the assistance. He also half wanted to go and help Finch himself since he could take anything Finch dished out, but he still wanted to know what Finch was up to.

He started a small grill heating up, set a small table for two, and pulled out a small laptop computer and proceeded to work on that.

Reese had been careful of his own position, so that he could observe all the entrances but couldn’t easily be seen himself, either by Finch or his eventual guest. He was getting impatient for someone else to arrive, but Finch seemed perfectly satisfied with sitting by himself at a table set for two.

He thought about leaving his hiding place and keeping Finch company himself, but he didn’t want to embarrass the other man about being so obviously made to watch. Finch didn’t look annoyed, but he rarely showed much emotion anyway.

By the time the rabbit went on the grill, though, John was furious at whoever was making Finch wait. He didn’t think too much about why he was so angry.

Also the smell of grilled rabbit was starting to make him drool.

When Finch finally poured the wine, pulled the meat and vegetables off the grill, and placed the dishes on the table, Reese had decided that he didn’t care if Finch got angry or embarrassed. Reese was going to have grilled rabbit and wine and follow it up by shooting whoever had stood Finch up.

He carefully exited the nook he’d hid in, careful not to make a sound. He walked silently up behind Finch’s chair. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Harold.”

And Finch didn’t even flinch.

Disappointing.

“Hello, Mr. Reese. Have you had a good day?”

“I’m not sure I’d say it’s been a good day." He could hardly admit to having had a blast following Finch's convoluted way across the city, after all. "But I expect it will be a good dinner.”

He sat down in the opposite chair and took a drink before Finch could tell him not to.

Finch merely looked amused though.

Reese took a bite of the rabbit. It was delicious.

Finch was eating his own serving.

Reese inspected the other man more closely. Definitely amused. Completely comfortable, too. He wasn’t angry or embarrassed or upset.

“Why, Finch,” he gently mocked. “Was this all for me?”

Surely it couldn’t actually have been intended for him.

Could it?

“Are you familiar with the idea of a rabbit garden, Mr. Reese?”

“I take it you don’t mean a garden growing rabbits.”

Finch gave John a small smile. “No, Mr. Reese.”

“So, what is it?”

“If a man has a large vegetable garden that rabbits keep on getting into, he can try fences, traps, and even poisons to try to keep the rabbits out, but they don’t work very well. Rabbits are surprisingly resourceful creatures.”

“If you say so.”

“So a smart gardener has two gardens. One is a fenced vegetable garden for his own use. The other is a rabbit garden, same vegetables, no fence, and the rabbits are allowed there.”

Reese considered that and finally accepted, “You knew I was watching you.”

“Surveillance is something of a specialty of mine.” Finch spoke dryly.

And okay, put that way, Reese felt like something of an idiot.

“And while you are relatively talented at it, Detective Fusco is significantly less so.”

Reese actually winced at that. “You never told me to stop it.”

“No, I didn’t. Are you going to?”

Reese almost said ‘yes’ before even thinking about Finch’s phrasing. Finch hadn’t told him to stop it. Instead, Finch had grilled him a dinner of rabbit on a rooftop patio on Valentine’s Day.

He wasn’t at all sure what to think about that, but he absolutely refused to feel anything like butterflies in his stomach. He ignored the question.

“If this,” and he refused to think about what all was or was not encompassed in that “this”, “is a rabbit garden for me, isn’t it a bit ominous for you to serve grilled rabbit?”

Finch smiled again. Reese was fairly sure Finch had noticed that Reese had avoided answering his question and found Reese’ nerves amusing. “I like rabbit.”

And that was just as ambiguous as Reese’s own “this.”

Did he like happy living rabbits eating vegetables or did he like eating roast rabbit himself? Well, demonstrably he liked the second, but since he was comparing Reese to the first…

Reese really wanted Finch's phone to signal another number. Right now.

It didn't.

Finch went back to eating his grilled rabbit.

Reese accepted the reprieve and ate his own as well.

They ate in silence, but it was surprisingly comfortable silence in the chill air with the stars above and the busy city below.

After their plates were clean Finch pulled out two containers of chilled mousse from the cooler. He finally broke the silence with a question, “Dessert?”

“Yes, please.”

And Reese wasn’t at all sure what he was saying yes to, but he was pretty sure that the answer was going to be “yes, please” regardless if Finch was the one asking.