#i had kibble so not something too high value but not nothing

[beansnpeets]

Sprocket really is a horrible teenager right now and I absolutely cannot deal with it

[sparxwrites]

(first tma fic, kids, let’s go!! set at some ambiguous point in s3 or something, idfk. massive thank you to @capitola, @hoodienanami, and @ladyofrosefire for beta’ing / looking this over and reassuring me it wasn’t terrible. massive thank you also to mr sims for my life lmao.)

cw for minor body horror, and eyes in places they shouldn’t be

[ao3]

There’s a light on in Jon’s office.

It’s not a bright light, just the soft glow of a desk lamp spilling out from under the door, but still. It’s well past midnight. No one should be working – hell, Martin’s only in the Archives because he’d forgotten his phone when he went out with the others for drinks. And sure, Jon’s known for his late nights and early starts, but verging on one in the morning seems ridiculous even for him.

Martin hesitates outside the door for a full minute before knocking, once.

There’s no response, but Jon’s definitely in. Or someone is, at least. There’s a voice – muffled, but still audible, speaking continuously – from inside the room. Statements, then, probably. Though why Jon would be reading statements at this time of the night is beyond Martin, especially when he’s been at it all day, too.

He hovers for another minute, another two, but the voice doesn’t quiet. The light doesn’t go off. He’s half tempted to leave his weird boss to his weird work hours and just not interfere in what could be some weird Beholding ritual for all he knows. That would be the sensible thing to do, really.

After a cumulative three minutes of worrying, Martin resolves to open the door. Just a little. Just to check if Jon’s okay.

It’s not locked, which – given the hour, and the Archives’ track record with murder attempts and/or supernatural infiltration – seems like a safety hazard. Martin pushes it open, gingerly, nudging his way into the doorway and peering inside, fully prepared to get snapped at for intruding.

Jon’s sat at his desk, which is normal, and has a half-drunk glass of whiskey by one elbow, which is not. His hands are laid flat on his desk, either side of a sheet of paper, and his face lit in strange, sharp angles by the desk lamp’s single point of light. The ever-present tape recorder whirs away in front of him, hungry for his soft words.

It’s a fairly typical scene, other than the lateness. And the whiskey. And the strange energy in the air, prickling, not the usual light touch of being watched, but the heavy weight of something present. He’s trying not to think about that one, though.

Martin watches, silently, unwilling to interrupt. Jon doesn’t appreciate being interrupted mid-statement, he’s found. Besides, it sounds like the statement’s ending anyway – something about an improbable underwater fire at an oil rig, as far as Martin can piece together from the closing remarks.

Politely reminding Jon of the twin values of sleep and of locking his office door can wait until he’s finished.

“…Statement ends,” concludes Jon, voice soft and flat in that way it only ever gets when he’s recording statements. The real statements, that is, the ones that will only go on tape. His eyes are unfocused, distant. He doesn’t even seem to be looking at the paper in front of him, which… unusually, for a statement, seems to be mostly blank. Instead, he’s staring unseeingly at the wall opposite his desk, perfectly silent and perfectly still.

It’s not like Jon’s never worked late before, and it’s not like Martin’s never found him reading statements at some god-awful, unsociable hour of the night or morning, but this… Something feels different about this. Something feels weird, and Martin’s gotten pretty confident in trusting his gut about weird feelings.

“Jon?” he says, softly, nervously. He’s still hovering in the doorway, uncertain, unwilling to cross into the room proper on sheer animal instinct.

He gets no response. Instead, Jon flinches, like he’s been stuck with a needle.

It’s an oddly restrained motion, given he doesn’t seem to be entirely present, a sort of full-body twitch accompanied by a quiet hiccup of sound. Like he’s swallowed down a sob. His breath stutters in his chest, hitches. A high-pitched, drawn-out noise of pain strangles itself in his throat, escapes through his nose instead in a long whine.

His eyes don’t refocus. His hands never move from their place settled flat against the desk. His expression doesn’t change.

“…Statement of Mrs. Anisha Singh,” he says, eventually, his voice still level and calm. It would be almost soothing, if not for that fixed stare, the line of tension in his shoulders, the whiskey on the desk. If not for that strange, heart-stopping moment of quiet agony. “Regarding the disappearance and return of a beloved family pet. Statement begins.”

Now Martin’s looking for it, he can hear the note of strain that colours the edge of each word, pain or exhaustion or some other ragged, aching thing entirely that even… whatever it is that’s keeping him blank and still can’t quite exorcise entirely.

“Jon,” says Martin, a little more firmly, because this is– weird. Even by Jon’s standards, even by the Archives’ standards, this is really, really weird.

“We’d had him for years, you see. Mr. Kibbles, I mean.” Jon’s voice softens as he slips into the statement, pitches up a little into something more female than his usual tone. There’s the slightest edge of an accent to it, though Martin isn’t sure what accent. “Years and years, and he was always so sweet. He was a rescue cat, so of course there were some issues at first, but–”

Martin hesitates and then, swallowing hard, crosses the room and scoots around the desk, until he’s standing at Jon’s elbow. “Jon?” he says again, without much hope. When he gets no response, he sets a hand on Jon’s shoulder, and shakes him, ever so gently.

“–why we thought it was strange, when he went missing,” says Jon, still staring straight ahead, hands still flat on the desk. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t respond, doesn’t so much as blink.

Martin shakes him, again, a little harder. Then his nerves run out, so he switches to sort of awkwardly rubbing Jon’s shoulder, his back, as insistently as possible. Even through Jon’s customary jumper and shirt, he can feel– bumps, almost, strange raised nodules that he thinks must be scar tissue. Must be from the worms. He shudders at the thought, and distracts himself by calling Jon’s name again, louder than before.

Nothing. It’s like Martin’s not even there.

“Okay,” says Martin, as easily as he can manage when everything in his nerves sings wrong, when there’s a prickle on the back of his neck like Jon’s staring at him. It’s ridiculous, Jon's eyes aren’t even focused, but… “Okay, right.” He unwinds his scarf from round his neck, and shrugs his jacket off, his motions jerky with unease. “I’m– I’m going to go make us some tea, then.”

It seems a bit pathetic, when he says it out loud. But it’s not like there’s any employee manual segment on what to do if your boss gets possessed by his god in the early hours of the morning, and he figures making tea can’t hurt the situation. Perhaps the warmth and steam of a cup on his desk might help… bring Jon back to himself, or something.

At the very least, doing something with his hands might stop them from shaking.

He makes the tea on autopilot, mostly, drifting from sink to kettle to cupboard, retrieving mugs and teabags and milk. His brain is too busy whirring, turning the image of Jon over and over in his head, to concentrate on the process all that much. He’s desperately trying to work out if this is okay, if this is normal capital-A Archivist business, or if this is something new, or something dangerous, or something…

The tea’s oversteeped, by the time he remembers to take the teabags out. Not that it matters, really. Only one of the cups is getting drunk, after all, and Martin’s too strung-out on nerves for overly bitter tea to be anything other than a laughable distraction.

By the time he gets back, Jon’s nearly done with the statement. He hasn’t moved an inch, hands still on the damn desk, eyes still fixed unseeing on the far wall. Martin sighs, and sets the tea on the desk a few inches from the whiskey nonetheless. “There you go,” he says, and immediately feels guilty – because Jon’s doing a statement, the tape recorder’s still running, because he’s ruining the recording.

He figures, as he retreats to a chair tucked against the wall, next to one of the bookshelves, that his priorities probably say something about how badly this job has messed him up. Boss might be possessed? It’s probably fine. Ruining a statement, though? Unforgivable.

“–know what I’m going to tell the kids,” says Jon. “They loved the cat. They were so happy when he came back. But they didn’t see it. Not like I did. They didn’t see what those fleas had done to him. They wouldn’t understand, if I told them what I had to do.”

Martin winces, and takes a sip of tea to try and stop from thinking about that too hard. It scalds his tongue a little. He’s missed the bulk of the statement, but he’s got a pretty good idea of what bugs can do to a person – or a cat, as the case may be. And he’s got a pretty good idea of what Mrs. Singh might have had to do to get rid of them.

“I’d suggest we go to the local rescue this weekend, get another cat to replace Mr. Kibbles, but… I don’t know if I’m ready to have another pet right now, after all this. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to have another pet again.” Jon pauses, unblinking, unmoving – and when he speaks again, his voice is back to his own, albeit still coloured by that awful, artificial flatness. “Statement ends.”

And again he flinches, like he’s been stuck unexpectedly with something sharp, hunching in on himself. He hiccups out another sob, another aborted hitch of sound, and then keens. It’s an awful noise, a long, drawn-out whimper so full of pain that Martin’s on his feet before he can even think about it.

He’s not sure what he can possibly do to help with this, especially when he doesn’t even know what’s going on. But it seems wrong to just sit there, to just watch, with Jon hurting in front of his eyes.

Before he can take another step, though, the skin of Jon’s neck starts to– shift. It’s not a warping or a melting, exactly, nothing like the things the Desolation does to human flesh. It’s more of an unfurling, skin parting and opening as though that was what it was always meant to do. Except it’s that’s not right, because that’s a neck, because skin doesn’t move like that, because necks don’t open–

Jon’s whine finally, finally cuts off, with a frantic gasp.

“Oh, god,” says Martin, faintly, frozen in place with his hands white-knuckled around his mug – because there, on the side of Jon’s neck, is a wide, brown eye.

It blinks, slowly, its thick black eyelashes brushing across Jon’s skin. Then it spins in its– socket? God, in whatever’s anchoring it into Jon’s skin, and Martin really doesn’t want to think about that– and settles its wide and fixed gaze on Martin.

When Martin takes a tentative step to the side, it tracks his movement, smooth and unblinking. He thinks about the bumps under Jon’s jumper, oddly soft beneath his hand, and is abruptly overcome with nausea.

How long has this been going on? How long has Jon sat here, unnaturally still, giving statement after statement with no paper to read from and no pause between? …How many of these eyes are there, under Jon’s collared shirt and long-sleeved jumpers and carefully pressed trousers, scattered across his ribs and stomach and thighs?

From the presence of the whiskey, Martin has an awful feeling that this isn’t even the first night this has happened. That this is something Jon had braced for, from prior experience.

The idea of Jon sat alone in his office, blank paper and a waiting tape recorder in front of him, grimly downing spirits in anticipation of the pain to follow, sets Martin’s chest in an abrupt and unrelenting vise.

“A-aah. Statement–” starts Jon, and there’s a definite waver to his voice now, an unsteadiness apparently even the Beholding can’t eradicate. There are fine tremors starting up across his shoulders, and wetness around the rims of his human eyes. “–o-of Mr. Gregory Freeman, regarding th-the circumstances of his daughter’s death on a family hiking trip. Statement– begins.”

Four statements later – a young woman ravenously hungry for her own flesh, a house that seemed to shrink with every passing day, an elderly man with a sudden and violent phobia of cameras, a woman who had started leaving cobwebs on everything she touched – and Jon is still going. Martin’s made another two cups of tea for them both, out of sheer anxious energy, replacing the undrunk and cooling mug on Jon’s desk each time.

Four more statements. Four more eyes emerging somewhere on Jon’s body. Four more points of pain, sending him flinching and sobbing between each statement.

Martin watches them all and clutches his empty mug, white-knuckled, helpless. He watches Jon finish each statement, watches him weather the pain, watches him start up once again– and he goes to get more tea. There’s nothing else he can do, but be witness to this, whatever this is. Be a witness to Jon’s suffering.

Jon finishes a fifth statement, and is halfway into a sixth, before he starts crying. Thin trails of tears start to drip down his nose and cheeks, over his constantly moving lips. They’re barely visible in the half-darkness, just a faint gleam as they catch the raking light from his desk lamp. His expression doesn’t change, nor his tone, but he cries silently nonetheless. The eye on his neck is not so much as damp.

Martin cries with him, softly, for a while.

No other eyes show up on his face or neck, despite the endless statements, the endless gaps between. One does form on his wrist, though, right over the bone of it, pale blue and half-hidden by the cuff of his shirt. It blinks once, indolently, at Martin, before rolling to stare fixedly at the doorway to the room. Quietly watching.

The one on Jon’s neck still stares at Martin, unblinking, single-minded. He gets used to it, after a horribly short space of time.

The time passes strangely, elastic. Martin drinks his tea, makes another cup, and drinks that too. He replaces Jon’s whenever it gets cold, out of some weird sense of duty that Jon will have at least warm tea when he snaps out of whatever’s going on. He dozes, at some points, lulled into an uneasy sleep by the soothing sound of Jon’s words. He’s inevitably reawakened when the statement ends, though, by Jon’s noises of pain, louder and less restrained each time. By the end of, he’s crying out openly with each new eye, voice hoarse and raw in a way that never carries over to his statements.

It’s six in the morning, by the count of the clock on the wall, before Jon finally stops. “Statement ends,” he says, and Martin waits, patient and exhausted, for him to start again with statement of – but it never comes.

Instead, Jon– collapses. Crumples over his desk with an unsteady exhale, like a puppet with its strings cut. Out of the grip of the eye, the shaking is worse – violent, shocky, like he’s about to fall apart.

Maybe he is.

For a second, Martin’s worried he’s having a seizure, or some more eldritch equivalent. Then he realises Jon isn’t just breathing, jerky and unsteady and on the edge of sobbing. He’s speaking, still, muttering soft and frantic to himself.

“No more. No more. No more. Please. No–”

“Jon?” says Martin, as gently as he can manage, because he can’t bear it a second longer. “Are you–”

Jon goes silent in a heartbeat, and as still as he can with the tremors still running through him. “Martin.” His voice is wrecked, but he still cuts Martin off with such authority. “What– what are you doing here? God, what– time is it?”

He’s slurring a little, under the hoarse rasp, but Martin’s not sure it’s anything to do with the whiskey. There’s a giddy edge to it that rubs up against the exhaustion, like he’s overstimulated and wrung out all at once. Perhaps he is, after a night of being force-fed statements directly into his brain.

Jon drags himself upright again, slowly, painfully, until he’s at least slumped in his seat rather than collapsed over his desk. There are dark bags under his human eyes, and his hair’s a mess, and that wide, brown eye in the side of his neck is still staring. Martin really wishes it wouldn’t. Wishes that it would at least stare at something other than him.

The eye, as though reading his thoughts – and god, for all Martin knows, it is – blinks. Just once.

“I, um. It’s about six, I think. In the morning. I, I came in last night, and you were– aha, well, um, I don’t really know what you were! But it seemed kind of weird, so I thought… I’d better keep you company. In case it got weirder, you know?”

It feels stupid, when he says it like that. What did he do, other than sitting there, watching, making tea? It was ridiculous of him to have thought he could help in the first place.

Jon opens his mouth as if to reply – but his eyes catch on the lukewarm cup of tea by one elbow, and he stops. Swallows. Closes his mouth. “…That was– thoughtful of you, Martin,” he says, in the end, which isn’t quite a thank you but is remarkably close. He grabs the mug of tea, and downs half of it in one long swallow, before reaching up to scrub a hand over his face, his neck. “I suppose it goes without saying that this–”

The moment his fingers touch the eye, he freezes. Then he slaps a hand over it, almost guiltily, and stares at Martin with wide, wild eyes.

“…It’s been watching me all night,” says Martin, and winces as he watches Jon’s expression crumple. “Look, don’t– here.” He grabs his scarf off the back of his chair and stumbles over to the desk, shoves it towards Jon in a bundle. “You can cover it up or something, if you want. And… please don’t freak out, but– there’s one on your wrist, too.”

Jon stares at the scarf for a long, long moment, before laughing hollowly. When he reaches across the desk to take it, he uses the hand that was covering his neck, and that wide brown eye stares accusatorily back at Martin. He doesn’t put the scarf on – just sits there, holding it, fingers white-knuckled against the soft wool.

“I was doing so well,” he says, and he sounds exhausted. When he reaches for a drink again, it’s from the half-full glass of whiskey. “I was doing so well, keeping them covered…”

There’s a comment to be made about drinking on the job, and also about the ill-advisedness of whiskey at six in the morning, but Martin bites his tongue. “Maybe they want to be uncovered…?” he offers, and winces immediately. “Just. You know. Eyes, and all that. Maybe they want to be able to see.”

“They can see whether they’re covered or not,” mutters Jon, sourly. “They’re not– this,” he gestures to his neck, “is just another, another test, or some kind of sick game, I know it. It’s just–”

“How many are there?” blurts Martin, because Jon’s starting to spiral, and it’s the first thing that springs to mind. “–Oh, god, you. You don’t have to answer that, just forget I asked, really. Really.”

Jon hesitates, before standing up abruptly enough that his chair screeches against the floor. “Oh, damn it,” he mutters, setting the scarf down on the desk and knocking back the rest of the whiskey. He pulls a face at the burn of it, but his hands are already fumbling with the hem of his jumper, tugging it off over his head and immediately going for the buttons on his shirt. “Damn it all–”

His hands are shaking badly enough Martin almost wants to help, but the situation is weird enough already without offering to help his boss strip, so he… doesn’t. Instead, he just stands there, awkwardly, as Jon fights to get the buttons on his shirt open.

When he finally manages it, Martin can’t quite hold back a sharp, panicked intake of breath.

“There’s more lower down,” says Jon, quiet misery in his wrecked voice. “And on my back. And my arms, and– I don’t know how many. I… I haven’t counted. Maybe– a hundred? More?”

The dozens of eyes across his torso don’t blink, but they do shift, pupils contracting in the sudden light and darting around for something to focus on. They’re different sizes, shapes, colours, peppered across his skin and overlapping with his many scars as though competing for space.

Jon prods at a red-rimmed, newish-looking one on his stomach, scowling, and hisses out a breath of pain at the unpleasant, yielding contact between eyeball and finger. It blinks in retaliation, and somehow manages to look annoyed.

For a strange, nauseating second, Martin isn’t sure whether he wants to run, or to step closer, to fit his hands against the curve of Jon’s too-prominent ribs and feel the soft brush of eyelashes against his palms. In the end, thankfully, he does neither – just stands there, dumb, staring, as Jon reaches for his shirt buttons and starts to dress himself once more.

“You– you should sleep,” he offers, unsteadily, as Jon tugs his jumper back over his head. “I can go set up the bed, if you like. You know, where I slept, when…”

Jon finishes wrestling the jumper into submission, and collapses back into his chair, sighing. “I… yes. I suppose I should,” he says, and the slur is stronger now, without the anger and panic to camouflage it. The trembling, never quite banished from the line of his shoulders, is coming back stronger again. “Sleep would be– nice.”

There’s something bitter in the way he says it, almost sarcastic, but Martin’s too tired to call him up on it. “Okay,” he says, instead. “Okay, I’ll go, um, I’ll go set up the bed then. You just wait here, and, and maybe… drink some of the tea? Might help your throat. Definitely no more whiskey, though, please.”

Jon huffs out something that might almost be a laugh, though it sounds raw and rasping. “No more whiskey tonight– this morning,” he agrees, groping across the desk for the by now rather cold mug tea. “The pain’s fading now, anyway, I’ll be fine.” The words seem to slip out of him, an admission of vulnerability he’s too hurting and exhausted to hold them back. “…Thank you, Martin.”

The hand not currently curled around the mug of tea has found the wool of Martin’s scarf again, fingers curled absently into the softness of it. Martin’s not sure if he’s getting that back. He’s not sure he minds, either.

“It’s no problem. Really!” he says, with a small smile – and, despite the night full of confusion, and worry, and far too much oversteeped tea, he means it. He means it with all his heart. “You’re– you’re welcome.”

[randomaliha]

What your life might sound like.

Coda to 2x03. Rinch. Flufffffff because I had to. Read on AO3

  John has a beer. Harold orders a Dewar’s scotch and presses his fingers against the cool glass.

‘You know, there’s nothing wrong with getting a little turned ‘round when something like this happens,’ John says quietly. He’s always quiet. Harold has never found a more restful sound than John’s voice.

‘Yes,’ Harold says, ‘well, I’m fine really.’

‘Sure you are,’ John says. ‘But if you weren't – if you were having trouble being around other people, or not sleeping…’

Harold drops his gaze from John’s steady face to watch the light play on his untouched drink.

‘I’m here with you, aren't I?’ he says.

He really doesn't know why he’s fighting this. It’s nonsensical. If it were John who had been kidnapped and tortured – well, he finds that doesn't bear thinking about very often, though he has contingency plans for just such an event. But if it were John – what would Harold do, afterwards?

‘You’re used to me,’ John points out, and if he were the type of man to shrug, he would be shrugging. He doesn't like to assume that he has Harold’s regard, Harold knows that. Always mentally shrugging away the possibility that Harold might care for him.

‘Not quite,’ Harold replies. He looks up. ‘But I’m safe with you.’

There’s something burning in John’s gaze that Harold doesn't know how to name.

‘You are,’ John says. His tone is final.

Next to the table, the dog whines softly, and John drops an easy hand to rub at its head. They’re sitting outside, in a courtyard out the back of a bar, some place Harold hadn't known. The girl at the bar had nodded at John like she knew him, and completely ignored the enormous animal pacing along at Harold’s side. It’s dim out here, just some party lights strung up along the back of the building and the light spilling out from inside. No one else is sitting out with them, which Harold thinks is just as well. The dog might scare them off.

It’s a pleasing thought, actually.

‘What on earth do you propose we do with this creature?’

‘Well, I thought we could keep him,’ John drawls. ‘Better than a security system, Finch.’

‘I’m not much of a dog person,’ Harold says uncertainly.

‘You weren't much of a military person.’ John spreads his hands as if to say, now look what you've got. As if those two things are remotely the same.

‘As you are quite fond of reminding me, Mr Reese, you were an international spy when we met, not a soldier. And I know a little something about spying.’

John takes a slow sip of his beer, pressing his lips together against the taste. Harold, for reasons he has yet to articulate to himself, finds John’s body language fascinating. Perhaps it’s the tension between control and impulse. John always seems so careful about his body, how he carries himself, what he conveys. Yet there must be times when he reacts before discipline can suppress the movement.

When Harold had given him a birthday present, John had smiled in surprise. It had made Harold feel greedy rather than magnanimous.

‘I won’t ever let her take you again,’ John says. It gives Harold a jolt; he clasps his glass tightly.

‘I certainly appreciate your coming to find me, Mr Reese. I’m not entirely sure how you managed it, but I am in your debt.’

‘Like I said – just returning the favour.’

Not really, Harold thinks. Harold sitting at his computer finding ways for John to extricate himself from danger isn't quite the same as John finding him, coming for him, despite all obstacles. Harold had trained the machine not to protect him, after all. He plans never to be a number on the end of a phone line. Yet John had come.

‘I did rather think I was going to die,’ Harold admits. He can’t look John in the face while he says it, so he looks at his hand around the glass, his white bandage appearing faintly blue in the low light.

‘I know,’ says John. He reaches over and touches that same hand, the bandaged one. The damaged one. His fingers are warm.

Harold stares at them, his field of focus narrowing down to that singular point of heat.

‘Finch? You okay?’

‘I’m – a little tired.’

Heat – warmth – that’s what he needs. A hot cup of tea. A hot shower. Sunlight. Something to stop the dreadful thoughts that keep crowding to the front of his mind.

John’s hand curls over Harold’s and gently pulls it away from the glass.

‘How ‘bout Bear and I walk you home?’

Harold smiles despite himself. ‘Very clever, Mr Reese.’ He looks up to see an answering smile, more in John’s eyes than on his lips.

‘Fine,’ John says. ‘You can walk me home. But you’ll have to take the dog.’

An idea occurs to Harold that he doesn't stop to examine.

‘I wonder if there might be a third option. One of our safe houses is nearby, if I’m not mistaken, and they accept dogs. Well, they do now.’

‘Let me guess: you own the building?’

‘It seemed safer.’

John appears to consider it. ‘We might have to stop and pick up some dog food on the way.’

‘You know, there are forms of security that don’t have mouths to feed, Mr Reese.’

‘But will any of them eat your assailant? I call that a bonus.’

They stand up from the table and Harold grips the leash tightly. Bear, he thinks. John had named a dog after a wild animal famed for protecting its family, and then promptly presented it to Harold.

‘I do hope kibble will suffice,’ he says to the dog, who looks enthusiastic about leaving.

‘There’s a bodega down on the corner,’ John says. ‘I’ll run down and grab some after we get settled.’

It sounds distressingly domestic. Harold tries not to think about it as he walks alongside John, ungainly where John is fluid and strong. John is everything Harold is not, although they seem to share some common values. Some common feelings, perhaps.

‘I’m not bad at pancakes,’ John says into the night air.

‘Do they teach culinary skills at the CIA?’

‘Only if it involves poison,’ John says comfortably.

‘I’d think I’d rather not know, Mr Reese.’

They walk in easy silence for a way, until they reach the door to the apartment building. As John reaches for the elevator button Harold’s heart starts thumping.

Oh, dear, he thinks. He refused to examine the idea but it was there anyway, and he knows it. His body knows it.

‘Alright, Finch?’ John asks as they ride the elevator to the top floor.

‘Fine, thank you, Mr Reese,’ Harold replies.

John unlocks the door and swiftly checks the apartment. ‘All clear,’ he says. ‘I won’t be long.’

Harold lets Bear off the leash and seeks out what he knows: one of his laptops stands ready on the long dining table.

He taps away at the keys, checking emails and security systems and working on various smaller projects until the door opens again and John is back with several bags. Harold’s heart, which had slowed to a dull thudding, kicks up again.

‘Found some kibble,’ John says, carrying the bags into the kitchen. ‘And some flour.’

‘Flour?’ Harold asks, twisting around to look to the kitchen doorway.

‘Pancakes,’ says John’s voice.

‘Oh,’ says Harold.

Pancakes. Breakfast.

He stares at the screen but the words have stopped making sense. He’s too tired to code. No, he’s too distracted.

Breakfast.

Hot tea, Harold’s treacherous mind supplies. Hot pancakes. Sunlight. John.

He shuts the laptop with a small snap. What he needs is a shower.

He takes a long time in the shower, trying not to think of anything at all. Then he dresses carefully in his suit, layering himself in trousers, dress shirt, tie, and waistcoat. When he returns to the living room John is sitting in an armchair, staring into the fireplace.

Harold pauses, formulating his excuse for sitting down at the table again to work. ‘You look tired, Mr Reese,’ he begins, and stops when John rolls up out of the chair and walks over to him. John hasn't looked at him, doesn't look until he gets right up close and then he locks eyes with Harold as he curls a hand around the back of Harold’s neck.

‘Tell me if this isn't what you want,’ he says, and slowly leans in to press his mouth against Harold’s.

Harold jerks back after a second – two, three, four seconds – astonished at himself, unbalanced, but he’s clutching at John’s jacket with both hands.

‘It is,’ he says wonderingly, too startled to dissemble. ‘I’m afraid – it is. But John, you are under no obligation –‘

John’s already shaking his head, leaning in to cut Harold off with one kiss, and then another, as though he can’t help himself.

‘I don’t sleep with people out of obligation, Harold,’ he says, and Harold marvels to see a soft red blush suffuse the high line of his cheekbones. John is beautiful. What he might possibly want with Harold is a mystery, but it’s one that Harold doesn't want to consider right now.

He reaches up and presses a careful, grateful kiss to John’s mouth and John surges against him, taking more kisses and pressing Harold back into the hallway.

‘Bedroom,’ John says.

‘Which one?’ Harold says distractedly. The small glimpse of skin where John’s shirt is always unbuttoned has apparently caught his eye more than he knew: he badly wants to get his mouth on it.

‘Closest,’ mutters John, his face pressing into Harold’s neck. ‘This one, here.’

They collide with the doorframe.

‘Sorry,’ says John.

‘I hate this jacket,’ Harold replies, tugging at John’s suit. ‘For the love of god, remove it at once.’

John steps back and grins, and Harold stares at him wide-eyed. Now that’s a smile Harold has never seen on John before. It’s positively wicked.

Harold sinks down to sit on the bed and watches as John slips off the jacket and throws it behind him.

‘Oh, my,’ Harold says faintly.

John shucks his shoes and socks with the same cavalier disregard for tailoring, and stands there in his shirtsleeves and bare feet.

‘You going to keep up, Harold, or do you want to watch?’

There are so many things that Harold wants right now that they meld together into one amorphous, urgent need. He begins unbuttoning his waistcoat, his eyes watching as John tracks the movement of his fingers.

‘Here,’ John says, and goes to his knees in front of Harold. John’s so tall that they’re not that far apart, even like this. Especially not if Harold leans a little. He steals a kiss, cupping John’s face with an unexpected rush of fondness. John lets him – John, in fact, seems to be soaking in the affection, like he’s been starving for it – and takes over the unbuttoning of Harold’s waistcoat. When it’s open and pushed back off Harold’s shoulders John starts on his tie, and then his shirt buttons.

Harold knows a moment of self-consciousness as his shirt gets pushed back as well.

‘I’m afraid I’m not much to look at,’ he says.

‘You’re just right,’ John replies firmly, and Harold gives up on his usual impulses to shield himself and keep people at arm’s length. He wants all of John pressed against him, John’s warmth and John’s strength, wants John’s weight holding him down, an anchor in a safe harbour.

John is unguarded and gentle, and so warm against him in bed. Later, Harold falls asleep with John curled around him, wondering how he will ever be able to sleep alone now.

He wakes to noise, some sort of clatter, and his heart skips in momentary terror. Root, he thinks, imagining he’s back in Maryland with Denton Weeks strung up and dying. But he opens his eyes and sees morning light streaming in through the window, falling on an armoire he’d bought at a silent auction last month. Oh, thank god.

He’s in the safe house. And – he hears another clatter and the soft burr of a voice he knows terribly well – John is here.

In fact, John is making breakfast. John is potentially making pancakes.

For a moment Harold isn't sure if he should be horrified or terribly, unreasonably happy; John is here and they’re both safe – and they slept together. The previous night comes back to him in violent, arresting memory, and for a moment all he can think of is the smooth warmth of John’s skin under his fingers, like fine marble under a hot sun.

He should be horrified. He is horrified, or at least concerned: he feels exposed, and reckless, and not a little embarrassed. But when he rises and washes up in the bathroom, dressing slowly back into trousers and shirtsleeves, he also feels as though an incredible weight has been drained from his body. Inside he is all lightness and quiet.

‘Good morning,’ he says when he emerges into the kitchen.

John is wearing his white t-shirt, a tea towel slung over one broad shoulder, and his hair looks delightfully tussled. Harold feels inordinately pleased at the sight.

‘Morning, Finch,’ John replies. ‘You’re just in time for breakfast.’

‘Excellent,’ says Harold. He pauses. ‘I wanted to thank you, John.’

‘No need,’ John says, and turns away to the cupboards, fetching down two plates.

‘Not for –‘ Harold senses he’s made a misstep. ‘I wanted to thank you for the drink,’ he qualifies. ‘And perhaps for not making me drink beer.’

‘You’re welcome.’ John’s tone is warm; he glances at Harold over his shoulder.

Harold can’t help the smile that curves his mouth.

‘So. Pancakes, Mr Reese?’ he asks.

‘Hope you like ‘em,’ John says, indicating a tall pile. ‘Maple syrup’s on the table, if that’s your thing.’

‘I have no idea,’ Harold admits. He hasn't had pancakes since he was a child. ‘Perhaps butter.’

‘Butter’s good,’ John agrees.

Harold sits at the table and tries his best not to look like a newly-deflowered teenager on his first morning-after. He spots Bear lying on the rug, gnawing on something that looks suspiciously like a pet toy. ‘So where did you learn to make pancakes? I assume it was not, in fact, the CIA.’

John lays the plates on the table, each of them stacked with layers of golden pancakes. Steam rises from them and curls into the morning light. ‘Used to make them for my dad when he was home.’

‘As a child?’

‘He was military. Career Army,’ John says. ‘Wasn't home much. I helped out with the cooking.’

It’s as much as John has ever volunteered about his childhood.

Harold had done all the cooking, once his father became too ill. But he never produced anything particularly enjoyable. ‘I’m not much of a cook myself. Not enough coding involved,’ he admits.

John’s face softens, as though Harold has amused him. ‘Well, eat up,’ he says, efficiently carving into his stack.

Harold picks up a fork and copies John’s movements. The pancakes are better than he remembers and when he says so, after they've finished, John curls his long fingers around Harold’s jaw and kisses him by the sink while the water rushes softly from the tap. They break apart when the sink threatens to overflow but Harold doesn't care a whit – let the water run out and flood and carry everything away, he thinks.

John is here. He’ll be fine.

[retirementmillionaire]

Is the Credit Boom About to Become a Credit Bust?

Doc's note: The economy and stock market are still booming, but now the financial "tide" is rolling out... The Federal Reserve is now raising rates and unwinding its massive stimulus program for the first time in nearly a decade. Credit is tightening, slowly but surely.

According to my good friend and Stansberry Research founder Porter Stansberry, there's one major consequence of this that nobody ever talks about.

Today, I'm sharing a recent issue of the Stansberry Digest, where Porter shares the details of this consequence, why he's concerned about the credit markets, and what these problems mean for the stock market.

What's happening now could lead you to the single best opportunity you'll ever have to make a literal fortune in the markets. And Porter is showing his Stansberry's Credit Opportunities subscribers the absolute best and safest way to take advantage of this opportunity.

Click here to learn more.

*****

On April 27, just over two months ago, I (Porter) wrote a Friday Digest warning you about a growing threat to our current bull market...

There are serious problems in the underlying fundamentals of our equity and credit markets. Rising interest rates are going to expose these problems, accelerating the inevitable end to the current credit cycle and this bull market in stocks.

In today's Digest, I want to update you on the indicators I told you to watch and discuss what the deterioration of these indicators means. Ideally, you'll be able to see for yourself that these problems are getting worse. What you can't do is rely on the mainstream media to warn you about a credit-default cycle. They will tell you the exact opposite of what you should know – all the way down.

So... with apologies to those this offends... remember that there's no such thing as teaching, only learning. Let me show you why I'm concerned about the credit markets and what these problems inevitably mean for the stock market. Please... don't hesitate to ask me follow-up questions or to pose alternative narratives. The more involved you become in these ideas, the better they will serve you.

And if you don't understand everything immediately, don't worry. These topics are complex. Just keep reading. Keep asking questions. Keep thinking about what's happening. Even if you totally disagree with me, you will still learn something, I'm sure.

As you might recall, the gist of the problem is simple...

For almost a decade, artificially low interest rates allowed individuals, businesses, and governments around the world to vastly expand the use of debt financing.

It hardly matters now, but this wasn't a mistake. The global interest-rate manipulation of 2009-2017 was required to save the global financial system as trillions of dollars lent against real estate and real estate derivatives were headed into default.

Losses of this magnitude had to be "socialized" – financed through a currency devaluation – or else almost every bank in the developed world would have failed, leading to massive losses for depositors. Depositors, as politicians would remind you, vote. And when their deposits disappear, they riot.

Alas, in a world dominated by democratic governments, banks won't fail but currencies sure will. (Sadly, that punishes savers and excuses debtors... producing an economic system that rewards perfidy. Ain't the government grand!)

But like I said, the why hardly matters anymore.

The question everyone should be focusing on today is how this unprecedented interest-rate manipulation/global devaluation will impact the markets going forward. What are the unintended consequences going to be?

There will be consequences, that's certain. There's no free lunch.

Here's one consequence nobody ever talks about...

There's been a massive decrease in the purchasing power of major paper currencies. Over the past 10 years, gold has risen about 50% from around $800 an ounce to more than $1,200. The value of gold didn't change a whit. It was the purchasing power of the dollar that fell.

The impact of this devaluation has been muted by rising productivity (thanks to technology), a massive increase in American oil production, and a generally weak global economy. But... there's no question that the collapse in real wages has led to a shift in politics around the world and a huge increase in the wealth gap between asset owners and labor.

What's another very important consequence? Let me explain it this way...

My family lost a beloved black Lab (Ringo) late last year. We got a new puppy (Hank) early this year. If you've ever fed a black Lab dog food, then you'll know exactly what happens when you tell businesses, consumers, and governments that they can borrow virtually as much money as they want for almost nothing. It's like an explosion in the dog bowl. Kibble goes everywhere. And it's hard to believe Hank doesn't choke himself to death trying to eat that fast. Well, the same has been true with credit issuance. It's been an explosion. Kibble has landed everywhere.

In America, federal debt more than doubled. Corporate debt soared to levels never seen before. U.S. non-financial corporations now hold a higher percentage of debt to GDP than ever before (over 45%!). We've seen five straight years of higher and higher levels of consumer debt (to over $13 trillion), far outpacing the total amount that led to the crisis in 2008.

And there's no sign these dogs are satisfied yet.

They're still gulping and slurping and throwing it everywhere. In fact, you'll never guess what's leading consumer debt higher now, at this stage in the cycle. You'll never, ever guess... mortgages... specifically, a new type of Fannie and Freddie mortgage product. It's called "The Conventional 97." It only requires a 3% down payment.

What's "conventional" about this kind of loan? Nothing, of course. No private lender would ever make a loan like this where the lender is taking all of the risk.

Who would make a loan like this? The government, of course. Our core economic policies are so incredibly harebrained that I can't make up a more ludicrous story. But this isn't a joke. It's actually happening. Mortgage balances are soaring. And, of course, home prices are too, far outstripping wage gains. You know what will happen next. Talk about "Groundhog Day."

The hard part about this kind of macroeconomic research/strategy is timing.

It's woefully difficult to know when a credit boom will become a credit bust. You should know that I thought the cycle was turning back in the fall of 2015. Interest rates couldn't get any lower... or so I thought. Then many sovereign rates went below zero! And the boom continued.

So... what's different this time? One critical thing.

The world's leading central bank – our Federal Reserve – is now raising interest rates. The most important interest rate in the world is the U.S. 10-year Treasury note. This is the most fundamental cost of credit, globally. This is the "benchmark" U.S. interest rate, and it is the price against which all other interest rates are measured.

In mid-2016, the yield of the U.S. 10-year hit an all-time low of 1.38%. It has since doubled, reaching more than 3%. (It now sits at about 2.8%.) A 10-year U.S. Treasury yield above 3% gives savers a "risk free" way to earn a reasonable return. For now, it beats inflation. This kind of safe, liquid "home base" for global capital hasn't existed in about a decade. And that's what's putting so much pressure on credit markets and foreign currencies around the world. A lot of capital would rather be safe than sorry.

So... you'll remember I told you to it's time to watch a few specific corporate credits.

Three of the worst, highly indebted companies that can't afford their interest obligations include fixed line telecoms operator Frontier Communications (FTR), mobile telecom Sprint (S), and car rental company Hertz Global (HTZ). These stocks have all tanked. Since April 27, Frontier is down 41%. Hertz is down 30%. And Sprint is down 17%.

Frontier's stock chart looks like a major breakdown... like it's heading to zero, directly. Lot of money is at risk here: The company carries more than $17 billion in net debt. What's surprising is that the company's bonds (the Frontier 10.5% bond due in 2022) slipped below par ($100) in May last year and traded down to about $75 at the end of 2017. The bond market seemed to finally "get it." But since then, the bond is up more than 20% so far this year and is trading around the $90s today. That makes no sense. Are bond traders asleep at the wheel?

I've seen more and more of this lately.

Bond investors seem to be far too complacent today. We saw this last year with now-bankrupt toy retailer Toys "R" Us. Its October 2018 bond traded around par as late as last August before collapsing 80% to around $20 in a matter of two weeks. Bonds don't normally go from over par to less than $90 in a day or two. They don't normally go from above par to being in liquidation in less than a year. But that's happening more and more often. Why?

In the case of some corporate bonds, they're limited to institutional buyers and only a few trade each day. If you're going to use bond prices as a barometer of a company's health, you should make sure they're actively traded bonds. If not, you're probably buying a bond that simply doesn't have many people watching it closely, or the bond's owners don't have the liquidity to sell effectively.

Either way, the bond price you're thinking is reliable probably isn't. In general, bond market liquidity is way, way down since 10 years ago. That's changed the reliability of these prices.

I also told you to watch the big U.S. corporate high-yield bond funds.

The two major ones are the iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond Fund (HYG) and the SPDR Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Bond Fund (JNK). Both are down fractionally, so far.

As I said, the bond market, as a whole, has been slow to react to problems in this cycle, because it doesn't have nearly as much liquidity today. That's going to cause a big problem if investors all try to exit these funds at the same time (which, of course, they will).

Finally... the advanced part of this discussion...

If the idea of a "spread" between interest rates confuses the heck out of you, don't worry. It takes most people a long time to understand this concept.

I'll try to make it as easy as I can for you to understand. Safe bonds, like U.S. Treasury securities, set a floor for interest rates. They're the safest bonds in the market, so they offer the least amount of yield for investors. You can measure how much risk is being priced into corporate bonds by comparing their yields with the government-bond yields. The difference is known as the "risk spread."

If I'm right and we're at the beginning of a big default cycle, we should see the risk spread growing as investors begin to demand more and more yield for the risk of holding corporate bonds instead of sovereign bonds.

Since early 2016, this measure of risk in the corporate bond market had been declining, from a spread of about 550 basis points (5.5%) to around 200 basis points (2%).

That is, holding a basket of high-yield corporate bonds was paying investors 2% more annually than holding U.S. Treasury securities with matching maturities.

To put it in even plainer terms... in exchange for holding corporate high-yield debt, instead of U.S. Treasury securities, investors were only demanding $20 a year more per $1,000 bond. At some point soon, the fact that investors were demanding so little premium to hold riskier bonds will be viewed as one of the most important signs of how far this credit bubble grew.

It is nuts to believe that a $20 annual premium is nearly enough compensation for the added risk of a high-yield bond compared with a U.S. Treasury.

The risk spread in the bond market has been growing since I wrote this warning in April. For the first time since January 2016, the spread seems to have broken an important technical barrier. It has "broken out" to a new high point on the chart. That could be an important signal of a trend change in corporate interest rates. The spread is currently greater than 250 basis points (2.5%). That's roughly a 25% increase off the lows.

I will start to get more interested in buying carefully selected high-yield corporate bonds (trading at a wide discount from par) when the risk spread goes over 500 basis points.

When that happens, you will be able to find bonds trading with 10% annual yields and total returns at maturity in excess of 15% annually. But... until then... I expect most high-yield bonds to be bad investments, on average. Likewise, you should strictly avoid owning any highly indebted stock, especially if it cannot currently afford its interest service.

I will continue to follow these trends and report on them as necessary in my newsletter, Stansberry's Credit Opportunities, which follows the corporate bond market closely and recommends distressed credits we believe won't default.

But you don't have to wait for the crisis to start profiting...

My Stansberry's Credit Opportunities subscribers have already seen impressive returns.

Since launching this publication in November 2015, my team and I have made 24 actionable recommendations of discounted or "penny" bonds. We've closed 15 of these positions so far for an average annualized gain of 33%. These returns trounced the 17% annualized returns you would have earned if you invested in the U.S. stock market instead.  Yet we did it in the "boring" bond market... taking far less risk than buying stocks.

And all this before the biggest and best opportunities in the bond market have even arrived.

We just released a brand-new presentation where my team shares everything you need to know about these opportunities. Watch it – and learn how to get two free years of Stansberry's Credit Opportunities – right here.

Regards,

Porter Stansberry

July 5, 2018