Title: Fealty
Fandom: Person of Interest
Pairing: Harold Finch/John Reese
Categories: Action/Adventure, First Time, Drama, Canon Divergence
Length: Medium (9567 words)
Warnings: Kidnapping, Dominance and Submission, Violence

Author on LJ: astolat
Author AO3: astolat

Author's Summary: "The only promise I will make you is that having found you, I will go to almost any lengths you care to name to keep you."

Review:
Floating out on the internet is a piece of official artwork that illustrates astolat's vision of the Harold Finch/John Reese relationship in a single image. In it, Finch is in profile, looking out of the frame, his body angled toward the object of his focus. He is also slightly angled toward Reese, whose body is turned in the same outward-facing direction, but whose face and eyes are undeniably trained on Finch. In all things, Finch is the center of Reese's world. Finch gave him a purpose, his chance at redemption, saved his life on multiple occasions, buys him lots of nice things, and gives him lots of orders.

Fealty, and the canonical events that lead up to it, are what happens when Reese decides to go against Finch's orders, a divergent ending to a multi-episode story arc. Long story short, Reese disobeys Finch's direct order, gets himself in trouble, is gotten out of trouble by Finch, gets himself back in trouble, then is kidnapped from that trouble by a familiar face from his past. Fealty opens with that very kidnapping and follows Finch and his sidekick Fusco as they work together to, once again, fish Reese out of the trouble he's landed himself in.

But the real magic of this story isn't the action, but the evolving relationship between the two men as Finch eavesdrops on the startlingly perceptive observations of Reese's kidnapper on the subject of Reese's feelings toward Finch. Because though Reese and Finch are both turned toward their shared purpose, Reese's eyes and heart always look toward Finch, who at all times has remained focused on their mission. Fealty is the story of Finch looking back.

Fealty