godsdaisiechain.livejournal.com

Title: As in all things
Fandom: Person of Interest
Pairing: Carl/Anthony
Rating: PG
Length: 1200 words
Summary:  Carl Elias and Anthony Marconi discuss putting a baby into a freezer.

Set across Carl's arrest and rescue (late Season 2 into early Season 3).

Their crew was built around humble, reasonable men and women. Quietly menacing.  People who could do their jobs without calling too much attention to themselves. And many of them, from enforcers to dealers, had a day job.  Something legitimate.  Nothing flashy.  Anyone who spent too lavishly was spoken to, quietly and calmly. Anyone too violent or too haphazard turned up in a hospital or worse.

They had built the crew slowly, choosing people who could be trusted.  Earning their trust. Being men who could be trusted to take care of their own. To keep order. To follow a code.

And everything was organized. Cool. Methodical.  Reasonable. The streets they colonized, painstakingly and one by one, were safe.  Collected.  And even when profits went up, Elias never asked for more money.  This endeared him to people who were used to struggling under the more arbitrary rule of the Five Families and their enforcers. Or the Russians who, at best, were unpredictable.

Killing was a necessary evil.  Torture more evil and thankfully less necessary. But babies had generally been off limits when they had been able to keep to the shadows.

“Put them in the freezer,” Carl said. Anthony’s heart sank. He didn’t like the idea of killing a baby, but Carl had talked through all of his thinking.  Anthony knew what to do, when to open the freezer and take the baby out to keep from killing it. Probably.  “John won’t let us kill her,” Carl insisted, squeezing Anthony’s arm.

“Can’t we just shoot him, boss?”

“Not him,” said Carl. Something about John reminded Carl of Anthony, how he had been when they first met. That broken, violent heart longing for relief, perhaps.

“Ok boss,” said Anthony.  Carl could hear the disapproval in his voice, but they had never kept score, not since the day that Anthony insisted that Carl become the boss.  Carl knew there would be time to explain.

But they didn't have a moment alone until late that night.  “I’m sorry Anthony,” Carl said. Anthony shrugged. They had promised, as very young men, that they would never part angry, and they had always kept that promise.

“You don’t need to apologize to me, boss,” said Anthony.

“This time, I do,” said Carl.  “You’re upset. It hurts my heart when you’re upset.”

Anthony cupped Carl’s face in his hands and kissed him. “That’s why you don’t need to. You got a lot to do. We can talk another time.”  Anthony kissed him again, then hugged him.  “I love you,” Anthony murmured into his ear.

When he got arrested, Carl was glad that “I love you, too,” was the last thing he’d said to Anthony.

***
Months later, Anthony lay in a bed in one of their safe houses, wrapped in bandages and half sick on painkillers after an awful journey in the trunk of a car.  The door opened and at first Anthony thought he was hallucinating. Then those beloved lips pressed against his forehead. “Oh. My word, Beloved.  What have they done to you, my Bello?”

“Boss?”

Carl took his hand, smoothed his hair.  “It’s been an interesting night and day, Anthony. Detective Carter busted me out of prisoner transfer.”

Carter looked over Carl’s shoulder.  “My god, he looks terrible. You two stay here. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“You’re still under seven hundred,” said Anthony. The number of days he and Carl had been separated since they first met.

Carl stroked the hair away from Anthony’s face.  “By a little,” said Carl. “Go back to sleep, Bello.  I’ll stay by you.” Anthony smiled and let his eyes flutter shut.

When Anthony woke again, pain raging through his body, Carl sat at a table full of papers, catching up on business before Carter figured out what he was doing.  Carl sent the guys out, gathered the paperwork into the box of chess pieces, set up the board and went to Anthony’s side.  “Anthony. Who did this to you?”   Anthony shrugged, then moaned.

Carl got up, moved to the door, but Anthony shook his head and flexed his hand. “No. Read to me, boss?” he asked. “I missed you.”  So Carl took Anthony’s hand and read to him about the battle of Thermopylae pass, where the three hundred died holding off the hordes of Xerxes, but saved their home and people.  At the end, Anthony squeezed Carl’s hand.  “That would be a good way to go out,” he said.  They had always said that.  They looked at each other for a long moment.  Their lives had been increasingly treacherous since more people had discovered who they were.

“Morior invictus,” said Carl.

“Morior invictus,” said Anthony.

“I want to get you some painkillers,” said Carl, but Anthony shook his head and held onto him.

“Please, boss,” said Anthony.  A commotion at the door revealed Detective Carter.  Anthony and Carl both smiled when she stared down Joey.

Carl went to her. “You shouldn't have moved him.”

“He was in danger,” Carl said. “Did you get the pills?  He won’t take narcotics.”

“These won’t knock him out,” said Carter, pressing a bottle into his hand. “You both stay out of sight.”

“Thank you, again, Detective,” said Carl. “It’s a funny old world, Anthony,” said Carl, tucking an arm around his friend. “Take these. I’ll get you some more pillows.”

“Thanks, boss,” said Anthony.

“It looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while.  What would you like to do?” Anthony titled his head toward the chess board.  Carl kissed him and brought a tray to set up the pieces where he could see.

“I missed this, boss.” Carl opened. Anthony quirked an eyebrow.

Carl smiled a warm smile.  “Wait until I show you what else he did, Bello.”  Carl walked Anthony through a game he’d played with Harold, and Anthony watched, smiling gently.

“Boss?” Anthony asked, and Carl saw his agony of spirit. They’d never spoken about the baby.  “We never… I felt bad. It’s an evil thing.  A baby.”

Carl took his hand. “It was an evil thing. A brutal thing. Like ancient times. But we’d be monsters if we didn't feel bad.” Anthony nodded. “How did they look?”  He meant his father and half brother, blown up in a car while Anthony looked on.

“Sad. Clueless,” said Anthony. Carl would know which was which.

Carl nodded. “We don’t choose our fathers.” Anthony blinked, and squeezed Carl’s hand.

“I wished you wouldn’t have to…” said Anthony.  Carl went very still as he realized that Anthony’s worry over the baby had been about him, about what that evil would do to Carl’s soul. That in that, as in all things, Anthony had put Carl first. That this was the reason Anthony didn’t need an apology. “I’m glad I... glad you’ll never know.” Anthony had killed his own father, and then saved Carl from the harm such an act could do to the killer. Saved Carl yet again.

Carl’s heart swelled with love and gratitude and pride.  He put away the chess board and smoothed Anthony’s hair away from his face, and kissed him. He tried to pull back, but a small noise of objection held him in place until Anthony was satisfied that they had kissed for long enough.

“Tired?”  Anthony nodded. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”  When Carl was young, his mother would soothe him to sleep by rubbing the place between his eyebrows. He did this now for Anthony, then went back to the business of organized crime.