Title: Of Crime and Passion
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: John Reese/Jordan Hester
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely John Reese or Jordan Hester, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

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John took the stairs two at a time, wishing that the elevator hadn't been full of people. He wanted to get to Jordan as fast as he could; taking the stairs was far too slow, but he hadn't wanted to stand and wait for the next elevator and make polite conversation.

If he'd had to do that, he was sure that he would have said something along the lines of "I'm here to see my boyfriend, who I intend to make love to until he's gasping for breath." He didn't think that any of Jordan's neighbors would want to know about that.

He slowed his steps as he started up the next flight; he didn't want to arrive at Jordan's door tousled and breathless. He didn't want his boyfriend to know that he'd been so eager to get to him that he'd literally raced up seven flights of stairs to be at his door.

Jordan already knew how deeply his feelings went -- didn't he? His passion for Jordan hadn't abated at all since the first night they'd been together -- if anything, it had only increased. The nights that he went without seeing his lover seemed to last for an eternity.

When Jordan was in his arms, all was right with the world. The passion he felt for this man eclipsed any emotion he'd ever felt for anyone else; he'd had no idea that he could love so fiercely until the first time he'd held Jordan and been inside him.

That was why he'd been spending the last few nights searching for the men who had attacked Jordan; he couldn't let that incident slip by without letting it be known that he was going after them. The note he'd been left had been a warning, one that he wasn't going to take lightly.

There had only been one sentence written there; the words had burned into his brain as though they were tattooed onto the canvas of his mind. Do not mix crime and passion. John had a good idea what those words were supposed to mean.

It was clearly a threat to Jordan. He was being told to cease and desist with what he did -- or risk having the man he loved hurt or killed. Whoever had broken into Jordan's apartment was telling him, in a very oblique way, that his lover was lucky to still be alive.

He hadn't shown Jordan that note, and he hoped that his boyfriend had forgotten about it. Jordan had already been through a horrifying experience; he didn't want his lover to know just how close he might have come to losing his life in the process.

But he couldn't keep things like that from Jordan forever; he was going to either have to track down the men who had attacked his boyfriend and make sure that they were either dead or kept behind bars, or he would have to find some foolproof way of keeping Jordan safe.

There was no way he could do that, and he knew it. As much as he wanted to protect Jordan, he couldn't be with his boyfriend every second of every day -- and Jordan wouldn't want him to be. He was an independent man who wanted to live his own life.

When Jordan had been faced with identity theft, he had taken matters into his own hands and tried to become the person that everyone thought he was. He hadn't been good at being one of the bad guys, but at least he'd had the balls to try it, John thought with a wry smile.

Maybe whoever had written that note was right. Maybe he couldn't have a personal life and do what he did. It was putting the man he loved in too much danger, and he had no right to expect Jordan to look over his shoulder every minute of every day.

He was asking too much of his lover. Jordan deserved to have a good life, a life where he wasn't always feeling as though he had to hide from a danger that could come after him at any moment. He would never be able to have that kind of life if he stayed with John.

Still, he was far too selfish to give Jordan up. He'd already admitted that to himself. And he was just cocky enough to believe that he could find whoever was threatening his lover, and keep him safe. After all, that was what he did for a living, wasn't it?

He would be a poor protector indeed if he could manage to help other people, yet couldn't keep his own boyfriend safe. He would have to step up his game when it came to finding whoever had attacked his lover. He would find them -- and he would make them pay.

Mixing what he and Harold did with trying to have a stable, steady relationship probably wasn't the best idea in the world -- he had to admit to the truth of that. But if it wasn't for his profession -- if he could call it that -- he would never have met Jordan.

They had been brought together through what he did for a living. He couldn't regret what he did -- and he couldn't turn his back on it. He and Harold helped a lot of people, and in a way, that helped him to atone for some of the things that he'd done in the past.

Jordan seemed to understand that he had made a commitment to his job; his boyfriend understood that he wanted to continue helping those who needed that help, just as John had done for him. And he also wanted their relationship to continue, in spite of the potential danger.

John didn't want to drag his lover into the life he led to the point where there was no way for Jordan to get out. He didn't want to let his passion for the other man place Jordan in an untenable position where he would have to make a choice between being with John -- or being alive.

He wasn't going to leave Jordan simply because of one threatening note -- or even because of the attack on his boyfriend. He might be selfish in that regard, but he wasn't going to let Jordan go without a fight -- and he knew that his lover wouldn't want him to.

Jordan was everything to him. Jordan was his safe harbor, the safe, quiet place where he could go when what he did in the name of helping others all became too much for him. With Jordan, he could relax and let his guard down; he could reach out for the life he wanted.

One day, he would have that life. He and Jordan would be able to be together with no fears for their safety; he wouldn't have to worry about his boyfriend, and neither of them would have to look over their shoulders and watch for danger around every corner.

His passion for Jordan would never abate, any more than his passion for justice would. That warning note about mixing crime and passion might give him pause, but he knew that in the long run, he would continue on as he was now.

He wouldn't give either of them up -- Jordan or his job. They were disparate parts of his life, but he had thus far been able to keep them separate. At least, he thought that he had -- until the attack on Jordan, and that warning note.

Someone out there knew that he and Jordan had met through his job. Someone who could prove to be very dangerous to them both. They were treading water, marking time, just waiting for that person to come out of the woodwork again.

John's steps slowed as he started up the last tier of steps to the floor that Jordan lived on. How much longer could they keep this up? Sooner or later, the men who had attacked Jordan would do the same thing again -- and John didn't have a clue as to who they were.

Somehow, he had to find those men and ascertain what they wanted from him before they had a chance to get near Jordan again. It would be far too easy for them to catch his boyfriend unawares -- and John had no doubt that next time, Jordan might come to some harm.

No, he told himself firmly, his lips thinning into a straight line. He wasn't going to let that happen. Even if he had to convince Jordan to leave his apartment for a while and go into hiding until he and Harold found these men, he wasn't going to let anyone hurt his lover.

Jordan was the center of his universe, the most important aspect of his life. The best way to hurt him would be to go after his boyfriend -- and these men seemed to know that. That warning about mixing crime and passion had been a direct reference to their relationship.

He had to keep those men from getting anywhere near Jordan again. Which would mean talking to his lover about what had happened, even though he hated to put Jordan through that. It hadn't been something that he wanted Jordan to have to relive.

But it was necessary to find out more about what those men had looked like, how they had sounded -- and to know if there was any way that Jordan could identify them. If he could, and if they realized it, then he was in even more danger than John had at first thought he was.

The thought made his blood run cold and made him move faster to the top of the stairs, pushing through the door that led to the hallway Jordan's apartment was located on. He needed to get to his boyfriend, to talk to him as soon as possible.

That note had been right, John thought as he stopped in front of Jordan's door and rang the doorbell. It wasn't a good idea to mix crime and passion -- and he should have known so from the start. But he had already done it -- and at this point, he wasn't prepared to turn back.

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