Anslo Garrick - Ask a Stupid Question

Ressler followed close at Reddington's heels as the man swept into his hotel suite with his usual peacocky stage presence.

"Lizzy, we have a visitor," he called out, not bothering to mask his annoyance. "Remind me to cut this damn chip out next time we want a little privacy."

Liz stepped out of the bathroom and spotted Ressler right away. She pulled the edges of her robe together, tied a bow in the belt—hasty but tight—then crossed her arms over her chest for good measure. If looks could kill, he would've been dead and buried the second she made eye contact with him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded.

Ressler rolled his eyes. Nobody who'd been caught red-handed sleeping with their CI should have the audacity to seem so indignant about it. Because that was obviously what was going on here—Liz and Reddington were sleeping together. They could try to pass it off as something innocent all the wanted, but he wasn't having any of it.

"I could ask you the same question," he said.

"Yeah? Can you? You come all the way to Germany to do that?" she asked, brow raised in a challenge. "I'm doing him, obviously." She nodded towards Reddington, who'd taken a seat on the sofa and was watching the two of them with an amused expression on his face.

Ressler blanched. So much for them trying to do anything to deny their indiscretions. Liz smirked at him.

"Ask a stupid question…" she said, trailing off with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders and Ressler cringed internally. She might have been fully covered, but she was still wearing much less than he had ever seen her wear; keeping his eyes firmly focused on her face was easier said than done, so instead he tried not looking at her at all.

"Dear God, this is a nightmare."

"Oh, really? You think it's a nightmare?"

"For Christ's sake, I'm not the one who's done something wrong here! By rights, I should report you, Keen."

"Scott," she corrected automatically.

"Might as well be Reddington at this point," Ressler grumbled under his breath.

"I heard that. And you," she said, pointing an accusatory finger at Reddington, "you can just keep your damn mouth shut."

Reddington held up his hands in mock surrender. "I didn't say anything at all, Lizzy."

"Yeah, well, wipe that smug smile off your face then. And don't get any ideas."

Ressler's head spun trying to make sense of the chaos he'd been thrust into. When he stepped off the plane an hour ago, he thought his task would be relatively straightforward, if not a little intimidating. This, though, was nothing short of madness. His partner wasn't missing, she was carrying on an illicit love affair with the FBI's number four most wanted criminal and now it fell to him to sort it all out.

The woman in question tapped her bare foot on the plush carpet, growing more impatient with Ressler by the minute. He looked skyward for guidance and found nothing more helpful than a fancy ceiling. And… was that a mirror? He shuddered and searched around desperately for a neutral place to rest his eyes, which was not a simple task in the hotel suite. Evidence of the two of them was everywhere, from Reddington's fedora on the coffee table to Liz's sensible leather boots lined up neatly by the closet.

Ressler soon exhausted his limited options and his gaze inevitably fell to the bed. He looked away again quickly, but not before he noticed the neckties looped through the intricate carvings on the ornate headboard. A quick glance found that Liz's wrists were obviously unmarred; Reddington's, however, were circled with the faint, purple-red smudges of burgeoning bruises.

Instantly, Ressler was reminded of that day at the Post Office when Reddington had shown up covered with all the hallmarks of a rough night of passion and decided to tease Liz about how he'd gotten them. At the time, Ressler hadn't even considered the possibility that there was any truth to the teasing, but in hindsight, maybe her irritation should have been a red flag. Sometimes the truth was a more effective disguise than a lie ever could be.

Reddington himself really wasn't a surprise. Laurence Dechambou had him bent over various pieces of furniture, by his own admission. Surrendering himself to Liz, well… It wasn't a stretch. The man's predilections weren't exactly a secret. When it suited his purposes, he always surrendered so eagerly.

But Liz? Ressler had never pictured her as the type. Now that he had, however, he was having a difficult time not picturing it. In fact, he was forming much too vivid an image of their sex life than he had any interest in. He had no interest in knowing they had a sex life at all, but now that he knew, he couldn't exactly unknow it. And it put him in an awkward position to say the least.

Jesus. This is why he stuck to facts, instead of profiles. Facts weren't so… uncomfortable. Until, of course, they were.

"So," Liz said, "what's going on? And don't say you were in the neighborhood and decided to drop by."

"Agent Ressler tells me the FBI has received a threat against my assets, which he has obviously decided includes you, and when he couldn't contact you to assure your safety, he panicked and decided the most efficient course of action was to fly across the Atlantic and tell me about your apparent disappearance in person."

"That's not exactly the whole story."

"Oh? And what, pray tell, is the whole story? You've got us on tenterhooks, Donald."

Ressler shook his head. "God, what does it matter anymore? What am I supposed to do with… with this?" he said, throwing up his hands. It came out just short of a whine and he hated himself for it. Reddington always made him feel like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and now Liz was giving him a run for his money.

"You don't have to do anything with it. Tell them you reached me and everything's fine. No one else has to know about it. Hell, if you could pretend you didn't know, it'd be better for everyone involved."

"Come on, Liz, really? How am I supposed to just ignore this?"

"Why is it such a big deal to you? Who exactly is getting hurt by it, anyway?" Ressler raised an eyebrow, glanced at Reddington, and opened his mouth, but Liz cut him off. "Jesus, Ressler. Don't answer that. Haven't you ever heard of a rhetorical question?"

"Donald has never met a figure of speech he couldn't willfully misunderstand," said Reddington.

Liz let out a long-suffering sigh. "Look," she said, "The two of you figure out what the hell is going on without me. I'm tired, I'm sore, and I'm going to go take a shower."

"Oh my God."

"What?"

"You ever hear of over-sharing?"

"Oh, grow up," she said, and pushed the bathroom door shut behind her with more force than was strictly necessary.

Reddington regarded Ressler from his seat on the sofa with an air of false cheer, clearly enjoying his discomfort despite the still pressing issue of the threat against him. Ressler sat heavily in the armchair on the opposite side of the coffee table and ran a hand through his hair.

He couldn't remember a time he had felt more uneasy than he did at that moment. His partner was naked in the next room, something he normally wouldn't even give a second thought, bit in this context, he couldn't stop thinking about it. And, above all, he really wished Reddington would just button his goddamn shirt already.

"I can't believe this. I can't believe that Liz would fall for…"

"For what? For what, Donald?" Reddington asked. "If you think I would ever try to take advantage of—"

"No. I can't believe she would fall for someone like you."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the two men. Ressler knew he was pushing his luck and risking his health by saying these things to Reddington, but he truly couldn't help himself. "I thought she had more sense than that," he finished after a few tense moments, his voice hollow.

Every last ounce of amusement had drained from Reddington's face, his posture, and all that was left was grim resolve.

"Let me get this straight," he said, "You were willing to use what you perceived to be my feelings for Agent Scott against me in order to forcibly take me into protective custody, but now that you see those feelings are reciprocated, you suddenly have a problem with them? In what world does that make sense?"

"There are rules…"

"I'm sorry, are you really going to make that argument with me of all people?" Reddington asked, with a wry arch to his brow. "Agent Scott just lost her father. Her husband betrayed her, and it wasn't just garden variety adultery, either—he was an assassin, for God's sake. Are you going to begrudge her what little happiness she can hold onto now?"

"And you're trying to tell me you make her happy?"

"I do my best," he said, lifting his chin. "We can handle this, Donald. We've been handling this. It's not going to interfere with the work, I promise you that. Hell, the only thing that's changed is who goes home to whose bed at night."

"Just how long has this been going on?"

Reddington watched him silently, chewing a bit on the inside of his cheek. "It's probably better if you don't know the specifics."

What a classic Reddington misdirect that was, just vague enough to mean nothing at all. Or possibly everything.

"No, I get it, I see how it is. I always knew the two of you were trying to pull something on us from the beginning."

"Hey. That's not what I meant. She had nothing to do with my surrender."

"Bullshit. She had everything to do with your surrender."

"Fine. But she knew nothing about it ahead of time. And if you try to use this to cook up some excuse to pin some kind of conspiracy charge on her, my hand to God, it will be the last decision you ever make."

"Why do you care so much whether the FBI believes you were in cahoots or not?"

"Because after all she's overcome in her life to get where she is, she doesn't deserve to have that kind of black mark on her record. She may be associated with me now, but I won't have the blood, sweat, and tears she put into building her career tainted by the heinous notion that she got here because of me somehow, instead of by her own merit."

Ressler sat back in the armchair, more than a little bewildered. He thought of the man he studied, the man he tracked and pursued and followed to the ends of the earth and back. He knew his patterns and his preferences. He'd learned, since working with him, a little about his brand of morality, of loyalty. This was still… different.

"Good God. You really are in love with her."

Reddington stared at him blankly for a long, silent moment. "Does the FBI hire solely on the ability to state the obvious or is there some other job requirement I'm missing?"