“The men in that brawl saved my life. I will not, in any way, even accidentally, aid in their prosecution.” Nick’s passion surprised John.
Fisher tried another tack. “You don’t lay the groundwork now in criminal proceedings, it’ll be a lot tougher to prevail in your civil case against the city.”
Nick didn’t even blink. “I’m not suing.”
“The fuck?” Fisher stared at him, and so did John. “Listen, dude. There’s frivolous suits, and then there’s -- you. You’re the guy the phrase ‘multi-million-dollar settlement’ was invented for. This city deserves to get taken to the cleaners so hard they shit laundry detergent for the next decade.”
Nick grinned. “I agree. But we don’t always get what we deserve, and that cuts both ways.”
John had been trying to stay out of the way of Fisher’s questioning. But he couldn’t remain silent for this. “Nick, you need to sue. It’s fear of having to pay out lawsuits that changes policy.”
Nick shook his head. “Any day, I could wake up and be sent back to Sing Sing. Would you want to go back in as the guy suing a jail? In order for someone in law enforcement to like you, they have to feel safe around you. And let me tell you, they don’t feel safe around lawsuits.”
Fisher stood, his fists clenching and unclenching. He removed his glasses, put them on his head, then put them on again. “You telling me they’d abuse you too?”
“No,” said Nick, shaking his head and following Fisher’s movements with fascination. Then he looked at John, addressing him more than the other agent. “But it’s - not just a matter of how I’m treated. I- kind of cherish the affection and trust of those guys. It was hard to win, and it’s sincere. When you’re locked up at the mercy of other people, you’d be amazed how much it means, having them come to care about you.”
Fisher gave a defeated sigh. “Okay. But I’m still gonna fight for you. I hope that’s all right.”
Nick looked at Fisher with aching sadness. “I’m out, getting professional medical treatment, in the hands of people who care about me. I promise you -- guys who saved my life were beaten, abused, and are probably still being punished. I’m guessing you’re not fighting for them, because they’re violent men who ‘deserve’ it.”
Fisher sat heavily in the chair beside the bed, yanked off his glasses, and studied them.
“You’re right. They were abused, initially denied treatment, and several of the guys in that fight, including the one who tried to murder you, are in solitary. But I promise you I’ve talked to every man there, at length, I’m building a case against their abusers, and they are currently being treated fairly and humanely. Quite a few of ‘em have asked about you, and been relieved to hear we got you out.”
NICK
Nick looked directly at Fisher and swallowed hard. Weird guy. Had functioning alcoholic written all over him. Cold. Adopting the affectations of both academia and military to hold humanity at bay. But when he’d frightened Nick, Nick’s fear had terrified him.
“They’re charging me, aren’t they.”
Fisher’s uneasy glance away betrayed him. He knew it, and cleared his throat, speaking with reluctance. “There’s a lot of posturing going on. Charging you is ....one threat that’s been made.”
Nick wasn’t at all shocked, just a little sickened. This had been feeling like the beginning of the end ever since he’d crawled into Mari’s arms and sobbed. Since he’d fallen asleep nestled between the Langleys in comfort and love and safety.
The ability to do that had been one of those things that were so precious, they were beyond too good to be true. They were torturous illusions courtesy of a world that loved showing him how wonderful life could be, then smashing those wonders to bits.
Theo would be happy, at least. Theo, who always wanted to run. Who always, though he was reluctant to admit it, wanted Nick to himself.
Theo, who wouldn’t be able to comprehend just how much of Nick’s heart and soul were going to miss John and Mari and the FBI and New York. Who couldn’t understand that when one loved rarely, one treasured that love beyond all measure.
This was going to hurt.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Restraint, Part 1
NICK
Nick took the cat burglar. It was sentimental and it would slow him down, but he took it. And the framed photo of him and John from the living room. They were happy in it, and it was the sweet, playful version of John that he loved and wanted to remember.
He waited until John was in the bathroom, slipped downstairs, and through pouring rain into Theo’s waiting car. Before they entered the freeway system, he cut the anklet and threw it out the window.
And got cut off by what looked suspiciously like John’s car. It forced them to the side of the road, stopped, and John jumped out. They hadn’t been followed. They’d both been watching for a tail the whole time. What the ....
Nick was still staring as John yanked the passenger side door open. “Unbuckle your seat belt.”
John’s voice made him wince. This was the angry, powerful, downright scary FBI agent who took down world-renowned criminals and made them confess by looking across a table and telling them to. This was the John who had the physical strength and training to throw him around like a cat playing with a mouse.
He grabbed Nick by the back of his shirt collar, and dragged him out of the car into the rain. Nick staggered, dazed by the speed and force of it.
“Damn it, Nick! You’re a coward. You know what? You’re a damn coward.”
Nick was, indeed, cowering. Just a little. He hoped it was only a little, because if he were a dog, he’d have his tail tucked between his legs. “How did you --”
“Put a tracking chip in your shoe.” John shoved Nick away with an easy flick of his arm, and pulled out his handcuffs. “Wrists. Now.” His voice was thick and hard and cracking at the edges.
This was fury, and heartbreak, and betrayal, all the things he’d never, ever wanted to see on John’s face. John looked like he either wanted to beat Nick senseless or cry. Nick wanted to cringe into a corner and vanish.
He’d done it. There was no real response he could offer but hold out his wrists and let his best friend cuff him, and when John took his first step forward, Nick’s stomach flipped upside down and his legs went weak. He hadn’t known it was even possible to dread something this much. And he’d known some fairly serious dread.
So this was the end. Dragged off to jail by John, who was clearly furious with him. It had never been an unlikely outcome of this odd partnership, not the dragged off to jail part. But he’d always envisioned parting as friends, being able to hug his handler and thank him for the best years of his life.
Going back to prison was a bearable outcome he could make himself accept. Going back to prison without his friendship with John....
“I’ll always be your friend,” said Nick, hating the broken waver in his voice, hating himself. “If you can ever forgive me, I’ll be there waiting for you.”
John grabbed his right wrist and yanked him forward, moving in lightning-fast with the first cuff. John’s iron grip jerking his tender, cut and bruised wrist sent throbbing pain up his entire arm. The cold metal and sound of steel handcuffs made terror blank out all rationality. The images from Rikers flashed from memory to reality.
Nick howled in an unholy combination of pain and fear and kicked and wrenched away. His attacker had John’s face, and he’d just resisted arrest, and oh shit.
Nick pressed his body against the car, heart pounding, as far away from John as he could get. John hadn’t cuffed him, Nick realized a second later.
He’d let go.
He was standing with a stricken look on his face, horrified that he’d hurt Nick in anger.
It took all the will and self-control he had, but Nick managed to turn away from the car back towards the furious FBI agent and stand there, his hands shaking, his pulse audible in his ears, unable to look at John. Rain was soaking his shirt, and running
from his hair down his face.
JOHN
“Put out your hands. I have to do this.” As furious as he was, John couldn’t stop the heartbreak from choking his voice as he fumbled with the handcuffs.
Nick raised his chin, extended his wrists towards John, and looked away, eyes narrowed against a particularly nasty downpour. John’s hands were shaking too. He wanted to kill Nick. He wanted to throw him against that car and choke him to death.
But he could barely summon the coordination to lock steel cuffs around the wrists of someone standing there quietly ready to be punished. He’d blame the cold, but he knew better.
John didn’t want to do this, at all. But he had to. He’d taken an oath to uphold the constitution and serve the law, and he’d meant every word. He couldn’t stop the sinking, tight, desolate feeling in his stomach, watching Nick with his wrists out, raw hurt and horror filling his eyes. The courage it must take for Nick to be standing there waiting to be cuffed wrenched him just to think about.
Nick recovered and looked back, watching, bracing himself as John moved in with the cuffs. “I didn’t want to run,” he said, gulping.
It wasn’t the first time he’d had to arrest Nick. Wasn’t the first time it’d moved him beyond belief to have someone so capable stand there in surrender and trust. It sent such a clear, gentle message.
I will always surrender to you. Even if it effectively means the end of my life.
And that was what broke him, broke the tough FBI agent. Suspects fought. Hated. Cried.
Nick put his life in John’s hands.
John took Nick’s right hand carefully, softly, in his and turned it until he could see exactly what he was doing, then far more gently pressed the cuff against his arm well above the bandaged wounds he’d thoughtlessly grabbed.
Nick, impeccably cooperative Nick, yelped in primal terror and jerked away with animal strength.
“I’m sorry!” yelped Nick in the same second. He was dripping wet, shivering, and plastered up against the side of the car like maybe he could melt through it.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.” Nick sounded terrified, cowed, and completely miserable.
John sighed, some of the anger melting. This was completely unlike tough, cocky, compliant Nick. It was uncontrollable trauma. If he was scarred so badly he couldn’t even let John cuff him, he was frightened enough to run against all logic or trust or loyalty.
“I’m sorry,” repeated Nick, even more frightened at John’s silence.
John grabbed a fistful of his shirt again and hauled him towards his car. “Sit. Hands on the dash. If you move before I get in the car, so help me --”
“I won’t,” said Nick, clearly not wanting to hear the end of that sentence. “I won’t move.”
Nick didn’t. John watched closely out of the corner of his vision while he glared at Theo behind the wheel of the car. “You have his meds?” he asked, voice sharp and curt.
Theo glared back with true loathing and pointed at the back seat. There was a plastic bag with Nick’s medications. And the cat burglar. And resting on its front paws under its nose, the framed photograph of himself and Nick that he’d shown Fisher. These were the things Nick deemed precious enough to be taken with him to a new life.
John picked them up and gulped, heartsick. He’d been planning to take Nick back to prison if he ran. It was safer and easier than the alternative. If Nick was cold enough to run, John would be cold enough to put him in prison. Give him another chance when the whole NYPD fiasco blew over.
There was too much love in the way those two simple items were positioned on the seat. This hadn’t been a cold act, but probably a bitterly painful one.
John got in the car and drove through the rain, not giving Nick permission to move his hands from the dash. Nick didn’t budge, or look at him. John located the abandoned anklet and picked it up from the roadside. It was an expensive bit of technology, and could easily be repaired.
They were halfway home when Nick spoke, at about half his normal volume. “John?”
John ignored him.
Nick tried again a moment later, quiet and timid. “John? This hurts. Because of my -- injuries.”
“Put your damn hands down, then,” snapped John.
John was hurt. And as conscious as he was of it, he simply couldn’t muster Nick’s ability to avoid turning hurt into anger. After everything. Every moment of understanding and trust and caring.
After John having been the one to keep Nick out of prison when his anklet failed again, despite Nick’s willingness to go in.
With all of the blindingly dumb risks Nick was willing to take with his life and future on a whim, Nick couldn’t trust John and the FBI to have his back?
NICK
Nick winced at the anger in John’s voice, and left his hands where they were. John glanced sideways at him.
“Nick, I’m furious. But there is no part of me that wants you in pain. Put your hands down.”
Nick lowered his head and put his hands in his lap. If it didn’t hurt so badly, he would have left them there. There was a part of John that wanted him in pain. There was a part of John that wanted to beat the hell out of him. He was merely a good enough man not to act on it.
He looked out the window, his heart pounding. This was the road to Sing Sing. When he’d escaped years ago, they’d thrown him in solitary for three weeks after his return, and that had been an extraordinarily lenient reaction. It had nearly broken him.
What the hell would they do to him this time?
They made a turn, and Nick realized they were going in the wrong direction. And that it had also been the road to the Langley’s house.
John was taking him home. He bit his lip to chase away the surge of emotion. He wanted to turn around and hug his handler.
JOHN
He helped Nick up the stairs, neither of them saying a word. But John could feel from the way Nick’s body quavered how much it hurt. He’d run while still virtually crippled, that was how scared he’d been. He’d run in nothing but a t-shirt and pants, and was soaking wet and cold.
John sat Nick on the bed and faced him.
“I’m gonna go make some calls. I’ll be outside the door. You move one foot off this bed, I’m taking you to prison. You so much as breathe or blink wrong and make me think you’re gonna run, I’m taking you to prison.”
He slammed the door shut and called Curry. It was time for a plan.
JOHN
John shivered. It was partly cold, his wet hair and clothing chilling him. But mostly the situation Nick was in. Even Curry was worried enough to see past the attempted escape, to forgive it as the act of a justifiably terrified man. He’d made it clear that the FBI would back Nick as emphatically as any agent, and that he would approve the expense of any resources John asked for. But there was no magic wand to be waved that would end this.
He dialed the US Marshal.
“Oh, damn,” said Wills. “That poor kid.” He sounded sincerely stricken. “Okay -- yeah, we could get him into protective custody out of state. And he’d be treated just fine. But here’s the thing. He’d be just another prisoner. Nobody’s gonna particularly care about him, or know what he’s been through.”
“Okay,” said John. “Then I need to put Aster under additional security in case he tries to run again.”
“He still staying upstairs at your place?”
“Yep.”
Wills thought for a minute. “Okay, we put his GPS anklet back on. Then we use one of the old house arrest setups to alarm if he tries to leave the house. If you’re there all the time, that should work.”
John nodded. “I know compliance monitoring and prisoner transport are two separate units, but I’m hoping to get a team that can do both, under your command, outside my house 24/7.”
“If my boss approves the resources, sure,” said Wills. “I take it you want us ready to snatch him from the clutches of the NYPD?”
“They show up with
a warrant, your guys swoop in and exert Federal authority,” confirmed John. “Aster’s in your custody, a ward of the prison, and you get him the hell to Sing Sing before anyone can intercede.”
Wills chuckled. “Will do.”
John hesitated, then just went for it. “They need to not underestimate his ability to escape. But -- he’s still beyond sore. I’d hate to think of him being driven all the way there in some sort of metal cage in the back of a van. Can we --”
“I saw the man in Rikers, Langley,” said Wills, cutting him off. “We’ll make sure he has a comfortable trip, and we’ll be patient with him if he’s scared. You should make sure we have his meds, so he doesn’t wind up off schedule if he needs them on the way in.”
Broken Blue Lines: Love. Hate. Criminal Justice.: An FBI Crime Drama / LGBT+ Love Story Page 14
