It was a linoleum-floored, concrete-walled cell, with a fax machine, a laser printer, and a couple of circa-1990 desktop computers instead of a restraint chair. The yellow paint was marginally prettier, but the generic Pine-Sol disinfectant odor was the same.
“Klassy place,” muttered John, spinning to confront Neil Kasdan the second the door clattered shut. “You failed him. Bein’ a nice guy means growing a spine, not reading to someone being tortured. Why the hell didn’t you go to intake with him?”
“They were going to strip-search him.”
“So you look away for thirty seconds!” snapped John, bearing relentlessly down on Kasdan in a verbal lashing that had him pressed into a corner. “Don’t abandon him when he’s at his most vulnerable and desperately needs you there.”
Kasdan gulped, stuffed his fists in his pockets, and grew a spine. “Forgive me if I’m wrong. But weren’t you sent out of state, leaving Nick in this mess, because you chose to respect his dignity? Didn’t you almost kill him in the process?”
John blinked, and fumbled for the grime-colored mouse hitched to an ancient computer, pretending there was some reason for him to wiggle it and clear the screensaver.
“You’re not wrong.”
“Did you go in with him when they searched him?” challenged Kasdan. “Did you watch him shower?”
John winced. “No,” he admitted. “But I sent him in calm and unrestrained, and medicated.”
“He struck me as a guy who values caring,” said Kasdan. “We bonded instantly when I shared something pretty vulnerable and painful with him, and when I sat with him after those photos were posted. So shoot me if I tried to give him what he’d shown me he needed most.”
John faced Kasdan. “I’m sorry. Maybe that’s what I need too, for people to care.”
JOHN
When John swiped into room 112, Mari was lying on the bed, watching TV and stroking the head of Nick’s cat burglar. It was lying beside her on top of a burgundy bedspread with a floral trim that died in the eighties.
He lowered his weight onto the bed. The box springs sproinged in protest. He shifted closer to Mari, and the frame issued a threatening creak.
“Pickings were slim,” said Mari, rolling over and kissing him. “Option two has roaches crawling over the mousetraps in reception, and option three costs a mere three hundred a night and includes an indoor swimming pool with free towel service.”
John patted the cat burglar. “Your master will be home soon.”
“Not a good sign when you’ll talk to a stuffed cat over your wife,” said Mari dryly.
“I’d fight to keep Nick out of prison on a good day. I just had him locked up when he’s at his most vulnerable. I just left him in a penitentiary with no - no Italian food, no cat burglar --”
Mari teared up, and pressed her face against his shoulder. “Sweetie ....” She wrapped her arms around him, and they kissed again. “Honey, your lips are cold.” Mari rolled away and studied him. “You’re pale. It was bad.”
All the questions Mari wasn’t asking were held in the anxiety in her voice. He decided not to mince around the truth. “They tried -- not to be mean to him.”
He wanted to cling to the mental image of comfortable, sweet, sedated Nick, but that left too much out. “They failed. It wasn’t deliberate, but he ended up -- screaming, terrified, in pain ....”
Mari clenched her fists and inhaled, trying not to get emotional again.
“Nick did amazing. He’s terrified, the intake guys are grabbing him and hauling on the cuffs -- he has to tell them, twice, ow, ow, you’re hurting me before they even realize it. But they forced him to the point he lost it. He was strapped down in a chair, chained up, stripped to his boxers, and overdue for his meds.”
Mari lost the battle with tears. “That sweet guy -- God, poor Nick. I was holding him in my arms -- he needs all the love and gentleness and support in the world, I can’t even begin to imagine restraining ....all they’d have to say is ‘Nick, please do this for me.’”
“They did,” said John bitterly. “They said, Nick, please let yourself be put through your nightmares, and it’ll hurt, and be humiliating, and when it’s all over you’ll be back in max security. He held his wrists out to Gary Wills, and walked in.”
John stood. “I can’t do it. There’s not a minute gone by since I left that facility I haven’t felt sick. I’m afraid -- we’re gonna lose Nick.”
Mari startled. “You think he’ll die?”
John shook his head. “He’ll recover and walk away with a smile plastered on ‘is face. I’m worried about emotionally, and morally. I’ve worked to pull him from the brink, and he’s gone through a lot to give me that chance. But that much pain and indignity -- I’m afraid he’s just been shoved over the brink and this’s it for him ever respecting or obeying the law again.”
“Hon.”
“He took the photo and the cat burglar. He ran to his handler. Those things were huge -- monumental. He put his heart on the line. I’m afraid he’ll never, ever do that again. I’ve lost him.”
Mari started crying, quietly and with dignity. “You can’t let that happen. It’s like letting him die. You can’t.”
“Nobody controls Nick without his consent. Not really.”
“Don’t control him, you moron.” Her tears vanished, and she was his fierce, certain stalwart again. “Love him. If he’s on the brink, well, you show him just how good your side is. You show him it’s stronger than pain and violence. You go there and you sit at his side through hell and high water and tell him you love him and he’s fiercely important, and you show him that you will not let him fall now.”
John sucked in his breath and faced Mari. “Okay. I might not be coming back after tonight. I can’t leave Nick alone in there, not with how afraid he is I’m gonna abandon ‘im. I ....may need to get booked as an inmate.”
Mari went completely still.
John reminded himself to breathe. The idea was unnerving, but surely he could handle a week or two in a situation Nick had endured for years. Especially as an undercover op.
“Sweetie?”
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Blinked, thought, and tried again. “So I get to be worried sick about both the men in my life instead of just one? Lucky me.”
“Sweetie -- tell me you wouldn’t do it, if you could.”
Mari stood up, walked to the window, and stared out into the night in the direction of the prison. “I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
He joined her and hooked an arm around her shoulders. “I’m hoping it won’t come to that. Maybe they can give me some sort of special pass, but ....”
John’s voice choked off just remembering. “Nick asked, ‘So you aren’t getting rid of me?’ He thought I’d gotten fed up with him being hurt and vulnerable.”
Mari shivered. “Oh ....that poor, sweet man.” She pressed tight against him. “I don’t want you in that place. But you go find him and don’t leave his side until he walks out those gates.”
“Okay.” John stroked her back, and she wrapped an arm around his waist. They looked out over the night lights of Ossining reflecting over the water of the river, and savored the warmth of each other’s bodies.
John had the feeling he was close to figuring out a lot of things about the mystery that was Nick Aster, and himself, and the dark but incredibly appealing relationship between them.
Not there yet. But close. He had fragments, like in a case coming together.
“Nick yelled at me -- about all the ways this hurts. Thing is, I’ve been doing the whole ‘tough on crime, tough on Nick’ thing. Nick takes it and takes it, doesn’t learn, doesn’t listen ....okay, with the brain damage, now all of a sudden I know he can’t. He’s sticking with me while I pound on ‘im, just to have someone who cares.”
John ached. “I’ve always tried, hard, not to abuse the power I have over him. But Theo’s right. I’ve been abusing him.”
“He knows you don�
�t mean it,” said Mari.
“And stays because we love each other,” said John with searing, bitter insight.
“Oh, honey.” She kissed him. “He’s hurt you just as bad. The story of you two is forgiveness, and learning. You make each other better men.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve always loved you,” said Mari. “But -- Nick’s made you more fun, and more sensitive and spontaneous. And you’ve made Nick care and trust. I’ve known abused women, and the result of abuse is never positive like that.”
Two police cars trailed by an ambulance charged down the street below them, blue and red lights reflecting against windows and street signs.
“I miss having him with us,” admitted Mari. “I’m sorry it was because he was hurt so bad ....he’s not coming back, is he.”
John rubbed her neck. “I can’t see why he would. But I miss it too.”
“Adults should be allowed to have sleepovers.”
“Yeah.”
“Invite him,” said Mari.
“Creepy.”
“Just do it. Get that cute awkward little look on your face and tell him that Mari ordered you to invite him to a sleepover.”
“Uh -- no.”
“If you don’t I will, and he’ll have to spend the next six months wondering if his handler’s wife just propositioned him.”
“Oh, so that’s worse than me propositioning him?” asked John, grinning with raised eyebrows.
Mari fixed him with a gaze of piercing intelligence. “I think if you propositioned him, it would be the happiest day of his life.”
John gulped. “Sweetie—”
“I’m not blind, an idiot, or jealous,” said Mari. “I love the felonious little twerp too. Maybe not the way you two love each other. But enough that I decided months ago that your heart is big enough for both of us, and that I was willing to share you with him.”
John blinked. Over and over again.
How -
What -
“Uh —” John cleared his throat. “Uh — I realized — today that I was in love with him. How on earth did you somehow predict that months ago?”
“Because you two fell in love months ago,” said Mari. “I saw the tenderness. I saw the bliss when you two would hug each other. Hon, you’re a married, straight FBI agent who came out of the womb with a standard-issue American apple pie, a baseball card collection, and a shoulder holster. Of course you didn’t see it coming when you fell in love with a man.”
John licked his lips. “Uh. I - it’s not like I’ve wanted him sexually. I thought I had a partner I loved. That’s not uncommon in law enforcement. I just — I started crying after I ordered him back to prison. My heart broke today, seeing him strapped into a chair and scared and hurting, and I told him I loved him, and I added all these qualifiers about family, and it felt so wrong I realized it was another kind of love.”
“What would you do if he kissed you on the lips?” asked Mari. “If I told you that you had my blessing to add this man to our marriage, how would you respond?”
John gulped, and petted Nick’s cat burglar. “I think that I would kiss him back, and it would take a team of highly trained attack mules to pull us apart,” he admitted.
“You have my blessing to add this man to our marriage,” said Mari.
John stared at her, wondering if he was trapped in a very strange dream where he was sitting in the eighties discussing adding a convicted felon to his conventional and blissfully happy marriage.
“I think — while he’s technically an inmate on work release — consummating anything would be illegal. He’s in my custody. It would be a Federal crime.”
“So wait until he’s served his sentence,” said Mari. “But if you’re in love with him too, he deserves to know that. He’s emotionally sensitive.”
“Would you want to — um —” John didn’t know how to word or even think about the subject of her and Nick....
“I love him, hon,” said Mari. “And he’s a staggeringly attractive man. But as of right now, I’m not in love with him. I could see romantic evenings turning into something new and interesting if things developed that way between the three of us. But I think it would start with you two exploring on your own, while all three of us adjusted.”
There was a long silence that hung uncomfortably between them at first, but then drew them together, nose to nose, forehead to forehead, lip to lip.
“I love you, sweetie,” whispered John. “I love you so much. So, so much.”
NICK
Nick was still heavily sedated when a nurse, speaking quietly in the early morning, examined him and removed his IV. Everything was comfortable and sleepy. It wasn’t until the nurse said something about transferring him to a cell that he remembered he was in prison. He was only semi-aware of the activity around him, of being spoken to with gentleness and moved carefully.
He wondered, dimly, why it was necessary to assure him eleven times that he was okay. A solid door clicked shut, and he closed his eyes. Alone, he was able to organize his thoughts enough to remember that things had been horrible, and hurt. He’d panicked.
It’d been law enforcement who’d beat the hell out of him, why on earth had he gone for round two?
So much for ever, ever doing that again. If it weren’t for a guy named John Langley, he’d break out the second he could stand and never set foot on American soil again.
John. John was that strange and amazing creature his heart had somehow gotten tied to.
Panic. Why had he panicked? He tried to remember and sort it out. There had been Rikers. Right. PTSD. Or something. He’d been afraid it was happening again. But why? They’d been nice. Well, not nice. They’d practically tortured him. But they’d been nice about it.
He frowned. Panic was an incomprehensible construct right now, with all this dark and sleepy and cozy. But he clearly remembered feeling a horrible fear from, what? Rikers, until ....uh ....he was in that chair, and everything hurt, he wanted to die, he hated John, but something ....he hadn’t been scared. In the chair.
He wasn’t scared now.
What?
Okay. In Riker’s, people had wanted to watch him suffer. They’d beaten not in anger, but in relish of punishment. It’d made him sick, and made him want to cry.
Here, nobody had been cruel. They hurt. They scared. But his pain had been met with remorse and apology, not relish.
So that was the difference. The Rikers staff, his father ....they wanted him to suffer. The Sing Sing staff, Kasdan, Wills, Larson, John ....they didn’t. It was all in the intent. And the list of didn’t want tos was longer.
He tugged the blankets up higher around his shoulders, and felt the soft fleece of Kasdan’s blanket. Nice of that nurse to transfer it with him. Pretty sure he wasn’t allowed to have it. It was cozy. The bed was comfy. Prison cells weren’t traditionally cozy, but right now, this one was, and it was hard to stay awake.
Really hard. Nurse had poked him with something. Nick said it was rude. Nurse’d said something ....pain? Shot? Shot for pain? Didn’t hurt. Wait. Wasn’t supposed to. Supposed to put him to sleep.
He’d have to sort all this out later. Did he hate these people or love them? Was he a good guy or a me-first borderline sociopath who preyed on the weak? Was humanity vicious to the bone, or inherently good with occasional malfunctions?
Like anklets. People were like anklets.
JOHN
Weak morning sunlight filtered through the warden’s stark office, but the mood was anything but sunny. Welch glared at John. John glared back. “Thanks for torturing him. That’s exactly what I meant by ‘please be kind.’”
“Glad I sent some of my best men over,” retorted Welch. “They loved getting screamed at by an FBI agent for doing absolutely nothing wrong.”
John glanced down at his hands in a shame he only marginally felt. Inmates, apparently, weren’t the only ones gaming the prison officials. “I was a complete asshole, and I yelled at men who didn
’t deserve it. I’m sorry.”
Welch eyed him cooly. “They didn’t appreciate it, I’ll tell you that much. Neither do I. They’re my men. I let you in there on the assumption you’d act professionally.”
“I know,” said John, wincing, for real this time. “I shouldn’t have yelled. I’m sorry.”
“If you would apologize to my guys....” the warden hesitated and searched John’s eyes before deciding to trust him. That act endeared him to John.
“They aren’t pissed. They’re hurt. These are not men who enjoy being the cause of someone screaming in panic. Then they got cursed out by an FBI agent, and they feel like shit.”
Broken Blue Lines: Love. Hate. Criminal Justice.: An FBI Crime Drama / LGBT+ Love Story Page 27
