Broken Blue Lines: Love. Hate. Criminal Justice.: An FBI Crime Drama / LGBT+ Love Story

by Ariadne Beckett

  "I bite, too," Nick said with a helpful, eager expression.

  Tension and anger replaced Sgt. Evans's easygoing manner with the speed of a striking cobra. “You refer to human beings as animals one more time, I’m writing you up,” he snapped with balled fists raising ever so slightly.

  He gave John a hard look. “He’s not wrong about the danger. But we -” he paused to glare at Schrader - “treat inmates with respect, because we are the good guys.”

  Fantastic. Even the guards want to fight. This is gonna be fun.

  Nick was frowning. "Wait ....I meant he keeps me chained up at his desk when he's not cuddling me and being distracted in tea houses. Johnson, can we go to a tea house?"

  John felt his hair trying to stand on end. It was probably a sign of recovery that Nick was sassing a borderline psychotic prison guard. But.... seriously?

  “Some of these monsters just need shooting,” said Schrader. “A swift bullet to the head would save everyone years of misery. And your innocent little self is gonna agree with me before the day is out.”

  “I strongly doubt that,” said John. “I killed a man. It’s a few seconds' satisfaction, and weeks of feeling sick.”

  Sgt. Evans looked at him with respect. “Hold fast to that moral compass and remember where it pointed, because it’s gonna start spinning around on you. I know it’s wrong, I don’t believe in capital punishment, but there are men in there I would kill without guilt or hesitation if it were me versus them.”

  John decided it was time to establish just a smidgen of dominance, and looked Schrader in the eyes, his gaze flat and unblinking. Obedient assistant or not, he was here to protect Nick from a deadly threat that could just as easily come from an officer as an inmate. He preferred to be underestimated, but not entirely.

  "I may be a killer, but I'll take my law enforcement officers with slightly fewer murder fantasies, thank you very much,” said John.

  "Hear you've been having a rough time of it, Aster." Sgt. Evans de-escalated the situation deftly with a compassionate look at Nick. The guy wrangled killers all day; an aggressive subordinate officer was nothing to him.

  "Me? Nah," said Nick. "I'm just partial to a green and purple skin color. It's an artist thing, evokes severe storm imagery in a minimalist environment."

  "A rough time is breaking up with your girlfriend," said John. "Surviving the last two weeks with his head up is borderline superhuman."

  Evans looked genuinely sad. “Yeah. He’s a tough kid when he has to be.” He gave Nick's arm a light slap with the back of his hand. "Hang in there, Aster."

  Nick flinched invisibly. John pushed away the desolate feeling in his heart. “Show me around?”

  Evans nodded, and they were cleared through the port by an officer standing guard and the control room. He led them down a hall. “On the left you have the staff break room, restrooms, and admin offices. You’re importing a FBI paramedic?”

  John nodded. “To hold and administer his meds, and to treat him if anything goes off the rails.”

  “Okay. Medic can hang out in the staff rooms.” He pointed to four imposing doors on their right. “IMU A, B, C, and D. We’re housing Aster in B, which is mainly admin and PC, but don’t make the mistake of thinking these guys are harmless underdogs.”

  “Okay,” said John.

  Evans led him into B Unit, with a sally port barring entrance. They were cleared through the port by the control room. A long concrete hall was empty aside from a pair of COs at the other end. Steel doors on the right faced a blank wall on the left. John kept his eyes forward, not planning on looking into any of the cells they passed. A few fists pounded on doors, some shouts, nothing he couldn't ignore.

  Evans had other plans. “You've made some enemies by being a friend to Aster and fighting for him here. I'm not one of them. But understand something now. You want him in here for safety, well, in here it comes at the cost of every possible liberty. Walk the unit with me for a few minutes.”

  They paused in front of a cell. "This guy is an Ethiopian war criminal doing time on robbery. When when he gets out, he’ll be shipped to Ethiopia, where they’ll execute him after promising us they won’t. He tortured prisoners and performed some of the cruelest executions I’ve ever heard of."

  John grimaced. "So.... he's in protective custody?"

  "Look in the window.”

  John drew a deep breath, set his jaw, and looked in. The man inside looked back at him with malevolent hate, got up smoothly from the bunk, and in one fluid motion approached the window and spat. Evans put a hand on his elbow and pulled him onward.

  “His only chance at staying alive is to escape, or murder someone so that he has to serve another sentence here before getting extradited," said Evans. "He's as dangerous as they come."

  The breath left John’s chest. Nick was trembling. He was walking, calm, but it was the calm of someone being led to his execution. John stopped.

  “Nick.” He rested his hand on Nick’s back. “We don’t have to do this. If this’s gonna be traumatic --”

  “I don’t think it will,” said Nick, seeking out eye contact for reassurance. There was a new kind of trust in that gaze. This place scarred me. I know you’re going to help me heal.

  They moved slowly, to allow for Nick's slow and careful progress in the ankle chains that were hobbling him. John held Nick's right arm, to reassure him and catch him if he tried to fall. Evans seemed to almost unconsciously go into escort mode, gripping Nick's other arm. Nick didn't tense. He trusted the guy.

  John got the distinct impression Evans was doing this orientation with Nick in tow so that John could have a few extra minutes to be at Nick's side and steady him before he had to go into a cell.

  “This is David Leander.” John noted that Evans called this inmate by name. “Leander’s a gay former CO, which means he’s spending his sentence in protective custody rather than get raped and probably murdered. He'll get shipped out to a prison with a dedicated PC wing, but for now we try to keep him alive and sane.”

  “What’d he do?” asked John.

  “Don’t know, don’t want to know,” said Evans. “We don’t usually look it up, with the inmates who aren’t infamous. We try and work with them based on their behavior now, with us.”

  John looked through this window, and got a lonely, plaintive look from a skinny and very pleasant-looking young man. Evans opened the access hatch in the metal door by sliding a bolt back so they could talk. “Hey, Leander, you hanging in there?”

  Leander nodded, came to the door, and peered inquisitively at John. “This is CO Johnson,” said Evans, using John’s new alias. “Gonna be working back here for a few days on a special protection detail.”

  Leander smiled. “Nice to meet you, Johnson.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said John, trying to balance his natural sympathy for a pleasant person with the notion that as a former CO, the guy might be in here for something very close to what’d been done to Nick.

  Evans pulled John away. “He’s a nice guy. Don't show favoritism to anyone, especially Aster. But talk to the social guys and keep them company for a bit here and there if you have time. You see now why it’s so strict? Nobody gets out of these cells without restraints because it’s absurdly dangerous. Strict procedure is the only way we can control and protect inmates when we’ve got torture-killers, mentally ill guys, gangsters, and seriously vulnerable people in one area.”

  “Can’t you just have one area for the guys that need protecting and one for the ....others?” asked John. Hadn't Evans said this unit was for protective custody?

  “This pretty much is the area for guys who need protecting,” said Evans. “War crimes guy’d be dead in an hour walking the streets of New York City, let alone in prison.”

  “Oh.”

  “See what I mean about wantin’ to shoot some of these guys?” asked Steroid Schrader.

  “Shut the fuck up, Schrader,” warned Evans. “Say that again, you’re suspended. I
bounce you from the unit, you're done.”

  Evans glanced sideways at John. “We’re their 911. We’re their only source of food, medicine, showers, and getting to see the sky a few minutes a day. Do not tell them you want to kill them.”

  Evans led him to another cell. “Belkins is mentally unstable. He’s polite, compliant, and friendly. Except for when he’s uncontrollably violent, screams, shits all over the cell, breaks anything in there, and punches the window until it’s covered in blood. When he was in gen-pop he attacked a gang member and attempted to rape him after knocking him unconscious. We get a few like Aster, or Leander, but generally if inmates need protection, there’s a reason.”

  Belkins had approached the window. He was a big guy, tattooed and shaved. He gave them a wry smile and raised his hands submissively. Evans cracked open the hatch.

  “Let me guess, showing off the nutcase to the new guy?” said Belkins.

  Evans grinned. “Pretty much. How are we doing today?”

  “Mellow and cooperative, with mild depression and a two-percent chance of violent outbursts on Monday evening,” said Belkins. “How’re you?”

  “Wrangling guys like you all day, what do you think?” countered Evans.

  “Happy as a little clam, then.”

  Evans rolled his eyes. “Bye for now, Belkins.”

  He pointed to the next door. “That guy’s naked by choice and spends all day jacking off in between thinking of new and original ways to flash anyone who looks at him. Just be polite and professional and act like he's behaving totally normally.”

  “Okay,” said John, feeling a bit rattled. This was a godawful mix of sympathy and disgust, and he wanted to go home with Nick.

  Halfway down the hall, they halted at an empty cell. “This is your stop, Aster,” said Evans. There was a six-inch wide window running up a couple feet of the solid metal door.

  John peered inside. Small, white, and windowless, the cell smelled like a gas station bathroom that’d been recently bleached without a lot of care. The paint was chipped off the metal bed platform, and spots of rust showed through, sanded but not eliminated or painted. The paint on the floor was worn, showing dull concrete in a desolate little track between the bed, the door, and the seatless metal toilet.

  It said IMU on the door, and John had never seen a place he less wanted to put a friend. “Put me in there.”

  “Huh?”

  “Lock me in the cell and step away,” said John, his gut tightening a little as he said it. Nick, standing between Kasdan and Wills, seemed baffled. Evans looked at him like he was nuts, shrugged, and closed and locked the door.

  John shivered. Just like that, he was helpless. There were scrapes, gouges, and ink stains on the sink and toilet, and a corroded drain was bolted to the center of the floor. It was tiny.

  With the door shut, it felt like a too-small kennel in an inner city animal shelter. A small television was mounted to the ceiling, and encased in an unbreakable plastic cage. A small improvement over what unwanted dogs on death row got, the human equivalent of an old chew toy.

  People somehow survived years in these tombs. And Nick Aster had been a prisoner in one. For days, for weeks ....never for the months or years that many inmates endured, but the ghosts flitting around behind the complex eyes of his friend said it had been for long enough to inflict misery.

  Nick’s intensely social nature, his need for validation from other people, his deep fear of abandonment, his easily bored mind and restless personality, his love of softness and warmth ....this seemed aimed cruelly at Nick’s most vulnerable points.

  “You show him how your side is better.”

  Or, thought John, let him show you all the ways it’s not. At all. No wonder he didn’t come out of here reformed, it was a wonder he emerged anything other than broken and filled with hate.

  The metal slot in the door was unbolted with a rapid chink. Evans said, “You open this wicket to talk to the inmate, deliver meals, and have them put their wrists through to be cuffed.”

  He pointed at a lower hatch. “You have them kneel, and apply leg irons through there.”

  "So it's harder for them to kick at you?" asked John, and Evans nodded. John bit the inside of his cheek, trying to ignore his emotional reaction. Nick Aster, who could get distressed having his anklet put on, being treated like a dangerous animal.

  Cold. Calm. FBI agent. It won’t hurt him.

  But it will.

  "Can I let Aster stand? There's no way kicks me, and movements like that hurt."

  Evans looked at his shoes for a moment, then nodded. "Don't trust the other inmates like that, though." He unlocked the door and pulled it open, beckoning John out with a little smile.

  Nick braced himself and hobbled into the cell, stopping with his back to the door. Evans shut the door, and pulled back the bolt to open the wicket.

  Nick was standing silent with his head lowered. John unlocked the first cuff, felt desperate tension in Nick's body, and hooked his fingers into Nick's hand. John looked behind at Schrader. "Get lost."

  "FUCK--"

  Evans halted the onslaught with an upraised hand. "When it comes to Aster, and only Aster, you yield to Johnson. Any complaints you have about that come to me, and only me, or I write you up for jumping chain of command. Get lost."

  John shot Evans a grateful look. Evans hid a small smile. "You're as much of a pain as Aster," he muttered, turning his back to them for privacy.

  Nick was un-moving, head down. The Nick who had been trained to cooperate at all costs. John finished removing the handcuffs and leg irons, frustrated that the small openings didn't allow him to reach in and pat his friend on the back; if there was ever a time Nick needed reassuring, being locked in this cell was probably it.

  NICK

  The door clunked shut behind him with horrifying immutability. Nick flinched. There was primal terror here, because these were the only cells he couldn't escape. The rest of the facility. ... He could always tell himself he had an out. It was a little bit by choice that he remained, and that helped him feel he had some control over his life.

  But in this cell…. if they were to lock him in here and never return, he would die of starvation. And there were officers who would do that, given the chance. This was the one place where he'd faced physical cruelty from COs, so it was hardly reassuring to be locked in here. He could feel metal biting into his skin, cement, cold, pain, blows, fear, a blade in his stomach, being blinded with searing pain.... just with a thought.

  And basically, all of it thanks to his own decisions.

  He tried to tune out the mechanics of being uncuffed, and just felt John's kind touch, and the fierce protectiveness of his voice ordering away the asshole outside the door.

  “Nick.”

  Nick turned around to face him. Their eyes met through the narrow window. And like the mind reader he so often was, John understood.

  “I. Will. Not. Abandon you.”

  Nick gulped.

  “If there’s a day I don’t come, I need you to know I was stuck in traffic or rescuing squirrels from trees or drowning Starr in the alligator pool. The answer is not that I decided to abandon you in solitary confinement and walk out of your life. Got it?”

  Nick smiled. It was forced, but the affection and gratitude were sincere. “Thank you.”

  John didn't look any less completely focused on him and on reading his every thought. He hadn't stopped seeing into Nick's soul when Nick had been beaten beyond recognition, and he didn't stop seeing it through a cell door.

  "You're a good man, Nick. You are a truly good person. You don't deserve to be in there. You never have. Remember that. You. Are. Good."

  Nick closed his eyes and pressed his forehead painfully against the narrow strip of Plexiglas, keeping himself from breaking apart. You deserve it had been the overriding mantra of prison. Bad guy. You deserve it. Take responsibility for your actions.

  It was painful beyond belief, and also a coping mechanism. It
was even comforting when John treated him that way. It was a dynamic he was certain John recognized. People weren't being mean to him, and he wasn't being mistreated. He simply deserved it. If he deserved it, then life wasn't unfair and he was fundamentally safe.

  "I did everything I was accused of. And more," said Nick. "I left 'good' in the dust a long time ago."

  "I think one of the worst mistakes of my life has been treating you like a bad person even though I knew you weren't," said John. "You're not. You're such a good man, it hurts. I'm sorry."

  "Stop," whispered Nick. "Or gonna cry."

  “You need to hear anything else from me?”

  Nick forced a bright grin onto his face and held his chin up, breathing deeply and deliberately, determined not to lose it. “Isn’t this usually where you slap me and tell me to buck up or something?”