“Buck up,” he said gently. “I’ll see you soon.”
Nick braced his back against the door, his head swimming. Partly in sheer fatigue, nausea, and drugs. Partly what John had just said. But also because he was at ground zero for some of the most desolate hours of his life.
Limping over to the bunk, he unrolled the two mattresses and placed them on top of each other. Solitary confinement had come to represent the worst pain of prison, being a thing to be kept alive but not cared about.
He could remember lying here. Cold, shivering, his hands numb, miserably uncomfortable without any bedding on the mat separating him from steel, nursing a sore throat and a pounding headache, hungry, bored with nothing to do but lie there and re-read the three books he was allowed to have as long as he obeyed every order and didn’t complain.
Nick made up the bed, probably the most vivid illustrator of how things had changed. In addition to the extra mattress, there were extra pillows, and an entire stack of blankets. This was going to be almost cozy; comfortable, warm, and protected, he could turn this cell into a sheltering cave.
He’d complained once, desperate not even for the conditions he was in to be relieved, but simply for someone to look him in the eye with the compassion one would have for a bored and lonely dog in a kennel. The officer looked at him coldly and asked if he’d cared whether the victims of his crimes were unhappy about it.
“Shut up and take your medicine,” were the CO's words as he walked away. Nick had no out, no relief, nobody to care. And he lay there sick and miserable because he deserved it. Being told otherwise was messing with him.
You're a good man.
You don't deserve to be in that cell.
John couldn't mean that. He didn't. He seemed, against all odds, to love Nick as much as Nick loved him. But he'd never believed Nick was a good person.
I think one of the worst mistakes of my life has been treating you, for years, like a bad person even though I knew you weren't.
He remembered Mari's horrified look when John said something harsh to him at the Langley's. Trying to reassure her that John's brutal honesty meant that Nick could trust the good things he said.
John meant it.
Back then, he'd "deserved it." He'd spent the next two days so quiet and motionless that a different CO had stopped outside his door, opened the wicket, and asked in a gentle voice if he was okay. Nick looked at him, mind blank and miserable. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be, am I?”
“You smile at me when you look like you’d rather cry, and you even managed to thank me for that shitty lunch. I don’t want to see you try to kill yourself or go nuts in there.”
Nick’s heart lightened a little. “I won’t. Thanks ....so much. For caring. I can handle everything else.”
“You cold?” asked the officer, noticing him trying to tuck his numb toes under his leg.
Nick nodded, looking away. The other officer’s response had killed any hope he had for mercy, and any courage to ask for it.
“No promises,” said the officer. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
An hour later, the owner of the gentle voice was back. “There’s nothing on your file saying you can’t have blankets in there. I give you these, you promise me you won’t use them to try an' off yourself?”
Nick stood and approached the door, raising his arms with his palms visible in a gesture of submission. “I’m not suicidal. But if I were, you just gave me the solace to want to live. Thank you.”
The officer stuffed first one, then a second heavy wool blanket through the slot. “Thank you,” said Nick again.
You don't deserve to be in there. You never have. Remember that.
A knock on the door snapped him back to the present. A knock that by its softness seemed to recognize and apologize for the fact that it was going to startle him. Evaluating the message and intentions behind a knock on the door. That was one swift mental adaptation.
Nick recognized the paramedic-trained FBI agent outside the door. Marianna Calis, a sturdy blond woman with her long hair up in a complex braid. They'd met only briefly in the flurry of preparations. She was one of the most alert people Nick had ever seen, all business until she shook his hand and he saw the warmth in her eyes. If anything did happen, Nick was confident she would save his life through sheer force of will.
"I've got your meds," said Marianna. "And I'd like to take your vitals before you go to sleep." Nick nodded, and they worked out the mechanics of doing so through the wicket. "Sleep well," she admonished once they were done. "You seriously need to rest. If you can't get to sleep, have them grab me and I'll stuff you full of Ambien."
Nick pulled back the blankets and snuggled down in his new-found cave. His heart was pounding, in some odd sort of adrenaline rush, his heart in his throat like something was going to happen. Nick lay face down, his arms crossed and his face buried in them.
He’d have to look up because he was required to have his face visible every fifteen minutes when the CO looked in his cell. Even if he happened to be on the toilet at the time. Even if he was sleeping; if they couldn’t see his face, they’d wake him. But for now, he closed his eyes and gave himself permission not to worry about any random tears. He was heartsick and shaky and in pain and so happy, he was crying.
Nick sniffed, and raised his head, looking around. So much had changed. He was cared about intensely, loved even. No more clinging to tiny scraps of mercy for solace. He'd just been held in the arms of someone who loved him, and protected him, and needed him to be okay. The words, “John, I can’t handle this,” would gain his immediate release.
In dark days past, he would have given anything to know that so soon, he would be working his dream job, living in a beautiful apartment, and while he’d still be a prisoner, he would be commanded and loved by the world’s most caring, playful, and annoying FBI agent. He would have given anything just for the hope of that.
I. Will. Not. Abandon you.
He was going to walk out into a life he loved.
And he finally understood why he had the impulse control of a brain-damaged teenager. He really was brain-damaged, hardly a warm, fuzzy, or reassuring thing. But the new knowledge offered hope that he could actually change the behavior which kept landing him in rooms with doors that locked.
He’d been controlled so much, he took it for granted. From the firm lectures of adults to literal chains and straps to the anklet, it was a fact of life. People on the “right” side of things controlled him. The only way he could break free from that stifling and inexplicable urge people had to control and dominate him was to disobey. Wildly, flamboyantly, and with unabashed glee.
There was freedom in every cracked safe, every con of a 50-year-old white guy with a hundred million in the bank and an illegal maid earning five dollars an hour, every heart-pounding flight from pursuit. Those were the things that made him feel alive.
John felt free and alive and experienced that same unabashed glee on the right side of the law, and was the only person Nick had ever met who did. All the others chafed at it the way Nick did, but in silent misery compounded by their own compliance and complicity. Nick wanted to skip the misery. But more than anything, he wanted to skip the misery, feel alive, and be one of the good guys.
You. Are. Good.
And then he saw it, the key to his malfunctioning brain.
The possibility of negative consequences, of punishment, of agonizing pain ....none of it had ever altered his behavior. As much as he tried to tell himself steal that phone and get caught, they’ll beat you into oblivion, he always took the phone. Copy that painting, feel that rush, get that money, see that gleam of admiration. Ignore the chance of prison, get a rush from the potential of being shot, don’t think about the impact on the sucker you stole it from.
But the good things in life ....love, joy, freedom, passion, exhilaration ....those he would fight like hell for. Those he would endure prison for, stay in an anklet for, risk his life for. He had
to think of it all differently. He had to learn from the FBI agent who was so astonishingly gentle with him when he screwed up on epic levels, and flew across the globe to save him, held him while he slept and spent days in a prison with him. He had to fight for the things he loved, use those as his compass.
You. Are. Good.
Not the threat of horrible consequences to run from, good things to swim towards.
Comfort, warmth, love, softness, light, friendship....and if he was going to blame himself for all the horrible things, he could perhaps see those as the results of far better decisions. Of enduring prison instead of breaking out in the first six months. Of letting himself, a career criminal, surrender his heart to an FBI agent.
You're a good man, Nick. You are a truly good person.
Maybe brain damage was only half of it. Maybe something had been seared into his makeup by his father’s belt, in beatings he only remembered in nightmares.
You’re bad, you’ll always be bad, and you can’t change it any more than you can escape this lash.
You're not. You're such a good man, it hurts.
And with that, Nick went limp and surrendered to exhaustion, to the content blackness of sleep.
CHAPTER FORTY
The Good, The Bad, and The Confused
JOHN
“Come on, Theo. Honestly, for once. There’s no way you can actually, really be afraid of the FBI office.”
John was starting to feel like he was trying to talk Theo into the Free Candy van, not his perfectly benevolent car en route to a bright, modern office.
Theo looked at him like he was particularly dim. “Okay, imagine you’re asked to go to ....a Satanic sex club. A legal one. You might know it’s all consensual and you’re going to walk out without being harmed, but that doesn’t mean you’d be the least bit comfortable with it or want to be there for one minute you didn’t have to.”
John’s lips twisted into a wry grin. “Wow. Suddenly I’m flattered you called me an abusive predator. Compared to equating the FBI office to a Satanic sex club, that’s a real compliment.”
Theo looked down. “If I do this ....it’ll mean working with you the way Nick does, won‘t it. Taking orders, being part of the Fed Strike Force.”
“Yes,” said John, giving Theo a reassuring look. “But no anklet. No entrapment. Nick enjoys working in the lion’s den. You might too.”
“Lions ....tame ones ....could be nice to have on one’s side,” admitted Theo.
“Give us a chance,” said John. “A real one. You know Nick wouldn’t still be doing this unless he found something special here. You want to know what it’s like on the dark side, come find out.”
“Are you trying to turn me, Fed?”
“Yep.”
“It’s never going to happen,” said Theo. “Never. Not over my cold, dead body. Not even if you put me on the rack and deprive me of Bordeaux.”
John patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll see.”
“No touching!”
“I touch Nick,” said John. “Got chewed out by prison guards for it, too. You’re my substitute Nick, so I’m touching you.”
“If you refer to me in the possessive one more time, Fed ....”
“You’ll what? Cancel wine night?”
“How does he put up with you?” asked Theo, wide-eyed.
“I wore him down. Broke his spirit. Fed him little stuffed chickens and things.”
“A truly horrifying fate,” said Theo. He patted John heavily on the back. “Follow along, my besuited sidekick. We’ve got a case to run.”
John ground his teeth in frustration. Theo gave him a wicked smile. “Not so fun, is it? Nick manages, somehow, to put up with you. I won’t.”
"Will you please get in the car?" asked John, not even caring about the pleading note in his voice. "Vineil's being picked up right now, Nick's in a cell, and people are trying to kill our friend."
Theo huffed, glared at him, and then wrenched open the driver's side door and sat down with his arms folded.
"That's not-"
"So, the FBI office, then?" asked Theo with a cool edge in his voice.
"That's an official vehicle!"
After a good thirty seconds of unrequited glaring, John gave up and took his place in the passenger seat.
"How is he?" asked Theo.
John pondered his answer. This was a person who cared about Nick, would hurt for him and take joy in his happiness. Nick probably wouldn't reveal the suffering he'd experienced to Theo, and it wasn't John’s place to break the confidence inherent in what Nick had allowed him to witness. But glossing over it with platitudes? If someone did that to John, he’d be furious.
"He's had it really rough," said John finally. "And it was sickening, putting him in the IMU. But he's healing, right through it all. Earlier today was…. It was the first time I've been sure he's gonna be alright."
Theo stared out the side window. He didn’t want to look at John. "Thanks for being with him."
John nodded, troubled. How a man could be so resilient, yet so sensitive. So afraid, yet so trusting.
"Theo.... I don't want Nick to end up dead, or in prison. When I try and reform him, I'm not trying to steal him or turn him against you. I've never met someone more loyal to the people he cares about, if he stops being a criminal he's not gonna shut you out ."
"I want him to be happy, not some corporate government slave."
"He's wired different from you," said John. "You have the same hobbies, but ultimately you exert control by keeping the world at bay. Nick needs to interact with it, with people, like he needs to breathe. Nick needs acceptance so desperately he'll kill himself looking for it."
Theo was silent for a long time, pretending he needed to focus on the sparse traffic. "He went to prison for Callie. He stayed there, and went back, for you. I hate you for that."
"I hate myself for not realizing it," said John quietly. Being emotionally open with Theo was outside his comfort level. But if he stood a chance of reforming Nick, he had to get Theo to stop working against him.
"Oh, well. You're not the only idiot. He doesn't realize it either," said Theo with an acid bite in his voice. "He got locked up and broken, started identifying with his captors, and --"
"Nope," said John flatly. "He was broken before he was ever locked up. He identified with law enforcement before he was old enough to write. Being in prison was harder on him than he ever let on, but it was also easier because he liked the people on both sides of the fence. And they liked him. He wasn't bitter and he didn't hate. That's not broken, that's strength not many people have."
"Oh, yeah. He wanted to please you just because you're awesome. Nope, no ego on you," said Theo.
"I have no idea why Nick Aster chose me to trust," said John. "I know damn well I didn't deserve it. Hell, he's -- " John thought of Nick's relief earlier at realizing that it was hard for John to physically hurt him. Nick put his life and his freedom and control of his body in John's hands without question.... but the look on Nick's face when he was in cuffs.... terror and sheer heartbreak and struggle for control....
"To this day, he can fear me. And that night outside the car....I keep hearing him scream, and seeing the horror in his eyes after he kicked at me."
"You wanted to hurt him," accused Theo. "You want to see him scream, and whimper, and crawl for foregivement. Dominating him is your favorite hobby, and you live for revenge on him for being happier and freer than you."
Forgivement?
John held his voice steady. "Theo, it's time to drop the act. You don't for one second think I could hear Nick scream and not break up inside. You know as well as I do that the power games we play are games. I make mistakes and hurt him, and he does the same to me. It's called being human."
"It's called being a Fed. It's called a power trip. What you call him hurting you is him daring to be Nick, when you want him cowering under your heel."
John clenched his jaw in anger, his fingers curling into
fists. Theo didn't really believe all this. He was punishing John for hurting his friend. He made himself unwind and speak in a calm tone.
"What matters here isn't the names you and I want to call each other, it's Nick,” said Martin. “It's him being able to live a happy life that doesn't end in tragedy."
Theo tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, his face tight, dealing with his own anger. "What gives you the right to change him?"
"You'd rather be dead than normal, I get that," said John. "But Nick's not like that. It's not a fate worse than death for him. And going to prison.... Theo, it's so damn hard to see him in there, and if you did, you'd be right there with me begging him to turn his life around. That place comes with serious mental and emotional pain. I'm not asking you to change, I'm just asking you to.... think of how suggestible he can be and rethink how you use your influence over him."
Broken Blue Lines: Love. Hate. Criminal Justice.: An FBI Crime Drama / LGBT+ Love Story Page 40
