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

by Ariadne Beckett

  "I'm just asking you to stop trying to take away all his favorite parts of life," said Theo with a pointed glare. "If we're talking about using influence here."

  "Do you have any idea how demeaning that place is?" asked John. "They don't beat him, or starve him. They just strip him naked, strap him to things, put him in shackles while he kneels on the floor, and stick him in tiny rooms behind locked doors. I want to throw up now when I see that place. That they're polite and even somewhat caring about it means instead of being able to fight abusers, he's being taught that's what he logically deserves."

  Theo stomped on the brakes in full traffic. Horns berated them from all angles. He turned in his seat to face John, and yelled. More loudly and with more anger than John had ever seen from him. "You put him there! You bastard, you're describing what you did to the most important person in my life, the only man who comes even remotely close to being my family."

  John didn't feel angry, but he raised his voice to compete. "You're gonna push him right back, for the rest of his goddamn life! There are places he can't escape, and they will put him in them!"

  The horns took on the tone of an enraged pack of robots and were joined by the curses of their leaders.

  John lowered his voice. "It's fun to think of Nick as superhuman. But he can be confined, he can be beaten, and he can be killed. He's one of the treasures of our lives, but he's worthless in the eyes of the justice system you keep pushing him into. Please stop. If you wouldn't put a Michelangelo in the garbage, please stop."

  Theo looked back at the road and pulled forward, his jaw set. When the horns faded, John spoke again. "I'm not trying to talk you out of your lifestyle. Please don't talk him into it."

  "Do you love your revenge that much?" asked Theo, his voice low in rage. "I don't pull him away from you because I need him to be a criminal. I do it because you're always one minute away from hurting him horribly. I'm trying to set him up to soften the impact of that, because when it happens, it'll destroy him."

  "I don't want to hurt Nick!" snapped John.

  "But you will. You just ordered him into prison traumatized and injured, and you'll do worse if you feel you must."

  Once again, John recalled Mari's statement that he had to stop being an FBI agent when it came to Nick. "Theo, if I were to change everything.... stop being an FBI agent to him and simply be a friend.... would he take advantage of that?"

  Theo swerved into the right lane, and pulled over blocking an alley. He put the car in park and examined John's face for a good thirty seconds. "No. He'd try to honor that with everything he had. He'd still need you to rein in those hair-raising impulses of his. But if you think holding a constant threat to ruin his life and break his heart over his head makes him a better person, you're the wrongest wrong has ever wronged."

  "I think you're right," said John softly.

  "Did you miss him, while he was in prison?" asked Theo, his voice tight and hard.

  "I couldn't miss someone I'd spent all of maybe ten hours with," said John. "Care about him and think about him, yes."

  "That was my only close friend you took away."

  "I'm sorry," said John. "I hope you know I'm a person who doesn't enjoy hurting people."

  Without warning, Theo cranked the wheel and launched back into traffic. He huffed. “I may have been injected with a mind-altering substance, because I’m going to make an admission against my own self-interest. Nick ....was going to propose to Callie.”

  “I knew that,” said John. “He gave me the ring.”

  Theo rolled his eyes. “Read a little more into that, will you, Fed? It was evidence. That’s all.”

  “He did give me a very expensive ring,” agreed John.

  “How does he not kill you?”

  “Cause I’d tickle ‘im if he tried.”

  Theo picked up an empty plastic water bottle from the console and menaced him with it. “In the right hands -- meaning mine -- this is a deadly weapon.”

  “I know,” said John. “Did nobody tell you it has to be full of water or rocks first?”

  “Pull over. I’m thirsty.”

  John snorted, grinning with relief of tension. "You're the one driving, Wellington-Gorstwick."

  Theo tossed the bottle away. “I’m trying to be serious, Fed. He sat in the park where he daydreamed about proposing and spawning little cat burglars with her.”

  “Really?” John raised his eyebrows. That actually was new knowledge.

  “Despite my best efforts to maintain his independence, sadly I fear that a dark and hidden part of him wants to be tamed.”

  John smiled. “Figured that part out already. He is tame. It’s just that he’s like a cat -- tame and cuddly and loves to purr and curl up by the fire. But he’s a self-sufficient, nimble predator that can jump off the balcony and vanish into the grass. And heaven help anyone trying to walk him on a leash.”

  "And he runs into the one guy who has a fetish for walking cats on leashes."

  JOHN

  "Where's Vineil?" asked John, steering Theo into a seat in the Public Corruption Unit conference room. Theo stood up and selected a different chair after inspecting underneath it for bugs or incendiary devices.

  They were two floors down from Art Crimes. Each unit seemed to take on its own attitude, reflected in the otherwise generic offices. Where Art Crimes was shiny and slick, Fisher's domain was spartan and open. No public dollars wasted on furnishings, no walls to hide misdeeds. Instead of art on the walls, there were quotes from the Constitution and civil rights leaders.

  "Interrogation room," said Fisher. "Remember I told you about the IA Captain I'm partnered with? He hammered at her for a few 'til she lawyered up. She doesn't know we have her lawyer, her union rep, and AUSA Werner in another room hashing out her future."

  John frowned. "You trust this guy? He offers her a way out, or worse, roughs her up, we lose our case."

  "Implicitly," said Fisher. "He's the most honest, decent man I've met in my career. "

  "Hah," snorted Theo. "Says the wolf about the snake."

  John sat on the edge of the metal table facing Theo. "Enough. You understand nuance as well as any of us. Act like it."

  "Agent Langley, Mr. Gorstwick, meet Captain Luke Monroe," said Fisher, introducing a cheerful-looking black man in a tailored black suit and NYPD-blue tie who'd just entered. He was in his forties, and held himself with the confidence of a man used to getting things done. He had an odd gait, and John's gaze slid to his right leg, where a glint of metal at the ankle indicated a prosthetic.

  "Iraq," said Monroe, acknowledging and dismissing the subject with a single word. He sized up John and Theo with a piercing gaze, unimpressed with John's status as an FBI agent or Theo's suspicious glower. This was a man who investigated and arrested cops; he was around Nick's height and build but John felt small under his microscopic examination.

  John must have passed though, because Monroe gave him a warm, sincere smile and extended his hand. "I'm so sorry about what my department did to your partner. I hope some day he can heal and we can help him feel safe in this city."

  Referring to Nick as his partner, instead of his criminal consultant or Aster, scored Monroe points in John's esteem. Monroe's handshake was confident but gentle, with no need to establish petty dominance.

  "He'll heal," said John. "I'm not sure he'll ever feel safe around a NYPD uniform again."

  "Will he let us try?" asked a sober Captain Monroe.

  John thought about CO Larson's wrenching description of shattered Nick Aster looking at him from under the bunk of a prison cell, desperately seeking support. "Yeah. A part of him loves law enforcement as much as any agent or officer. This hurt a hell of a lot more than if he hated cops."

  Monroe looked sincerely and personally sad. "I can't apologize to him right now. So I'll just tell you how sorry I am we devastated someone you both care about," he said, including Theo. "I stood in that cell. I watched that footage. I'm ashamed of a police department I lov
e, and my career is about fixing that."

  "Thanks," said Theo, his voice cracking. He wouldn't look directly at any of them. That was what kept John from dropping the issue, no matter how sincere the guy's remorse.

  "I'm not sure I'd feel safe in your office," said John. "Or that anyone who saw the photos will feel safe around your uniform. You saw that cell? I was locked in it, learning what the phrase 'beaten beyond recognition' means as applied to someone I love. Nick Aster is a playful man who hates violence. He was alive and conscious through every second of that horror. What shock may have shielded him from, he's re-lived and suffered through during his recovery."

  "I'm sorry," repeated the genuinely upset Captain.

  "I know, it turns out you tortured a guy who's easy to empathize with," said John. "But his pain also hurts me, and Theo, and my wife, and his friend Alice. Everyone who loved a person your jail abused has suffered, and had their trust shattered. Even if some of them were the worst people in the universe, their families don't deserve the pain we've been in on Nick's behalf."

  "I know," said Captain Monroe in a soft voice. "When I was hurt in Iraq, my family took it worse than I did. There's no excuse. Agent Fisher and I agree on that, I think." He paused. "There's also no way anyone can undo the agony Aster endured. We can only tell him -- and you -- a lot of people care, and we're trying to make things better. "

  "Thanks," said John, hardness and reserve ebbing away like a tide. "I'm responsible for this guy. He's brilliant and reckless, and sensitive and loving and hardheaded, and -- they gave him to me. The government gave me a person. And he gave me his trust and loyalty and--"

  John cut off his words. And you have no idea how much it hurts to watch my own side torture him.

  "I understand," said Monroe. "I understand that caring. We betrayed you. We betrayed Aster."

  Theo hadn't interrupted, and John was startled to see respect on his face. It probably helped that Monroe had simply accepted his oddball dress without reaction. "Theo?"

  "I can't add anything to this. We're criminals. You're the enemy. But an enemy with honor and ethics has my respect."

  Monroe arched his eyebrows. "By that measure, should I respect you as well?"

  "Yes," said Theo.

  Monroe, having waited until the gesture would be accepted, reached out to shake hands with Theo. "To respect."

  JOHN

  John frowned, taking in Vineil's appearance for the first time. She was small, maybe 5' 5" and lean. Her face was sharp and bitter, with wrinkles forming earlier than they should. Pale, from working inside a jail.

  She had what Nick called the "I want to talk to your manager" haircut, short, sharp, and angular like her. Her upper lip curled in terrified fury when he entered, and she rose a few inches from her chair with both hands forming fists on the table. The only life in her flat blue eyes was her rage.

  "You look like a junkyard guard dog who's been having a bad day," commented Fisher. The uncharacteristic mischievous gleam in his eyes told John it was purely for the sake of annoying Vineil.

  "FUCK--"

  Fisher smirked. "Would you like to speak to my manager?" he asked, arching his eyebrows. Apparently Nick wasn't the only one paying an odd amount of attention to angry female hair trends.

  Transfixed by Fisher, she lunged the rest of the way out of her seat and looked at though she was about to leap over the table at him. John put a hand on each of her shoulders and shoved her back down in the chair. She screamed in feigned terror and twisted, her elbow aimed expertly at John's sternum. He held her firmly, dodged the blow, and pinned her upper body against the table.

  John almost rolled his eyes. "Playing for a brutality claim, are we? You were so terrified your elbow accidentally hit me and I beat the hell out of you for it?"

  Silence.

  He kept her pinned with his weight on one hand and patted her shoulder with the other. "We don't do that here. So keep yourself under control unless you want to find yourself calmly and professionally handcuffed to this table."

  "Oh, no. You're not smug and self-righteous at all," she muttered. But she wasn't struggling, and John let her go, exchanging a sly grin with Fisher.

  "Like I told Captain Affirmative Action, I decline to waive my Miranda rights. I wish to have my lawyer present during any and all questioning." Vineil said it with her chin up and a satisfied smirk, as though she held an all-knowing trump card.

  Fisher rapped his knuckles on the table with a friendly smile. "Sure thing. Winona Freely, right?"

  Vineil's eyes flared slightly. "Right...."

  "She's in the conference room, I'll go get her. I got your union rep in there too, you want him with the lawyer or after?"

  "That's a question, dickhead. I decline to waive my-"

  "I'm bringing Freely in," said Fisher, cutting her off.

  John stood and pushed a neat stack of papers toward her. "Some background information on who Fisher and I are, our closure and conviction rates, and a few morsels of evidence we have on you. I'm fond of the recording of you and Starr colluding to murder Nick Aster."

  "I want to speak to my lawyer."

  "I don't give a fuck about you or what you want," snapped Fisher. "I haven't questioned you and I don't plan to. You'll get a lawyer when I feel like giving you one."

  John frowned and put a hand on Fisher's elbow. "Hey, take it easy. You're not at Gitmo any more, pal."

  Fisher jerked his arm away, furious. He drew back to punch John, and deflected at the last second with a glance at the camera. He stormed out with fists clenched, slamming the door behind him.

  Vineil was quiet and subdued, but her eyes blazed with anger. Anger that was slowly becoming driven by terror. "He does a good bad cop. I know the game, jackass."

  John gave her a furious look. "He was the good cop, you moron. I'm the one whose partner you're trying to slaughter after he was beaten and tortured in your facility."

  He stood up, his upper lip curled and his brow tight in rage. "You think I'm your friend, you couldn't be more wrong," said John.

  He walked out and slammed the door behind him, exhaling slowly as he grinned at Fisher.

  "That was fun," said Fisher with a return grin.

  JOHN

  It took two hours for the legal team to rattle sabers, brandish evidence, exchange threats, and finally, to decide Vineil's fate for her. Her lawyer, Winona Freely, met with her in private to break the news that life as she knew it was over.

  When John and Fisher entered thirty minutes later, it was obvious that she'd been crying. She looked at them both with plaintive fear.

  John stood at her side, looking down at her. "I need you to understand something. We both hate you, on a very personal level. We're about to offer to protect you and work with you, and if that happens we will treat you fairly and with honor. But if you're looking for understanding, sympathy, or 'professional courtesy', learn you're in a place where suspects are not beaten or murdered, we respect civil rights, an' have no tolerance for you betraying our entire damn foundation of justice."

  "So, you want a deal," Vineil said, barely keeping her voice cold and controlled. "How much time off do I get, hypothetically?"

  "None," said John bluntly. "You'll avoid the death penalty, and get convicted of federal charges, not state."

  Fisher took the lead. "I'm sure your lawyer has explained the current and pending charges. Where will you be booked into on state charges?"

  Vineil glanced at her lawyer, who nodded at her to answer the question. "Rikers Island."

  "And where will you serve time if convicted?" asked John.

  "Some state prison."

  Fisher leaned back in his chair, legs outstretched, and crossed his ankles. "Both places where you're well known to the inmate population. That means spending the rest of your life in solitary confinement. Not a nice prospect, and I'm sure you know how well inmates are treated at Rikers. It could be a long two or three years while we wrap up the investigation, before we even go to
trial. Do you think you'd survive the treatment you've been handing out?"

  "And? So?" she challenged. Her shoulders were shaking, and her body was so tense she might as well have rigor mortis.

  John took over, in the role of slightly gentler and less terrifying agent. "If you go in on Federal charges, we can arrange for you to do your time at a prison on the other side of the country where nobody knows you," said John. "It'll likely avoid the press, and federal women's facilities are places where you can live something that resembles a quality life. You won't get time off if you cooperate with us, but you'll leave law enforcement having done one truly good thing in your life."