JOHN
The 80s nightmare hotel room looked like heaven, and the shower felt like a warm torrent of pure bliss. Mari slipped in with him after a few minutes, and after a minute of intense kissing Mari pulled away and studied him, one hand on her lithe, perfect hip. Even after a day like this, it made him smile.
“You look exhausted,” said Mari.
Was he? Everything inside him was tight, and hurt. “I guess.” He was so tired he wanted to crumble to the floor and fell asleep right here in the tub, but he was too tense.
“What’s wrong, hon? Nick?”
“Nick said he’s okay.” The twist in John’s gut increased. Oh. Guilt. “I’m here, and he’s hurting, locked up with his life in danger.”
“Why didn’t you go back to Sing Sing?” asked Mari.
“Nick said for me to come back here and sleep,” admitted John, angling his back further into the spray and narrowing his eyes in contentment at the sound of the water falling on his skin and splashing the walls. No wonder Nick delighted in his luxuries; a couple days just seeing the hardness of a maximum security prison had him rating a shower in a dive hotel as the eighth wonder of the world.
“Than listen to him,” said Mari. Her eyes were calm and alert; she hadn’t had much to do but sleep and keep in touch with the studio over Skype. “He’s an adult and a survivor, and he cares about you. Better to have his friend and protector well rested and being safe and sharp on the job.”
John exhaled in relief of tension. It didn’t all go away, but she was right. The next days were going to be vital.
Mari hugged him, and John nuzzled his face between her breasts and closed his eyes. Mari gave him a soft kiss and nibbled on his shoulder. His heart was racing. His breath was coming in forced, deliberate gasps, and every muscle was coiled tight.
Mari didn’t say anything, just kissed him again and caressed his neck and back and arms, anywhere she could find to touch and soothe him. When he finally relaxed enough to raise his head and look in her eyes, she looked back at him in alarm, a stream of water snaking across a line in her forehead, down her nose, and over her lips.
“Jesus Christ, just how horrifying is that place?” she asked flatly, spitting out the invading water with all the contempt she felt for Nick’s tormentors.
John closed his eyes again and breathed in steam and tangy grapefruit body wash. Comforting heat and water hammered at his head and back and flowed away. “On the face of it, not that bad. I mean - it’s clean and calm and professional. Nothing like the Riker’s horror show.”
His heart started pounding again. “I’ve been there for, what, two days. I’m not the prisoner. I get to come here at night. I wasn’t just tortured in jail. But this - it’s been one of the most stressful experiences of my life.”
“I’ve never seen you look like this,” agreed Mari.
John closed his eyes, wishing for some simple horror to relate, to explain why he felt sick inside. But the horrors were too subtle. “He doesn’t matter. Nick Aster, the person, doesn’t matter in there. They treat him like - like a lab animal.”
Mari’s expression was oddly flat. “You knew that.”
“No - not really…” said John, taken aback by her almost hostile reaction.
“Yes, you did,” she said. The bite in her voice made John wince. “Nick gave you his loyalty and love and freedom, because you showed him honest affection. That’s not behavior of a man who’s used to mattering to anyone on a real level. Prison was easy on him because he’s used to dealing with self-interested, shallow, devious people who don’t give two hoots whether he’s alive or dead.”
“Damn.” John turned his face to the warm pounding spray, trying to wash away that truth. He sort of wanted this to be something that could be blamed just on prison, wanted the wounds in Nick’s heart to have been inflicted when he was trapped and helpless in a situation John could protect him from.
The truth was, Nick’s affection for the COs who treated him well wasn’t just prison Stockholm Syndrome. It was the reaction of a man who wasn’t used to being the target of decency and caring anywhere, so of course finding it when he was a prisoner of all things was sincerely moving to him.
John shivered despite the heat of the shower. “I had - to work Nick through being able to let himself be handcuffed again. Jesus - just empathizing with him and holding him while he processed that fear and pain ....I - I had to hurt him. I hurt him.”
“Did you - force him?” Mari’s voice was sharp, and John’s eyes flew open as he inhaled sharply. He blinded himself momentarily and inhaled shower water, and spent a minute coughing before he could answer.
“Oh, God no,” said John. “I had - have - his full cooperation and consent. It was his choice.”
Mari sighed, patiently coaching him. “Then let him face his demons with courage. Nick has been through enough trauma in his life to know how to manage the aftermath in his own way. He’s letting you watch and hold his hand, but it’s his healing to do.”
What did that remind him of? With another stab of pain, John remembered. Nick had told him it had been reassuring going through intake at Sing Sing.
John couldn’t think of what he’d seen on video or remember Nick’s raw, frantic and suffering anger in that chair without clenching his fists and wanting to unleash the hounds of hell on the men who’d done it to him. Nick’s use of the word “reassuring” to describe an event where he’d been screaming in terror was insane.
But after that, the true, elemental, gut-level terror he’d been seeing in Nick’s eyes after Riker’s had eased. Nick was still traumatized, still vulnerable and in physical and emotional pain. But he was using being on the set of his nightmares to heal from them, and letting John comfort him through that.
“He knows what he’s doing,” said John, more as a realization than a statement. Neil Kasdan and Gary Wills had sharp minds and gentle hearts, and they’d spoken honestly with Nick and cared for him on the way back to prison. If Nick had broken down, been terrified and pleading and truly unable to handle going there, those two men would have found another option.
He’d been trusted and unrestrained, and could have figured a way to escape.
Nick knew exactly what he would be walking into, and on some level had made the decision to allow it. Part of that choice had been seeking pain to distract himself from the pain of abandonment by John, but not all of it.
“Hon?” It was Mari’s turn to look sick with empathy. “I ask again, how horrifying is that place Nick Aster was a prisoner for five years?”
John shivered. “Would you believe an answer of ‘I don’t know’? The people and places and procedures there are going to haunt me, but Nick is almost frantic that I believe he wasn’t generally miserable or mistreated.”
“In other words, it’s as contradictory as Nick,” said Mari.
John nodded and scrubbed soap absently under his arms and between his legs, barely remembering he was in a shower, he was so distracted. Mari tugged him closer and shampooed his hair, giving him a scalp massage directly beamed down from heaven.
“Trust Nick,” she said finally. “It’s quite a life he’s survived and mastered. He loves you, and he’s trying so hard to trust you. So trust him. Let him show you where it hurts, and don’t correct him on it and tell him it’s really his middle toenail.”
John allowed his impulse out. "Sweetie - help me with something?"
"What?" She forced the back of his head gently under the water, rinsing his hair with soothing fingers.
"I want to do something really nice for Nick. He's had this torrent of awful tumble down on his shoulders and just not stop. I want to dump something nice on him, I just can't think of what."
Mari's shoulders were shaking in mirth when he shook the water from his head and turned to face her. "You certainly talk about it in appealing enough terms," she teased.
John rolled his eyes. "I'll clean all the awful stuff off him first. Seriously, I'd like to do something real."
"So would I," said Mari. "He talk about wanting anything?"
John's brows drew together. "He doesn't like being put in cells and tortured, and would prefer that it stop. That count?"
"Does he even joke about anything he wants, or longs for? But knows he's not going to get?" suggested Mari, not taking his bait.
Inspiration rushed gleefully into John's mind. "He's had this whole running gag about going to New Orleans with the two of us." His shoulders slumped. "He's not allowed out of the state. But I'd love to see the look on his face...."
"Could you get an exception made?" asked Mari.
John shook his head. "Only if it were for something like medical treatment or a major case."
"Recovery from major trauma at the hands of law enforcement?"
John shook his head. "Gonna look pretty minor on paper, considering he'll make a full recovery. DOJ isn't prone to feeling bad. It's a bureaucracy."
"Try," suggested Mari. "Go at it from the angle of he's your partner, he just helped bring home a massive public corruption case, whatever might possibly work. Get Curry to help, pull strings, whatever."
"You don't know - I've used up every bit of string-pulling and every favor I could beg and plead out of anyone just to keep Nick out of prison and working with me," said John.
"I sat with Curry at the hospital," said Mari. "Sometimes old and tough men will let their guard down around a soft younger woman. He said, 'It's not fair,' about what happened to Nick, and he looked like he was going to come apart. 'I saw it like a crime scene, like he was dead. Justice died there.'"
John rubbed his eyes. "He said that, huh?"
Mari nodded. "Hon, that man was seriously troubled. And I think, like you, he would do anything in his power to balance the scales of justice even a little bit. Even if it was just by giving Nick a vacation. You may have used up all your capital, but he probably hasn't."
“Okay,” said John.
“You could also propose,” said Mari.
“Propose what?” asked John.
“That he wear something in addition to an anklet?”
John frowned.
“Something more ring-shaped?”
John’s jaw dropped.
NICK
The human mind wasn't made to function in an environment that didn't change. With all clues to the passage of time - shifts in light, temperature, sound, even moisture - absent, time stopped. There was no more helpless a feeling than to lose his grasp on time and the ability to influence anything.
Nick understood people who mutilated themselves, or flooded cells and made COs extract them with violence. Crimson blood would be a visual relief in the midst of unchanging white and gray, a pigment to paint with and see the some rules of nature still existed.
A cell extraction meant pain and punishment. It meant change and attention and the adrenaline of a fight, and the opportunity to hurt the people keeping you in hell. It meant being able to take an action that resulted in a reaction.
Would this be easier if he enjoyed violence, or hated law enforcement? Or what if he wasn't the only person trapped in this row of cells who genuinely wanted to win the affection of the officers, not just to manipulate but to feel human warmth? Or who daydreamed about working with the FBI agent who took him down?
Except now they weren't daydreams. That agent had come when Nick called in arguably the darkest hour of his life, cradled Nick in his arms, and brought him into his home and heart. Nobody here had that. Or the freedom of knowing they were only there as part of a sting.
“Aster!” The crisp, slightly annoyed voice belonged to a CO outside the door, peering into his cell. Nick turned his face to the officer so that it would be visible, and made eye contact with him and smiled. “Sorry, sir. Thanks for checking on me.”
The officer’s face softened a bit, and he touched his hand to the window before moving on. Nick found that with absolute patience and determination and relentless cooperation, at least half of the COs working solitary could be befriended. Not that they would actually do anything to change his circumstances, but given the isolation, having the faces he saw be friendly ones made a huge difference.
Another face appeared at the little window. John, smiling uncomfortably, his eyes worried. Nick’s muscles unwound in relief, and he jumped to his feet. "John!"
Nick was across the cell and at the door before he realized he was even moving. John put his hand on the glass and left it there.
“You okay?” John asked softly, scanning every inch of Nick and looking intensely into his eyes with sincere concern.
Nick’s heart was lightened instantly. He felt so lucky, so loved, so elated, that he found himself beaming. He pressed his palm against the window opposite John’s.
Nick nodded. “I’m very, very, very okay.”
“Missed you.” John cut the words short and looked down, embarrassed. This wasn’t an environment that encouraged sentimentality or even expressions of friendship.
“Yeah,” agreed Nick.
“This feels weird,” said John. “Do you even want me looking in there at you like you’re a zoo animal every fifteen minutes?”
“Depends,” said Nick. “Am I something cool, like a tiger or an elephant, or are you looking in here and thinking, ‘Nice possum display?’”
John grinned too, some of the stress leaving his worried face. “I’m more feeling cheated because the sign on the door says, ‘Saber-toothed Tigers,’ and I look in and see a cute little kitten.”
“Cute? Kitten?” Nick raised his eyebrows indignantly. “They give kittens toys, you know. Suddenly I’m feeling cheated.”
“I’ll ask the warden if I can give you some fuzzy little catnip mice,” said John. “Maybe aim a laser pointer through the window.”
Nick felt a surge of fierce gratitude, and met John’s eyes. “I know you feel guilty. Don’t. You’ve changed my whole world. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
John didn’t answer, just looked at him radiating affection. Finally he pressed his hand to the window again with a sideways smile. “Sit down and shut up.”
Nick had to chuckle to himself as he flagrantly disobeyed. Three years ago, if someone’d told him that John Langley telling him to sit down and shut up would give him a safe, happy glow inside ....
"How's the weather out there?" asked Nick.
"Dreadful," said John. "Twenty below zero, hailing frogs, locusts getting the streets all slippery...."
"You underestimate the joys of four white walls," said Nick, grinning. "Still sounds nice."
"Firey pit opened up beneath Wall Street...."
"About time," said Nick.
"There's a three-day baseball marathon playing...."
Nick wrinkled his nose in revulsion. "This cell is amazing. Minimalist spa-like design, no baseball...."
"Knew you'd love it," agreed John. He dropped his hand from the window with a sigh. "I have to go walk a pervert now."
"Have fun," said Nick. "Be sure and take pervert treats."
John backed away slowly. "Tell me what those are and I'll shoot you."
TARA VINEIL
Vineil stood between Theo and Starr, eyes narrowed against the bitter fall wind in her face, keenly aware of Agent Fisher’s team listening to every word. Starr had gotten suspicious and demanded to meet “Foukou” and verify his story by checking that the drugs hidden in chili cans were real.
She wasn’t certain of her path, or the merits of remaining alive. Life in prison was supposed to be a reward? Her lawyers assured her that the “decent” accommodations the feds promised for her cooperation were real, but she had a sneaking feeling she knew better.
She could tell Starr here and now that it was a trap, and they could try to flee.
She could grab Starr’s gun and shoot herself in the head.
Starr pried open the can, and Vineil almost hoped there would be nothing there, and he would open fire on them. Instead, he pulled out a tape-wrapped plastic packet, wiped it on a wa
d of paper towels, and sliced into it with a threatening tactical blade. Old buffoon. She could have the knife out of his hands and buried in his chest in seconds. So could the little wack job pet criminal the FBI had dredged up, she suspected.
Fuck them. Fuck them all. Arrogant, ivory-towered FBI agents who’d never faced the reality of twisted, insane, cruel violent criminals and how they really behaved. Violence was their language, and the only hope of controlling them in the slightest. She’d essentially, now, given her life to the cause of protecting civilians from evil they could never fathom. So be it. Her choice was whether to die slowly or fast. Did Starr, her comrade in arms, deserve to be imprisoned just so she could live longer?
Starr started a rapid test on the contents of the packet. He was plotting the murder for hire of a nonviolent man who threatened his freedom, as had she before the feds grabbed her. He was arguably a criminal himself now, and not just technically or in pursuit of a greater justice. What was the difference between this knife-wielding criminal and the ones behind her bars?
Broken Blue Lines: Love. Hate. Criminal Justice.: An FBI Crime Drama / LGBT+ Love Story Page 44
