Redemption (boyxboy) (18+)

Chapter Six

Reid's been a marshal for eight years now and he's spent every second of it learning to be the best. He can shoot the tires out of a moving car from fifty yards, he can recognize a single threat in a teeming crowd, and he can make anyone disappear into the system. He's hidden dozens of witnesses away until they can testify against whoever it is that the justice department is after, and built entirely new lives for them afterward.

But he has only done these things with agency resources before. Easy access to money and fake identification, whole lives created and validated by the US government. He's not sure how to even begin doing any of it out on his own. Where do they go? What makes the next place any safer than Texas was, or San Diego, or Michigan?

How do you even begin to blend into an area when you have to live out of motels, pay cash, and can't ever show ID?

Reid spends the first eight hours of the twelve-hour drive desperately trying to (a) figure out the answer to that question and (b) avoid having ridiculous, girly daydreams while watching Nate sleep.

So he drinks his shitty coffee and listens to the soothing, deep breaths of Nathaniel beside him. He watches America slide past the bus windows, feels his ass slowly go numb but doesn't shift in his seat for fear of waking Nate. And he thinks.

The solution finally comes to him just as Nate begins to wake up, squinting in the sunlight and groaning as his muscles protest sleeping in a bus seat.

But Reid doesn't say anything beyond, "We've still got a few hours before we get there, so I'm going to grab some shut-eye. Wake me up if we stop or anything looks weird."

He'll tell Nate the plan when he's sure there's no one else listening.

*******

And now it's Nate's turn to watch over his sleeping companion while wondering for the thousandth time just what he's gotten himself into. He knew when he decided to confess all the horrible things he'd witnessed over the years, feeding the police everything they would need to finally take down his father, step-mother, and all the aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings that worked for them, that he would lose more than his family, his career, and his home.

He'd lose his life.

Maybe not right away, maybe not before he had the chance to testify - which was the only thing that made it all worth it, the only thing keeping him going - but it would happen. They would kill him. A bullet while he slept, poison slipped into his coffee, a knife to the gut in the middle of a crowd. There were just too many of them and they were too powerful for him to escape for long.

He'd just always believed it would be lower-level associates and hired gunmen. Even after everything he'd seen, everything he'd done, Nate hadn't quite been prepared for his own brother to come after him.

He also hadn't been prepared for how close he'd grow to Reid - and, to a slightly lesser extent, Ben. He'd expected to be assigned marshals who would protect him because it was their jobs, but would always make him feel like the criminal that he was. Self-righteous, stick-up-their-asses law enforcement, silently judging and excluding him, certainly unwilling to take a bullet for him.

But Reid and Ben were different. They seemed to genuinely care about Nate, to be interested in knowing him beyond the secrets he held. And they'd proved that they'd do anything to save him that first time in Texas, only two weeks after he walked into the agency and sat down at Reid's desk.

Nate hadn't even been in the new identity a day before he'd been tracked down.

The whole house was set ablaze in the middle of the night, the acrid burn of smoke in his nose waking Nate to a bedroom engulfed in flames. He couldn't scream for help, couldn't find the phone Reid had given him to send an SOS text. He'd barely managed to crawl to the front door, disoriented in the unfamiliar house. Every breath was a struggle as he choked and coughed, his skin so slick with sweat that it was dripping and sliding over the tile floor. His eyes watered and stung until all he could see were the bright blurs of orange flame and the promise of cool darkness beyond the door.

And then, over the roar of the fire, he heard the popping sound of gunshots. Nate was sure they were meant for him, that someone was waiting to make sure he didn't get out alive. He froze just before he reached the threshold and waited for the pain, the warm rush of blood, the hot lead tearing holes in his head or his chest... but seconds passed and there was nothing. And just as he was about to start moving again, his head so filled with smoke that he was sure he'd drown in it, a strong arm pulled him up from the ground. It wrapped around his waist and helped him stumble into the clear night air, supported him as he coughed and sputtered and gulped in greedy lungfuls. Lips brushed over his ear, a deep voice trying to talk over the deafening sound of the blaze.

"You're okay, Nate. We got him. You're okay."

And when the stinging in his eyes eased enough that Nate could see Reid clearly, see the concern and caring in his face, Nate thought - for the first time since he'd turned himself in - that maybe it really was the truth. Maybe he really was okay.

Because Nathaniel is not a person who trusts easily, for obvious reasons, but Ben and Reid had earned it. They had scaled the once-impenetrable walls he built around himself and strolled right into his heart, kicking their feet up and making themselves comfortable.

But this - this desperate, working-without-a-net running - is something new. In all the time they've spent together, it has never been just him and Reid and an open road, no rules, no regulations to follow, no backup. It's making Nate itch in a way that he can't decide is pleasure or discomfort.

He's felt something with Reid from the beginning, an innate sense that he was important somehow, an almost tangible current of electricity sparking over his skin when they lock eyes. And now they were going to, what? Live together somewhere, pretend to be siblings or roommates or - Nate feels a tiny hitch in his chest, something warm and tight - lovers?

Reid twitches in his sleep, his head rolling in Nate's direction, the skin of his hand stretching over the tendons as his fingers curl around the armrests.

They've got nothing but each other and the tattered clothes on their backs. That doesn't exactly sound like a recipe for success to Nate, but he's learned this much - if anyone can pull off the impossible, it's Reid Logan.

Nathaniel sighs and turns to stare out the window, letting his leg drift over into Reid's space, taking comfort in the solid warmth of him at Nate's side.