Redemption (boyxboy) (18+)

Chapter Thirty-six

Stage Four: Depression

48, 49, 50.

Nate kneels with a small hand trowel, starts scooping at the sand. He's certain that he has remembered how to find the cash he buried here years ago, but there's still that one niggling piece of him that thinks he's wrong, that he drove all the way out here and trudged through a mile of desert for nothing-

But, no. His fingers graze over the Ziploc bag and he tugs it out of the hole, brushing the dirt away with his hand. It's stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash...and a gun, and a smaller baggie that Nate has just remembered is a stash of Oxycontin.

He takes the gun out and tosses it back in the hole, but he pockets the pills for reasons he doesn't want to examine too closely.

And then he makes the long walk back to the car. It's a piece-of-shit station wagon he stole in Reno (in its place he'd left a vague but polite "I owe you" note) and parked as far off the road as it would go.

The sun sets before he reaches it and for once he's grateful for his stupid trench coat because goddamn is the desert cold at night. And so very vast and dark - Nate feels like he has left the earth behind completely and is floating in the frozen vacuum of space.

He's happy as he walks, because now he's got the means to make life better for the people he has wronged. He took someone from them, but he truly believes that he can fix it now. Not to mention, he'll also have enough to get him by until the trial.

He sits down on the tailgate of the station wagon and fans the cash in his fingers...

...and it's just money. Paper. Useless green scraps.

And he realizes, with a stab so sharp that he can physically feel it tearing into him, that even if someone gave him a hundred thousand times the cash he's currently holding it would never make up for losing someone he loves. For losing Reid.

Making amends is a futile battle, because Nathaniel can never actually achieve it. He can't resurrect the dead. Nothing he does will ever make him good enough; he will never be free.

And just like that, the misguided, delusional belief that has been fueling him this far is gone.

He shoves the money into his pocket in disgust, crying as he stares hopelessly out into the silent emptiness.

And there, for the first time, he seriously considers the idea of giving up. Of running away permanently - he's got more than just hidden cash, he's got property purchased under aliases in countries with no extradition treaties - and forgetting about everything he has tried to do since he decided to turn himself in. Forgetting about everything before that, too, and starting over completely new.

It's not like he'd be leaving all that much behind. If he can't make up for what he's done, then he doesn't believe that Reid could ever forgive him for nearly getting him killed and then running away when he needed him most. Besides, Nathaniel doesn't think he could bear to see the disappointment and judgment in Reid's face if they were to ever see each other again.

Nate scrambles to pull the pills out of his pocket before he can think about it, tossing a couple in his mouth and swallowing them dry. He can feel them sticking as they slowly tumble down his throat and he focuses on that, counting the seconds until he feels it land in his stomach. And then he curls up in the back of the station wagon, waiting for the fog of despair to dissipate medicinally, waiting for his life to make some sense again, waiting for...something.

He can't be sure if he's dreaming or hallucinating when he sees Reid climb into the back of the station wagon and stretch out beside him. But Nate doesn't care, because he looks so real - the stubble on his face, the tiny lines around his eyes, his hair the way Nate always liked it best, all mussed from sleep.

And he feels real - his hands just the right blend of gentle and strong as they trace over Nate's face, cup his jaw, tangle in his hair.

And he smells real - whiskey and leather and aftershave and home.

Reid leans over him, tender and smiling and so perfect that Nate can feel something squeezing painfully in his chest, wild hope blooming dangerously fast. He cranes his neck up, feels Reid's hand slide beneath it to help him, to raise him up to Reid's face, his lips full and parted and only inches away-

Nate's head slams back into the nappy, carpet-covered metal floorboard of the station wagon; the cold night air comes rushing back in. He looks around him and sighs.

Reid is gone; Reid was never there. But for a split second, Nate swears he can see something strange shimmering like a mirage in the place where Reid was.

What the hell? How many pills did I take?

Because now he's hallucinating a cheesy, vintage postcard for Venice Beach, hanging suspended in the air beside him.

He passes out.

*******

Just before Valentine's Day, Reid's side stops hurting.

He doesn't realize it until he's been awake for 45 minutes, after he's showered and shaved and is working on his third cup of coffee. He's getting ready for another day of fruitlessly searching for Nate, tucking in his dress shirt, when his hand slides over the scar.

And nothing happens. No twinge, no painful zing along his nerves, nothing. Just new, shiny, pink skin.

He pokes it harder, digs his finger into the lumpy scar tissue until he finally feels something. It's still not painful, not really, but it's uncomfortable.

That's something, and he's so fucked up about Nate leaving that he welcomes the pain. He clings to it.

Because it's the only thing he has to remember Nate by, pain and a scar, both of which are fading fast. He'd give anything for one of his tourist t-shirts (the EMTs cut the Virginia one off of him, the rest are just...gone) or even those stupid fucking Mickey ears from Disney World. Without them it's like his time with Nate was nothing more than a story. Just something he dreamed up in his head on a particularly lonely and whiskey-fueled Saturday night instead of an actual relationship with an actual man.

And that's the real problem; Reid has lost faith that he will ever see Nathaniel again.

He's done everything he knows to do, searched what feels like the entire country from top to bottom, and he's come up short every time.

If Nate is still alive, he's beyond Reid's reach. He's really, truly, gone.

And for the first time, Reid feels it. He feels the hope tear away from his heart, he feels the pit opening in his chest and swallowing every happy memory they'd shared, tainting them all with the guilt and pain of Reid's greatest failure.

He slumps over, the new badge clipped to his belt digging into his stomach sharply. He hates that fucking replacement badge, because that shit was never supposed to exist. He gave his badge - the badge that mattered - to Nate. That was the one Reid had worn through years of laughter and pain, of friendships and family and hard work, the one that said that everything he was and everything he was ever going to be was now in Nate's hands.

This badge, this stupid hunk of meaningless metal, is just like the cold leads that never bring him any closer to finding Nate - empty reminders that he'd had the best thing in the world and blown it all to hell.

Fuck. Now he's crying again, goddammit.