Redemption (boyxboy) (18+)

Chapter One

**Six Weeks Ago**

Nathaniel stands in the dark of the early morning, staring up at the building. It's thoroughly average-looking and there's no sign above the door, nothing to indicate what it is, but he's spent his life learning to avoid the law. He knows how to recognize the vague air of institutional inefficiency, how to watch the people come and go at regular intervals, how to run the license plates in the parking lot and listen in on the conversations held over smoke breaks.

So he has determined exactly what this place is; he has no doubt that he's standing five feet outside of the Kansas City field office for the US Marshals Service. And those few feet of broken pavement between the scuffed toes of his sensible dress shoes and the front door are the last he will ever walk with even the barest hint of safety.

He shifts his gaze to the glass door, poorly tinted with air bubbles trapped between the glass and the purple film. He takes a deep breath; it smells like night and car exhaust and something heavy, so thick he can almost feel it on the back of his tongue.

And then he frowns and curls his fingers into a tight fist, feeling his nails push tiny half-moon imprints into his calloused palms, seriously considering turning around and forgetting all of this insane plan. Just going back to his fucked-up life with his brothers and sisters and cousins, falling in line and taking orders from his father and step-mother like a good little mafioso.

That would be his only chance to live another year. Because if he goes through with this plan, if he turns himself in and testifies against his family, they will hunt him down and kill him. And Nathaniel is good, he's very good, but it won't matter. They will win in the end.

They always do.

He reaches up to self-consciously adjust the tie around his neck; the motion makes blood drip, thick and dark, from his saturated shirtsleeve. Nathaniel watches it splatter onto the asphalt, remembering how it felt when his knife scraped against the inside of Samuel's ribcage, how he held his cousin in his arms and watched the last of the light leave his eyes, Nathaniel's own tears swirling into the blood staining his shirt as the guilt and grief wracked him.

And he crosses to the door in two quick strides.

*******

Reid is beginning to suspect that his entire existence is fucked up beyond all recognition.

He's barely awake, his hair is still damp from his morning shower, and he's jonesing for some shitty break room coffee when he walks into his office and freezes.

There's a man sitting at Reid's desk. He's perched on the edge of the rolling chair, bent over and scribbling furiously, his thick, messy black hair sticking up everywhere. One dark blue eye is rapidly swelling shut and there's dried blood on his chin from a nasty cut on his full, chapped lips. And his clothes aren't in much better shape - his dark suit is wrinkled and torn, his blue tie tightly knotted but hanging crooked, the cuffs of his white dress shirt soaked with not-quite-dry blood.

Reid's cop brain catalogs all this in a second, along with the man's average height and muscular build, sharp jawline, and watch that retails for more than Reid's annual salary.

Reid hovers on the far side of the desk for a long moment before clearing his throat loudly, unsure if the man even knows - or cares - that Reid's there.

The noise makes him frown, the motion threatening to make his split bottom lip bleed again, and he flicks his eyes up to Reid's for a fraction of a second. He seems almost irritated by the interruption, but he sets down the pen and stands, somehow utterly composed despite his disheveled state. He pulls a phone from his pocket and his long fingers fly gracefully over the screen for a few seconds before a digitized voice says, "Hello. I'd like to turn myself in. I'm Nathaniel Angelev."