Growing Down - Chapter Ten
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Chapter 10
The phone call hadn’t lasted much longer after that and the next day, which happened to be a Saturday, Joe headed to a Post Office nearby which the mechanical voice had made him write down. When he got to the storage unit he just pointed it out and Secret Service opened it with the key they’d gotten from the Postmaster. Yeah, they could do that. He reached in and took out the small box but didn’t hand it over when Matt asked for it. Nick wasn’t sure Matt could be trusted; this put Joe on alert when near him. He pocketed it awkwardly, it wasn’t large but it made his pocket look funny but he didn’t trust putting the box anywhere else.
The day wore on to be a stressful one. He’d taken a bit of a walk through the various rooms in the White House only to find there was actually a secret passageway which shouldn’t have really surprised him. If there were one, there were probably others. Naturally, he followed it and he’d found a printing press that had been used recently as well as a stash of fake U.S. currency. He’d called Harris and the place had been swarmed, and Matt’s lack of true interest was something he would remember. Now there was another problem to solve, who was making counterfeit bills right under their noses - literally?
When he got back to his room that night after all the various events he’d attended, he said good night despite the early hour and headed for his bed. Shaking the box gently he heard a lot of clicking like small bits of plastic and metal knocking against each other. Finally, unable to take the suspense anymore, he opened it and spilled the contents onto the comforter. There were three USB keys, and they all had a lot of storage. They were also labeled one, two and three.
He opened his laptop and waited for it to boot, really hoping something wasn’t about to blow up, and when he had all processes and programs he wouldn’t need not running he inserted the drive and watched it prompt him with the various run features. He hit ‘play’ and watched as the DVD player began to run, a sense of dread settling in his stomach like cold rocks. It was video footage of Nick during his captivity.
Nick on the floor, someone bending over him and giving him a needle; his brother on his hands and knees now, some asshole behind him with a whip, obviously trained with it as he raised the skin but didn’t break it. The first month of footage was especially difficult to watch and at several points he had to turn off the sound, fast-forward through the torture. Nick had screamed, begged, and even pleaded for them to let him go and once in a while for Joe to save him. That was the hardest part to endure, but eventually even those dwindled and Nick stopped talking altogether, the only sounds were the ones of pain when they tortured him hard enough. They didn’t start using drugs until the third month.
When Nick was drugged, that was when he gave the most away, drugged and sleeping or trying to sleep. He’d say Joe’s name, dick hard and obvious because he was always naked, always so vulnerable to anyone who passed by. It must have given the kidnappers a power trip to have the President in such a vulnerable state, but all it did was feed Joe’s rage. His hands were tied, so unless one of them let him finish (or he finished without them realizing he was about to while torturing him) his erection was usually present. He didn’t react to pain, not the kind they were giving him, and they would just hit him harder if his dick fell soft when they hurt him and start beating him, instead.
There was one name that they questioned Nick about time and again: Rudolph (Rudy) Stamos. Joe sort of recognized the name and thought it was the Secret Service agent that had been shot almost half a year before, Harris had had to shoot him in order to protect Nick. His brother’s silence on the matter, regardless of the question, was what scared Joe the most. Almost as frequently as they asked about Stamos, they would ask about Joe, asking how to get to him and how would Nick feel is he lost Joe. Mainly, they seemed pretty intent on getting to Joe, apparently thinking that the older brother would have come for Nick long ago. They’d made calls to the White House and told them they had Nick, but it seemed the messages never got passed on.
The end of the last tape was weird, suddenly it was playing a clip of Nick dozing fitfully, and a moment later he was gone as if he’d vanished completely. Joe had to replay it a few times to notice that the clip of Nick sleeping was duplicated several times to make it look like the camera was still recording, but in actuality it hadn’t been. Someone had orchestrated his brother’s escape, and he’d done it well.
It was everything Nick had said it was and worse. Needless to say, Joe got no sleep that night after staying up and watching most of the videos, fast forwarding through a lot, his heart breaking into a million different pieces over and over again. By the time he was through with them his eyes were aching, scratchy and irritable, and he stood then noticed letter on the floor. He picked it up; it must have fallen when he opened the box, and read it as if his life depended on it.
I’ll be releasing copies of these to the TV stations in one week unless the President is reinstated before then. That, or you have until then to find me if you want to stop it. See you at the reinstatement ceremony, although you won’t be seeing me.
He called Harris and the two of them met with Nick at the hotel he was staying under a new fake, female name. When Joe got there Nick smiled at him, fucking smiled at him like Joe was Christmas morning and he melted right into that gaze, meeting Nick halfway for a hug. “Your kidnapper contacted me,” he whispered. Nick froze and Joe wrapped his arms around those shoulders a bit more snugly and thought they were feeling more and more like the Nick he knew every day. When they did pull away Nick was composed once more and Joe took a seat on one of the chairs in the large suite. Nick took the seat next to him and Harris sat across from them and Joe cleared his throat, pulling out the note and handing it first to Nick.
When Nick handed it to Harris without so much as a word and shot Joe a curious look the older brother just pulled out the three USB drives and Nick shivered. “Oh God,” he said, hands coming up to rub at his temples. “Tell me, Joe, please tell me you didn’t watch those.” When Joe didn’t say anything for a while Nick sighed and looked back at Harris as if hoping the man had found something. Harris looked up then and noticed the USB drives immediately, holding out a hand for Joe to give them to him, but Joe just shook his head and put them back in his pocket. “Thank you,” Nick said, slumping further into his seat and Joe put a hand on his thigh to comfort him, which wasn’t missed by the watching and annoyed Secret Service agent.
“What is on those?” he asked carefully, “Because if we don’t stop him or have Nick reinstated, I’m fairly certain whatever that is will be public knowledge, and keeping that information from me when all I’m trying to do is help isn’t a good idea.” They exchanged a look, both knowing that Harris was right but waiting for the other to speak. But Joe, Joe just gave Nick this look that spoke volumes, clearly saying it was Nick’s story and decision to tell Harris.
“They had a camera trained on me while I was, while they were, uh, doing stuff to me - trying to get me to speak.” Joe knew this was the reason they kept trying to get Nick to admit to the crimes they accused him of, both incest and murder, although obviously with different ‘victims.’ “They told me they were taping it and that they would always have this over me.” Silence greeted those grim words and this time when Joe put his hand on Nick’s thigh again, Harris didn’t think more of it than just for comfort, or if he did he didn’t let it show on his face this time.
“I’ll bring this to forensics,” Harris muttered and gestured toward the note. Forensics had been Harris’ department before he’d joined the Secret Service, having started as a local cop in Florida where he’d grown up, and then made it into the FBI. “Although I doubt I can get much from just a note. Joe, if you give me the packaging and the P.O. Box number again, that would help. Nick,” he turned to the younger Jonas, “A clipping of your hair will do.” Well, that one was easy and Joe grabbed a pair of scissors from the table and snipped some of Nick’s hair off, handing it to Harris without a word. It was better than giving him the tapes, at least. This way, if Harris was questioned, he’d have the hair as ‘evidence’ that it was sent by the kidnappers.
If they didn’t have anything by tonight they didn’t have any choice but to get the process of Nick being reinstated started, because they had to have that happen on Friday, the latest, if they wanted to keep these videos from the media. So far, Joe was sort of hoping he was the only one who ever got to see them, for a lot of reasons. But there was something he had to do before he left to go back to the White House and he told Harris to wait for him in the car. “Nick, I need to you to be honest with me about something,” he said and Nick’s hands clenched into tight fists. “What happened with Stamos?”
Nick’s gaze dropped as if he couldn’t meet Joe’s eyes which wrenched the older man’s heart, making his stomach drop in the process. Until then he hadn’t really believed it. Sure, he’d had his doubts, but in that moment he could tell it was true. A few curls dropped in front of Nick’s eyes and he began to speak in a dry, monotonous voice. “Six months ago Stamos attacked me,” he said, still not looking at Joe. “Before then, he’d been bribing me to keep his mouth shut about us.” This took Joe completely by surprise and he pulled back, putting some distance between them. “I didn’t tell you about it because I didn’t want you to get worried,” Nick said as he finally looked at Joe. “I didn’t want you to over-react and try and do something about it.”
Joe nodded, taking this all in, not only had Nick lied through omission about something major, but it had gone even further than just someone knowing about their relationship. “He figured it out when he had to give me a report and they let him into the suite to wait while I showered, you were supposed to be in the suite as well. It was that time in California we took the opportunity to shower together, it was reckless and stupid and I shouldn’t have agreed to it.” Joe could remember very well what happened, and how they’d somehow convinced themselves showering together that morning would be quicker when in reality they’d just wound up fucking on the floor, which subconsciously they’d both known would happen and wanted it.
“When I got out of the shower he was sitting in one of the chairs and he just knew, Joe, and you were still in the shower so the running water didn’t help. I didn’t think they’d let other people in the room like that, but that was the day he gave me that report about the revolution in Switzerland and I didn’t know what to do.” Still, even with what Nick had said, killing Stamos didn’t seem like something Nick would have done at that point. “Harris knows what happened next, but he doesn’t know about us,” his little brother, his baby boy continued in a rush as if this felt good to get off his chest - as if he needed to tell Joe. “About six months ago I was up, it was the middle of the night and I was just restless and Harris was with me because they hardly let me go anywhere alone, you know that.” Joe did know that, Hell, he could hardly ever get alone time.
“Stamos attacked me, hit me with something and when I turned around he was swinging this wine bottle around like it were a baseball bat. It was obvious he was drunk, and Harris? He had his gun trained on Stamos, but both of them being Secret Service it was like he couldn’t pull the trigger, not even to put him down. Harris froze on me, I mean, I would still trust him with my life but he choked. When Stamos broke the bottle over my shoulder that was when I grabbed the gun, and Joe,” Nick moved closer to Joe and touched him as if to make sure he was there before he added, “I needed to get control of the situation. Joey, I didn’t mean to shoot him but when he mentioned you and he mentioned how on his word a team later that night was going in to kill you I pulled the trigger.” Nick was crying now and Joe wrapped his arms around him automatically, his chest feeling slightly empty inside. Nick had killed for him.
“Jesus, Nicky, why didn’t you ever tell me this?” he asked, pressing a kiss to those curls as tears soaked into his expensive jacket. It took a lot to make Nick cry, and Joe couldn’t remember his brother crying at all in any of those videos, so he did all he could to comfort Nick because that was what he was meant to do. Even if Nick’s crime had been murder, how could Joe be mad at him when he was crying? It was an unfair, under-handed way to win a fight, and any time Nick cried was just another tear in his heart.
“I know it would have been better if he’d lived, we could have questioned him, his family wouldn’t be in the position they are in but instead Harris covered it up.” Nick was still talking as if Joe hadn’t said anything, still continuing his story, only now it was interrupted by the occasional sniffle or sob. “I wanted to go the official route, I wanted to tell the truth but he wouldn’t let me - said I’d get impeached or something. We argued but in the end I let him win, and the official report reads Harris shot Stamos when he tried to kill me with the bottle. He still thinks that was when he should have shot Stamos, and the rest of the department ate it up because it was Harris’ gun the bullet came from but it was too big a story to let leak. They covered it as he just went missing and gave the family monetary compensation.”
Joe remembered that as well, and Nick hadn’t liked it one bit. Now, though, it made even more sense. Less people looking into this meant less chance of Nick being discovered as the real killer, and he knew his brother would feel absolutely terrible and need to make up for it. “Please, you gotta stop keeping things from me, Nicky. You can trust me, and I love you no matter what, please believe me.” He wrapped his arms around Nick, pulling him into a tight hug which was returned almost desperately.
“Don’t go tonight, sleep here,” Nick whispered. “Ever since, uhm, I’ve had trouble sleeping without you.” Joe knew that wasn’t the only reason Nick was chilled, reliving these memories must be taking a toll on the fifty-one year old. “I need company, I need you.” It was a child’s need for his older brother that he knew Nick wished he could be without, but no one could really blame him, right?
“Baby, I would, I have so much to do. If you came back with me, came back to the White House and let them see you’re back and we can get you reinstated even faster. Harris wouldn’t be risking his job now and then there would be less risk in those tapes being found. I highly doubt anyone would complain about us sharing a room tonight considering what you’ve been through; we might even be able to get a second bed put into my room.” He was stopped with a kiss, though, and he couldn’t help but kiss back. “With you back we can get to the root of the counterfeit problem faster, I bet” he whispered in the hope of drawing Nick’s interest.
It worked; he pulled out of the embrace and stood up, halfway to the door before shaking his head. “I hate you,” he muttered, “You found something I didn’t. I knew they were making it, I can’t believe you found it!” Joe stood, too, and offered a hand which Nick took, entwining their fingers and studying how they fit together. “If I go back then we can’t escape to an island somewhere,” he said sadly, as if it had ever really been an option. Squaring his shoulders he nodded, squeezing Joe’s hand in his own before letting it drop and heading for the door. The light coming in from outside made a halo around his body before he straightened the suit jacket and walked out, head held high over squared shoulders and the halo swallowed him whole. With a sigh, Joe followed him out, squinting into the bright light the sun had decided to come out and shine for them as if it had known this was an important moment in history and opted to pitch in.
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