Note: Last is this little story arc for the moment (I may have one more fic involving this in the works but it'll be awhile before we get to that). Never fear though, there is more to come.

Note the second: This is actually the orgin of the idea that led to Cell Number Eight, which I should be posting the next chapter of any day now...

Good Men

Fingers ran across his skin, the sensation fading in and out as they passed over nerveless scar tissue, tormenting and relaxing in turn. Eliot closed his eyes, the iron tight control beginning to unwind under Nate's efforts to calm him. There was need there, they both felt the urge to bypass this and skip ahead to the fun part, but this part was important.

Every night they spent together since Eliot had first told Nate about the origins of the scars left by the whips of the guard's in that cursed Croatian prison camp they've practiced a strange ritual. The lights dimmed, the doors locked, the windows open to let in air but hidden behind blinds and curtains they'd lie together and let the silence stretch between them, touches comforting but demanding nothing more than contact. When Eliot was unwound enough, let himself drift enough to let his guard down and let Nate keep watch for awhile Nate would find a scar and Eliot would tell the story.

And sometimes it drew a dry grin to Eliot's lips as he recalled the time when after avoiding death at the hands of mobsters and crime lords he nearly lost a arm to a nasty tempered poodle or that time he fought a midget assassin who may or may not have killed people by making them laugh themselves to death.

And sometimes Eliot wouldn't remember the origin and he'd see a dark look in Nate's face when the older man considered the idea that Eliot was so used to being hurt he didn't remember why or when someone had shot him.

But sometimes the memories brought back were vivid, painful, taking the calm and shaking him. With his guard down he had no defense against the reminder of what had been done to him and the telling would leave the wounds raw and bleeding again. Nate would hold him, just like once long ago, not as a lover but as a protector, and even though when morning came he'd be the teams hitter again for a little while Eliot would process, and feel, and maybe those old wounds would heal correctly this time. Really heal, not just scab over and wait to be torn open again.

"This bullet scar." Nate said interrupting Eliot's thoughts. He traced a finger around the edge of a scar left by a bullet that had gone into his side.

Eliot glanced at it, considering for a moment as his mind traveled back nine years. He shot Nate a look, wondering what he was playing at until he realized Nate really didn't know this was that scar. "You should remember this one." Nate matched Eliot's expression a moment before the finger faltered and fell away, replaced a moment later by arms that seemed just as strong as they had nearly nine years ago.

Nine years ago when they met.

Eliot was barely twenty five, it was less than a month after he'd escaped after spending three painful months in Nishka's dungeons only to return to Willy's ranch to find Ammie engaged to someone else. Eliot had been stupid, he was barely functional and no condition to have taken any job, not to mention the one he had. It was suicidal, but that had been the point. Nothing really had been real or made sense right then. Later he'd pick up enough psychology to know he'd been suffering from a very bad case of post traumatic stress disorder but at the time he'd been so disconnected, so paranoid, and hypersensitive he was like a walking time bomb.

At the time what Eliot had understood was a job in Cairo had gone very far south and he'd ended up thrown into some cell with a dirt floor belonging to someone Eliot didn't even remember. He remembered the ten kinds of messes he'd been. The welts and burns and bruises from the torture he'd suffered in Nishka's dungeons weren't quite healed, he'd been bouncing between disassociation and terror at being a captive again, freshly wounded from the fight that got him caught, and still hurting from Ammie. It wasn't the lowest point he'd been but it was close.

To this day Eliot still didn't know how long he'd spent in that dirt cell, sick from infected wounds and unable to care enough to try to escape, when fate gave him a cellmate in the form of an insurance investigator who was having one hell of a bad day.

It didn't take more than a few minutes for Nate to get over the fact he was a captive and realize his cell mate was a young man who didn't look like he'd be living to see the end of the week. There wasn't much to work with and Eliot didn't offer a word of thanks, or at all really, but Nate had done what he could, washing out infected wounds and trying to get Eliot to respond.

It took three days, but being stuck in a cell constantly with the same man who just genuinely seemed to want to help you eventually broke through the mental hell Eliot had dropped himself into. It was slow at first, a few quiet conversation, helping Nate help him. They started to tell stories to pass the long hours in the same dark room. Nate was waiting for his insurance company to pay his ransom and get him home. Eliot admitted he was a thief waiting to heal up to test his luck at an escape.

Nate took that admission in stride.

It was either six or seven days after they met that the guards had been in a particularly nasty mood and taken it out on the prisoners. Eliot had been beginning to heal but the fresh beating shoved him back over, a fresh infection set into the newly opened wounds and the beating had raised memories Eliot wasn't ready to deal with. Sometime during the night Eliot had woken from a fever dream turned nightmare to find strong arms holding him tight, like he was protecting Eliot, and soft breaths whispering a prayers and promises in his ear.

When Eliot woke in the morning he was still in Nate's arms, recovering from the fever and infection that had nearly killed him. They started talking about other things after that, about things that mattered. Nate got him to talk about what a boy from Kentucky was doing in this dirt cell so far from home.

Nate admitted he was beginning to think no one was coming for him.

Neither was surprised when Eliot had said it was a good thing he'd learned a lot in captivity and promised Nate he'd get them both out and get Nate back to his family.

It had taken time, and things had gone wrong if the fact Eliot had gotten shot in the escape attempt was any testament, but they made it out. They made it out and parted ways with the agreement they'd owe each other a favor after this. Outside the walls of that cell the line between them was too clear for a friendship to last, they made that statement before they parted ways. They weren't friends.

But they were both good men, and that meant they could and would be civil if they met again.

Eliot opened his eyes and turned to face Nate. "You should remember this one Nate." He said, pulling Nate's hand to cover the scar on his side. "It's part of how we ended up here."

Nate's eyes were watching him, that cool calculating look and yet there was a strange softness when he ran a hand through Eliot's hair.

Eliot was never really sure what went on in Nate's head, he'd changed a lot in nine years and sometimes when Nate drank Eliot wondered how much more he'd change before Eliot didn't recognize him anymore. But then those blue eyes and arms and a breath in his ear and Eliot was reassured.

The years had changed them both, hardened him into something brutal, and made that white knight into a black king, but this relationship brought them back to those days when the world was crueler but they hadn't grown quite so used to it yet. This thing they shared on quiet nights when they washed the years away reminded them both what Nate had told him before they parted ways.

"You are man who learned to how to survive in a world of evil men. You aren't an honest man, but you've managed to stay a good one. That makes you something extraordinary. You are a good man, never forget that."

They were good men in an evil world, and no matter how much Nate drank or the violence Eliot committed or the way the world twisted and broke them when they were together they remembered nothing could change what they were.