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5 Gabriel Saporta
Things are coming together. He had a vision recently, of Ryan Ross dripping in blood and smeared with semen hanging from a slithering snake, arms hooked back and over its thick body. Gabe had come back to himself, hard and aching, and knowing his favorite toy was finally ready for proper use.
Gabe murmurs to Bill as he fucks his mouth and Bill moans. He looks up with eyes that are full of smoke and shadow, and sucks harder. Gabe reads approval there, though he doesn’t need it.
After all, Ryan is pulling away from his protector, slowly but surely. Gabe is calling to him through the Cobra and he’s coming. Every coat of paint, every inch of space between him and Bryar, is another step towards Gabe.
That the two share a cell is irrelevant. It’s Gabe whose eyes Ryan catches. All he needs to do is wait, and his prey will come to him. They always do.
He only has to wait two weeks after Ryan and Way switch cells before Ryan arrives at his table. His eyes are downcast and his pretty mouth is painted a blood shade of red. It makes Gabe think of his vision and he’s fairly sure it’s a sign, if there ever was one.
“Gabe,” Ryan says, his teeth worrying that red lip. “Gabe, please.”
“Anything.”
“I’m tired of waiting. I’ve been waiting forever. And Bryar.” He watches Ryan’s slim throat work as he swallows. “He thinks I belong with- to him.”
“I’ve seen,” Gabe murmurs, holding out a hand. Ryan’s whole body shudders as he leans into the touch. He shudders, and Gabe smiles knowing that his touch can do that. It feeds the Cobra and makes the hum of power buzz through his veins. “We can’t have that, can we?”
“No,” Ryan mumbles, eyes still shut. A tear forces its way out and Gabe’s smile widens. His boy is so pretty when he cries.
“I’ll arrange it with the hacks, Ryan.“ He strokes his fingers down Ryan’s cheek, rubbing the colorful tear into his skin. It makes the young man shiver again and squeeze his eyes shut. “In a few days time, you’ll be an initiate of the Church of Hot Addiction. Now,” He spreads his legs under the table and takes Ryan’s hand and presses it to his groin. “Show me how much you want divinity.”
Ryan has the softest hands of any man Gabe’s ever been with, even better than Bill. He goes slow and lazy and when Gabe comes, Ryan doesn’t have to be told twice to lick his hand clean. It leaves a sheen on his lipstick that Gabe admires for a moment before sending him away.
Officer Blackinton’s one of his. Most of the groups have Officers who sympathize. The Indulgences have Claret, the Eastside boys have West, Schechter seems to like the fringe groups - Way, Quinn, and then Wentz’s little crew, and Fazzi’s got ties to the Italians through the Lazzarra Family. Having a hack on your side, even if you have to bribe them, can make the difference between success and failure in Janick.
They are the gatekeepers and the keymasters. Through Blackinton, Gabe is going to get a proper initiation for his favorite acolyte - the place and the privacy. Bill doesn’t offer to help organize it like he normally would. Jealousy, Gabe supposes. He doesn’t like the idea that he may lose his place as Gabe’s favorite.
“You sure you want to share him with the Aryans?” Bill asks, his long form leaning against the wall of the cell as they wait for lights out. “They made a mess of him last time.”
“I don’t have enough followers to make a proper showing,” Gabe sighs, stretching out on his bunk. “In my Church, the entire congregation would taste him. Men, women, everyone.”
He can’t help but smile at the memories of his last initiation, the circle of bodies pressed tight as one of his followers found the Cobra through their service. He misses his parishioners; misses his Church and his people and the way things were when they were good.
Victoria says that they’re making good progress. She’s pulling all the strings she can reach and some above her, and her conservative estimate on his appeal going through is eighteen months. He has faith in her. She’s a devotee of the Cobra, a lawyer beyond compare, and his near equal.
The Aryans, on the other hand, are not even close. They’re a necessary evil. “Balance must be kept, William. Allies have to be placated, but they’re just ceremonial.”
“Yeah,” Bill mutters, insolence rolling off him in waves. If Gabe cared to move, he’d beat it out of him. “Right, I’m sure they’ll get that.”
“The ones invited to partake will. I’m not extending it to the entire Brotherhood, just a handful from the leadership to supplement worthy Cobras.”
“Whatever you say, heavenly father,” Bill mutters and turns to lean against the door, and peer out through the bars in the window.
Heavenly father? Gabe likes that. It makes him grin and his body tingle. He whispers the title to Victoria when she comes to review the case. She beams at him and murmurs it as she talks him through a fast and dirty orgasm, the sole of her stocking clad foot pressed to his dick under the table in the visitors’ room. Afterwards they sit close, knees bumping each other under the table. Her pussy is close enough to smell. He brushes his knuckles against the wetness there, and he can still taste her on his tongue when Blackinton walks him back to D-Block.
“Tomorrow, the gym, while the cafeteria is locked down for dinner,” Blackinton says quietly.
“You’re a good man, Ryland.”
Blackinton makes the sign of the Cobra with his fingers and nods. He’s a loyal convert. He’s done everything Gabe’s asked of him. Gabe will ensure he gets his turn, just like all the rest of the faithful.
It goes so smoothly, it’s impossible to ignore the hand of the Divine at work in it. Suarez herds Ryan away from Bryar and the Italians five minutes before the buzzer for dinner goes off, and guides him to the collected group gathered in the gym. Gabe’s waiting for him with all of the Cobras and a handful of Aryans. All told, there are less than two dozen, which isn’t as many as he’d like, but for the time and the place, it’s a sufficient showing.
Gabe smiles when Ryan arrives. He takes in the figures standing in a cluster on the scuffed basketball court and when Blackinton closes the door to the gym and locks it, Ryan’s eyes get wide. His fear and anticipation are like a drug in the air, more intoxicating than anything Gabe’s taken.
“Take off your clothes for me, Ryan,” Gabe murmurs, stepping forward, and looking down at the younger man. Ryan looks up at him with dark eyes, shaking already.
He runs the back of his index finger down Ryan’s clenched jaw, through thick base on his skin. His dark skin comes away covered in peach colored powder. Gabe can’t help but imagine what the blue shadow on Ryan’s face will look like smeared with tears and come. He can’t wait to see it.
Gabe steps back and watches as Ryan pulls his shirt over his head with shaking hands. His time and effort has paid off in obedience, and he can’t help but smile. Ryan steps out of his pants and underwear, toes off his shoes, balls the whole mess up and tosses it out of the way. Then he stands, naked, chin tilted up in what Gabe would assume was defiance if he didn’t know Ryan so well.
“Hands and knees,” he orders and Ryan goes. He lets his head drop and Novarro comes to stand before him. He taps Ryan’s chin with two fingers, curled into the Cobra fangs. Ryan’s lips part like clouds and Gabe hums quietly with pleasure as he watches.
He nods to Suarez who kneels to take Ryan from behind. The group pulls closer as he spits in his hand, slicks himself minimally and thrusts in. Ryan grunts and gags around Novarro at the shock. Obviously, Bryar hasn’t been using him as thoroughly as he could have. Gabe shakes his head and murmurs a prayer to the Cobra, his followers echoing him as they watch his lieutenants break his pet in.
The Aryans just sigh and a couple of the more blatant ones rub themselves through their jeans. Gabe wants them gone, so when his men finish - Suarez inside him, Novarro on Ryan’s face and in his hair - he waves them forward. The sooner they use him, the sooner they’ll fall back to the edges of the gym to stand guard and let him finish his ceremony.
They pull Ryan by his hair and they fuck his throat and ass hard and fast. Ryan’s eyes drift shut and the noises that come out of his mouth have nothing to do with lust. It’s his sacrifice for the Church of Hot Addiction and it pays off as the members of the Brotherhood fall, one by one, to the latter day pleasures.
Ryan falls onto his elbows when they let him go, body heaving as he gasps for breath and marked with hand shapes on his hips and shoulders. They don’t have time to waste to let him recover, though. In the Church this would go on for hours, days even. But in Janick they only have until the buzzer sounds to release the other inmates from the cafeteria to finish. Gabe nods once and the rest of the Cobras fall on Ryan. They fuck him fast and hard from both ends, slamming in quick and dirty so that everyone can have their turn before time runs out. Pants, curses, grunts, the sound of skin slapping skin, and Ryan’s muffled groans are the music of Gabe’s god.
Ryan is filthy when Gabe’s men finally step back. He’s covered in sweat, come, and blood in places where someone bit down on his shoulders, dug too deep into his hips, or back with their fingernails. He is limp when Novarro and Suarez turn him over onto his back and stretch him out, each of them taking one of his arms and pinning it to the wood floor of the court with their hands and knees, leaving him open and vulnerable for Gabe’s perusal.
He doesn’t look as long as he’d like. He’d kill for a camera, a nice contraband number - high res and digital so that he could share this picture with his followers. But he settles for memorizing the image before him as he rolls the condom Victoria smuggled to him over himself.
That Ryan’s body is pliant as he slides inside easily isn’t surprising. He’s slick and loose from use, but the power of seeing him like this triples the existing pleasure. Gabe drops his head pressing his lips to Ryan’s ear. “Give yourself to the Cobra, Ryan. Let it save you.”
“Save me?”
Ryan’s laughter is harsh in his ear. It’s deep, ragged laughter that echoes through Ryan’s chest into his and makes Gabe pull back a few inches so that he can see Ryan’s face. It’s a sticky mess, but through it Ryan fixes him with furious eyes and teeth bared in an unhinged smile that makes Gabe look twice.
“Please. At least try to be original,” Ryan laughs again. “You know, I figured out you were a sick, twisted fuck but I didn’t know you were a deluded idiot, too.”
“You will shut your fucking mouth, Ross,” Gabe snarls, his fingers digging into Ryan’s thighs viciously, looking for a whimper or a flinch. The pretense of kindness evaporates with his patience. “Shut the fuck up.”
Ryan gives him neither. He just smirks and licks his lips, taking away drying semen and lipstick with his tongue. “You really think this bothers me?” Ryan’s lips quirk even more, curling back into something that’s almost a snarl. “You think it fucking touches me at all?” He practically purrs it.
Gabe slams his hips forward hard, to prove that it does. The movement makes Ryan’s breath hitch just a little, but nothing more. The arrogance and impertinence makes Gabe’s entire body twist in anger. “It does. I made you, bitch.” He fucks into Ryan as hard as he can. “I can break you.”
“You couldn’t hurt me again with a fucking blow torch and a pair of pliers; just like you couldn’t get me off with a vibrator and a fucking map,” Ryan hisses. Then he curls up as much as he can with his arms pinned, presses his mouth against Gabe’s cheek and whispers, “My turn to get a piece of you, motherfucker.”
His teeth sink in and rip. Gabe doesn’t realize he’s bleeding, hurting, until Ryan grins at him with blood covered lips. Gabe gasps through the sudden, almost-blinding pain and tries to clear his mind. But then Ryan spits a chunk of Gabe’s own bloody flesh back into his face, giggling with lips that are a shade even the best makeup company can’t replicate.
Gabe’s vision and world goes red with rage. The smacking sound of his fist hitting Ryan’s face isn’t nearly as satisfying as it should be. It makes Ryan’s head snap to the side, but he’s still laughing. It makes Gabe’s skin crawl and his blood boil, but the force of the impact doesn’t seem to matter because the fucker is still laughing.
Sweat and a veritable river of blood streams down Gabe’s face as he unthinkingly pulls out and moves up so that he can throw more force behind his punches and get in a few shots with his elbows and knees. Suarez and Novarro stare. He can feel their eyes burning into his torn skin, but they don’t let go of Ryan’s arms. They don’t stop him as he screams into every blow until the laughter finally stops, and Ryan’s eyes roll back into his head before sliding shut.
Blood mixes with the makeup to add purple to the battered mess of Ryan’s face. He wants to make it worse. He wants to see pieces of Ryan’s skull under the skin, feel his brain squishy and wet under his knuckles, wants to hear his last wheezing breath around the blood he dared to steal.
Gabe grunts as he works towards that end until a whistle blows, high and shrill. He doesn’t look up as people shout until three pairs of hands wrap around his arms and waist, pulling him off and back. He writhes against it like a rabid dog, desperate for his kill.
“Go down, Saporta! Just go down!” one of the hacks screams. Gabe has no intention of listening, like someone as pathetic as a prison guard could hold any authority over him.
A club blow lands at back of his neck sending a wave of pain up and down Gabe’s back. It takes nearly a half dozen more before he finally does go down, and his world goes black.
Peter Wentz III
Father Toro’s office smells like church incense, coffee, and lemon scented disinfectant spray. It’s small and dark and cozy. Pete would dig it if it weren’t for all the religious shit, and the fact that entering this room usually means a head shrinking. But after almost three days of lockdown, anything is better than staring at the same four walls for one more minute.
Not that he doesn’t love Patrick and all, but Pete goes stir-crazy easy. He’s pretty sure shit like that violates his Eighth Amendment rights. Of course, the reprieve from the lockdown comes with the knowledge that whatever’s happened is bad enough that the warden doesn’t want to leave it to the hacks to tell them.
Pete’s sprawled in one of the two chairs across the desk from where Father Toro usually sits. Iero’s in the other, sitting up ramrod straight like a kid at a piano lesson. They’re both watching Bryar pace the room like a huge jungle cat in a too-small cage, and waiting for the Father to come back with word on Ryan’s condition.
Two days, sixteen hours, and about forty-five minutes; that’s how long it’s been since Beckett tipped off a hack about the goddamn “initiation” Saporta was having in the gym. The slimy mercenary fuck waited until it was almost too late to tell Claret and by the time she, Schechter, and a half a dozen of the other COs could get there, everyone’d had their turn and Saporta was pretty much beating Ryan to death.
Pete hadn’t seen it go down. He knows that Iero and Bryar didn’t either. But all three of them saw the COs roll Ryan past the cafeteria on a gurney, at a run. That had been all anyone had seen, before the whole fucking prison went into lockdown. That many inmates organizing like they had was a fucking security risk, regardless of the victim.
“Bob,” Frank says, finally leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees. “Bob, it’ll be okay. Just, here, take my seat and-”
“Shut up,” Bryar snarls. “Just shut the fuck up, Frank.”
Pete’s never heard Bryar call Iero anything but “boss” in all the months they’ve been here. It jangles wrong in his head. Iero actually flinches. The tiny bastard also doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone. Pete winces as Iero tries again. “Bob, he’s okay. He’s going to be fine.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know shit,” Bryar snarls, turning on him like a cornered animal. But his blue eyes are bright in the light, with what Pete thinks might be the beginning of tears that Bryar would never let fall. Not in front of people. “The two of you have been fucking baiting Saporta for months.” He points an accusing finger at Iero. “You wanted this.”
Iero’s on his feet in an instant. He manages to look imposing, even though Bryar has more than half a foot and at least fifty pounds of solid muscle on him. “Who asked you to take care of him in the first place? Of the two of us, who gave a shit first? It wasn’t you Bob so shut up, take a deep breath-” He grabs Bob by the shirt front and shoves him into the chair. “And sit the fuck down. Because he’s going to be fucking fine. You hear me?”
It’s like Iero gave him permission or something, because Bryar just crumples. It’s fucking horrific to watch, the way he folds in on himself and presses his hands to his face. Pete can hear him breathing, deep and ragged, and wonders when the fuck this happened, where the hell he was.
“I should have been there,” Bryar chokes into his palms. Oh yeah, Pete knows that feeling. He’s been there, lived that, trashed the t-shirt. He’s only been feeling it every fucking day since Klasinski and Johnson first got their hands on Ryan. He doesn’t say it, but he’s been thinking it, too.
“I should’ve realized,” Pete agrees, trying to figure out where he lost the thread. “I should’ve known. I know that fucker’s movements better than anyone, and he’d never miss a meal like that. I wasn’t paying close enough attention, or I’d have said.”
“No,” Iero snaps, leaning over Bob. “Neither of you could’ve done anything. Ever. So just…” He sighs and waves his hands through the air. “Fuck, play the quiet game until the Padre gets back. Ready, go.”
Pete’s so taken aback, he actually snaps his mouth shut. Bob doesn’t say anything either, but he reaches up and smacks the back of Iero’s head so hard that the sound echoes through the small room. Iero curses and jerks away.
“Jesus fuck, Bob.” He rubs the back of his head and frowns. “You feel better now?”
“Nope,” Bob says curtly. He pulls a cigarette out of his pocket and shakes his head as he slips it between his lips. Pete doesn’t even smoke but he wishes he did because the simple act of pulling out a lighter, flicking it on, and lighting the cigarette seems to soothe Bob a little.
Of course that’s when the door opens and Father Toro shuffles in. He’s wearing tired looking jeans and an Iron Maiden t-shirt under a black hoodie. It’s the first time Pete’s ever seen the guy out of the collar, and it’s a little disorienting. He looks like the kind of guys Pete used to party with, back when he was a teenager, if maybe a little more hardcore. Fuck, he wishes it were any other day so he could laugh at the idea of a hardcore priest.
The three of them watch in silence as the Father flops into his chair and rubs his eyes. His curly hair is out of the tie he usually uses to hold it back, and he’s got about two days worth of beard stubble. “No smoking in my office,” Father Toro says, not opening his eyes.
“Like Jesus cares if I smoke,” Bryar mutters.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph don’t give a crap, but I’m this close to crawling over this desk and sucking the nicotine directly out of your lungs. So, put it out.” He drags his palms over his face and pulls them away to see Bob put it out on the sole of his shoe. Father Toro sighs. “Weeks like this, I wish I hadn’t quit.”
“How’s he doing Father?” Iero asks. Of course he does, because the little fuck has a habit of asking what no one else has the balls to.
Pete gets a little sick at how long the Father is quiet. He seems to be collecting himself, which is never a good sign. If Ryan’s dead, he’s going to kill Saporta. Well, he’s going to stand guard and step back while Bryar kills him, because he’s got a feeling that getting in the way would get him, at best, some broken parts.
“It’s… It’s not good. He’s on a ventilator but-”
“He can’t breathe?” Pete blurts, sickness roiling up through him and making the room rock like a dingy on a fucking tidal wave. “He can’t fucking breathe on his own?”
“Not yet,” Father Toro says with a solemn shake of his head. “The impact to his face and the way Saporta had him, by the throat, it damaged his airways. And one of the blows to the chest he got in broke Ryan’s ribs inward.” Father Toro’s skin turns vaguely green. “They think one of them punctured a lung. The doctors said he coded in surgery before he was moved to the ICU at St. Jude’s.”
“Coded as in died,” Bob says, his gaze fixed on his cigarette, still pressed against the rubber sole of his shoe.
“His heart stopped, yes, but they were able to revive him. He’s in ICU now and he’s getting the best care possible, I swear as Christ is my witness.”
“Bob,” Iero says. It’s a warning and an assurance.
Pete watches Bob’s face but he doesn’t even twitch. He’s just blank. His lips barely move when he speaks. “What else?”
“With the way he was attacked there’s no way to know if there’s any-” Father Toro stops and takes a breath. “Any long term damage until the swelling around his brain goes down. I know you were all close to Ryan, and I thought you should hear it from me.”
There’s a long pause as that sinks in. Pete’s never really dealt with anything like it before, but he can’t help but see Gutierrez’s face in his mind, his slack right side and his slurred, semi-incoherent speech. The idea of Ryan ending up like that makes the bile rise in the back of his throat.
This shouldn’t be happening. Saporta should never have had room to touch him in the first place. If he’d just kept his fucking promise to keep the kid safe, none of this would’ve fucking happened.
“Has he woken up?” Iero asks. “Does he need anything?”
“No. He, uh, he hadn’t regained consciousness at all when I left. If he wakes up, he won’t be alone. The Warden’s given his friend Spencer permission to wait with him, as we haven’t been able to reach any family. I’ll be heading back over there tomorrow morning.”
Bryar pushes to his feet, tucking the half dead cigarette behind his ear. “That it?” His voice is cold, and flat, and Pete sighs because yeah, this is a normal reaction to being told the guy you’re shacked up with may be a vegetable.
“You can stay and we can talk about this,” the Father offers. “I think it’d do all of us good.”
“No, thanks,” Bob says, pulling out a fresh cigarette. “I need a smoke.” He waits until he’s out of the room, Iero hot on his heels, before lighting it.
Father Toro watches them go, then looks at Pete and sighs. “I guess you need a smoke, too.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“So you want to talk?”
Pete shrugs but inside he’s screaming yes, please, let me. He should say no. He should go back to his fucking cell, and bully Patrick into singing to him for a while, and push it all out of his mind until the lockdown ends. But Father Toro looks like what he is under the man of God shtick; a guy only a couple years older than Pete, who just wants to help. “Yeah. I really fucking do.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
Pete wishes he had long sleeves to worry, nail polish to pick on. He needs something to do with his hands when he talks about Ryan. He’d been on the D-Block for about a year when Ryan arrived, a couple weeks after he’d turned nineteen and busted on first time drug charges that got out of hand.
The judge had given Ryan a harsher sentence than he deserved. Especially since everyone from the judge, right on down to the bailiff, knew that he didn’t have a previous record; just a stupid college kid who made a mistake. But he was a stupid college kid who had taken the hard fall for not ratting out his friend, who Ryan told him had just turned eighteen and “didn’t deserve any of this shit.”
So instead of spending his freshman year getting wasted and fucking hot coeds, he’d ended up in Janick for his loyalty. That had been the most notable aspect of Ryan when Pete first met him. The kid was fucking loyal and Pete dug that. The stubbornness, the dark humor, and the almost obstinate pride were just bonuses.
Bottom line, Pete couldn’t hang someone who’d mortgaged their own life for a friend out to dry. He did have some principles, after all. At least a few.
Besides, Pete liked him. Hell, he’d seen potential in Ryan. He was smart and creative and didn’t mind standing back from the spotlight, which leant itself to lots of success in a way that was completely different from the kind of organization Pete ran, but no less impressive.
The kid wanted to be a writer, or a musician, or one of those kid dreams you let go of once the bars close behind you for the first time. But before Klasinski and Johnson fucked him up, Ryan used to talk about it. He used to write and when he did, it made Pete remember the way he used to bleed onto paper before he learned that writing anything down put you at risk. Sometimes, not often but occasionally, it’d remind Pete to give it a try, too, and they’d trade work - like they were in homeroom rather than prison. That, more than anything, had drawn Pete to him, made him want to cultivate him, into a second in command, then into the kind of man who could run his own operation - whatever that might be.
Most of all, Ryan was a friend. He was a friend who was weaker, and Pete had always taken care of his friends when they needed him. Except with Ryan, Pete had failed so completely he might as well have been the one to attack him. He spews it out in the form of word vomit and Father Toro just nods along. When he’s done he slumps in his chair and wishes for a drink or the freedom to break something.
“I don’t think that telling you this isn’t your fault any more than it’s Ryan’s is going to resonate with you is it, Pete?”
“No.”
Father Toro folds his hands and looks at him, trying to see through him to something. Pete’s not sure what. He can’t tell if that’s a priest look, or a shrink look, or what. But it’s unnerving. “Well then, I suggest that you take that guilt and use it as motivation to do what you can to prepare yourself and your camp to make his return as smooth as possible.”
“You think he’s going to wake up?”
Father Toro sighs and fishes in his desk for something. He comes out with a cloth covered rubber band and pulls his hair back. When he’s done, he rubs his face again before folding his hands on the desk.
“Father?”
“I think,” Father Toro says carefully, “That sending him you and Frank and Bob were God’s way of looking after Ryan, and that if he’s is able to heal from this, he will.”
“And the uncertainty in that doesn’t drive you crazy?” Pete demands. “That doesn’t make you fucking nuts?”
“Well, yeah, of course it does. That’s where the faith thing comes in,” Father Toro says with a small smile. “You’d be amazed how much that helps.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“It’s not. I think anyone who’s been in Janick more than thirty seconds can understand that keeping anything positive in here is like trying to keep a snowball rolling through Hell. But if you don’t try, you definitely won’t succeed. You get points for trying, with God if no one else.”
Pete rolls his eyes. “The big guy can cash that shit in any time, thanks.”
“I’m sure He will when the time’s right,” The Father assures him as a CO raps on the glass window in the door. “I think that means you’ve worn out the Warden’s patience and flexibility where the lockdown is concerned.”
“I do that to people.”
“Yes, you certainly do,” Father Toro agrees with a chuckle. “Thank you for trying, Pete. It’ll pay off eventually. Trust me. And here, take this.” He pulls a book off a shelf behind his head and hands it to Pete. “It might help pass the time. It doesn’t look like lockdown’s going to be ending any time soon, and I know the book cart hasn’t been around in a week or so.”
“Awesome,” Pete sighs and lets the hack walk him back to his cell without complaint. The book is thick and heavy in his hands and Patrick is sitting on his bunk, legs crossed, waiting for him when he returns.
“How is he?” Patrick asks, without preamble. He’s not much for wasting time, or fucking around.
“Bad,” Pete sighs, dropping the heavy book onto his own mattress. He looks up through the lenses of Patrick’s glasses into his wide eyes. “Really fucking bad, ‘Trick.”
Patrick slides off the bunk to stand in front of Pete. Pete blinks down at him, feeling fucking exhausted, and shakes his head again. He wants to say something, explain it to Patrick so it can get out of him, but for maybe the first time in his life, there just aren’t words.
Patrick shocks the hell out of him when he wraps his arms around Pete’s shoulders and neck, and pulls him into the hug he so desperately needs. Pete sinks into it. Patrick smells like stale sweat; they both do after three days with no shower, but Patrick never initiates. Not ever. This is the first time Patrick’s ever reached out first, and Pete finds himself clinging to the fabric on the back of Patrick’s shirt like it’ll keep him from drowning if he just doesn’t let go.
“We’ll get the fucker,” Patrick says, and wow, that wasn’t what Pete was expecting. More platitudes, an it’ll be all right, maybe. But not that. There’s a hard edge to Patrick’s voice that Pete doesn’t think Janick put there. He’s pretty sure it just peeled away the softness that hid it.
“Bryar’s ready to kill something,” Pete says into Patrick’s warm shoulder. “But fucking Saporta’s still in Ad Seg.”
“They won’t keep him there forever,” Patrick mutters and lets go. It hits hard for Patrick, Pete knows, because a few different circumstances, some poor luck, and it’s him who’s in a coma in ICU. Also, Patrick’s got a weird friendship with Bryar that complicates shit even further. “I want to help.”
“Help what? I don’t know if you noticed lockdown.” Pete waves a hand at the small cell. “No one’s doing anything right now.”
“Yeah, thanks Captain Obvious. I hadn’t fucking noticed.” Patrick says, giving him a poke in the side as he steps back. “No, when they let us out. There’s shit to do, Pete. We both know that, and you’re not going to put me on the sidelines again.”
“Help Iero keep Bryar from doing anything before there’s a plan and we’ll call it a day.”
Patrick crosses his arms over his chest. “Bob’s stupid in love with the guy and it sounds like he’s critical. You can’t blame him, I mean, wouldn’t you be ready to bring the place down if it were you?”
Yeah, if it were you at St. Jude’s, Pete thinks. He’s cagey as fuck as it is, but if it were Patrick? He’d tear down the walls and rip Janick apart brick by brick, along with everything else in his path.
Patrick’s gone from the cute new meat he happened to get roomed with to the best part of every single fucking day. He doesn’t want to imagine what that being jeopardized would mean, would cost. It’s not a fucking option.
“Leave it to this for now, all right? Don’t go digging for shit to make trouble with.”
“Yeah, no. If Bob asks me for help, I’m going to give it to him.”
“Patrick-“
“Who knows when they’re going to let us out of here and I don’t want to fight with you, Pete, but I’ve been thinking about it. I thought I should let you know, so that you have time to get the fuck over yourself before the lockdown ends.”
“Then you shouldn’t be a stupid fucking ass,” Pete snaps.
“Seriously? That’s the insult you’re going to go with?” Patrick asks, but he’s laughing at Pete.
If it weren’t such a welcome sight, it’d piss him right the fuck off. But the fear and anxiety and guilt have been so goddamn heavy that Patrick’s smirk, and the light in his eyes, make something in Pete uncoil.
He sighs and sinks onto his bunk, almost sitting on the book Father Toro gave him. He looks at it and sighs again.
“What?”
Pete holds it up. “Light reading, courtesy of the clergy.”
Patrick squints at it. “The Inferno.”
“Think he was trying to tell me something?”
“I think I read parts of that in my twelfth grade English class.” He drops down next to Pete and plucks it out of his hands, opening it. “It’s supposed to be pretty good for something written by a dead white guy four hundred years ago.”
“Read it to me?” Pete asks without thinking. He likes Patrick’s voice. It mellows him, keeps him from coming out of his skin like he used to in bursts of calculated and vicious violence.
He’s a little worried he won’t be able to read it, though. He hasn’t read anything tougher than Salinger since he dropped out in the 9th grade, and he doesn’t want to stumble through the Circles of Hell. Patrick’s got a bachelor’s degree and experience with it already. It’s not the craziest thing to ask for right?
Patrick looks poised to say no. It’s his first response to most of Pete’s requests. He nods instead, and moves to sit against the cinderblock wall, using Pete’s pillow to prop himself up.
“What the fuck else are we going to do?” Patrick asks. He’s got a good point as he settles himself and opens the book. He starts to read and Pete lets it wash over him. When he rests his head on Patrick’s legs, he counts to thirty before he lets himself relax and sag against him. Patrick makes Pete feel safe for the first time since he was fourteen and his parents sent him off to that fucking prison camp passing as a military school, but the old defenses are still there.
It’s easier to focus on a dead Roman guy and a trip to Hell than to think about the literal hell they’re living in. The one where Ryan’s breathing through a tube shoved down his throat hooked up to a machine and Saporta is sitting in the hole, waiting to get back to Gen Pop, is more complicated. Focusing on the fiction will keep him from climbing the walls over the reality he can’t control. And who knows, it might give him ideas to pass on to Bryar.
Part 5