T-Bag Fic!
Title: Visitors
Character/Pairing: Theodore ‘T-Bag’ Bagwell
Prompt: 063. Summer
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Before he knew it the weather was getting to that place where it was so hot it hurt and you could barely breath, which meant that it was summer, his first summer in prison which seemed a lot less like a landmark than he figured it might be.
Author's Notes: OMG! Finally back to the little Artistic!Teddy ‘verse. *Is Happy* And it’s all because thelana is the goddess of the plot bunnies. And I promise the next one will have more Roach in it… Anyway, a bit of this was because of T-Bag’s whole conversation over the phone with Jimmy, his line Aw, he's gonna raise hell the next few years. Take after his momma. makes me most curious. If that gives you a sense of what’s to come. Warnings for allusions to death, pain and buttsex and for swearing.
Visitors
Before he knew it the weather was getting to that place where it was so hot it hurt and you could barely breath, which meant that it was summer, his first summer in prison which seemed a lot less like a landmark than he figured it might be. It meant pretty much nothing to him except Loot let him fuck him less because he complained it was too hot for any skin on skin and he let him get away with it because he’d resolved to treat the boy nice enough as a bit of a thanks for saving him from some nasty shit.
“’S so fuckin’ hot in here…” He muttered to himself, pacing around his cell and pulling his shirt up enough to wipe the sweat off of his face in some vain attempt to look like it wasn’t getting to him. He glanced at Loot curiously. “It always this hot in here in the summer time?”
Loot shrugged, looking forward at nothing like he did more and more frequently as it got closer and closer to release day for him and more and more days passed by without any visitors dropping in for him. “You get used to it.”
T-Bag scowled and kept pacing. He should have been used to half-answers from the other man by then but he wasn’t. “Well, I’d better be used to it soon, or I’m takin’ it out on you, you hear?” Loot just shrugged like it was nothing and T-Bag leaned against the bars, thinking how funny it was that the metal kept cool when everything else was burning up. He peered up through the bars at Roach, who was leaning back against his bunk and talking to his new cellie, some big buff white boy that looked like he could take about twenty rugheads in one go.
He bit his lip and turned away, pacing back towards the bunks and smacking Loot in the back of his head on the way. He climbed up onto his bunk and stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Yo, Loot. Who’s it comin’ to visit you all the time? Why’ve they been suspiciously absent past little while?” Buttons were easier to press in the heat, and he wasn’t very good at resisting temptation to begin with anyway.
He could taste the frustration in Loot’s voice. “My wife. Carly. Since when do you care who comes to visit me?”
T-Bag laughed and scratched at his shoulder a little bit, picturing what he thought this ‘Carly’ person might look like. He figured she’d be a blonde or a red head or some shit like that… Loot seemed the type that would go for that sort of thing. A rarity. Some little gem only he found ‘cause only he was willing to go digging through the nasty pile of shit keeping it hidden from the rest of the world. He bet this ‘Carly’ girl was pretty in her own special little way, probably had good legs and a smile that would haunt people days after seeing it. And she’d be smart too ‘cause Loot was smart enough to get smart women like that. “Since I had nothin’ better to do than ask. What’s she look like, hmm?” He rolled over slightly to leer down at Loot, who knew he was doing it but seemed to refuse to look up and acknowledge him. “Bet she’s got good legs, hmm?”
Loot was quiet for a long little while like he was considering doing something stupid like trying to put a shank through T-Bag, which obviously wasn’t about to happen, but he decided to answer in the end. “Good enough, yeah. She’s smart. A doctor.”
“Ooh, a doctor!” He couldn’t help singing the word out sort of, thinking about the doctor that lived down the street from him that he broke the windows in and blamed it on that anarchist kid who lived in a shed behind his parents’ house. He got away with it too. People were always too willing to look the other way when he was concerned. “What colour’s her hair? She blonde?”
“Auburn.” Close enough to red. “Are you going to keep asking about her?”
“Maybe. What would you do ‘bout it if I did?” He laughed because he knew that Loot wasn’t going to be doing anything to stop him. “So, you didn’t answer one of my questions. Why did dear Carly stop visitin’ all o’ a sudden? She got herself some fresh dick to keep herself occupied while you’re in here?”
Loot didn’t say anything, and T-Bag decided to let him get away with it, because he was in a surprisingly generous mood despite the heat. He rolled over on his side instead and jerked off, thinking about taking dear sweet Carly and making Loot watch him cut her up into twenty even pieces.
The next day was even hotter and it wasn’t helping that T-Bag hadn’t gotten his dick up any ass in around four days, so he grunted and fucked Loot senseless in what he assumed was the early morning before all the lights went on, but who honestly could tell anymore? Fuck time. He had too much of it in here. He rolled over and tried to get some more sleep but it was hopeless. Too hot, too sticky, too impossible to breath. He got up and paced a while, aiming a kick at the toilet hard enough to make Loot jump, which lightened his mood just a little bit.
“What’s wrong?” Loot asked in a tone that suggested he didn’t really care, only he was going through the circles to make sure he wasn’t going to be next in line to meet T-Bag’s violent side.
“Too fuckin’ hot in here.” He grumbled under his breath and paced back over to the bars, hanging off of them and eyeing CO Riley as he walked in a particularly uninspired manner past. “Yo! Ain’t this place got no air conditionin’?”
CO Riley looked vaguely curious, vaguely irritated but he hid it all well under thick layers of silence and duteous nonchalance, like that made him somehow better than everybody else up in here. “Bagwell, do you have a problem? If you think it’s too hot, take it up with the warden. Do I look like I’m Mr. Comfortable here?” He seemed to realize at that point that it wasn’t the greatest way to approach the subject, so he took a couple of breaths before continuing. “Look, if it were within my powers right now, I’d do something about it. But I can’t. So I suggest you take a breather and relax. Now.”
People like that always irritated T-Bag more than he thought was actually possible, irritated him to a place where he wanted to tear anything apart be it metal or flesh or wood or even himself just to make it stop throbbing. He resisted the urge to try and tear off the bars and spun back around, smacking Loot in the back of the head. “So, tell me ‘bout your girl Carly. Where’d you meet her? When’d you get hitched and the like? That sort of bull…” He ran his hands under his pillow and pulled out a razor, pocketing it and seating himself next to Loot, looking at the other man with his head tilted slightly to one side. “Well? C’mon, c’mon, boy! Got all day, doesn’t mean I’m gonna wait that long.”
Loot gave him that old look of disgust and sort of looked off and away again, which always made T-Bag sort of wonder if the boy could see through all these walls and bars and to the outside world. “I met her in high school.”
“High school sweetheart! Mmmhmm… that’s nice.” T-Bag fingered the razor in his pocket and considered what might happen if he just cut Loot up right now. Wondered if the SHU would be any cooler than it was in here. “Got any kids? Any little Loot’s runnin’ round out there with auburn hair and buggy little eyes?” He drew ‘auburn’ out just that way that made Loot twitch just a little bit and laughed, licking at the corner of his mouth. “Tell you one thing, boy, I could do a thousand worse things to your little kiddies than I could you. And it’d be a whole lot more fun too.”
He laughed at the way Loot flinched and looked even deeper away into the walls, and figured that his reaction was answer enough to a few questions.
Problem with the heat at night was it was like having a fever, sending people into all sorts of funny little dreams and nightmares about things they ordinarily wouldn’t be having nightmares and things about. He never had nightmares anyway, but there was something about the heat and the knowledge that it was just the first summer of what might be twenty of ‘em in this place that got him going.
He could see Mona sitting in the dirt all covered in mud and stuff, stroking little Johnny’s face and humming a little bit to herself before peering up at him through her bangs and looking sort of abandoned, sort of scarred, sort of damned, which was everything he didn’t want to see. I’m going to drown him in that little river you buried him by. She seemed to be whispering without saying much of anything. They’ll find him then. Wouldn’t you rather they find him?
No.
Then she was bleeding from thirty-seven holes all over the place and he was drowning in the river while she stood there staring at him with little Johnny in her arms. You don’t feel anything. You deserve this.
He just woke up, not half as dramatically as they showed it in movies where people had nightmares, it was just like a blink and it was all gone. He sat up and stared out the bars from his bunk and thought about what it would take to cut through the bars. What would it take to cut through bone? What would it take to cut through that fine little line between sanity and where he was? Fuck that sort of talk.
He slid out of his bunk and squatted down next to Loot who always slept quietly without moving an inch, like he was in a coma or something like that. “You know, maybe I am crazy.” He whispered into Loot’s ear knowing full well that he wasn’t going to wake him up like that, and counting on it. “Wouldn’t that be somethin’?” He pressed the edge of the razor right against Loot’s jugular and held it there, breathing. It was like some sort of test to see if he could resist pushing it in. “Think that’d be somethin’?” He pushed it down just hard enough to bring a faint line of red to the surface and cause Loot to quiver and his eyes to blink open.
T-Bag licked his lips and drew the razor away from his throat, winking at the man lying there oh-so-vulnerable. “Just testin’ you, boy. Get some sleep. Gonna need it in here, I wager.” He stood up, smirking at the look on Loot’s face that even practiced facades couldn’t hide.
He was in the yard later in the day, Loot standing drearily behind him with one hand clutching an out turned pocket because T-Bag wasn’t stupid enough to let him wander around all on his own getting ideas from all the other inmates around there, he knew well enough where that would lead to. “What d’you think that boy’s up to?” He asked, stepping back on Loot’s foot and tilted his head vaguely towards Roach, leaning up against a building with his big bad cellie.
Loot looked over with that usual look in his eyes like he really had better things to do, though T-Bag wasn’t entirely sure what those things were supposed to be in a prison, but whatever. “I dunno. Plotting your demise?”
T-Bag curled a lip at him and smacked him in the head. “Keep that shit up and you’ll end up with your throat cut.” He glared over at Roach and decided that it was about time to be setting up some insurances. Just in case.
When CO Riley came ‘round to their cozy little cell at about visiting time Loot got that hopeful look on his face that usually came about in far different situations than a little visit from everybody’s favourite CO. “Bagwell,” T-Bag looked up in a sort of curiosity at Mr. CO Riley, “you got a visitor.”
He smirked, taking in Loot’s expression which was an awful lot like somebody’d just come up and sawed off his balls with something painfully blunt. “Well. Ain’t that somethin’?” He jumped up to his feet and ruffled Loot’s hair with as much affection as he had and a whole lot of gloating too. He winked at the expression on CO Riley’s face. “What? Never seen two men like that before?” He got a whole lot of entertainment from the way Riley made every effort possible to still look completely blank, and failed anyways.
The last thing he’d been expecting was a visitor on a hot summer day when most everybody he knew would be out there doing things. More important things than seeing some convict they didn’t even know. Yet there he was, sitting in the visiting room with all the inmates people still cared enough about to bother coming to visit every once in a while. And there was Jimmy Bagwell, leaning awkwardly back in a chair and looking over at him with an unsure sort of air. He raised his hand an inch to show that he knew who he was and T-Bag found himself grinning for some reason or another.
“Why, Jimmy. How nice of you to come an’ visit me.”
“Behave, Bagwell.” CO Riley grunted, obviously under some kind of illusion to be thinking that he would be able to make any impression whatsoever on T-Bag’s behaviour. People were stupid that way a lot.
“Been a while.” Jimmy wasn’t one to articulate quite right, or one to speak much at all, he was more prone to short little grunts that it took a second or two to figure out exactly what was being said and he never looked straight at him either, he looked down or up or away with some sort of laughter in his eyes like whatever it was he was looking at was damn funny. “You eatin’?”
T-Bag smirked at him and slouched back in his chair trying to look cool, trying to look like he was king of the world because if he did Jimmy would run on home and tell his mama who’d tell T-Bag’s daddy, just to make sure the bastard knew T-Bag was on top of the world now. “Hard not to. Considerin’ people die if they don’t. You got a reason for this nice little visit?”
“Checkin’ up on you’s all.” Jimmy grunted, kind of swinging his head to one side and itching at the back of his neck like something was breathing down it, which was an image that brought a little quirk of amusement to T-Bag’s lips.
After a couple of seconds it was more than clear that Jimmy wasn’t about to step up to the plate and take control of the conversation like he should, so T-Bag smirked a little bit and leaned forwards on his elbows on the table to make it a little bit harder for his cousin to not look at him. “You still with that gal? ‘Lizabeth, or whatever?”
Jimmy gave him the sort of look he usually associated with Auntie Lara when she was annoyed at him throwing sticks at the dog or something. And, of course, a second later Jimmy was back to staring out into nothing with dancing in his eyes and a little bit of a smile. “Kelly.”
“Right! Right, right, right, right, right!” He smacked the table lightly which made paranoid Jimmy jump just a little bit but he covered it up well enough. Still, it gave T-Bag a bit of amusement to see. “The little juvenile delinquent. How’s things goin’ with her now? She still tryin’ to be more of a badass than me?”
“Tryin’.” Jimmy laughed a little bit, meeting T-Bag’s gaze shyly for a second before looking stubbornly away. “Always tryin’.”
T-Bag slid lower in his chair and looked over at the other inmates and their precious family members and significant others who came visiting so often like it made some sort of a difference to acknowledge them in here. It didn’t. It was all more of the same old bullshit, more of the same things and he was getting damn bored of being in prison. “How’s dear Auntie Lara and Uncle Paul? They still beatin’ on you when the occasion arises?”
Jimmy shrugged like it was nothing because it was. “I guess.” He brushed his hands through his hair and sent little storm clouds of dandruff across the table, looking nervous as hell like he didn’t even know who T-Bag was for certain anymore, which he supposed was true in one way or another. “Your dad’s good. How’s it in here?”
“Much the same.”
T-Bag had decided years before that Jimmy was probably the only one of his relatives he didn’t entirely hate. He was the only normal one, about a year or two younger than T-Bag, though he didn’t know for certain ‘cause he never bothered to keep track. Jimmy’s mama, Lara, was T-Bag’s daddy’s sister. And his mama’s sister, but Lara’d decided years and years before that T-Bag’s mama didn’t count as family, or as anything much like human at all, to T-Bag was always a bit of a step above dirt, but not much because Lara hated his daddy anyway. Jimmy’s daddy was named Paul and he didn’t do much of anything but drink and do a shitload of drugs that his system couldn’t handle. Used to be, when T-Bag was seven or something, he’d go visiting them in the summer times. Lara’d make frequent allusions to how worthless he was and Paul’d pay him to get lost and he’d drag Jimmy off to do things they really oughta not be doing. They’d gone to school together too until Lara decided that T-Bag was a bad influence on poor little James and Jimmy was sent off to a different school where he met Kelly Rocksold, a tough blonde bitch who spent a year in competition with T-Bag to see who could get away with doing more shit.
T-Bag won. Kelly vowed revenge. Jimmy shuffled around behind them smoking shit he’d stolen from his daddy and occasionally grunted something or another of use and sometimes would lend them his daddy’s guns.
“Kelly says,” Jimmy paused for a long second like he did sometimes when he was going to say something rather longer than his usual statements and needed a rest to make sure he didn’t overexert himself or something, “if you need a place to stay. When you get outta here. Can come stay with us, if you like.”
“’M not gettin’ outta here for a while now, Jimmy.” T-Bag almost sang it, just to get his point across loud and clear that this was not a topic of conversation he was going to suffer lightly.
“She figures you will.” Jimmy shrugged, like he wasn’t even going to start arguing with Kelly ‘cause he already knew that it was damn pointless, because it really was. Kelly was a tough bitch. She wasn’t about to take shit from anyone, even the so-called love of her life, which was even more bullshit ‘cause everyone knew that girls like here didn’t love nobody. “Figures you’re too young. And with your history.” He shrugged again like what he said made a whole lot more sense than it did.
T-Bag decided that this was a subject that he wasn’t going to put up with any longer, so he smirked at his cousin and drawled out his words just the right way to make it absolutely clear that even though he didn’t speak the threat, it was still there. They’d had enough play fights years ago to know who’d win. “It as hot out there this summer as it is in here?”
“I guess.” Jimmy leaned back a little bit, still with that dazed sort of look that gave T-Bag the direct impression that he was high. “You drawin’ still?”
T-Bag twitched violently and his hands jerked strangely, clenching into fists and then relaxing again in a split second. He cracked his neck carefully and regarded Jimmy just that way he would regard someone before sawing their head off or something of the like, and he let his eyes narrow a little bit and his tongue dart out to moisten his lips and was comforted to see Jimmy fidget just a little bit like he had a sense of what was coming. “You gonna shut your mouth, or ‘m I gonna have’ta shut it for ya?”
“Bagwell!” CO Riley barked, like somehow he knew that the lowering of his voice was a sign of ill things to come. Damn COs these days seemed half psychic most of the time. “Keep making threats and you’re back in your cell early!”
He slipped so easily into placating mode it was like there was no transition at all. “No worries, Riley, no worries, man. Just havin’ a little conversation with my cousin here, nothin’ at all to worry ‘bout.”
It almost made him giddy how easy it was to make people look the other way.
People wanted to look the other way.
“Know what?” He drawled to Jimmy with a little bit of a wink just to keep his dear old cousin on his toes where he should be. “I got me a bit o’ a bitch in here. Name’s Loot ‘round here, but outside o’ these walls he’s called Lee Brown.” It was so much entertainment to do these sorts of things. He leaned forwards in his seat so he could keep his little conversation going without any interruption from the good CO Riley. “I somewhat owe my boy a bit of a favour. See, he helped me into a bit of a nice situation. And I feel it’s my duty in a way to pay him back. Know what I’m sayin’?”
Jimmy wasn’t the brightest but he knew what was what and who was who and how to keep his mouth shut when it needed to be. He nodded slowly and really looked at T-Bag to make it clear that he was listening. “Got my full attention.”
“Good.” T-Bag quirked a bit of a smirk and leaned in closer, peering over at suspicious CO Riley out of the corner of his eye and drawing his tongue over the corner of his mouth just to see the good officer flinch. “See, the problem is, little Loot thinks he’s better than me… just ‘bout everyone in my little group of acquaintances does. So I’m thinkin’ it might be in my best interests to show them all just what I’m capable of, inside and outside of these here walls, hear?”
He gave Jimmy a moment to digest that much before continuing on, in low enough a voice to keep things to themselves but nice enough to keep the tone light enough for CO Riley to keep his nose strictly to his own business. “Our man Loot’s got himself a wife… Carly Brown… she’s a doctor… I give you the word, I need it to be possible for her to be eliminated, know what I’m sayin’?”
“You want me to commit murder for you?” Just how slow Jimmy was speaking told enough about how he felt about that idea.
“Not sayin’ it’s an absolute necessary.” T-Bag switched back to placating like it was nothing. “Just sayin’ I need it to be possible. Know what I mean?” His tongue licked around the outside of his mouth and he jerked back a bit, flicking his gaze over at CO Riley who was looking suspicious, but not knowing. He gave the good CO a little wave before turning his attention back to Jimmy. “Your Kelly had that little list o’ hers, didn’t she? The perfect murder, never get caught, never go to jail.” T-Bag leaned over and patted his cousin purposefully on the shoulder, just to get that twitch of a rise out of Riley. “That’s the perfect way, ‘m I right?”
“Hands off, Bagwell!” CO Riley took a bit of a step forwards, a half-assed step forwards, just to try to make it clear that he was serious, even though it only proved that he wasn’t.
Still, T-Bag moved himself an appropriate amount of space back and tipped an imaginary hat in CO Riley’s direction just to rile him up a little bit.
“Visitin’ time’s over, cons!” CO Riley announced dully, like it was the worst part of his day and he was glad it was over with so he could get ready to head home to whatever pathetic excuse for a life he had. “Let’s move it, cons, don’t want any trouble now. Move it.”
“Relay my message to the good Miss Rocksold.” T-Bag murmured to Jimmy with a parting wink.
Jimmy fidgeted a bit, standing up and adjusting his pants like he’d just been fucking or something like that. “Well… will do, coz.” He gave T-Bag a stiff sort of hug that suggested he’d rather not, and he seemed a bit relieved when CO Riley barked again that they’d better keep it hands off or T-Bag would end up in the SHU again.
Didn’t know why they’d decided the SHU was such a punishment. Only problem was there wasn’t any ass to fuck.
Loot looked up for a moment when T-Bag was escorted back to their wonderful little cell and then looked back down at the ground again, because floors seemed to interest him so much for one reason or another. “You look unusually pleasant. What’s got you so happy?”
T-Bag chuckled, sliding down on the bunk next to the other man and ruffling his hair a bit, contemplating how much he wanted to scalp the boy just to see how much it’d bleed and just to see if he could do it. “Nothin’, boy. Just a bit of catchin’ up with my family.”
“That’s funny.” Loot glanced at him for a second with that look in his eyes that came about when he was feeling particularly gutsy, enough so to challenge him in certain ways. “I never figured you as the type.”
“We all got family.” T-Bag smirked at him and pulled on a few strands of his hair just sharply enough to make his breath hitch a fraction, which was enough for him. For now. “Gotta come from somewhere, now don’t we?” He leaned back a bit and kept running his fingers through Loot’s hair. “Tell me more ‘bout your Carly. ‘M curious ‘bout her.”
If Loot was suspicious any about T-Bag’s tone or the way he laughed a little bit just under his breath, he didn’t act like it.
Character/Pairing: Theodore ‘T-Bag’ Bagwell
Prompt: 063. Summer
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Before he knew it the weather was getting to that place where it was so hot it hurt and you could barely breath, which meant that it was summer, his first summer in prison which seemed a lot less like a landmark than he figured it might be.
Author's Notes: OMG! Finally back to the little Artistic!Teddy ‘verse. *Is Happy* And it’s all because thelana is the goddess of the plot bunnies. And I promise the next one will have more Roach in it… Anyway, a bit of this was because of T-Bag’s whole conversation over the phone with Jimmy, his line Aw, he's gonna raise hell the next few years. Take after his momma. makes me most curious. If that gives you a sense of what’s to come. Warnings for allusions to death, pain and buttsex and for swearing.
Visitors
Before he knew it the weather was getting to that place where it was so hot it hurt and you could barely breath, which meant that it was summer, his first summer in prison which seemed a lot less like a landmark than he figured it might be. It meant pretty much nothing to him except Loot let him fuck him less because he complained it was too hot for any skin on skin and he let him get away with it because he’d resolved to treat the boy nice enough as a bit of a thanks for saving him from some nasty shit.
“’S so fuckin’ hot in here…” He muttered to himself, pacing around his cell and pulling his shirt up enough to wipe the sweat off of his face in some vain attempt to look like it wasn’t getting to him. He glanced at Loot curiously. “It always this hot in here in the summer time?”
Loot shrugged, looking forward at nothing like he did more and more frequently as it got closer and closer to release day for him and more and more days passed by without any visitors dropping in for him. “You get used to it.”
T-Bag scowled and kept pacing. He should have been used to half-answers from the other man by then but he wasn’t. “Well, I’d better be used to it soon, or I’m takin’ it out on you, you hear?” Loot just shrugged like it was nothing and T-Bag leaned against the bars, thinking how funny it was that the metal kept cool when everything else was burning up. He peered up through the bars at Roach, who was leaning back against his bunk and talking to his new cellie, some big buff white boy that looked like he could take about twenty rugheads in one go.
He bit his lip and turned away, pacing back towards the bunks and smacking Loot in the back of his head on the way. He climbed up onto his bunk and stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Yo, Loot. Who’s it comin’ to visit you all the time? Why’ve they been suspiciously absent past little while?” Buttons were easier to press in the heat, and he wasn’t very good at resisting temptation to begin with anyway.
He could taste the frustration in Loot’s voice. “My wife. Carly. Since when do you care who comes to visit me?”
T-Bag laughed and scratched at his shoulder a little bit, picturing what he thought this ‘Carly’ person might look like. He figured she’d be a blonde or a red head or some shit like that… Loot seemed the type that would go for that sort of thing. A rarity. Some little gem only he found ‘cause only he was willing to go digging through the nasty pile of shit keeping it hidden from the rest of the world. He bet this ‘Carly’ girl was pretty in her own special little way, probably had good legs and a smile that would haunt people days after seeing it. And she’d be smart too ‘cause Loot was smart enough to get smart women like that. “Since I had nothin’ better to do than ask. What’s she look like, hmm?” He rolled over slightly to leer down at Loot, who knew he was doing it but seemed to refuse to look up and acknowledge him. “Bet she’s got good legs, hmm?”
Loot was quiet for a long little while like he was considering doing something stupid like trying to put a shank through T-Bag, which obviously wasn’t about to happen, but he decided to answer in the end. “Good enough, yeah. She’s smart. A doctor.”
“Ooh, a doctor!” He couldn’t help singing the word out sort of, thinking about the doctor that lived down the street from him that he broke the windows in and blamed it on that anarchist kid who lived in a shed behind his parents’ house. He got away with it too. People were always too willing to look the other way when he was concerned. “What colour’s her hair? She blonde?”
“Auburn.” Close enough to red. “Are you going to keep asking about her?”
“Maybe. What would you do ‘bout it if I did?” He laughed because he knew that Loot wasn’t going to be doing anything to stop him. “So, you didn’t answer one of my questions. Why did dear Carly stop visitin’ all o’ a sudden? She got herself some fresh dick to keep herself occupied while you’re in here?”
Loot didn’t say anything, and T-Bag decided to let him get away with it, because he was in a surprisingly generous mood despite the heat. He rolled over on his side instead and jerked off, thinking about taking dear sweet Carly and making Loot watch him cut her up into twenty even pieces.
The next day was even hotter and it wasn’t helping that T-Bag hadn’t gotten his dick up any ass in around four days, so he grunted and fucked Loot senseless in what he assumed was the early morning before all the lights went on, but who honestly could tell anymore? Fuck time. He had too much of it in here. He rolled over and tried to get some more sleep but it was hopeless. Too hot, too sticky, too impossible to breath. He got up and paced a while, aiming a kick at the toilet hard enough to make Loot jump, which lightened his mood just a little bit.
“What’s wrong?” Loot asked in a tone that suggested he didn’t really care, only he was going through the circles to make sure he wasn’t going to be next in line to meet T-Bag’s violent side.
“Too fuckin’ hot in here.” He grumbled under his breath and paced back over to the bars, hanging off of them and eyeing CO Riley as he walked in a particularly uninspired manner past. “Yo! Ain’t this place got no air conditionin’?”
CO Riley looked vaguely curious, vaguely irritated but he hid it all well under thick layers of silence and duteous nonchalance, like that made him somehow better than everybody else up in here. “Bagwell, do you have a problem? If you think it’s too hot, take it up with the warden. Do I look like I’m Mr. Comfortable here?” He seemed to realize at that point that it wasn’t the greatest way to approach the subject, so he took a couple of breaths before continuing. “Look, if it were within my powers right now, I’d do something about it. But I can’t. So I suggest you take a breather and relax. Now.”
People like that always irritated T-Bag more than he thought was actually possible, irritated him to a place where he wanted to tear anything apart be it metal or flesh or wood or even himself just to make it stop throbbing. He resisted the urge to try and tear off the bars and spun back around, smacking Loot in the back of the head. “So, tell me ‘bout your girl Carly. Where’d you meet her? When’d you get hitched and the like? That sort of bull…” He ran his hands under his pillow and pulled out a razor, pocketing it and seating himself next to Loot, looking at the other man with his head tilted slightly to one side. “Well? C’mon, c’mon, boy! Got all day, doesn’t mean I’m gonna wait that long.”
Loot gave him that old look of disgust and sort of looked off and away again, which always made T-Bag sort of wonder if the boy could see through all these walls and bars and to the outside world. “I met her in high school.”
“High school sweetheart! Mmmhmm… that’s nice.” T-Bag fingered the razor in his pocket and considered what might happen if he just cut Loot up right now. Wondered if the SHU would be any cooler than it was in here. “Got any kids? Any little Loot’s runnin’ round out there with auburn hair and buggy little eyes?” He drew ‘auburn’ out just that way that made Loot twitch just a little bit and laughed, licking at the corner of his mouth. “Tell you one thing, boy, I could do a thousand worse things to your little kiddies than I could you. And it’d be a whole lot more fun too.”
He laughed at the way Loot flinched and looked even deeper away into the walls, and figured that his reaction was answer enough to a few questions.
Problem with the heat at night was it was like having a fever, sending people into all sorts of funny little dreams and nightmares about things they ordinarily wouldn’t be having nightmares and things about. He never had nightmares anyway, but there was something about the heat and the knowledge that it was just the first summer of what might be twenty of ‘em in this place that got him going.
He could see Mona sitting in the dirt all covered in mud and stuff, stroking little Johnny’s face and humming a little bit to herself before peering up at him through her bangs and looking sort of abandoned, sort of scarred, sort of damned, which was everything he didn’t want to see. I’m going to drown him in that little river you buried him by. She seemed to be whispering without saying much of anything. They’ll find him then. Wouldn’t you rather they find him?
No.
Then she was bleeding from thirty-seven holes all over the place and he was drowning in the river while she stood there staring at him with little Johnny in her arms. You don’t feel anything. You deserve this.
He just woke up, not half as dramatically as they showed it in movies where people had nightmares, it was just like a blink and it was all gone. He sat up and stared out the bars from his bunk and thought about what it would take to cut through the bars. What would it take to cut through bone? What would it take to cut through that fine little line between sanity and where he was? Fuck that sort of talk.
He slid out of his bunk and squatted down next to Loot who always slept quietly without moving an inch, like he was in a coma or something like that. “You know, maybe I am crazy.” He whispered into Loot’s ear knowing full well that he wasn’t going to wake him up like that, and counting on it. “Wouldn’t that be somethin’?” He pressed the edge of the razor right against Loot’s jugular and held it there, breathing. It was like some sort of test to see if he could resist pushing it in. “Think that’d be somethin’?” He pushed it down just hard enough to bring a faint line of red to the surface and cause Loot to quiver and his eyes to blink open.
T-Bag licked his lips and drew the razor away from his throat, winking at the man lying there oh-so-vulnerable. “Just testin’ you, boy. Get some sleep. Gonna need it in here, I wager.” He stood up, smirking at the look on Loot’s face that even practiced facades couldn’t hide.
He was in the yard later in the day, Loot standing drearily behind him with one hand clutching an out turned pocket because T-Bag wasn’t stupid enough to let him wander around all on his own getting ideas from all the other inmates around there, he knew well enough where that would lead to. “What d’you think that boy’s up to?” He asked, stepping back on Loot’s foot and tilted his head vaguely towards Roach, leaning up against a building with his big bad cellie.
Loot looked over with that usual look in his eyes like he really had better things to do, though T-Bag wasn’t entirely sure what those things were supposed to be in a prison, but whatever. “I dunno. Plotting your demise?”
T-Bag curled a lip at him and smacked him in the head. “Keep that shit up and you’ll end up with your throat cut.” He glared over at Roach and decided that it was about time to be setting up some insurances. Just in case.
When CO Riley came ‘round to their cozy little cell at about visiting time Loot got that hopeful look on his face that usually came about in far different situations than a little visit from everybody’s favourite CO. “Bagwell,” T-Bag looked up in a sort of curiosity at Mr. CO Riley, “you got a visitor.”
He smirked, taking in Loot’s expression which was an awful lot like somebody’d just come up and sawed off his balls with something painfully blunt. “Well. Ain’t that somethin’?” He jumped up to his feet and ruffled Loot’s hair with as much affection as he had and a whole lot of gloating too. He winked at the expression on CO Riley’s face. “What? Never seen two men like that before?” He got a whole lot of entertainment from the way Riley made every effort possible to still look completely blank, and failed anyways.
The last thing he’d been expecting was a visitor on a hot summer day when most everybody he knew would be out there doing things. More important things than seeing some convict they didn’t even know. Yet there he was, sitting in the visiting room with all the inmates people still cared enough about to bother coming to visit every once in a while. And there was Jimmy Bagwell, leaning awkwardly back in a chair and looking over at him with an unsure sort of air. He raised his hand an inch to show that he knew who he was and T-Bag found himself grinning for some reason or another.
“Why, Jimmy. How nice of you to come an’ visit me.”
“Behave, Bagwell.” CO Riley grunted, obviously under some kind of illusion to be thinking that he would be able to make any impression whatsoever on T-Bag’s behaviour. People were stupid that way a lot.
“Been a while.” Jimmy wasn’t one to articulate quite right, or one to speak much at all, he was more prone to short little grunts that it took a second or two to figure out exactly what was being said and he never looked straight at him either, he looked down or up or away with some sort of laughter in his eyes like whatever it was he was looking at was damn funny. “You eatin’?”
T-Bag smirked at him and slouched back in his chair trying to look cool, trying to look like he was king of the world because if he did Jimmy would run on home and tell his mama who’d tell T-Bag’s daddy, just to make sure the bastard knew T-Bag was on top of the world now. “Hard not to. Considerin’ people die if they don’t. You got a reason for this nice little visit?”
“Checkin’ up on you’s all.” Jimmy grunted, kind of swinging his head to one side and itching at the back of his neck like something was breathing down it, which was an image that brought a little quirk of amusement to T-Bag’s lips.
After a couple of seconds it was more than clear that Jimmy wasn’t about to step up to the plate and take control of the conversation like he should, so T-Bag smirked a little bit and leaned forwards on his elbows on the table to make it a little bit harder for his cousin to not look at him. “You still with that gal? ‘Lizabeth, or whatever?”
Jimmy gave him the sort of look he usually associated with Auntie Lara when she was annoyed at him throwing sticks at the dog or something. And, of course, a second later Jimmy was back to staring out into nothing with dancing in his eyes and a little bit of a smile. “Kelly.”
“Right! Right, right, right, right, right!” He smacked the table lightly which made paranoid Jimmy jump just a little bit but he covered it up well enough. Still, it gave T-Bag a bit of amusement to see. “The little juvenile delinquent. How’s things goin’ with her now? She still tryin’ to be more of a badass than me?”
“Tryin’.” Jimmy laughed a little bit, meeting T-Bag’s gaze shyly for a second before looking stubbornly away. “Always tryin’.”
T-Bag slid lower in his chair and looked over at the other inmates and their precious family members and significant others who came visiting so often like it made some sort of a difference to acknowledge them in here. It didn’t. It was all more of the same old bullshit, more of the same things and he was getting damn bored of being in prison. “How’s dear Auntie Lara and Uncle Paul? They still beatin’ on you when the occasion arises?”
Jimmy shrugged like it was nothing because it was. “I guess.” He brushed his hands through his hair and sent little storm clouds of dandruff across the table, looking nervous as hell like he didn’t even know who T-Bag was for certain anymore, which he supposed was true in one way or another. “Your dad’s good. How’s it in here?”
“Much the same.”
T-Bag had decided years before that Jimmy was probably the only one of his relatives he didn’t entirely hate. He was the only normal one, about a year or two younger than T-Bag, though he didn’t know for certain ‘cause he never bothered to keep track. Jimmy’s mama, Lara, was T-Bag’s daddy’s sister. And his mama’s sister, but Lara’d decided years and years before that T-Bag’s mama didn’t count as family, or as anything much like human at all, to T-Bag was always a bit of a step above dirt, but not much because Lara hated his daddy anyway. Jimmy’s daddy was named Paul and he didn’t do much of anything but drink and do a shitload of drugs that his system couldn’t handle. Used to be, when T-Bag was seven or something, he’d go visiting them in the summer times. Lara’d make frequent allusions to how worthless he was and Paul’d pay him to get lost and he’d drag Jimmy off to do things they really oughta not be doing. They’d gone to school together too until Lara decided that T-Bag was a bad influence on poor little James and Jimmy was sent off to a different school where he met Kelly Rocksold, a tough blonde bitch who spent a year in competition with T-Bag to see who could get away with doing more shit.
T-Bag won. Kelly vowed revenge. Jimmy shuffled around behind them smoking shit he’d stolen from his daddy and occasionally grunted something or another of use and sometimes would lend them his daddy’s guns.
“Kelly says,” Jimmy paused for a long second like he did sometimes when he was going to say something rather longer than his usual statements and needed a rest to make sure he didn’t overexert himself or something, “if you need a place to stay. When you get outta here. Can come stay with us, if you like.”
“’M not gettin’ outta here for a while now, Jimmy.” T-Bag almost sang it, just to get his point across loud and clear that this was not a topic of conversation he was going to suffer lightly.
“She figures you will.” Jimmy shrugged, like he wasn’t even going to start arguing with Kelly ‘cause he already knew that it was damn pointless, because it really was. Kelly was a tough bitch. She wasn’t about to take shit from anyone, even the so-called love of her life, which was even more bullshit ‘cause everyone knew that girls like here didn’t love nobody. “Figures you’re too young. And with your history.” He shrugged again like what he said made a whole lot more sense than it did.
T-Bag decided that this was a subject that he wasn’t going to put up with any longer, so he smirked at his cousin and drawled out his words just the right way to make it absolutely clear that even though he didn’t speak the threat, it was still there. They’d had enough play fights years ago to know who’d win. “It as hot out there this summer as it is in here?”
“I guess.” Jimmy leaned back a little bit, still with that dazed sort of look that gave T-Bag the direct impression that he was high. “You drawin’ still?”
T-Bag twitched violently and his hands jerked strangely, clenching into fists and then relaxing again in a split second. He cracked his neck carefully and regarded Jimmy just that way he would regard someone before sawing their head off or something of the like, and he let his eyes narrow a little bit and his tongue dart out to moisten his lips and was comforted to see Jimmy fidget just a little bit like he had a sense of what was coming. “You gonna shut your mouth, or ‘m I gonna have’ta shut it for ya?”
“Bagwell!” CO Riley barked, like somehow he knew that the lowering of his voice was a sign of ill things to come. Damn COs these days seemed half psychic most of the time. “Keep making threats and you’re back in your cell early!”
He slipped so easily into placating mode it was like there was no transition at all. “No worries, Riley, no worries, man. Just havin’ a little conversation with my cousin here, nothin’ at all to worry ‘bout.”
It almost made him giddy how easy it was to make people look the other way.
People wanted to look the other way.
“Know what?” He drawled to Jimmy with a little bit of a wink just to keep his dear old cousin on his toes where he should be. “I got me a bit o’ a bitch in here. Name’s Loot ‘round here, but outside o’ these walls he’s called Lee Brown.” It was so much entertainment to do these sorts of things. He leaned forwards in his seat so he could keep his little conversation going without any interruption from the good CO Riley. “I somewhat owe my boy a bit of a favour. See, he helped me into a bit of a nice situation. And I feel it’s my duty in a way to pay him back. Know what I’m sayin’?”
Jimmy wasn’t the brightest but he knew what was what and who was who and how to keep his mouth shut when it needed to be. He nodded slowly and really looked at T-Bag to make it clear that he was listening. “Got my full attention.”
“Good.” T-Bag quirked a bit of a smirk and leaned in closer, peering over at suspicious CO Riley out of the corner of his eye and drawing his tongue over the corner of his mouth just to see the good officer flinch. “See, the problem is, little Loot thinks he’s better than me… just ‘bout everyone in my little group of acquaintances does. So I’m thinkin’ it might be in my best interests to show them all just what I’m capable of, inside and outside of these here walls, hear?”
He gave Jimmy a moment to digest that much before continuing on, in low enough a voice to keep things to themselves but nice enough to keep the tone light enough for CO Riley to keep his nose strictly to his own business. “Our man Loot’s got himself a wife… Carly Brown… she’s a doctor… I give you the word, I need it to be possible for her to be eliminated, know what I’m sayin’?”
“You want me to commit murder for you?” Just how slow Jimmy was speaking told enough about how he felt about that idea.
“Not sayin’ it’s an absolute necessary.” T-Bag switched back to placating like it was nothing. “Just sayin’ I need it to be possible. Know what I mean?” His tongue licked around the outside of his mouth and he jerked back a bit, flicking his gaze over at CO Riley who was looking suspicious, but not knowing. He gave the good CO a little wave before turning his attention back to Jimmy. “Your Kelly had that little list o’ hers, didn’t she? The perfect murder, never get caught, never go to jail.” T-Bag leaned over and patted his cousin purposefully on the shoulder, just to get that twitch of a rise out of Riley. “That’s the perfect way, ‘m I right?”
“Hands off, Bagwell!” CO Riley took a bit of a step forwards, a half-assed step forwards, just to try to make it clear that he was serious, even though it only proved that he wasn’t.
Still, T-Bag moved himself an appropriate amount of space back and tipped an imaginary hat in CO Riley’s direction just to rile him up a little bit.
“Visitin’ time’s over, cons!” CO Riley announced dully, like it was the worst part of his day and he was glad it was over with so he could get ready to head home to whatever pathetic excuse for a life he had. “Let’s move it, cons, don’t want any trouble now. Move it.”
“Relay my message to the good Miss Rocksold.” T-Bag murmured to Jimmy with a parting wink.
Jimmy fidgeted a bit, standing up and adjusting his pants like he’d just been fucking or something like that. “Well… will do, coz.” He gave T-Bag a stiff sort of hug that suggested he’d rather not, and he seemed a bit relieved when CO Riley barked again that they’d better keep it hands off or T-Bag would end up in the SHU again.
Didn’t know why they’d decided the SHU was such a punishment. Only problem was there wasn’t any ass to fuck.
Loot looked up for a moment when T-Bag was escorted back to their wonderful little cell and then looked back down at the ground again, because floors seemed to interest him so much for one reason or another. “You look unusually pleasant. What’s got you so happy?”
T-Bag chuckled, sliding down on the bunk next to the other man and ruffling his hair a bit, contemplating how much he wanted to scalp the boy just to see how much it’d bleed and just to see if he could do it. “Nothin’, boy. Just a bit of catchin’ up with my family.”
“That’s funny.” Loot glanced at him for a second with that look in his eyes that came about when he was feeling particularly gutsy, enough so to challenge him in certain ways. “I never figured you as the type.”
“We all got family.” T-Bag smirked at him and pulled on a few strands of his hair just sharply enough to make his breath hitch a fraction, which was enough for him. For now. “Gotta come from somewhere, now don’t we?” He leaned back a bit and kept running his fingers through Loot’s hair. “Tell me more ‘bout your Carly. ‘M curious ‘bout her.”
If Loot was suspicious any about T-Bag’s tone or the way he laughed a little bit just under his breath, he didn’t act like it.