Chapter Text
December
The jail cell was always ten times smaller when night came. It was already smaller than a walk-in closet. Seriously, a walk-in closet at Iason’s house could easily fit two of the cells.
Iason.
Riki shook his head, trying to focus. Thinking about Iason only depressed him, distracted him, made him cry his eyes out later. Nine months into this and he had a method: Wake up and do push-ups and a bit of yoga, to loosen up. After breakfast was for the real exercise, outside, soaking up as much sun as he could because the skylights inside did shit, even during the day. Then it was the library, studying where he left off from some textbook, finding out that if he actually studied every day, math wasn’t hard at all! Then it was lunch, then an after-lunch workout, then the library if he was particularly tired, and if he wasn’t, he slid into the back of the movie room, hoping no one would try to talk to him.
He didn’t know when the guy of the night was picked out, but he knew that everyone already knew that they might get a chance. A man or five would be coming forward and sizing him up and down to see what all the hubbub was about.
“You don’t look that strong.”
He hasn’t heard that in so long, before being arrested, and now he heard it nearly every single goddamn night, and almost every time he went to the movie room, or the cafeteria, and sometimes in the library. Usually, though, whoever was in the library actually wanted to read and be alone, which suited him perfectly.
Then it was dinner.
Then.
Shower, always alone, and, he was no believer, but he thanked whoever might be in charge for that saving grace.
Then his cell, alone for just an hour, no more, and then the man of the night would come and try to rape him.
It was that simple. A simple horrifying fact.
He knew that if they were trying to kill him, a good number of them would have won. It also helped that if they got him down on the bed, or his shirt ripped off, or shoved up against the wall behind him they would make a grunt of their progress: “Almost there!”, “Halfway there baby!”, “Now the pants!”
He always used that opportunity to kick everything up a notch, gain that second wind, and beat the shit out of whoever it was.
He’s never lost a fight.
As always.
He’s never killed any of them either, although he was so angry, but he was angry all the time. He hasn’t had his medicine since it all started. He was back to the angry little boy he used to be, always ready for a fight, never wanting to talk. He’s gone weeks without saying anything to anyone.
Just fighting.
Living.
Iason.
He imagined Iason looking for him, finally finding him, gone from the world because Riki decided to leave it when he was good and ready. Which would have been long ago, if just that image of Iason didn’t plague him as easily as his fond memories of him.
Fond memories that even included when he actually last saw Iason, which was possibly the angriest anyone has ever, ever been with him. The only time that even come a quarter of the way close was when he and the rest of the gang found a sword- a relatively fake one, but sharp enough that playing with it cut deeply into Sid’s shoulder, a wound that eventually needed twelve industrial-like stitches. Having never hit them in her life, Grandma smacked them upside their heads with her church heels, yelling at them: “What if you had chopped off his gosh-dang head, you dummies! You idiots! Hoolingans! Hooli!” SMACK! “Gans!”
Even Sid wasn’t spared: “You better remember this here!” An admittedly gentle tap on Sid’s hurt shoulder. “’Cause next time you won’! It just gon take your head plumb off your shoulders!” Tap, tap!
Riki allowed himself to smile in the dark quiet, breathing in and out. He was doing better, mentally, today, as a calm washed over him as he let himself fall into a fluffy past.
Mainly, what started all of this.
He had grabbed Iason’s keys to his car.
“Where?!” Iason demanded from his desk. He was working on some essay. It was due in a week, after Spring Break, but he didn’t want anything to hinder what should be a spectacular week, because, apparently, the wonders that be didn’t want him and Riki to do anything more than jack each other off since Valentine’s. They hadn’t had any time together for some time as Riki first got sick with a cold. When it lasted way too damn long, a hospital visit proved that it was actually the flu.
Riki’s never had the flu.
And neither had Iason.
Until Riki recovered, that is.
Now they were both behind on work and looking forward to a break, and Riki was so very bored of the math packet and so he decided for just a little drive.
“Just up and down 100.”
“Okay, up and down wherever that is, and I swear if you get so much as a deflated tire-”
“Yea, yea, yea,” Riki said dismissively.
Into the dark air, Riki said, “Yea, yea, yea.”
He went up and down 100, sure enough, and then, in a literal turn of events, he took Exit 69 (ha), to go around the bends that cuddled a river. It had a name, and it was actually pretty big, and deceptively deep, but Riki could never remember because it had some sweet turns. Turns were to him like big waves were to a pro surfer, just waiting to be conquered in a really sweet ride. That last part didn’t quite fit the analogy, but, yea, just like that.
It was a beautiful day despite the incredibly late winter. So the windows were up, the music loud as balls, wheels fast as halibut! They squealed, and screeched, and pretty much screamed in protest. He did that on purpose, drifting. One time the car kind of teetered dangerously to the side- that really should have been a clue- and he decided to finally put on his seatbelt. That might have saved his life (that most certainly saved his life).
The Death Turn. Reeeeeeeeally should have been a clue.
Well, he took that turn that about fifteen people died on. In the last year.
Fast, drifting, bass!
Ice patch.
Flip. Bang. Flip. SKID!
There went the roof, and he was lucky it didn’t take off his damn head. (Seriously. The seatbelt kept him just far up enough, and he was leaning forward into the wheel). Then, with gusto, the car banged into the river. He’s always heard that water wasn’t all that soft, and now he had the absolute proof. The car landed passenger side first, the air bags finally fucking bursting up to life- what the hell, that slow sinking stuff was not true either! The water bit into his flushed with hot adrenaline skin so fast he very nearly passed out in shock. Luckily, he didn’t, and he got out from his seatbelt and swam to the bank.
“Fuck, it’s cold, fuck, it’s cold, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Yea, no shit,” the present Riki told his past self.
“Oh, shit.” Riki shivered, looking down at the car now mostly submerged. “Iason. God damn. He is going to kill me.” Shakings wracked him, and he said again, “He’s gonna kill me.”
He took the long walk back to 100, up the ramp, wanting to flag down a car to call the police and the local funeral parlor, get them ready to prepare a body, if there was anything left when Iason was done with him. And if he didn’t die of frostbite- a car! A familiar car… A REALLY familiar set of cars.
It seems that Iason’s bad luck has now fully and completely entered Riki’s karma wheel, intricately woven so that a long row of his bestest best friends and the most wonderful boyfriend in the world was coming right on down, and slowing down to a crawl. Riki wondered who would speak first, what would they say, would they notice he was damp and standing around in the freezing cold?
Iason in the passenger seat, and Raoul rolled up in his black beauty. Riki could smell the leather.
His lovely boyfriend’s lovely blue eyes roamed up and down, as others exited the cars to watch what hell was going on.
Those blue eyes were colder than the river.
“Is my car at the bottom of a river?” Iason asked lightly.
What was he supposed to say? Yes? Okay. Maybe yes. But Riki said nothing, with just a stupid look on his face.
“Did you drive down that long, winding road with enough ice patches to make a car’s tires go in two different directions?”
“Mmmm…” Not quite a yes.
Iason seemed to flow out of the car, even a slight smile on his face. He opened the back door, gentlemanly, bending over in a bow. “Get in.” His voice caressed Riki’s face as he stood over him, looking down. Riki felt pretty sure that if he wasn’t the only person in the world who knew exactly where Iason’s car was, Iason would be slowly choking the life out of him. Probably enjoying the light slowly fading from his eyes.
Still, Riki got in, next to Guy. Riki looked at his best friend, who merely shook his head.
“Riki. You fucked up.”
“Yea,” was all Riki could say. A little drive later, he told Raoul, “Right here.”
The procession stopped.
Riki hurriedly got out the car before Iason could open his door. Somehow, Iason so carefully treating him with kid gloves promised a lot more pain later to make up for it. Good thing, too, because Iason definitely stared at him with that subzero stare, which trailed along the road and to the river and to the beautiful car very much visible from the bank, that beautiful color still sparkling through the surface of the water.
No one said anything. Riki heard his own heartbeat in his ears, not at all steady but hiccupping as if thinking, what’s the point? He will be dead soon anyway.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! RIKIIIIIIIIII!”
Riki hopped away with a stifled, “Jesus Christ!”
Because it wasn’t Iason that yelled, but Gideon’s animalistic shriek.
“Riki, you really, really done it,” Zeke’s deep voice kind of purred over his shoulder (did they all do that? Be nice and calm when they were super angry?), and his hands massaged his shoulder, and kind of squeezed, and then kind of really clenched into his muscle.
“Um. That hurts… Just a bit, Zeke… Zeke! Zeke, my man, that is a very important nerve.”
PAT. PAT.
Right onto those shoulders.
“Nooooo, nooooo, noooooo! This is the fucking worst!” Gilbert kicked a very large rock into the water. It trailed harmlessly down beside the dead car.
“Man, really? Having less than fantastic cars isn’t all that-”
Aisha stopped Sid’s words at once: “The punishment for getting, like, a fucking ticket was slow cars. If any of us got into a crash or otherwise damaged the car, we would have our allowances reduced to one hundred dollars a month!”
“Well, we don’t even get allowances, so-”
“And the punishment for any of us having our car totaled is having to get jobs.”
“Oh. So-”
“So instead of us enjoying our college life with relative freedom, and waiting until graduation to join the real world, we can now all happily join it now. Isn’t that great, Riki?”
Riki slowly turned his head towards Aisha.
“I see that stupid look is just permanently stuck.”
Riki’s brain finally joined the equation: “I’m really sorry. I would say I would pay it back-” Nothing less than guffaws ensued, the fuckers. “…If I didn’t know that that car prolly got more money behind it than fifteen times everything I have ever made.”
Iason spoke slowly, “Fifteen is being quite generous.”
“Uh, yea, yea…”
No words, tension like ice.
“Iason?”
Iason whipped towards him, and Riki saw in his gait his anger boiling over, not to mention the seething hiss to his words as he told Riki, “You are going to work in whatever burger-flipping, grease trap, soul-killing monstrosity that my dad assigns me to. You’re gonna grin and fucking bear it. We’re gonna answer that damn drive-thru together. We’re gonna wipe the counters a thousand times together, oh, yes, mop the bathrooms right on up because for some reason when people go out, they don’t know how to clean up after themselves!”
“Sounds romantic?”
Guy sighed into the palm of his hand. Iason’s teeth exactly an inch away, could easy bite his face off.
“Dumbass,” Luke muttered. He turned conversationally to Gideon. “So where are we working?”
“We?” Gideon asked, already smiling. “Well, Dad always wanted me to work on a farm.”
“Oh, cool. There’s one with fucking zebras out by the lakes. Maybe your dad can hook us up there?”
Alright, Luke, Riki thought to himself, get it, one of us should, at any rate…
Riki leaned against the cell wall, wondering if Luke did ‘get it’.
The Blondies all had jobs by the end of the day, making Riki and the others realize, holy shit, they aren’t spoiled brats and Riki really fucked up! They were working at their jobs the third day into Spring Break, which Iason was happy to remind Riki wasn’t a break anymore since HE WAS WORKING!
To make matters even better, Apollo had no intention of helping Riki get a job at said burger-flipping, grease trap, soul-killing monstrosity which he certainly did assign Iason to.
Riki called him for the fifteenth time that day. Iason had given Riki his father’s number and Riki had left dozens of messages (ninety-three) telling him how it was all his fault and Iason wasn’t to blame and a bunch of shit that Apollo definitely already knew but was what Riki just had to say, because, hey, maybe it’ll stick. It wasn’t as if he wanted them not to do the punishment that they had agreed on- back in high school! Jeezums! He just really needed for that asshole manager to hire him instead of saying he didn’t want a couple of lovebirds causing a distraction.
“Really?” Iason had yelled from across a stack of inventory- “So I am on break, but there is no actual break room?”- “Because Allen is distracted by his phone half the time, and you don’t say anything! Or does it just not matter if your SON is distracted?”
“Seems like he is distracting enough without li’l ol’ me,” Riki quipped, with a snorting laugh.
The manager gave Riki a glare, then glared at Iason, asking, “Isn’t your ten-minute break over?”
Iason flipped his wristwatch. “Actually,” he informed him in the haughtiest of tones, “I would have one minute and forty-eight seconds, if this was a ten-minute break, but since I work six hours and thirty minutes today, I get a whole fifteen-minute break.”
Riki chuckled hard into his chest, trying to stifle himself but, god, Iason was so fucking funny. They had to work together! It’ll be the best!
“Most people don’t take a break with such a short shift.”
“Most people are fucking dumb and should exercise their rights so that asshole businessmen won’t shame their smart employees.”
Riki was laughing so hard, the rickety folding chair shook.
The manager stood up from the ‘desk’, a block of wood nailed into the wall underneath more blocks of wood that were used as ‘shelves’.
“This-” He pointed at the laughing Riki; he pointed at Iason with his raised eyebrows. “-is exactly why you are not working together. Iason wouldn’t be here if his daddy hadn’t wrangled me into hiring him until he graduates.”
Iason sniffed dismissively. “Daddy is paying you out the ass.”
“And if you didn’t have that ass and that pretty face to go along with it, I would have fired you!”
Oh.
Oh.
The manager looked ready to pass out.
“I didn’t… I didn’t mean that. It’s just that… that…”
“Let me finish that for you, sir.” Iason stepped around the shelves, punching a hanging box of plastic cups over, deeper atop too much inventory. “‘It’s just that’ you’re going to let me off early-”
“Your dad asks for the security tapes-”
“Figure something out. And also, you’re going to hire Riki to work with me. Immediately.”
“Your dad already knows my reason why I won’t hire him.”
Iason rolled his eyes. “Figure. Something. Out. Have a good afternoon! C’mon, Riki, before I get this man assassinated.”
“See you tomorrow, boss!” Riki shot at the manager, who still looked a stone’s throw away from death. Well, he will have Iason blackmailing him, probably until he graduates, or until the manager dies, both equally likely to happen in the same timeframe.
Riki practically skipped out with Iason, to the damn jalopy that was his car. It was old, rusted, the brakes worse than a thousand nails on a chalkboard, and sometimes it didn’t even turn on. The only way to get that fixed was to raise about a grand on his own- their own. Granted, Riki could get a job absolutely anywhere in Amoi, but was he going to miss Iason acting a damn fool err’day? Hell naw!
And all the at-work sex they could do.
Maybe a little buzzer inside as he talked to some asshole customer that said they asked for a large fry instead of a medium.
Riki rubbed his hands together.
“Why are you getting frisky? I’m dropping you off on the edge of campus. I work at five tomorrow. Don’t be late! I’m the only one who can be late.”
Riki still grinned at him, looking at that lovely profile of a man who definitely felt avenged, at least momentarily. He reached for a thigh, looking so nice in a pair of work slacks that were too small for him, because ones in his size ‘haven’t arrived yet’. No complaints from him!
Iason let him, with a sigh.
Riki reached a little further.
Iason smacked his hand. “Enough frisky. Here’s your stop.”
Riki did as he was told, rolling over the hood while avoiding that tiny piece of metal that jagged up from said hood, and he sidled up to the driver’s window.
“Yes?” Iason asked, fluttering his eyes.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, guy who fucked up my Spring Break and eventually my summer and then my school year?”
Riki feigned confusion. “Guy didn’t do all that.”
Iason seemed to growl in his throat: “Mggggn!”
“Just a kiss. Please? I miss your mouth on me.”
“I miss my leather seats. Anyway, you should be happy to see my face.”
“With that ass?”
“I will run you over!”
Riki hurried away before Iason made good on his threat, although Riki was sure if he ran just a quarter of a mile, Iason going full speed in his car would sputter it right out of commission.
Riki still blew him a kiss.
Which Iason caught and blew back, although he was sticking his tongue out. Welp! Progress was progress!
It was the last time he communicated with Iason.
The time after that was a blur. A nightmare. It was the next morning, or the next afternoon, he was sure it was during the day because he remembered the sun shining through their tiny, tiny dorm window, and how the police had flashlights on as if it was midnight. There was so much yelling, especially Guy: “What did he do?! What did he do?!” He felt light as air as two policemen easily pulled him from his bed. One of them told him, “I’m sorry, Riki, we found some stuff in your motorcycle- obviously it was planted. We’ll get this straightened out, ok?” Riki didn’t answer, as someone was yelling to not say shit, don’t say shit, Riki!
Suddenly, he was outside and so many people were taking pictures and recording- he saw Kirie pointing both middle fingers at him- and then instantly he was in the police car, the WEE-WOO WEE-WOO WEE-WOO alarm was accidentally set off- “Sorry, reflex.”- then there was the flash of more pictures, mugshots, and there goes his fingerprints in the system, and then flash in his cell. There was a light. The light does not go off, but the door is loud, and he could hardly hear his guard say, “You’ll be out by morning.”
At the time, Riki thought of Jupiter. With Kirie gloating, Riki knew the little fuck had something to do with everything, probably planted weed or crack into his bike. Good thing he had a good reputation, for that was not always the case, and now he just had to wait until morning to smash his head in. No amount of cajoling from Guy and Mimea will keep him away.
“Smarmy bastard.” That opinion has not changed over the past nine months.
But he knew Kirie had nothing to do with a guard telling him later that ‘a friend’ posted bail and he could leave, but instead of the guard taking him out the front office, it was through some side office, it was so dark, and he was being pulled, and why did he have handcuffs again, and he couldn’t see anyone’s face and there was a van and he was forced in with what looked like other prisoners.
“Damn, he is pretty!”
Not prisoners.
“You sure Jupes ain’t gone send some people after us? This would look real bad on her.”
“Shut the fuck up, you fucker. Puttin’ us on blast.”
“Oh, yea. Yea, sorry about that.”
“Put the blindfold on.”
At this, Riki finally realized this may have been outside proper procedure, and he placed a well-aimed kick to someone’s diaphragm. He heard a sputtering gasp, but recognized it only peripherally, as he swung his wrists, palms clutched together. There was a scream of pain.
“He really does pack a punch.”
So, someone told them he did?
That’s something only an Amoian would know, and Jupiter wasn’t Amoian.
He fought more vigorously; he felt that if he allowed them to take him, he wasn’t ever coming back, and where he was going was somewhere he never wanted to be. His panic put more force behind a kick into someone’s shoulder, and Riki heard the small clicks of a shoulder becoming dislocated.
“’Ey, fuck this.” The familiar sound of a gun being cocked. Riki froze, snarling at the barrel. If push came to shove, he’ll fight even with a gun pointed at him, and he would go for Mr. Gunman first, or die trying. He was going to kill them.
Mr. Gunman’s acquaintance, the driver, apparently disagreed with the current direction: “We don’t get paid, at-fucking-all, if he’s hurt even a little bit!”
“Then what the fuck we do?”
“Handcuff his legs. Stuff something in his mouth before he bites one of you. Then toss ‘im to the floor. Keep ya legs right on top of ‘im.”
They attempted to do what they were told, and Riki continued to fight, knowing that he was at a far advantage.
“He’s going to knock one of us out!”
“Don’t be a goddamn baby!”
Riki managed not to knock any of them out, definitely not for lack of trying, but he was still handcuffed by the legs, and, as an afterthought, they all worked together to cuff him with his arms behind his back. A man shoved a towel into his mouth, pink, he remembered even in the darkness because he looked down at it to ascertain, of all things, how clean it was. A blindfold was placed over his eyes as he was stepped on at the bottom of the van.
How long did he they drive? He wasn’t given anything to eat or drink, even though he knew that an inordinate amount of time passed, as he took naps intermittently, before they finally arrived to where they were going. He was pulled from the floor, the van, and he remembered how quiet it was, because back at the Amoian jail it was noisy from the surrounding evidence of nightlife.
It was silent. And cold, much colder than back at the city.
“Hurry up before he gets hypothermia! It’s negative four out here!”
He was so tired, and so hungry, so cold.
And the next thing he knew, it was warm. It was so warm, he started shivering! Someone pushed him into a chair, a comfortable armchair, he could fall asleep right then and there. He leaned back, then snapped up. What was he doing getting comfortable? Where was he? Why was he there?
At that thought, someone whipped off his blindfold, let his limbs go free.
An office, a real one, bright white, with a desk of deeply dark wood, real bookshelves filled with tchotchkes, books, and rewards, and a warden jumping right from an episode of Orange is the New Black.
None of what Riki could see held any clue to where he was, other than a jail of some kind.
The warden was fine as hell. It may have been the ‘having not seen a real face in days’ working through his mind, but then, no, no, he was attractive, and not just in the traditional sense, for his eyes were almost neon green, skin caramel with freckles, and there was a natural slight overbite to his smile, and he was smiling. They were staring at each other, and the warden was looking at him up and down, not sizing him up- appreciating.
Riki coughed and said through a very sore throat, “If they have sold me to you, maybe being trafficked isn’t so bad.”
The warden’s gorgeous eyes blinked in utter shock.
“I heard-” Even his voice was amazing! “-that you joked under pressure. You really are the whole package.”
“And so are you,” Riki shot back. God, he was so out of it. Did they drug him?
“You hungry?”
Right. He hadn’t eaten or anything. “Yes! I mean, yea, yea. A bit.”
The warden nodded. “Alright!” he yelled, and immediately a few prisoners walked into the office with mobile trays. The smell of food wafted through, and, it was true that he always ate well afterwards, probably to keep him healthy, for fighting.
But before all that he was fed and given tea and juice and milk, and he realized that the prisoners were all relatively young, like him, and attractive, and the warden pulled one of them forward into a kiss and fondle, and the order as he smacked the man’s ass, “Get this ready.”
“Yes, sir,” was the low answer.
“I bet you wish you had a certain man like that at your beck and call, right?” the warden asked when the door closed behind the last prisoner, and he was pouring himself some coffee, and that drink in particular was put only in his vicinity. The tea wasn’t caffeinated.
Riki whispered, “I’m working on it.”
Chuckling, the warden shook his head.
“Forget about all that.”
His voice changed. It was a voice that was meant to be obeyed. Immediately. His green eyes, too, focused into a razor-sharp stare, and he repeated, “Forget about all that. All you have now is me and this prison. This is your life now.” Tall frame shadowing over Riki, the warden had his arms behind his back, leaning further down.
Riki knew what was about to happen. He wondered if the warden knew he knew.
“What do you say to that, young man?”
Riki sipped up his lavender tea, hiding a deep breath to his lungs, then set the mug down beside him. “I say you got me fucked up.” He held his breath.
“Oh, do I?”
“Yea.”
In a millisecond, Riki saw that the man was left-handed, swinging with his right- he was holding back. He didn’t know, and that’s how Riki swerved underneath the swing, grabbing the mug again, and swung it down onto the back of taller man’s head. A kick to the side of his ribs almost followed through, but he canceled the move midway as he saw the warden straighten up a tad- he could grab his foot and this would be over in a hurry. Even with the blood running down the side of his face as it did.
Riki kept both arms down to his sides, wondering if it was over, but he felt the warden backing up towards him, and so Riki shifted quickly to right, trying to see the man’s face, but it was blocked by the right arm.
With the left fist, he jabbed, and Riki simply shifted back to the left.
“Smart,” the warden praised, and that was a mistake, because just hearing his voice told Riki exactly where his mouth was. He punched a particular spot on the warden’s arm, and a hard gasp left the taller man.
The warden finally began his offense, taking merely one step backward and turning around, throwing a feint of a fist with his left hand. Before he could put some pressure into his off hand, Riki had hit him twice in the chin with both hands. The warden reacted faster than Riki thought he would by bringing his arms up to guard his face. So fast that he made the mistake of straightening up. Riki shifted his level down, reaching his arms around to make it seem as if he was going to grab him. Hidden underneath, his right leg reached far forward. He guessed that the warden would see his left leg outstretched, looking for another change: his body curving forward, strengthening his stance against a lunge from Riki.
It came. Riki heard an intake of breath, and instead of bringing his left leg all the way forward to really propel him against the warden’s own legs, he simply snapped his feet together and popped up, his shoulder into the taller man’s ribcage to flip him over.
Riki followed the entire move, doing a very tight backflip so that he landed on the man’s chest. He wrapped his legs as best he could around the arms underneath him, locking him into holding himself, and began to pummel. Back and forth with both hands, and he would have never stopped.
If the meds in whatever- probably everything- hadn’t kicked in, he knew he would have fucked up the warden beyond repair. Alas, they hit like a ton of bricks, doubling him over, and the last thing he saw was how the warden, the motherfucker, didn’t even move. He hoped he killed him.
He learned he hadn’t killed the warden the next day, early morning, as the doctor saw to his knuckles, bruised with one having torn flesh from getting caught on teeth. She was directly in his cell, bringing with her what seemed like the sun, but was merely a light of extreme luminosity. She spoke conversationally, “You really worked him over, prisoner Z-107M! He said the person that sent you to him said that you would be too much to handle without sedation- and that person does not want you sedated- but he didn’t actually think you would be that much of a problem. He said you were like a panther and a cobra mixed together, it was over before he realized it. Quite the Vajra-esque image isn’t it?” She finished bandaging his hands, patting them with a large smile. “I really hope you lose soon. I would positively froth down there seeing you battered inside and out!”
A psychopath. Riki always imagined in the movies that if you just talked to someone they would come through eventually, but her eyes were bright, happy. She could slit his throat and he would bleed to death wondering why, and think she had a nice smile.
“See you tomorrow!”
That night another man, not the warden, tried his luck. Riki fought him, beat him.
The next night was a man his size, small, but without a single bit of punch. Float like a butterfly, sting like cotton. Riki knocked him out and went to bed early, on the top bunk.
The next night really scared him, if he was being honest to himself. That was the only person he could be honest with. No one really talked to him. ‘Are you as strong as they say’ doesn’t count. Once he asked the doctor why was he here.
She had laughed, a cute thing that put a dimple in her chin.
“Don’t worry about that! You’ll never leave! Haha, you’re so funny. I like you. Wish you would lose though.”
He didn’t lose that night either, with the man nearly as big as Apollo, and ripped with steroids and anger. But he had no brains, thank god, and he rolled his big heavy fists around like a blind gorilla. It took some time to avoid being hit- one of them and Riki would be gone- and tire him out, but when he had achieved that, he kicked a knee in to fell him, and did his ol’ one-two-three-four-five-six, etc., until he knew the man was out for the count. Someone must have been counting because there were always men to take away the prisoner.
Riki would sleep.
It was often restless sleep fraught with nightmares, new and old, and then some positively blazing wet dreams about Iason, and a few about Guy, and a few of hookups long past. Those made him wake up more awake and alive than coffee.
He was never given caffeine.
Yet, he once told the doctor that he couldn’t get to sleep.
“Maybe if you lose, you’ll get a good night’s rest? It might all be over with that.”
Might.
Riki knew.
Riki knew ‘the person’ that put him in the jail would kill him as soon as he lost. He was surer of that than his own name. ‘The person’ was a sicko who heard about his past and present and wanted to see if they could break him. And once they broke him, as if he was just a mere toy, they would throw him out with the rest of the trash.
Who?
It wasn’t Jupiter. If Kyrie was the only window to Riki’s past life, she wouldn’t get far, and Riki doubted very much that she had friends to call upon in Amoi. Granted, she could have given him to ‘the person’, but, like that kidnapper said long before, this wouldn’t look good on her. She is probably first on any and all suspects’ list. The longer Riki was gone, the longer everyone would believe that someone with resources got rid of Riki without a trace, and few had the means and the motive more than Jupiter. With all the Blondies and Amoi staring at her, she would not be able to get any peace.
Plus, she would lose Iason forever.
Iason might even kill her, if he slacked on taking his meds and got angry enough.
If ‘the person’ didn’t get to her first. Riki wasn’t sure if she and ‘the person’ ever had face-to-face contact, but there must have been some communication that Riki would be sent to jail- Riki felt that was all Jupiter.
And the men in the night taking him to fucking Antarctica made it clear Jupiter didn’t know he was being taken from the jail- so that was all ‘the person’.
Riki felt the cold wall of the cell and realized he nearly fell asleep standing. It wouldn’t be the first time. He had dislocated his wrists (multiple times) but the first time he did, the odd doctor pretended not to notice, but she licked her lips when she left.
He assumed he would lose.
The assumption only gained strength when a man came in with wrapped hands. They weren’t for show. Snapping out like rubber bands, his fists nearly connected, and Riki wasted so much energy moving around because of his damn wrist. A block from those strong arms would only achieve more damage, probably shatter it, but he had to keep his arms up. He had to, he had to win, or else he would be in for a bitter night, and a bitter end.
Then the man stopped, having not broken a sweat, while Riki heaved against the wall. The man stretched his hands and rested his back against the bars. They said nothing, but Riki didn’t want to be caught off-guard, and he tried to stay awake for as long as possible, falling asleep against the cell wall over and over again.
The next day a completely different doctor was addressing his wounds, his wrist. She showed him, silently, how to pop it back into place. It hurt a lot less than he thought it would; he would pop various bones back into place, including his knees. Now that motherfucker hurt.
The previous fighter was still his next fighter about two weeks later. It was a long, arduous, and kind of fun.
“This fuckin’ cell.” His first words.
Riki laughed. “Works to my advantage, don’t it?”
“It does. And you’re makin’ the most of it. You were in college?”
“Am in.”
There was a brief, pitying expression on the man’s face before he replied, “It’s a waste. You should be a fighter, somewhere.”
Another laugh as Riki stretched his shoulders. “So that I can addle my brains to slop before I’m thirty? Get Parkinson’s by forty? No thanks. I’d rather use my strengths for a lover who can handle it.”
“Lucky fucking lover.” A swing from, a swipe from, his leg into between his, punches from all sides it felt like, and they hurt. Now this was an offense, very much how Riki fought. He could knock Riki down at any moment, but it would be like pushing over a boulder. Riki would make sure of that.
However, the man made the mistake of not sweeping him onto the floor, as Riki would have done, but pressing an arm into his chest and trying to turn him over by the shoulder.
If he had done that maneuver into a corner, he might have had a chance, but he did it on the left side of the sink, on empty, open wall, so Riki slipped through the slight gap on one side, and used all of his body to shove the man’s body over. He swept his foot, still entangled, but so small and easily removed, tripped the man over. The man’s head hit the sink at the front, and when Riki got atop him, he saw a gap where three teeth had been.
He stopped there, knowing he had won. Why wear himself out even more?
“Don’t…” Blood spat from the man’s lips. “Don’t stop. It doesn’t count…” More blood coughing up, staining the white shirt. “If you don’t, I have to get up and try again. They’ll know…Pt!” He spit finally. “They’ll know if I fake it. Whoever is in charge of this whole shebang has done this before. Done this for a long time. Come on. End it.”
Riki ended it.
Now, it began.
The man of the night arrived.
He… was familiar. More than familiar. Riki’s been waiting for this face a long time, for almost as long as he could remember. But he couldn’t remember who the man was.
He had at least ten years on Riki, although he didn’t look over the age of eighteen. He had to be at least eighteen or else he would be in juvie instead of a prison. Very pretty. Riki wondered if he was one of the warden’s boys.
But then he remembered he was transferred from that cold, cold prison to one possibly in Arizona, it was so goddamn hot. He was drugged during the day, probably lunch, and blindfolded, and he awoke to dry air and a burning sun.
He managed to see the date from a man who finagled his way to a watch on his wrist. It was fall. He’s been gone seven months at least.
Two months later, and this rather cute man, definitely not a fighter in any form or fashion unless that form was marshmallow and fashion tinsel, was in his cell. The doors, for the first time, were kept open behind him. Still, his familiar face faced forward, with a complicated expression. There had to be pity, there was always that, but there was also guilt, anger, sadness. Whatever he was promised for going into the cell wasn’t enough to keep his own feelings at bay.
“I have two options for you.” A clear, light voice, the ones magicians use to engage the audience. He even produced a stack of paper, pictures, from seemingly thin air, and one by one he showed them to Riki.
Riki remembered this game.
They were all pictures of Iason. Pictures he had taken, including the last one Riki ever took, where Iason was working behind the counter, staring down an asshole customer complaining about ketchup on her burger. Riki had seen the woman scrape a glob off of her child’s kid’s meal burger and put it on her own. Iason didn’t need to see that to know she was full of shit, because he made the damn sandwich. Eventually, the manger came to the front and gave her the food for free.
The manager had patted Iason’s shoulder and said in his customer service voice (awfully similar to a magician’s), “Everyone makes mistakes, ma’am.”
“He means you,” Iason had said to her.
Riki, along with almost everyone else there, started laughing, and not a few customers were wheezing around their food. The restaurant became a regular hotspot for other people who worked in service, finding Iason’s antics cathartic.
“You listening?” the familiar man said.
Riki nodded slowly, watching every memory work through him with every picture.
Riki missed Iason.
He missed him so much.
He wanted those pictures.
He wanted them more than anything in the world.
He would do anything for them.
The other man continued, “Two options. You tell me to leave with these pictures.”
“No,” Riki answered nearly at the same time.
“Or. Or. You… You suck my dick, and I give them to you.”
“Okay.”
Riki heard outside the cell: “Did he say yes?”
The man stammered, “Y-you’re… You ain’t gonna think ‘bout it?”
Riki didn’t think, and for whoever was watching, ‘that person’ could watch his desperation as he crawled to the feet of the familiar man, and now, so low, he was even more… familiar! A childhood teenager that he hung with maybe? But if his face sparked such feelings from his chest, he must have been someone close, and important. A friend of Katze’s? Why couldn’t he remember?
It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t be so bad. The man had a great face. A huge dick as he pulled down his pants. But it was flaccid- more than flaccid. Riki recognized the signs of utter revulsion.
“I guess you’re not the slightest bit lavender?”
The man coughed a laugh.
There were tears in his eyes.
“My man, I’m a fuckin’ rainbow of purple.”
Obviously, a man who jokes when he’s nervous. Riki asked, “Then what’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to do this, much less to you.”
“What’s so special about me?” Riki demanded, feeling that the man knew a lot more than Riki could ever remember.
The truth spread on the man’s face, a shock of fear widening all his features. He must have said too much, and he started to sob, pushing Riki’s head away, and he cried at the camera built into the corner of the cell (technically a pod, and a group of pods were a cell, and a group of cells were a block).
“I’m sorry, Riki,” the man said, and brought his hands together to rip up the pictures.
Riki could only hear the awful tearing, searing his mind and soul. He never understood people who said that they saw red whenever they were very angry. He saw nothing but black and a face. He felt nothing, heard only the tear as an endless rip that he would never wake up from. He cried out, cried on the inside. This was the last person he ever wanted to hurt, not just because the man never wanted to hurt him, and thought blackmailing Riki was too far, but because deep down Riki knew him from somewhere. Riki liked him then. Loved him even.
His cell was a mess by the end of it. Somehow, he chased the guy around- the cell doors were shut as soon as the man tore the pictures- and beat him until someone(s) pulled him off and into the wall, exhausted.
When the cell was empty, when he was alone, when the dried tears were refreshed with new ones, Riki finally went into the bed, reaching underneath the pillow to feel the cool underside, and to have something to hold, to hug.
There was… Something there…
His fingers caressed the edges. The front. The back.
Photos. A good stack of them.
The familiar man must have slipped it underneath while getting his ass kicked. How did he have the wherewithal to do that, Riki had no idea, but he was beyond impressed. He had to wait until his next library visit, but there was ample opportunity to look at them there.
He did just that the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. His fighting form was better than ever, probably because of a good night’s rest filled with pleasant dreams about a man he had forgotten, dreams he also forgot. It felt as if the day before, the months before never happened with every scan through his private portfolio. There were quite a few pictures of Iason naked, the motorbike ones, the ones at Rupa’s.
He could almost feel Iason’s skin, the blissful look when he submitted so beautifully, his annoyed pout, his icy glares that sent a shiver down Riki’s spine.
Then he was transferred again.
The photos were in the last book he read.
They were gone, and he was crying around his blindfold. He cried without it. He cried in the morning, during the day, throughout his ritual, and before the night came, yet another different doctor checked him out, took blood samples. They didn’t know about the photos, so him all of a sudden in a state of constant depression would be baffling.
“Probably just trauma.”
The guard asked the doctor, “You think he broke?”
“Most likely.”
“A shame.”
Broke? Him? No way. No fucking way. He would never break for as long as he lived.
The only reason they would keep moving him would be because someone was looking for him- and was close to that goal. ‘The person’ had all the means in the world to get a different man in his cell every night. Plus, there would be more risk in moving him than keeping him hidden in one place.
Someone had to be looking for him. Someone who could get him if they knew where he was. Someone who could pay a warden to cough up the truth.
That night, the man tried to kill him.
That night, Riki broke a man’s jaw and six ribs.
The next night, the man tried to kill him.
That night, Riki broke an arm with his knee and elbow.
Over a few weeks of winter - the weather was no longer so warm and there were some freezing days- there was a constant number of men who were trying to kill him. He could see why they were able to: tattooed gang members, addicts with wobbling eyes, glassy eyed murderers. They were all probably people who weren’t ever getting out. Not without killing Riki.
An almost last-ditch effort, Riki could see it clearly. Someone found him, but ‘the person’ couldn’t let go of their pride for their pet project. They didn’t arm any of the prisoners; they didn’t drug Riki or otherwise weaken him, they never sent more than one person, not even more than one person a day.
Almost, because the actual last-ditch effort had a group of men.
Yet, amazingly, the guards actually stopped it.
They weren’t ‘the person’s’ people.
That morning there was no doctor, but he got a roommate. Someone his age who asked, “What are you in for?”
In hindsight, he realized everything was about to be over, but at the time, every fight was still fresh and raw and sensitive.
“Don’t know,” he told the other guy from atop the bunk, scooted all the way into the corner, where above his head the camera whirled. He tried not to be alone at all with his new roommate when they exited the cell, although he was now free to join everyone else instead of in the shadow of whatever guard was tasked to seeing to him that day, so being alone was never not an option. He still kept to himself and no one bothered him, but for that roommate.
The poor guy asked him that night, “You’re not going to slit my throat in my sleep, right?”
In a cracking voice unused to doing much more than breathing, Riki answered, “I don’t have anything to do that with.”
Again, in hindsight, not the most comforting thing to say to someone who had no plans to hurt him.
The man swallowed. “I’m not a kiddie fiddler if that’s what’s got you all in a twist. Just breaking and entering. Doing just three months.”
“Yea.”
In the middle of the night, his roommate called the guard and asked to see the warden. He whispered as if he thought Riki was asleep, “I think this guy is going to kill me! Please, just let me talk to someone. I’ll sleep on the floor in solitary if that’s what it takes.”
The very next morning the guard woke him up bright and early: “You’re having breakfast with the captain.”
So, they called them captain here, Riki had thought idly, as he caught his roommate peeking out from underneath the blanket.
Riki was brought again to a real office, except it was bare, with not even certificates on the wall or doohickeys on the shelf. Just a laptop on a desk overrun with paperwork, and a tired-looking woman at the chair. Breakfast consisted of bagels and different toppings. There was Nutella and bananas, and a toaster oven.
There was coffee, too, but Riki didn’t need it then and he didn’t need it now. It would probably make him all jittery and unfocused, and there was no reason to let his guard down against a woman who definitely knew how to hold her own. Probably actually trained in krav maga or something and would knock his ass to the floor.
She stood with a large cup of coffee, and looked at him with blue eyes and a tiredness that seemed to wear into her bones.
“Are you going to be a problem, Robert?”
“Who the fuck is Robert?”
She sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose. She slammed her mug down. “Let’s not fuck around. What did you say to Matthew?”
“Who’s Matthew?”
“Your cellmate.”
“I told him I had nothing to slice his throat with, and acknowledged he was not a pedophile, just a robber,” Riki told her, biting into his own slice of bagel.
“You know that sounds like if you had something to slice his throat with, you would.”
Riki just then realized that.
“Whoops. I didn’t mean that. I wouldn’t hurt anyone with a weapon.”
“Oh?” Her peppered eyebrows rose. “You are still going to maintain the position that you don’t remember what you did?”
“I never heard, actually, what I did. Kind of just locked in and fought, and transferred, and fought, and transferred, and fought.”
The captain reached behind her, grabbing a clipboard. “Oh, yea? Says here you’ve been here since March? You’re here for- well, everything. Murder, rape, robbery, everything you need for being in a gang.”
Riki shrugged. “It’s not true.”
“Right.” She groaned. Then, she took a banana, peeled it, and inquired nonchalantly, “So what do you think your name is, Mr. Not-Robert?”
“My name’s Riki.”
“Huk!” she choked on the banana, trying to cough up the piece, and she reached out her hand to stop Riki from helping. The banana dislodged itself on its own and the captain walked around the desk, typing hard and fast at her computer. After a moment, she turned her screen around, demanding, “Who’s this?”
He could hardly believe it; tears already started to form.
“That’s… Iason.”
“Oh, fuck, fucking fuck. You know he’s about to start looking for you a whole state over? Some backwoods prison over there said they had you and they were going to search there, and if somehow they don’t find you there, they are going to move over, further away from here!”
Riki could barely process what she was saying. “How… How do you know that?”
“Because the State Attorney General just admitted to taking a ‘donation’- a bribe, in other words- and paused all transfers, and asked the bordering states to do the same, which a lot of them did. I never intended to look because they said they… Goddamn, no wonder the last captain fucking left all of a sudden.”
“What? You’re new?”
She snorted, gesturing towards her desk. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Riki shrugged. “Don’t know what to look for.”
“You’re… You’re lucky. I know you’re not… completely lucky, but usually they don’t find guys like you, especially rarely alive, and, shit, never in one piece.” She was still typing away on her computer as she talked- did she have two brains? “The last lady, she up and disappeared, but I guess whoever was in charge of all this crazy ass shit had one last trick up their sleeve. Could have worked and you would have probably been shipped west instead of east, where everyone is looking for you.”
Riki sniffed.
“Oh, Jesus, don’t start crying, ‘cuz I’ll start and how is anyone going to respect me?” Even as she said that, she wiped away tears. “But this great. Very good.”
“Yea… Good… good.”