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Rhett thought that saying goodbye to their families would be the hardest part, but it wasn’t. The hardest part was first walking into the prison. The icy cement feeling that settled into his stomach made him shaky and uneasy in a way that he had never been before. They, and the other new inmates, were lined up and put into temporary holding cells in alphabetical order. The way Rhett figured it was that he would either get Link, or the big burly dude with the face tattoo, and he hoped with every fiber of his being that it would be Link.
He got lucky for the first time in a long time. Link was shaky on his feet, and trying to hide it -- it was so subtle that Rhett was probably the only one who noticed it. When the bars of the cell clanked shut, Rhett’s heart stopped for a what felt like the longest second of his life.He turned around, and saw the tears that were starting to form in Link’s eyes.
“Dude, don’t.” Rhett said, quiet but firm, “You can’t do that right now.”
Link nodded, his breathing becoming more and more rapid by the second.
Rhett looked over each shoulder, “Not here, man.”
“I know. I know.” Link’s voice shook. He began to pace in the tiny cell, and tried to remind himself that it was just a panic attack, and that the sooner he calmed down then the sooner that it would be over.
After a few deep breaths, and an internal pep talk, Link calmed down. Rhett never mentioned him crying before they actually even stepped foot in the prison.
***
The first three weeks were hell. Not only was Link in prison, but he was alone in prison. He and Rhett were assigned to different rooms, and they hardly saw each other at all aside from passing glances in the hallways. Link felt on edge at all times. It wasn’t that the other inmates he was bunked with were violent because they weren’t -- most of them were in for white collar crimes like he and Rhett were, but they were still criminals, and there were some violent offenders in the prison, and the combination of those two things made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up constantly. He couldn’t really sleep. Sometimes he felt like he couldn’t even breathe.
He was called for ‘permanent placement’ on the 26th day of his incarceration. He took the few items he’d bought over the three weeks he’d been locked away; shower shoes, toothbrush, toothpaste, extra clothes, and a few books. He rolled them up into his mattress and blanket.
He and several other inmates were led to the main area outside the cafeteria, and then to E wing where they would be staying for the remainder of their sentences. To say Link was relieved to see Rhett sitting on one of the beds in Link’s block, would be the understatement of the year.
He looked basically the same as the other times Link had seen him since they'd been locked up, but also so different from the Rhett from before. He had a cut lip, and Link would have to ask about that later. Right now, though, Rhett didn't even look relieved to see him. He looked tired, and pissed in an almost crazed way that Link hadn't seen before. That was okay, though. Link had a lot of different Rhett's; Rhett from first grade with too big eyes and missing teeth, Rhett from 6th grade who grew too tall too fast and was so clumsy that Link could beat him at sports, Rhett from high school who grew a weak mustache and flirted with every girl that moved, Rhett from college who drank too much and had constant dark circles, Rhett from the time their car flipped with a type of fear Link hadn’t seen before or since, Rhett who had gotten married and had two kids and became responsible. Link had learned all of those different Rhett's, and he could learn this one, too.
Rhett already had the bed on the right, so Link took the one on the left. He could see that Rhett had probably already been in here for a couple of days, at least, because all of his belongings were already set up. Link was a little surprised by how bad Rhett looked, especially up close. He always thought that if either of them were going to have problems in here that it would be him, because Rhett’s a tough dude who can get along with basically anybody. Link looked rough, sure, but not nearly as rough as Rhett. Rhett looked like he hadn’t slept since he’d been in, and his beard was too grown out for his face, and he just looked rough.
“What happened, man?” Link leaned forward to get a better look at Rhett’s split lip, “You get in a fight?”
Rhett shrugged, sighed, “Yeah. Kind of. My old bunkie was -- he wanted some of my stuff, and I wouldn’t give it to him. It pissed him off. We fought. I’m fine, now.”
Link just shook his head. Rhett had been in one, maybe two, fights in his life so he couldn’t imagine him in a fist fight with an prison inmate.
“Who was it?”
Rhett glanced around at all the other inmates mulling around E wing, and it occurred to Link that, yeah, maybe this isn’t the time for this conversation.
“I’ll tell you later.” Rhett said.
Later, it turns out, was after lights out. Rhett sat on the edge of Link’s bed just as he was settling in for another night of little sleep and said, “Scoot over.”
“What?” Link whisper-yelled.
“Over.” Rhett whispered back as he made a hand gesture, “scoot.”
Link looked at him in confusion. He didn’t scoot.
“If the guards see me sitting up in your bed after lights out, we’re fucked.” Rhett elaborated, “Now, scoot.”
Link finally moved over and turned onto his side to face Rhett, propping his head up on his hand, because there simply wasn’t enough room for two grown men to lay side by side on the small metal bed.
Rhett took a breath, “How the fuck did we end up here, dude?”
“The IRS is a bitch.”
Rhett let out a short laugh, “No kidding.”
“So, wanna tell me who did that to your face?”
“My ex bunkie. They were moving him up to medium security, something about paperwork problems or something -- maybe additional warrants? I don’t know, but he was pissy.” Rhett rubbed his hands over his face, and winced when the pulled on his lip, “I think that he thought he didn’t have anything else to lose. So, fuck it, right? Just fight whoever, do whatever. Anyway, he tried to take some of my stuff, and you can’t let people do that in here, y’know? That’s what everybody says, you have to stand up for yourself. So, I did. He threw a couple punches, I threw a couple punches. One of the guards saw him start it, and they sent him to the shoe.”
“What was his name?”
“Lenny Fyster.” Rhett said, “If we see him before they send him up to medium security, I’ll point him out to you.”
Link nodded, and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Me? Yeah, of course.” Rhett grinned, and maybe Link was seeing things, but he could’ve sworn Rhett had less crows feet the last time he saw him, “It was just a little scuffle.”
It wasn’t what Link meant. He could see that Rhett would probably heal from the fight without so much as a little scar. It was the inside stuff that Link didn’t know about; the emotional stuff, and the mental stuff. Or, maybe he did know. Maybe Rhett felt the same way that he did -- confused, and afraid, and until a few hours ago, completely alone. Link knew that he didn’t really want to talk about feelings ever, and especially not in a prison wing surrounded by 50 other inmates, so Rhett probably didn’t want to talk about it either. Link didn’t push it. Instead, he laid his head on his pillow, and focused on the steady sounds of Rhett’s breathing.
If Rhett stayed for a long time after their conversation is over, well, Link wasn’t complaining.
***
Lenny Fyster had friends, obviously. People who now didn’t like Rhett and, by association, Link, but that was okay. Link was happier, now. It was worse because, yeah, there were some pissed off criminals who probably wanted to beat him up. It was better because Rhett was around, and Link wasn’t alone, anymore. He didn’t realize how much that he’d missed his best friend until he had him back.
They mostly kept to themselves with the exception of a couple of guys that Rhett had already met in E wing. They seemed pretty easy going for inmates, and they all bonded over stupid, mundane, shit like sports and Game of Thrones. Link had never been the nervous type when it came to talking to people, or getting to know them, but it was different on the inside -- he was worried about saying, or doing, the wrong thing and pissing someone off. So, for the most part, they kept to themselves; they ate lunch alone, hung out in the yard alone, and didn’t socialize much during rec. They didn’t really speak unless they had been spoken to, and that seemed to be effective in keeping conflict down.
His and Rhett’s relationship had changed considerably since they’d become bunkies. Link didn’t know if it was the constant contact, or this whole being alone together thing, but something was different. They’d always been reliant on each other, obviously, but it was different now. They’d always had other people, and now they just didn’t. They didn’t have parents, or wives, or friends, even who they could talk to about this shit, because they’d never understand. It really was just the two of them on the inside, and Link felt really guilty for it, but he honestly didn’t mind -- he was happy to be Rhett’s confidant, again.
They didn’t like talking in front of the other inmates, so it became part of their new normal to have hushed conversations in one of their beds. Sometimes they talked about the inmates, but most of the time they talked about their wives, or their kids, and tried to feel as normal as possible. On occasion, they wouldn’t talk at all. Sometimes, Link would cross the small block, and lay down beside Rhett just because -- because he was warm, and safe. He was as close to home as Link could get. It was real contact with another person, and during Link’s time on the inside, he learned that he needed that just as much as he needed food or water. If you spend too much time alone, you start to go crazy.
Outside of their little late night talks, or not-talks, they didn’t mention it. They didn’t need to. They both knew why they did it, and it was a private, delicate, thing that didn’t need to be brought out in the harsh fluorescent lighting of daytime prison life.
***
It was well past lights out. Rhett was in Link’s bed that night, and Link found himself scooting closer to his friend to keep himself away from the ice cold cement wall. At some point, his head ended up on Rhett’s shoulder, and Rhett didn’t say anything about it. Instead he talked about this dude, Ross, who they’d been playing cards with during rec.
“He’s been in here 8 times in 4 years,” Rhett said, “like, what’s the point, anymore?”
“I don’t know, man. It doesn’t seem like bettering people is the point, so I don’t think that they care that system doesn’t work.”
“It’s so fucked up. All of these people, they’re messed up, yeah, but they’re still people. None of them have killed people, or whatever, they can be helped.”
“I guess.”
“What? Do you disagree?” Rhett asked, “Do you not think that they’re worth it?”
“I do. I just, I don’t know. I just think that if Ross really wanted to change then he would’ve before re-entry number 8. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.”
“Of course they don’t want to be helped, Link! They know that even if they straighten their shit out that what they did 30 fucking years ago is still going to stop them from getting anywhere in life.”
Link sighed, “I get what you’re saying, man, I do. And, I agree with you, but it doesn’t change anything. We can’t change anything, because all we are now are those two YouTubers who went to prison. When you’ve never been in trouble, you don’t care about the prison system, because you don’t understand it. And, when you have been in trouble and you do care and you want to make changes, you can’t because no one cares about you anymore. It’s fucked up, but it is what it is.”
“It just pisses me off, y’know?” Rhet said, arm sliding under Link’s shoulders.
“Yeah, I know.”
That was the first night that they fell asleep cuddled up together. It wasn’t the last.
***
It was a normal night. They were laying together, cuddled up in Rhett’s small metal bed, and Link was sleepy and a little drunk on the warm, safe, feeling that he so rarely got to feel these days. They had slowly convinced themselves that it wasn’t weird to share a bed, because they’d done it forever, and how was this really any different? And, while neither one of them was in any rush to tell their wives, it wasn’t going to stop them from enjoying these peaceful moments.
Rhett’s head was closer to his than it normally was, and his eyes were half shut, and he looked so pretty and he was the Rhett that Link had known since first grade. So, maybe Link closed that few centimeter gap, and pressed his lips to his best friend’s in what had to be the most tentative kiss of his life. And, maybe he almost wasn’t surprised when Rhett kissed him back just as soft and just as sweet, and maybe he was even less surprised at the fact that it ended there -- just a quick peck before they both fell asleep.
And, perhaps, he was the least surprised when he woke up the next morning and didn’t feel any regret.
***
After the kiss, things had gotten more heated very quickly. The night after that first peck, they had a full blown makeout session like horny teenagers who had just found out what their dicks were for. Kissing Link was a lot different than Rhett had imagined it; his lips were bigger than Jessie’s, and his face always had 5 o’clock shadow by lights out, and his hands were big and calloused and felt good against the skin of Rhett’s arms and neck and face. Link was a more adventurous in kissing than anything else that Rhett had seen him try, and Rhett loved it. He loved how Link was noisy here just like everywhere else, and he loved how Link was always the one to make the first move.
This particular night, was makeout session number 5 or 6, - Rhett was starting to lose count - and they were both into it. Rhett’s side was pressed against the cool cement wall, and Link was stretched out on his other side -- propped up on his elbow. He’d gotten Rhett’s shirt hiked up at some point, and his hand was tangled up in the hair on Rhett’s stomach was his mouth kept Rhett’s mind occupied. He could feel Link’s cock pressed against his thigh, and he never thought he could be so turned on by another man, let alone, Link.
He supposed that maybe he should’ve been more caught off guard by Link going further, but he wasn’t. He knew from that first kiss that this wasn’t something that either of them would be able to stop, and that it would progress. So, when Link’s hand slid into Rhett’s prison issue pajama bottoms and found his cock that was hard and heavy between his legs, he can’t say that he was anything but incredibly turned on.
Link pulled away from their kiss, and dropped his head to look at where his hand disappeared into Rhett’s pants, whispered, “fuck.”
“Will you..?” Rhett made a vague hand gesture that he hope conveyed, ‘jack me off, please’.
Link seemed to get it, and started to move his hand slowly at first and then picked up speed. His gaze shifted between where he was touching Rhett, and Rhett’s face as he tried to gauge what Rhett liked the most. He eventually settled into a rhythm that was much like the one that Rhett used to jack off with, but it was so much better, because it was Link that was doing this to him, and it was Link that was making him feel this way.
Rhett chewed on his bottom lip in a desperate attempt not to make any noise and, goddamn, did Link wish that they were somewhere else just so that he could hear the noises that would normally accompany the faces that Rhett was making.
It didn’t take long before Rhett’s hand gripped onto his thigh, he made a very low grunting noise, and he came on Link’s hand. Link would love to think that he was just that good but, honestly, it was mostly just the fact that neither of them had been able to properly get off since they’d been locked up. Either way, it didn’t stop Link from kissing Rhett’s pretty mouth, and rubbing his erection half-heartedly against his thigh.
After a few deep breaths, Rhett motioned to Link’s crotch, “Do you want..?”
Link considered it before pulling his hand slowly out of Rhett’s pajamas, and asked, “Can I..? Um, on your stomach?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rhett nodded, wishing for once that the lights were on so that he could see.
Link’s cock is hard, and Rhett can feel the heat of it above his stomach. Link jerked his cock six, seven, eight times, and then he came stark white streams onto Rhett’s stomach and it mixed in with Rhett’s come from earlier, and the dirty blonde, curly, hair there.
***
They both felt guilty after the whole handjob thing. They knew that a major line had been crossed, and it spooked them both enough to back off a little bit. They still started off the night together, but they hadn’t kissed or done anything else for a few days. They were both married to other people, and they weren’t gay, and sometimes it got to Link that Rhett didn’t really want him -- that it was just because they were here, and he couldn’t have anything else. Link tried not to think about it. He shouldn’t care. He had a wife, and three kids, and he was supposed to do his time and keep his head down and just get through it -- he wasn’t supposed to enjoy anything about this place, but he’d be lying if he said that he didn’t like the things that he did with Rhett. He’d be lying if he said that feelings hadn’t gotten involved, and more than just ‘I don’t want to be alone’ type feelings -- he’d developed actual romantic feelings for Rhett during this whole thing. He wouldn’t go as far as to say that he loved him, or that he was in love with him, but it was definitely more than the platonic feelings that he was supposed to be feeling.
Rhett was in a mood that particular day. He and Jessie had gotten in a fight over the phone -- something about her not wanting to bring the kids up to the prison to visit, and Link could get that. It was a fucking prison. He and Christy had had plenty of arguments about that very subject, but he didn’t think that she’d ever actually not bring the kids to see them, because while this is prison, he’s still their dad. So, Link got why Rhett was so pissed.
He was completely expecting Rhett to be in his bed that night, but he was caught off guard by how aggressive he was. Typically anything that happened, happened gradually, but not tonight. Rhett climbed into Link’s bed within a minute of the lights going out. He didn’t get beside Link, but on top of him, and this was the first time that they’d taken this particular position.
“What the hell,” Link hissed, “They’re not asleep. Someone could see.”
“They don’t care. We’re not the only ones who do this shit.” Rhett said, and Link knew that he was right. There were plenty of other inmates who fucked around. No one talked about it but, then again, no one seemed to talk about anything around here.
Rhett kissed him. It was more aggressive than usual, but it was good, and Link was kind of enjoying this other side of his friend -- it was more like the Rhett that he knew from their job, the Rhett that was more bossy and demanding, and Link never thought that he’d be into that sort of thing, but he kind of was.
“Can I suck your dick?” Rhett asked bluntly after he’d pulled back from the kiss, lips red and puffy already, and Link grunted because, god, he wanted to see those lips stretched around his dick.
“Yeah,” Link nodded his head, and mentally scolded himself for being so over-enthusiastic, “fuck, yeah.”
Rhett smirked slightly and, for a minute, he reminded Link of college-Rhett; over-cocky, and eager. He kissed Link one more time on the mouth, and then moved down between his knees. Link had only been blown by handful of people, and it was never something that Christy liked to do, so he figured that this would most likely be over pretty quickly. He tried to focus on something else so he wouldn’t do something super embarrassing like come from the mere idea of Rhett’s mouth on him.
He felt oddly exposed once his prison issue pajama bottoms were down. It wasn’t like Rhett had never saw his cock before, or even saw it in a sexual way, but it was the first time that he was that up close and personal with Link’s junk. Link felt his entire body turn flush with a mixture of embarrassment, and arousal. His cock was hard, and hot, and it fit in Rhett’s hand nicely. He could already feel the head of his cock getting wet with precome as his eyes locked on Rhett’’s face. He seemed like he was hesitating so Link said, “If you don’t want to,”
“No, no,” The cocky Rhett from a few moments ago was gone, but he shook his head anyway, “I want to.”
Link would be lying if he said that he wouldn’t be really disappointed if Rhett backed out, but he didn’t have the opportunity to think about that because Rhett bent down and put his mouth on the tip of Link’s cock. His mouth was soft, and hot, and wet, and it was good. Rhett was slow and inexperienced, but he more than made up for that with curiosity and enthusiasm. Link was biting down on the side of his hand as Rhett’s sweet little mouth worked the top couple of inches of his cock, and there were a few instances - mainly, when Rhett got over confident and tried to take too much, too quickly, and gagged himself slightly - that quiet grunts escaped anyway. He hoped that everyone was asleep by now.
Maybe Link should’ve been embarrassed by the fact that a guy who had never given a blowjob before was able to make him come within minutes but, honestly, he couldn’t bring himself to care about anything other than how relaxed he felt and how puffy Rhett’s lips were.
Rhett moved back up his body, squeezed himself in between Link and the wall, and kissed Link on the mouth. He was still catching his breath when he said, “Let me return the favor?”
***
Blowjobs were no different than anything else; they started out intense, and huge, and then they became normal -- they became part of the routine. They got more comfortable with each other’s bodies, and while Link never thought that he’d voluntarily do this kind of stuff with someone other than Rhett -- he was definitely starting to thoroughly enjoy giving blowjobs in a way that he never thought that he would. He loved the weight on his tongue, the sounds that it pulled out of Rhett and, honestly, he didn’t mind the taste. He liked learning all of these new things about Rhett that he’d never had the chance to learn before.
Sometime between the first time Rhett sucked his dick - maybe even before that, if he’s being honest with himself - and Rhett’s birthday in October, he decided that he wanted more, that he wanted it all. So, he made arrangements as best as he could in prison, which wasn’t very well. He bought Vaseline at commissary in mid-September -- it was probably the most expensive thing he’d purchased. You could get Vaseline for 5 bucks on the outside, and on the inside it was almost 12. Whoever ran commissary really took advantage of the fact that there were only a few things that you could have sent to you, and they didn’t include shit like Vaseline -- not that Link would ever ask his wife to send him Vaseline in prison so that he could fuck his best friend, because Link figured that that crossed a line even for him. Then, every night after Rhett had left his bed and fallen asleep, he would reach his hand between his legs and press his fingers against his hole. The first time that he did it, it was just weird, and foreign, and he really didn’t think that he’d ever be able to go through with it, but he kept at it for a few nights until it started to feel good. He got comfortable with one finger, and then two, and then three, but he still couldn’t imagine actually having a dick in him, because that’s different. Rhett’s cock was longer than his fingers, and more blunt, and he knew that no matter how much he prepped -- it would still be weird, and uncomfortable for the first few tries, but he knew Rhett would enjoy it so he kept at it until he thought that he could take Rhett’s cock without too much trouble.
They were mid-makeout; Rhett’s hands were gripping his hips, his tongue teasing at his lips, and Link could still feel the Vaseline down between his ass cheeks that he’d used earlier that evening in the bathroom to lube himself up.
He pulled back slightly, lips swollen, to say, “I want you to fuck me.”
Rhett freezes up, and pulls away far enough to look at Link’s face. For a moment, Link thinks he’s horribly misjudged this; that Rhett is going to get up and leave because Link went too far -- asked for too much, but instead he just says, “That’s.. Woah.”
“We don’t have to!” Link says it so quickly that it comes out more as one word rather than a phrase, “I just thought -- we don’t have to! Obviously. If, we can just..”
Rhett kissed his mouth, and Link was grateful because he stopped Link’s verbal diarrhea, - and, yeah, let’s not think about diarrhea in a conversation about having anal sex - and he said, “Obviously I want that. A lot, to be honest. But, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and I’d probably suck at it and I want you to enjoy the things that we do, y’know?”
“I think I would enjoy it, though.” Link said, though ‘confessed’ sounded like a more suitable word at the moment, “I got, uhm, I tried it. On myself. With my fingers, obviously.”
“You, what?” Rhett shifted his weight, and kissed Link again, “Fuck, yeah, okay. Yeah, We’re doing this.”
They don’t bother with taking off their shirts just in case the guards decide to do an unscheduled round - something that happened one night when Link was sucking Rhett’s cock that nearly gave both of them heart attacks - and the only pulled down Rhett’s pants enough to get his dick out. Link, of course, was naked from the waist down with Rhett in between his splayed legs. Between the cement walls, them being still more than half dressed, and the sticky goop coating his ass crack -- he couldn’t imagine a less sexy setting. He tried not to think about if they were doing this somewhere else and what that would be like; what Rhett would look like in the warm light of a hotel room, or how different it would be if they didn’t have to worry about being seen. He tried not to think about it because he knew that it would never happen. He knew that he would never have Rhett when they were free, because given the choice Rhett would never choose him.
He pushed those thoughts out of his head, reached for the Vaseline that they’d dumped on the bed, and said, “I’m pretty much ready, but give me a second..”
“Can I?” Rhett asked, grabbing the small container, and Link faltered because he hadn’t expected that, but he nodded his consent and canted his hips upward s Rhett had better access.
His fingers were more tentative than Link had expected them to be. They were slightly bigger than his own, too, and they went in at a different angle -- Link liked them better than his own.
“That okay?” Rhett asked him, two fingers in up to the second knuckle.
Link nodded, his skin flushed. “Yeah, yeah -- you can, another one.”
“Okay, yeah,” Rhett put more Vaseline onto his finger and slid it in alongside the other two.
“Fuck, fuck,” Link whispered between clenched teeth, “that’s good, yeah.”
It wasn’t that amazing, but Link wanted to make the anxious look on his friend’s face disappear, and it worked -- his mouth turned up into a smirk, and seemed more sure of his movements.
It was maybe 5 minutes later that Rhett was pressing the tip of his Vaseline slick dick to Link’s hole. There was a lot more pressure than Link had anticipated, but it wasn’t necessarily painful. Rhett may not have had anal sex before, but he had enough common sense to go slow and not force anything. It took a lot of self control, though -- Link was hot, and tight, and so good. Rhett had his hands on Link’s hips as he bottomed out, nails cutting into the thin skin covering his hip bones. Link grunted, because he couldn’t not make a noise because everything was too intense and too full.
It got to the point where Rhett couldn’t not move and maybe it was a little soon for Link but he wasn’t at risk of tearing anymore so he grinded his teeth and dealt with it. Rhett’s dick went so much deeper than either of their fingers, and Rhett wasn’t even that big of a dude but he felt huge as he made short, steady, thrusts into Link’s body. Link shifted his hips on instinct, and the angle changed just enough so that it was better -- not earth shatteringly good, but better enough that his dick started to fatten up again. He wrapped his hand around his cock, and tried to match Rhett’s thrusts, but they were getting considerably more uneven so it was difficult.
Rhett was sweaty, and Link wished desperately that he could see him better. He wished that he could hear the sounds that Rhett would be making if he wasn’t biting the inside of his cheek to stay quiet. Rhett’s hips jerked two final times before he grunted quietly as he came. He let his full weight rest on Link for a moment, and Link grimaced as Rhett’s dick slid out of his body -- leaving behind a much wetter feeling than before and, oh yeah, they didn’t use a condom. Link never even thought of one. He pushed at Rhett’s side to get him to move off, and took a moment to be thankful that they were both STD free, and curse himself for not thinking ahead because he was now stuck with Rhett’s come in him until shower call the next morning.
Rhett couldn’t stay to cuddle as it was almost time for the guards to come through so he kissed Link’s lips that were swollen from when Link had been biting them and went back to his own bed.
If Link felt really alone then he didn’t talk about it, because that wasn’t Rhett’s problem.
***
It happened slowly, as most major things do, and they didn’t even notice until it was too late to fix it. They’d stopped talking about their wives in front of each other, because how do you tell someone that you have sex with about your romantic relationship with someone else? Link started to feel jealousy that he had absolutely no right to feel, and judging by the look on Rhett’s face the few times that he brought up Christy -- he felt it, too.
Around the same time, their wives stopped visiting and calling as much. Life had gotten busy with the kids, and holidays, and the new year, and life in general that they didn’t have time to drive three hours there and back every weekend. The novelty had worn off for the kids, too, so it was a struggle for their wives to get them to come visit. It was just hard on them, and it was Rhett and Link’s job to understand. It was their own fault, and they didn’t have a right to be getting pissy with their wives over it. One of the side effects of drifting farther apart from their wives, is that it pushed both Rhett and Link closer together. It felt like a betrayal -- even more of a betrayal than what was already going on, because this was actually taking away from their wives and giving to each other whereas before it was something that felt completely separate.
They were in Link’s bed, and it was the first night that Link fucked Rhett. Their faces were smushed up beside each other, and it was safe, and comfortable.
“I love you.” Link said with his eyes closed, nose being tickled by Rhett’s beard, and pressed a kiss against his cheek.. They both knew that one was different. It wasn’t in a brother way. Link could feel the weight of it on his tongue as Rhett stiffened up beside him.
Rhett kissed his cheek, crossed over him on the small bed, pulled him his pajama bottoms, and made his way back to his own bunk. He didn’t say ‘I love you’ back.
***
For three days, Rhett had kept his distance. He’d slept in his own bed, and turned to face the wall when Link tried to talk to him. Link wished that he had’ve just kept his mouth shut, and not fucked everything up.
On the fourth day, Rhett cornered him mid-day, “We can’t anymore, Link.”
Link’s heart dropped. He didn’t think that he’d fucked up that badly. “Dude, I crossed a line, I know, but I can handle my shit. I can get my feelings under control.”
“It’s not just that, Link. It’s all of it.” Rhett said, “We’re getting out of here -- sooner rather than later, and we can’t do this on the outside. Even though I really fucking want to.”
Link leaned against the wall, and tried not to get caught up on the ‘I really fucking want to’ part, and said, “I know. I know, but I don’t know if I can just stop this.”
“We’re gonna have to, Link.” Rhett sighed, “This - in here - was one thing. Continuing on out there, where we actually have our wives, is something completely different and we cannot cross that line.”
Link refrained from asking, ‘why this line? Why cross all the other ones, but not this one?’.
“I do love you, you know?” Rhett said, finally. “Like that. I do. But, I love Jessie, too. I’ve already fucked shit up so bad that I got sent to prison -- I can’t add gay affair onto it, too. I can’t do that to her. She doesn’t deserve it.”
“I know, I know. Christy doesn’t, either, but that doesn’t change the fact that I want both.”
“In this case, Link, we can’t have what we want. We have wives, and kids, that come before us.”
Link nodded, because he understood. He really did. He got that this wasn’t their lives forever. He understood that they had other loyalties. That knowledge didn’t make giving this up any easier, though.
Link stayed silent for while before turning to look at Rhett, “We still have a little bit of time left in here. Why don’t we make the most of it?”
Rhett shook his head, “Why prolong it? We’re just gonna get more and more attached, and there’s no point to that. We need to focus on fixing shit with our wives with the time that we have left, and getting over this crap, because I guarantee you that if Jessie saw us right now that she would know. We gotta stop, man. That’s all that there is to it. This doesn’t need to go any farther than it already has.”
Link wished that he could say that Rhett changed his mind, but he couldn’t. Everything just stopped, and he felt more alone in there during those last three weeks than he had the first night.