Two Things
There are always two things.
Two.
What you want and what you get. What you need and what you take. What you have and what you've lost. Dark and light. Pleasure and pain. True, false.
Laurel and Hardy. Life and death. Pepsi and Coke. Yesterday and tomorrow.
Chris wants freedom; he has Oz.
Chris wants love; he has hate.
Chris wants Toby...
Well, fuck.
His hand itches. The place where the burn was. The back of his palm, clusters of scabs long since rubbed and picked away, itching in the night like a ghost limb. An electric spider web, draped over the space between knuckles and wrist. A memory of pain.
He wants Toby. That fucking little slut.
He has... Ryan O'Reily. Fan-DANG-o, baby.
Adebisi fell like a punch-drunk titan, so terrible and great. It was a beautiful thing. They hadn't really planned that, hadn't planned the fall of the king -- the ruination of the kingdom, yes, but that...
...THAT was a bonus. Said, no less.
So, Chris thinks, making ticks on his list of fingers, Adebisi is dead, Said is locked up in his own mental meandering, the black versus white playing field has evened out a little, Toby (fucking slut) knows EXACTLY which way the wind blows, and McManus is back in EmCity.
McManus ain't so bad, cause like, he's the emperor that got no clothes. Too busy showing off his invisible threads to notice he's been played a fool.
Ryan O'Reily.
What you want, what you get; what you need, what you take.
College boys are easy, Chris thinks. They will GET in your car, or on the back of your bike, they'll give you a kiss and wriggle in their tight jeans, so young and hot and squeaky clean. Little clean hands, burrowing under his leather jacket, the only callous between their two fingers, the index and the middle one. Where the pen sits. Trying so hard to be bold but they ain't got nothin' on him.
Chris Keller. Smile baby, it's the last one you'll ever give.
Don't kill them this time. Just fuck them. Don't hurt them this time. Just fuck them. They'll like it, you don't gotta force them. But there's your intentions, and then there's your actions.
Two things. (Forests and trees, fire and water, smack and crack, ice and stone.)
Inevitably the bike would turn away from the common roads, ghost past the last of the streetlamps. These chirpy little fags would still be clinging to his back, thrilled by their perception of danger. Keller with his hard body: leading them into the night.
They would never come back.
College boys are easy, but Ryan O'Reily is not. A friend as much as you can have a friend in Oz: an ally at least. The kind of guy that's gonna watch your back, but not always for the reasons you might think.
Ryan O'Reily with the lanky limbs and tight ass, jacked up high on two needle-pin legs. Skinny, probably a runt in his youth, made gleaming hard on the street. Keller's partner in crime. They've got dirt between them. Lots of dirt. Lots of secrets to spill, lots of damage to be done.
But O'Reily's got a weakness -- Cyril.
Cyril is just a puppet, a mannequin on strings. Ryan is the hand in the shadows, navigating his brother to safety.
Chris wants him.
No, that's wrong. Chris wants Toby, but he needs... he needs a fuck. Not just a fuck. A release. There's killing and there's fucking, and REALLY they're supposed to go together, but Chris has been indulging in one or the other lately. Not both. Which just, really, isn't the same.
Can he really kill Ryan O'Reily? Maybe.
Can he fuck him?
Yeah.
Quad. Chess with O'Reily, Cyril nearby, Chris watching the aimless wander of Beecher, Qu'oran in hand.
Keller gets nervous little glances in his direction. Feels kinda good. Barlog is dead, you little fucking slut, now suck it up. When you coming back, baby? When you gonna show you care?
"Concentrate," O'Reily says.
Chris does, but not on the game. He moves his rook, a bad move, deliberate, just to watch O'Reily smirk, long fingers hooking around his queen. Chris catches Toby's eye, leans in forward, chin caught on his hand, and smiles dreamily, like he just got a backstage pass to nirvana.
Operation Toby -- take two. A revelation on a grand scale. Set 'em up and knock 'em down -- Toby, I love you; now hold still while I break your arms. And you can get that love back, you can, you can reach inside a man and make him need you, twist his heart up in knots and he WILL love you...
But Toby, this is part two, Toby, can you still love me now? This is the great unveiling, the last shadow cast out.
I killed everything you've fucked.
Love me now?
I killed those boys; you know it.
Love me now?
(I am a piece of shit.)
It is only a matter of time before Toby comes back, and it's started already, with Barlog, the warning, (killed him too, baby); the healing has begun.
Twisted ripples of scars, one wound healing over the other. Only when you're as broken as me, Chris thinks, only then can you REALLY love me.
And in the meantime...
"What you wanna talk to me 'bout, anyway?" O'Reily asks.
"Not yet," Chris says. "Later."
So, timing is everything in Oz. Only the zombies think the days all blur together, cause they don't. Not if your mind is sharp and your body pure, not if you sidestep the heroin (dirty hooker) and stay clear of the trade. Because everything is important, every minute and beat. Everything is a map, waiting to be unravelled. Timing is EVERYthing.
Like on Tuesdays, just after two. On Tuesdays, just after two, there is one hack in the library, clock-watching. Shuffling around in his comfortable shoes. Leaning against the wall, trying not to let his eyes droop.
And if the hack half a hallway away has trouble, your little clock-watching monkey in the library is going to assist. And Murphy will not organise someone to cover for say, half an hour, because Murphy is in a staff meeting. So your monkey, sleepy and irritated, will take a cursory glance around the library, shuffle Rebadow out the door and leave the gate just a little ajar. Thinking, nobody will get past him and the other hack down the hall.
Not without careful planning, anyway.
Your monkey will have glanced at the storage room, but the door has been left open and there's nobody inside. Clear.
Behind the door, tucked into the corner and out of sight, Chris waits for the static of the radio at the library doors, for the slow shuffle of the hack in the hallway, a disappearing sound. O'Reily is at his back, fidgeting with curiosity (just TELL me, K-Boy).
"What's so goddamn important?" O'Reily says, shoving past Chris, starting to circle the library in his tight little strut.
"S'about Beecher," Keller says.
He watches, waits. O'Reily is trusting in their little partnership. He's forgotten what he's dealing with. Chris feels the acid flux of excitement in his chest, bubbling in his lungs. He unbuckles his belt, drawing it out of each loop with care. Stuffs the tail end in his pocket.
"What's the trouble with you and your bitch now?" O'Reily says. Passing along shelves, fingers touching at musty spines, still unwary. Getting closer.
Keller unbuckles the second belt around his waist -- draws that out too, slow with all his anticipation. Sex and violence, baby, the greatest aphrodisiac.
"I was thinkin'... maybe you're right. About Beecher. Maybe he knows too much," Chris says. Leather sliding across his palms, O'Reily with his back turned, just right, (hands burrowing under his jacket), about to turn at the sound, the foreign sound.
Leather in his palms, the smack of O'Reily hitting the table, a muffled curse.
"You motherfucking cunt," O'Reily says.
Keller's knee is in his back.
"Sure baby," he says. He can scent the blood in the water now, catching the long arms that flail out, gripping bony wrists, sliding across the table on one hip, yanking O'Reily's arms forward, joints popping.
Slams his wrists against table legs, and starts wrapping a leather tourniquet to hold him tight. Virgin meat, spread across the table for him.
"You fuck! You're fucking fucked!" O'Reily hisses. Starts catching his breath -- lifting his feet, trying to get some momentum.
"Shh," Chris says. He slides under the table on his ass, ducking a wild kick, laughing. Grabs an ankle, and lashes that to a table leg too.
Checks it. All tight. All done up. Wriggling like a hooked fish.
Chris lays back, hands under his head, smiling up at O'Reily. The dumb mick's all red in the face, struggling and thrashing, spit trailing out of one corner of his mouth.
"So like I was saying," Chris says, "Beecher knows too much. He knows just which way to curl his tongue when he's throating you. How to fist around your dick real tight. Vern taught him good, I'll give him that."
"Cunt."
"And I love Toby. I mean, I REALLY fuckin' love him. So I'm not gonna hurt him, you know?" Chris continues, "But there's just something about fucking something the moment 'fore it dies, you know? An energy."
O'Reily starts to rattle the table with all his twisting and turning, so Keller slaps his face, hard. The mick stills, and Chris rewards him with a smile, all teeth and gums, the one that even straight guys can't look away from.
"I haven't decided whether or not to kill you yet, Ryan," Chris says sweetly.
"You better kill me," O'Reily says.
"Not sure. I kinda like Cyril. He'd be dogmeat without you. But see, if I let you live, you'd try and fuck with me. And then I'd just have to turn Cyril over to Vern, wouldn't I?"
O'Reily goes deathly still, his nerve exposed.
"I gotta fuck you, Ryan," Chris says. Lets his hand rub over his dick through his pants, feels the responding throb. "I'm gonna fuck you. Maybe you'll live, huh? Maybe I'll make it good for you."
He slides back under the table, bounces to his feet, feeling rejuvenated, alive, for the first time in months.
What you want; what you get.
O'Reily, one leg lashed to the table, tries to flatten himself against the table, tries to lie all of his torso over the tiny space, hunching his shoulders forward. Chris yanks him up by the hips, shoving a hand under, taking a good grope before unsnapping his belt, clawing at the button and the fly, and tears the whole lot down to reveal O'Reily's tight white ass.
Slaps it. Pinches at the curve just above his thigh. Feels the whispery, downy-soft hair graze against his fingers. Works the little knob of bone just above the seam of his ass.
They're all like this. So soft and pure, jerking against the rope, pleading to God and their mamas.
Spitting on his finger, working it into O'Reily's ass up to the crooked knuckle, listening to the hiss that's muffled. Working it deeper, wiggling, stretching and tickling. Finding the prostrate and nudging it with the stone-tip of his finger, laughing at the resultant yelp.
"Fuck you. Fucking get it over with," O'Reily says.
"Don't want it to be over too quick," Chris says, smirking, "You'll always remember your first time."
And this is the best part -- undoing his own fly, taking out his cock and feeling the wind, feeling the moonlight shine down on him, better to be naked but he'll be practical here, under the buzzing fluorescent lights.
It is a heat the starts at the base of his spine, that coils low and deep, ready to rise like a serpent for the strike. This need, this (blood) lust.
There's fucking, and then there's this.
Chris spits into his palm, greasing himself as best he can, don't want no fuckin' SKIN burn on the way in. Cracks O'Reily's ass wide open for inspection, poises his cock at the tight little burrow of his ass, and pushes in, slides on home.
They both moan, but probably not for the same reason.
It's good, real good. Better than jacking off to distant memories, better than coaxing Beecher's damn fuck-buddies into dark corners, because this is all his. This is just him and the mick, so tight that every time O'Reily gasps, it's a damn convulsion around his cock.
Keller shoves himself deeper, rears back and thrusts again. And again, the thin lubrication of his spit wearing away, but gradually being replaced with something slipperier, slicker, making each hard shove and thrust easier, each cram into this dark, hot place better, smoother.
Blood. Blood coating his dick, trickling down O'Reily's thigh, keeping metre to the wretched gasps and sighs of the bound mick, more blood for every cry, a sticky crawl.
"Fuck," Chris hisses between clenched teeth, trying not to trigger, make it last a little longer, keep that decision at bay a little longer-
(you don't have to hurt them this time, you don't have to kill them)
-but nothing feels quite as good as letting the serpent strike.
Punching and hammering, virgin white ass, fishing under O'Reily's hips to find his cock, half-hard -- probably an involuntary response. Gotta love biomechanical responses. That's what Toby called it once, talking about Vern -- hating every minute, hurting in a hundred ways, but still fiending to come. It makes Chris smile drunkenly, fisting that cock, hunched over and humping away at his prisoner in prison, his balls drawing up all hot and tight.
"C'mon baby," Chris grunts, tugging at O'Reily's dick, "Like it just a little bit. Maybe I'll let you live..."
"Don't- just get your FUCKING hand off my fucking dick, you fucking fag!" O'Reily grunts back.
No more talking then. Better to concentrate on this, a burning white splinter that is puncturing his brain, boiling his blood, wrenching his gut up into his throat, a loaded gun levelled in his grip, oh JESUS fuck...
Chris comes, slumping forward.
It takes a few moments to get his breath back, one hand still working lethargically at O'Reily's cock. He licks the pale skin under his chin, the middle of the mick's back. Tasting the sweat.
He uses his free hand to rummage in his pocket, taking out a nice, clean shank.
He jerks hard on O'Reily, feeling the swell and pulse in the cock in his hand, the struggle of wills in the air. He holds the shank over O'Reily's neck, right at the base of his skull, and considers.
(I am a piece of shit.)
He really does like Cyril.
"Just blow already," Keller says, and puts the shank back in his pocket. "I won't tell anyone."
Panting and swearing and shuddering, O'Reily comes in his hand.
They're having a stare-off in the middle of the quad, a stare-off where one of them isn't returning the gaze.
So it's just Chris, staring at Beecher across the tables. Scratching at his hand, at the healed-over skin, some of the anger lying defeated in the dirt. Wanting to scrub out the lines in the sand between them.
Beecher's head turns when O'Reily comes in, Beecher stares in a way that only Beecher would -- noticing O'Reily's awkward shuffle, the faltering step, the hunched body trying to curl in on itself. The dark, malignant stare that comes from deep under a shadowed visage.
The shaking, bruised walk of a man raped. Humiliation in every line.
Keller had let his wrists go, but left him shackled by the leg. And now O'Reily casts his bitter, hateful gaze in Keller's direction, plots already shifting in his brain, vengeance in his mouth. Chris casts a meaningful glance at Cyril, and O'Reily limps away, trying to straighten his back.
Beecher catches all this, catches every look and hidden meaning, a net of sensitivity, finely tuned to the currents and eddies around him.
Chris meets his gaze, finally locking eyes over the gulf, and remains stony, impassive. The great unveiling.
This is what I am, baby. What you need; what you take.
Two things. (Hot and cold, elves and reindeers, up and down, love and hate.)
I'll take you down, take you so far down you might never see the light again. Bring you down into the suffocating dark with me, whisper indecency in your ear, wash you in blood.
Chris wants love. He wants Toby. But he wants him without compromise. Wants Toby to know exactly what he is capable of, wants forgiveness from every sin. Absolution for every act. Murder. Rape.
Chris smiles at Toby, lifts his hand in a little wave, feels the serpent settle back, lulled by the blood and sex, the violence and pain. He blows a kiss at Toby.
Love me now?