The new kid moans in his sleep. He twists and turns and whimpers and moans. Nick considers shaking him awake, but what's the point? He'd just fall asleep again. Or bitch about it. He seems the type to have a mouth on him.
The air in the cell is hot and dank, and he's been here for four and a half years and he's still not used to it. He always feels like he's about to suffocate, like the walls are moving slowly towards him. The oldtimers tell him that he'll start loving the walls, that once he gets out, he'll miss them and feel the world is too big. He doesn't think so. There are so many places to go in the world.
And with the moaning. "No, no, no," the kid whines. "Chris. Chris. No, help, help me--"
"For fuck's sake," Nick mutters. This can't continue. When he's awake, the kid - whatever his name is, something with a J, Jimmy? Joshua? something - ignores Nick, just stays on his bunk and stares at the wall, or clickity-clacks glumly on his ancient keyboard in the statistics hall.
He's sobbing now, wet little sobs, and Nick swings his feet over the edge and drops to the floor, cat-quiet.
There's a night light in the cell, and tears run gleaming down the kid's cheeks. Nick touches his shoulder, and he jerks and wakes up.
"What?" he says, annoyed, but his face scrunches up and he's reaching for his hurt leg. "Fuck--"
"You were crying," Nick says, and the kid scowls at him.
"I was not," he says, but he runs his hand over his face. "Shit."
"Look--" Nick says. The kid looks at him like he hates him, with wet, angry eyes. A few last tears cling to his eyelashes like fragile jewels. Nick can't remember when he last cried; it must have been before they caught him, before this new life started. "What was your name again?"
"Justin," he says. "I told you."
"I never remember names," Nick says, "I remember numbers."
"Yeah?"
Nick shrugs. He still likes showing off, it seems, because it feels good to say, "Your ID code is 445B-900-G79," and watch Justin's eyes widen.
"You just saw it once. Cool." The scowl has dropped off his face.
"It's a knack," Nick says. He's still crouched by Justin's bunk, starting to feel a little dumb. Justin winces and moves his leg gingerly. "Does it hurt?"
"Like hell."
"Sorry," Nick says and goes back to bed. He falls asleep and doesn't wake up until the guard raps on the door in the morning.
"Here," he says when the lights dim again and Justin is brushing his teeth, leaning awkwardly against the wall by the sink.
"Hnnh?" Justin spits and says, "what?" and Nick drops the pill into his palm.
"For the pain," he says and climbs into his bunk.
Twenty minutes later, Justin starts tossing and turning again. The fuck? Nick thinks.
"Hey," he says into the air above him, "hey, are you okay?"
"I'm great," Justin says, and his voice sounds a little funny. Lower, with a little extra drawl in it, sort of, well, sexier. Aaahm great. "Fuck, it's hot, though."
More rustling, and Nick gives up and peers over the edge. Justin is pulling off his shirt. "What's wrong?" Nick asks.
"It's hot." He's sweat-slick and gleaming in the dull, orange light, all the way from his feet to his shaved head, lying on the dun sheets like a giant party favour. "Is it hot in here?"
"Maybe you have a fever," Nick says, but when he climbs down, he's not thinking about fevers.
Justin hisses when Nick puts a hand on his forehead, showing perfect white teeth between perfect pink lips. He's hot to the touch, but not feverish.
"It could be the painkiller," Nick says.
"How did you get it?"
"I have my ways." He doesn't feel like sharing. Justin doesn't seem like a guy who'd understand that it's no big deal to give a guard a handjob for a favour.
"It doesn't hurt, though. My leg. So I guess it works."
He's still wincing, though, so Nick asks, "then what's the matter?" not impatiently.
"Nothing," he says. "Just. Whatever. Nothing." He squirms a little, a slow movement that makes the muscles in his chest and stomach flex in tempting little waves. "It's just fucking hot, man."
Hot in more than one way, Nick notices. The threadbare underwear isn't hiding much, and the heat is just rolling off Justin in waves. The first cellmate Nick had, when he was barely seventeen and still thought it was all a bad dream, was forty-five and had hair on his back and in his ears. When he started looking appealing, that was when Nick realised what life imprisonment really means. It means you cut down on your standards.
It's almost as if Justin's heat has crept into his skin, too; he feels sweat break out on his forehead, trickling down his back. He tugs off his shirt and kneels by the bunk.
This is a step up.
He puts his hand on Justin's stomach and strokes the velvet-soft, damp skin.
"What?" Justin mutters, but he moves restlessly under Nick's hand. "Oh."
Nick bends down over him. Justin looks up at him with eyes that are all pupil, huge and black. "It's probably a side effect," Nick says.
"Yeah," Justin says, "probably." When Nick slides his hand lower, Justin moves his hips, just a little nudge.
"Okay," Nick says, and pushes down Justin's underwear. It feels like the cell has turned into a sauna, and the air is saturated and heavy. His hand is slick on Justin's cock, easy slide, but he wants more, so he bends down and follows his fingers with his tongue, his hand with his mouth. Justin whimpers softly.
Nick keeps a hand on Justin's stomach and feels abs tense and shiver and bunch. He likes the skin there, likes the smoothness of it over firm muscle, thinks he maybe should have stretched this out a little, taken his time. Justin is beautiful and he's only been here for a week, and still he's perfectly pale, as if he's never seen the sun. Someone told Nick that they caught him in the sewers, but that can't be right. The sewer people are deformed; that's why they're sewer people. It's probably a mistake, and Justin will be returned to wherever he came from, and Nick will get yet another cellmate.
Justin comes with a tiny, muffled cry that sounds like a word, maybe a name, and when Nick looks up, he sees that he's got an arm thrown over his face.
"Are you okay?" he asks, and Justin takes down the arm and nods, but his eyes are glittering and wet.
"Yeah, I'm just," he mumbles, but he doesn't finish his sentence. Nick gets up. Justin doesn't seem entirely there, his eyes are unfocused and he's still panting, but when Nick starts to turn away, he reaches out with a limp, heavy arm, fingers sliding over Nick's thigh. "Hey, I can. wait."
"It's okay," Nick says, but he doesn't sound very convincing even to himself. Justin's face is flushed, and his lips are very red, wet and red and full, such a pretty mouth, and his eyes are dark and glittering and utterly stoned. He sighs and pushes himself up. He moves his leg with the clumsy splint carelessly. The pill was good for that much, at least; he's not in pain.
He's a little clumsy, like he doesn't do this much. Still, better than other cellmates, who wouldn't do it at all.
"Thanks," Nick says afterwards. Justin looks up at him blankly. Nick goes back to bed, and sleeps soundly.
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