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The guards do a number on him. It’s to be expected. He did the unthinkable, got caught, turned around, and brought back here. The only thing that makes it worthwhile is that…
“Hi,” comes the soft voice from beside the infirmary bed and Miguel looks up, halfway sure the drugs have gone to his head and he’s having a slightly altered flashback.
Groves is only yards away, but seems to vanish as the light hits Miguel and the feds close in. They’d been careful for so long. In these past few months on the road between Oz and freedom, they’ve taken very few chances in order to avoid discovery.
And now it’s too late. Miguel feels the cold metal of handcuffs clasped around his wrists. He prays silently that his companion has made his way to safety.
He is alone on the journey back to prison. The idea of Groves being somewhere warm, somewhere across the border, comforts him on his way back to Oz.
“There,” he says, stepping back to admire his handiwork.
“I don’t like it,” mutters Groves, fingers reaching the end of too short hair almost immediately.
“You don’t have to like it,” Miguel responds.
“You won’t be able to pretend anymore.”
“What are you on about?”
Groves doesn’t bother to explain.
Miguel lets out a harsh sigh, muttering, “Four fucking years. Jesus Christ, Groves. Stop acting like a woman and let’s go already.”
“Is it bad?” Groves asks, wincing at the pain in his leg.
“Nah,” Miguel says. Although Groves was bleeding like a stuck pig, it’s not the worst he’s seen.
“It hurts.”
“It should.” He’s always wanted to be free of Oz, but now that he is, Groves has given him a reason to miss the accessibility of the supplies in the infirmary. It’s too soon to lift something from a drugstore; the smallest mistake could get them sent back.
The direct route is the best – throwing themselves on the mercy of a pretty nurse from one of the local clinics. A little flirting is all it takes to get them a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a length of gauze. She watches as Alvarez bandages Groves right there in the lobby of the clinic.
“He’s lucky you found him,” the nurse says.
Alvarez doesn’t correct her, satisfied that she bought his cover story.
In truth, however, it’s always been the opposite.
Groves bounces up and down, smiling like a kid at Christmas.
“What?” Miguel asks.
“Found something.”
“What?”
“You have to see.”
Miguel rolls his eyes. During the time as Groves’ podmate, there have been many such discoveries ranging from the disturbing to the merely inane. Every time, Alvarez has been patient, enjoying more Groves’ reaction to the found item than to the item itself.
Every time, that is, except this one. “Holy shit,” he looks at the tunnel leading from the infirmary, surprised that he could have missed it all this time.
Three months. It’s been three months that he’s been in Protective Custody, returning to Emerald City now that the threat has been taken care of. Raoul Hernandez – disappeared. Alvarez wants to believe that El Cid was taken out by his own crew, not necessarily the cock and bull story that McManus spouted about old man Rebadow slipping a cog and smothering the gang leader in his sleep. If he’d have done that, there’d be evidence, there’d be a body. There wouldn’t be the suspicion that the crime happened a lot closer to home.
Three months and the scars that he kept hidden during the day have healed. The ever-present itch that he feels beneath his skin seems to intensify the closer he gets to his pod. He keeps his emotions hidden, not betraying them to the eyes of every resident of Em City that seem to follow him as he pushes open the door to his cell.
Groves looks up at him from his spot on the bottom bunk. “I saved an orange for you.” He holds it out to Miguel, who stares at it for a moment.
“I didn’t save it that long.” Sometimes, it still amazes Miguel that Groves knows what’s going through his mind. “Just a couple of days.”
“Thanks,” Miguel responds, taking the orange from him, his thumb rubbing over Groves’ in the process. It’s all he can take now, a small affirmation of being alive, of someone being there for him, and it’s enough.
“I’m an Other,” Groves says, resigned to the part that he’s always played in the world. It doesn’t matter what groups they’re affiliated with, who they’re bunking with, there’s a part of Alvarez that has always responded to Groves.
They sit together in the quad, as “Miss Sally’s Schoolyard” plays on the television in front of them. Groves speaks in a hushed tone about bunking with Hill. “I don’t think Augustus likes me much.”
“I wouldn’t take it personally.”
“I think he’s afraid of me.”
Miguel raised an eyebrow.
“Because of why I’m here,” Groves whispers.
“Do you want me to talk to him?”
Groves shakes his head.
“Want me to talk to McManus instead?” An odd look crosses Groves’ face. “I’m beginning to think that the Latinos think that I’m an Other too.”
When Groves smiles, Miguel has his answer.
“What good did that do you?” Groves asks as he bandages Miguel’s sprained hand.
“Needed…”
“Here,” Groves slips him a pill, and then pats the pocket of Miguel’s robe. There’s a healthy supply of tits inside, enough to bliss himself out until his time in solitary is done.
“You getting by?”
“Yeah.”
The skinhead in the bed next to Alvarez begins yelling. Groves turns away from Miguel for a moment, leans down to the skinhead and whispers something in his ear. The man in the bed goes pale and becomes immediately quiet.
“What was that about?”
“I just let him know that you needed your rest.”
“And…”
“I could do much, much worse than Beecher if he didn’t let you have it.”
He loses track of Groves during the riot. It’s nothing that he intends to do, but with everybody separating themselves into racial groups, it’s something that was bound to happen.
Miguel spots him once, as Groves grabs a sandwich from O’Reily’s cart before disappearing into the shadows again.
Chaos takes over. The homeboys begin tossing cells in a desperate search for tits. He’s brought from guarding the hostages to a spot at the front gate – that much closer to the front lines. The lights go out, the S.O.R.T. team comes in and the world goes black.
He comes to in solitary. No one to speak to, no one to touch, no one but himself to help him feel, no one to keep him from self-destruction.
Miguel’s hand connects with the wall. There is a sudden rush of pain through his body and the intense relief of the tangible, of being able to feel something.
Miguel doesn’t intend to drug his cellmate, but he continues to sneak the anti-psychotics into his system until Groves’ crazy impulse to kill the warden passes.
He’ll never admit it to anyone, but he needs Groves. He needs the arrangement between them to continue. It was sexual in its twisted way, but it wasn’t sex.
It was long hair, brushing against the planes of his stomach, over his pecs. It was sharp teeth, penetrating unexpectedly, nipping their way across his shoulders, raking over his chest, sinking into his thighs. Physical pain obliterating mental anguish. The need for contact and the need to be punished satisfied at the same time.
So, he drugs Groves, taking what he can in those moments of lucidity. Not minding the weight of Groves’ head on his shoulder, the soft exhalation of breath against his neck as they sleep.
“I like your scars,” says Groves.
“Now I know why McManus put us in the same cell together. You’re the only motherfucker in Em City more fucked up than I am.” To say that Miguel is less than happy with this new development was an understatement.
But Groves soon proves himself invaluable to Miguel. He’s quiet enough that Miguel never needs to tell him to shut the fuck up, but he also speaks up from time to time, making little observations so that Miguel doesn’t feel so alone. He sees everything, knows all the interesting gossip, but never talks about what goes on in their cell to anyone else. He doesn’t mind doing the laundry and never makes a comment when an item (or half a load) of Miguel’s clothing gets mixed in with his own. And then, there are the drugs – Groves’ secret stash of LSD-laced postage stamps which he’s more than happy to share with his podmate.
It’s a match made in heaven, something so very right that Miguel is certain that it’s not going to end well.
He opens his eyes in the infirmary and there’s the strange long-haired man from the bus staring at him.
“Hi,” comes the quiet voice from his bedside. “Never seen anyone get stabbed before. Does it hurt?”
The eyes watching him are fascinated. He imagines a slight hunger behind them which makes Miguel want to call for help.
“I’ll get Doctor Nathan,” the other man responds.
Miguel blinks and with just some slight variations, they’re replaying the same scene four years later.
“Wait,” Miguel says. “Why? Why didn’t you get away?”
“I did and then I didn’t.” Groves smiles, as if he expects it to make sense.
And in a way, it does. Alvarez smiles and takes the hand that Groves offers.
They’ve always been a little bit backward.