Chapter Text
Ted knows what everyone thinks. People joke about it – rape in prison, man on man crime. They laugh and they snicker and they threaten suspects with it.
Ted knows because the cops that arrested him told him all about it. And he knows because he was slammed into one too many walls before Charlie came out of solitary and while it never actually happened he knew how close it was. It would have happened if he hadn’t given up his pie, or his book, or his phone card. If Charlie hadn’t come along when he did Ted would have run out of things to give up.
Ted would have gladly sucked Charlie’s cock for the rest of eternity. Gladly held himself open and taken whatever Charlie wanted him to. Because Charlie didn’t have cold hard eyes. Charlie didn’t want to cause pain more than taking pleasure. But Charlie never ever asked.
Because of that Ted would gladly die for Charlie if it came down to it.
Those first weeks while he was alone, while Charlie was in solitary, taught Ted a lot about himself. A lot about what he could and couldn’t do and what he’d be willing to endure and for what price. But Charlie was someone that was honestly good in all that hell and he judged each man not on the crime he’d been convicted of but what he saw in their eyes.
Charlie knew Ted was guilty and he knew that Ted was scared and he stepped in and claimed him. It wasn’t the other prisoners that hurt Ted the most – it was the guard. It was the guard who lost his saving, the guard that walked them to dinner, the guard that ruled Ted’s life. And Charlie kept the guard from every hurting anyone again.
They couldn’t prove it. They’d have tossed him back in solitary if they’d been able to. But the cells were full and there was no evidence and suddenly everyone left Ted alone. Ted belonged to Charlie Crews and Crews was bat shit crazy. You don’t mess with bat shit crazy if you don’t have to.
Ted isn’t sure how it happened, that he ended up in a cell with Charlie. A nice quiet two person cell when most held four. The guards hated them both so whatever it was it wasn’t kindness. Charlie probably had some kind of dirt on one of them –or something. Or maybe they did because they hated them – maybe they thought that Charlie had finally lost it and would just snap and kill Ted. Whatever it was, it was gold, because it was safe and quiet in that cell. And when Charlie softly asked how could Ted say no?
Ted knows everyone thinks it was the other way around. They think it was Ted on his knees and Charlie taking. But it was really so very different. Nobody took. And nobody was on their knees. But it was Ted’s cock that got sucked, and Charlie that opened wide, and Ted didn’t care why Charlie wanted it. He just held Charlie all night – every night – until the guards took him away again. He held him and dried his tears and told him he believed him when he said he was innocent. Because Charlie had innocent eyes and Ted didn’t.
Maybe that was why they did it. Three weeks in that cell –that was all. Then they took him away and it was months and months of solitary. Ted was left alone, served the rest of his sentence alone in that two man cell. How much worse was it for Charlie?
No one knows it was Ted that gave him the first books on zen. He used the last of his prison allowance to get the books and the only other currency he had to get them smuggled into Charlie’s cell, and even if the taste takes years to leave his mouth he’ll think it was worth it. And he wasn’t even sure they got to him until two years later.
He wrote to Charlie after he got out. Pages and pages. But con’s aren’t supposed to write to other cons and Ted isn’t well connected on the inside – he never learned how exactly to pass a letter. He wasn’t in that long. But he manages to eventually find a way and he’s surprised when he gets a response. Pretty soon he’s got a name and the lawyer lady passes their letters for them. It’s illegal and they have to be careful but the pages go back and forth like contraband.
Life outside isn’t that much better than inside except there’s better food and more sunlight. There’s no money though – and no jobs, and Ted is seriously considering risking another sketchy venture when Charlie’s miracle happens.
Ted is in the back seat of the SUV when they pick him up from the prison. Charlie looks confused, lost, so terribly unsure of himself as they walk him out the gates. “Life was his sentience and life is what they gave him back.” The lawyer says. No, Ted thinks, it’s not. They’ve given him sun and fruit and enough money to be careless and stupid but they haven’t given him life.
It’s Ted that finds him a house. It’s Ted that orders a bed and sheets and a refrigerator. Ted buys him a nice car because any man with that much money deserves a car. It’s Ted that helps the lawyer write out the final settlement and it’s Ted that puts the pen into a shaking Charlie’s hand. He gets him his badge back, because in those shaky awful wonderful nights it’s what Charlie whispered in is his ear – what he wanted back the most after his wife and his fruit and his sun. He can’t get Jennifer back for this remarkable man but he can get him other things.
Things like orange groves and solar farms and a new stable for that damn horse.
Ted takes care of Charlie because Charlie can’t take care of himself. He can take care of everyone else but he’s forgotten that his own life matters because they took that from him . They took it and they can’t just give it back. Like the egg on the wall – once it shatters you can’t just put it back together again.
Prison breaks men like Ted or it molds them. Ted is stronger now than he was then and he can carry Charlie. He can hold him up and he can take whatever the man has to unleash. Ted even takes prison again because that’s what he has to do, will do, for Charlie.
Charlie saved him not by killing that guard but by needing him. Ted’s never really been needed before or since and that’s something he’ll never give up.