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CYRIL

“How the FUCK are we supposed to do Secret Santa, McManus?” someone had shouted after the announcement was made. “We ain't got shit in here!”

“If you sign up, I’ll explain everything.”

“Classic McManus,” Ryan had huffed, slumped back in his chair at the cards table. “But you know what? I bet there’ll be some perk to this latest bullshit. Yeah, ‘cause it’s Christmas and all.”

Cyril’s ears had perked up at the words secret and Santa, two things he liked very much.

“Is Santa going to come to Oz?” he’d wondered.

The jolly old man had neglected to do so the previous year; Ryan had slipped a super fresh, completely new box of crayons under Cyril’s pillow, though, claiming it was a gift from Santa, but Cyril knew better… Under-the-pillow gifts were from the Tooth Fairy, not Santa!

“Nah, I don’t think we’re on his good list, bro…”

There was a questions-and-answers meeting before sign up began in the upstairs classroom for everyone interested later that day.

Cyril sat with Ryan, who had squeezed them in at a good spot, sitting in one of the desks near the chalkboard where McManus was standing and holding up a clipboard as he waited for the jeers and chatter to settle.

It looked to Cyril as if everyone in the whole wide world had squeezed into the classroom. Men of different sizes and colors were crowded along the walls, squeezing each other out for a seat at a desk, and some had even taken to the carpet to sit crisscross-applesauce to hear what McManus had to say.

“As with all… HEY!” McManus barked, waving for everyone’s attention.

Cyril suppressed a grin, imagining two fluffy dog ears sprouting from McManus’s mostly bald head.

McManus glared around the room as he continued in a strong voice, “Now, as with all special activities in Em City, participation in Secret Santa will be dependent on good behavior…”

Groans and jeers rippled through the room, the inmates familiar with the rules.

Cyril reached up to his shoulder, twirling a lock of his hair until Ryan reached over, shoving his wrist down. Frowning, he shrugged away Ryan’s touch. Between this and boxing, Ryan was always telling him what to do nowadays…

But Cyril folded his hands in his lap and sat up straighter, showing off how good he could listen as McManus continued:

“I expect you’re all at least somewhat familiar with the concept of Secret Santa—”

“Actually, no,” a voice interrupted, crisp and a little amused-sounding.

Everyone’s attention turned to the source, except Cyril!

He smiled, feeling like a know-it-all for not having to turn to see it was the new inmate in Em City, the one who talked funny, who’d interrupted.

“Yeah, what’re you even doing here?” Ryan piped up.

At that point, Cyril’s head did turn, first to look at Ryan, whose head was tilted back, and then to look at Stanislofsky himself.

He stood there with his arms crossed, one hand still lazily raised from the moment of his interruption. His shirt that day was crimson red, which Cyril guessed was why Ryan and everyone kept calling him a Red.

“Aren’t you Jewish?” Ryan said, head still tilted.

Stanislofsky peered down at him, leaning his weight forward on one foot, the corner of his mouth lifting into one of his little smiles.

He was older than Cyril with brown hair and a goatee and he was always smiling just a little bit, like he knew something no one else knew.

Cyril thought he was funny.

“Well, anyone can participate in Secret Santa if they want,” McManus said hastily.

Cyril’s gaze bounced forward in time to see McManus gesturing toward Stanislofsky. “This is an inclusive thing, alright? It’s just the name. Anyone’s welcome. Here, how about this…Secret Shopper.” McManus turned to the whiteboard behind him to erase where it said SANTA.

“Hold on,” said Mr. Cudney. “You can’t erase Santa, McManus. It would be like you’re erasing Christmas.”

A few of the other Christians chimed in with their outrage, which got some of the other gangs murmuring, too.

“Put Santa back on the board!” shouted Harden.

Cyril twirled his hair, used to the derailments in Em City.

In the end, McManus wrote SANTA back on the board and had to yell to settle everyone back down.

Stanislofsky didn’t seem to care either way. “Santa, he is winter icon of American capitalism,” he mused, drumming his fingers against his biceps.

Harden’s round face and ears turned red across the room, and beside Cyril, he heard Ryan let out a cackle of laughter.

Cyril laughed, too, wondering what capitalism was. Stanislofsky liked to say funny words like that.

“Enough! Enough!” McManus bellowed again, holding his hands out. He let out a big sigh, big like Mama used to when she read The Three Little Pigs story at bed time. Only, McManus wasn’t doing it to be funny. “Alright,” he said, plowing on impatiently after all the delays. “So we’re all clear on what Secret Santa is, it’s an anonymous gift exchange. I’ll go over more rules in a second, but that’s the basic idea. Everyone who’s interested in participating will sign up to put their names in the bucket—” He pointed at a gray janitor bucket with a metal handle that had been sitting on the floor. “And then we’ll draw names. Whoever you receive, you will be their Secret Santa. Everyone will turn in their gifts on Christmas day, I’ll hand them out, and then we’ll do the Secret Santa reveal.”

There was a murmur of acknowledgement and understanding through the room.

McManus nodded, looking pleased and considerably calmer. “Now, as it was so helpfully pointed out, being in prison, you’ll have to get creative about finding gifts to give each other… but I also want to help. So, my door is open to anyone who wants help brainstorming something thoughtful. Or, if you need help acquiring certain materials or items—”

“You’ll be our mule?” Timmy Kirk said wryly.

Snickers rumbled low through the classroom, and even McManus seemed amused as he rolled his eyes.

“I’m willing to lend some holiday spirit to the endeavor, yeah,” he said. “Alright? Any questions right now? Good.” He held up his clipboard. “Everyone who’s interested, start forming a line to write your name here on the legal pad and then rip off the piece and put it in the bucket there.”

*

When all was said and done, Cyril and Ryan trailed back down to the commons with their new Secret Santa assignees. Ryan had plucked the little paper that said AGAMEMNON right out of Cyril’s hand no sooner had he picked it out of the bucket.

Ryan’s paper said NIKOLAI on it—which was Stanislofsky, Nikolai Stanislofsky—something that Ryan had reacted to with a sharp huff of breath through his teeth before crumpling up the paper and stuffing it in his pocket.

“You know what, though,” he said out of nowhere as they headed back to their pod. “I bet if I figure out who has me, I can make them get me something good. Yeah, he better not get me something lame.”

Cyril didn’t want anything lame either, but he didn’t see how finding out who his Secret Santa was ahead of time would help.

It would ruin the surprise!

…Of course, one of the things he loved about secrets was the warm and smart feeling of sharing them, so he leaned over close to whisper, “What are you going to get for Stanislofsky, Ryan?” He was already beginning to think about what to get Mr. Busmalis. It was good luck he’d drawn a name he was already pretty familiar with. He knew a lot about what Mr. Busmalis liked! Miss Sally, Bob Rebadow, digging holes, and reading the newspaper, for example.

“I dunno—I’ll think of something. What do Russians like?” Ryan snorted, glancing over his shoulder as they reached their pod. It pulled over the door and gestured for Cyril to go in. “C’mon. Get changed. We’re going to the gym.”

More training. More drills.

Cyril stopped short and puffed his chest up. “Ryan!”

Ryan’s eyebrows pushed together. “Christ, I’ll think about it. Happy?” He nodded his chin forward. “What? You already know what you’re getting Busmalis?”

Cyril felt sly and mysterious as he entered the pod with a shrug. “Maybe.”

“What?” The door closed behind Ryan as he followed, leaning against the brown wall as Cyril knelt down at the foot of their bunkbed to open the chest and take out his things for boxing.

He hesitated, feeling his stomach get queasy like it did some time. He didn’t know if Ryan would like his idea of drawing Mr. Busmalis a map of Oz. He’d overheard Mr. Busmalis telling Mr. Rebadow the other day that he wished he knew more about the perimeter fence and the outside of Oz. He’d never gotten a good look at it before, not even on the bus in, because he’d fallen asleep, but Cyril remembered everything from when he used to live outside with Shannon.

“You can’t tell,” he warned. “It’s Secret Santa!”

Ryan scoffed. “Hey, c’mon, Cyril. You don’t trust me, man?”

Cyril busied himself but digging out his boxing gloves and bandana for when training got sweaty. “I’m going to give him a map,” he said carefully.

“A map,” Ryan repeated. There was a silence as he seemed to think about it, and then he said, “Huh. Hey, know what? I bet Busmalis would like something like that. Good instincts, bro.”

Beaming, Cyril felt a big lightness in his chest as he climbed back up. He felt better about going to the gym for training, too, which was nice because he liked boxing and he liked to like boxing—to feel good and smart at something, which was how it was when he was moving fast, chasing after the rush in his blood.

Muscle memory, Ryan liked to say.

When they were at the gym, he smiled a lot—cheering Cyril on at the heavy bag or the speed ball.

“Okay, now get your shit together,” Ryan continued, jerking his head toward the pod door as he pushed off the wall. “I’m gonna go get us a pass, so meet me at the gate. Don’t drag ass, got it?” he added severely, probably because Cyril hadn’t felt much like training lately, especially not after Mr. Cudney pointed out to him that he didn’t even have to!

Cyril shrugged, pressing his lips together as he made a big show of quickly whipping off his longsleeve shirt to change into a tanktop for the gym.

Placated, Ryan headed out, Cyril slowing down with a rebellious feeling as soon as he was out of sight. He didn’t slow all the way down, though. Just a little bit. He did want to go to the gym and box that day, after all. He just didn’t like Ryan’s bossiness.

Ryan wasn’t the boss of him.

Putting on the special gym shoes for just boxing that Ryan had gotten him, Cyril made his bunny ears with the laces and sent them through the hole, wondering in the meantime if Secret Santa would maybe take Ryan’s thoughts off boxing.

Cyril tightened the shoes to his feet.

The tournament was getting less fun with the diet and stuff Ryan was putting him on, but Secret Santa was something new for Ryan to think about. Thinking about new things made Ryan happy.

What had he said?

Cyril racked his brain, sifting through the haze and reaching back a few minutes to the part where Ryan was looking contemplative and going all—

“I can make him get me something good,” Cyril huffed, repeating in a snooty voice what a low growl suddenly reminded him. He felt a little bad about the mockery right after, but pretended not to as he stood up straighter, no one around to scold him, anyway.

Maybe, he thought, he could play Detectives and help Ryan find out who his Secret Santa was! Maybe that would keep Ryan thinking about other things…

And get him the fuck off my ass! came that mean voice again, piping up from way back in Cyril’s head.

He smiled nervously, ignoring it like usual as he picked up his boxing gloves and headed out into Em City.

***

NIKOLAI

When Cyril pulled the empty chair out and sat down, it didn’t come as much of a surprise.

The younger O’Reily brother had been flitting conspicuously around the rec area of Emerald City all afternoon, nosily striking up conversation with any who hadn’t immediately menaced him away. It only served to reason he would find his way to Nikolai eventually, and he’d long determined that Cyril’s questions seemed to have little to do with any business his brother Ryan was conducting.

No, Ryan O’Reily was protective of the boy, but he wasn’t foolish enough to completely trust a simpleton with tasks related to business.

Nikolai gave a genial smile, gesturing toward the table before him. “Do you play?” he said patiently, waiting for one of Cyril’s clumsy questions to be lobbed his way.

“Cards?” Cyril said, peering curiously over the tabletop rather than asking Nikolai his thoughts on Christmas or Santa Clause.

Supposedly, the simpleton hadn’t always been simple—had once been as sharp as any man, before losing it all in one unfortunate brawl.

Such was life.

Nikolai searched Cyril’s childlike patience and curiosity for any sign of deception but as usual, found none. “Yes… cards. Solitaire, the Russian way. Though we can play something else,” he offered, swiftly scooping up two columns before Cyril could even blink.

The boy—no, the man—he was a man—looked impressed, smiling with that vague hint of confusion and surprise that accompanied most of his reactions. “Okay,” he said slowly, straightening up. “What do you like to play, Mr. Stanislofsky?”

It was as sneaky as Cyril was capable of, asking what Nikolai liked rather than what he wanted to play. He smiled, humoring the idea of leading Cyril into that more direct line of questioning he was no doubt itching for.

“Do you know Durak?” he inquired instead, gathering the rest of the cards and turning them all in the same direction with practiced hands.

Cyril looked over his shoulder for a moment, as if searching for someone—likely his hovering brother—before turning forward again. “No, what’s doo-rock?”

“Durak, moy drug,” Nikolai enunciated, explaining, as he caught the spark of that next unasked question, “M-oy druk—means my friend.”

“Moy dwook. Durak.” Cyril beamed as Nikolai nodded, supposing it was close enough.

“Yes. Moy drug. We are friends, yes?”

Cyril bobbed his head.

“Then you call me Nikolai—none of this mister so-and-so,” he said with a tiny grimace. “Now you want to play Durak?”

“Ooh, got room for one more?” It was the bumbling Greek, Busmalis, pulling out another chair to join what he perceived to be a new card game; his friend Bob Rebadow was not far behind, which brought them to a full table and no decision made.

“What’s this… Durak, you called it?” Rebadow said.

“Durak, yes,” Nikolai enunciated again, shuffling the deck in his hand. “It means… idiot, in Russian. The goal of the game is to get rid of all cards—to not be idiot with all the cards and no one to use against.”

“I wanna play,” Cyril decided, eyes still alight with interest. He almost looked like his clever brother that way—just for a moment.

Nikolai wondered if Cyril had been prone to scheming, too, once upon a time, and if that was an old instinct which had compelled him to mingle in the commons that afternoon.

He still had not attempted to delve into learning where Nikolai was with his Secret Santa activities. Possibly, he’d forgotten, distracted by the promise of fun and games.

“Are the rules simple?” Rebadow asked, leaning forward.

“Emm, yes. It’s popular game,” Nikolai said with a shrug. He eyed Cyril, though, hesitating. “We play first. Thirty-six cards only—I will teach you as we go. It’s easy,” he assured, beginning to rifle through the deck to remove the lower suites. “Children play.”

He quickly found, however, that the learning curve was steeper than he could have imagined, and that it wasn’t only Cyril who struggled with the rules.

Nikolai tapped the trump card sitting face up on the table, looking around the puzzled players. “Anyone have this? Black spade? You can beat attack with trump card.”

The old men and Cyril blinked owlishly at him, clutching their cards and glancing over the table. Nikolai nodded at Busmalis. “So then, you are Defender. You didn’t beat and no one else is attacking, so now you take all cards. You are biggest durak right now.”

Cyril giggled and Busmalis frowned, but gathered the cards that had been played in the middle of the table as Nikolai then nodded to Rebadow. “Now, we are moving around clock, which makes you Defender and I am Attacker.”

Another slow round began, Nikolai nodding at times and holding his hand out to stop an illegal play at others. He had played various styles of poker with the men many times and could predict by now their pattern of strategy; Busmalis was a more agile and audacious player than his mild, affable demeanor would suggest. His weakness was overplaying his high value cards, leaving himself open to being beaten if his first round of attacks didn’t succeed. Rebadow was a more cautious player at the risk of being left the fool; though he was rarely beaten as Defender and thus never forced to pick up a large pool of middle cards, he often failed to attack at a brisk enough pace to rid himself of his cards before the other players.

Cyril’s plays were somewhere in the middle. He had grasped the rules of matching and beating, but the alternating statuses of Attacker and Defender seemed to leave him confused, and he had yet to develop any long term strategy, rolling with the punches of each round instead.

“Can we play Slapjack?” Cyril wondered after a few more hands, including one where Nikolai had held back defending a turn just to tip the odds in Busmalis’s favor.

It was an important courtesy of bringing in new players—to give them morale boost.

Rebadow sighed. “This is an interesting game, Stanislofsky, but we’ll have to play a few more times to fully understand,” he admitted.

“Understand what? Yo, Cyril, you play Rummy now? Come on.” Ryan O’Reily had crept up to the table and was standing between Nikolai and Busmalis, one hand hitched on the back of his waist as he peered down at the table.

“Stanislofsky’s teaching us a Russian card game!” Busmalis said.

O’Reily’s gaze fell to Nikolai, green eyes bright and piercing. “Oh yeah? What’s it called?”

Nikolai licked his lips, the elder brother’s arrival piquing significantly more of his interest than the presence of the others. “Durak. Means idiot.”

It was the truth and there was no greater meaning to it, but Ryan’s eyes narrowed as if there was, suspicion delightfully misplaced. He was protective of his brother, that much Nikolai knew, and he was also wary of Nikolai on principle—You can’t fucking trust the Soviets, man, he had overheard Ryan say shortly after he had arrived. The combination of both instincts made Ryan quite mistrustful of the current card game indeed, innocuous as it was.

Still, there was that rebellious curiosity in him, which was amusing.

“Hm. Never heard of it. Cyril, come on, bro—training. Let’s go,” he said, tone switching at a flip, from mock interest to utterly flat.

“It’s fun, Ryan,” claimed Cyril, who, faced with an opportunity to assert familiarity with the game, had apparently changed his mind about wanting to play Slapjack. “But it’s really hard. Nikolai always wins.”

“Tch.” Ryan’s dismissive sneer transformed slightly, his eyes sweeping the table once more, re-evaluating.

Curiosity growing.

Nikolai smiled quietly, lowering his head again as Busmalis stood and excused himself and Ryan circled the table to take the vacated spot. Rebadow bowed out as well, claiming weariness as he wandered off to the televisions instead.

The intriguing thing about Cyril was that, as he eagerly parroted the rules to Ryan, he demonstrated a firmer grasp of them than Nikolai had expected; so he did understand the premise of the game. He was simply no good at playing to win.

“So then when do I become the Attacker?” Ryan asked questions here and there as Nikolai shuffled the cards and began to deal the first hand of six.

“If you successfully defend, you are first Attacker next turn,” Nikolai explained. “Otherwise, it moves around this way.” He gestured in their small circle. “Defender also.”

“Yeah, but I can attack when it’s not my turn?”

“Yes. Defender is in… what do you call it?” Nikolai searched for that fascinating term McManus had used the other day. “Hot seat.”

“Ah,” Ryan said, and by the glint in his eye, Nikolai could see that he’d already picked up on a crucial element of the game that only Busmalis had clumsily thought to take advantage of so far—the fact he could deplete his hand when it was neither his turn to attack nor defend, and thus work quickly toward a win while in between turns at defending, where to be beaten meant having to take all the cards in the middle.

Clever little hoodlum.

Nikolai had expected no less.

Since arriving at Emerald City, he’d identified O’Reily as one of the slicker inmates to watch out for, if their goals were ever to clash. Fortunately, that had yet to happen, as Ryan’s current schemes—fixing the boxing matches being run by the prison, and dealing some small amounts of cannabis and heroin on the side, as well as a bit of smuggling—hardly intersected with Nikolai’s own interests, which were focused on his outside business.

If he were Russian, he would have been an instant ally—certainly, Nikolai would have preferred someone lively but relatively harmless compared to the likes of Yuri Kosygin, whose general presence hung like an albatross around Nikolai’s neck; they had been blindly grouped together by nationality—made associates by default in the eyes of the other inmates. Yet to Nikolai, celling with Kosygin was akin to placing a vulture in an enclosure with a live rabbit and expecting, because the vulture was thought mainly to be a scavenger, that it wouldn’t also hunt and kill the rabbit if it came down to it.

Nikolai was the wretched rabbit, of course, but the vulture was not yet circling, tucked away in its corner out of sight, with no signs of movement yet.

In the meantime, Nikolai looked forward to the prospect of a card player who might actually pick up the game quickly.

He supposed he had Cyril to thank for that, and nodded at him as he turned over the trump card. “You attack first, I will defend. Remember—” He looked at Cyril and then at Ryan, who was smirking a little, fingers drumming on the backs of his cards in anticipation. “You can play same suite as this card… against higher attack.”

“Yeah, yeah. C’mon.” Ryan said, gesturing lazily. “Cyril, attack his ass.”

*

By the time the buzzer rang for nightly lockdown, Nikolai was playing Ryan one-on-one, Cyril sitting with his chair pushed back, chin resting low on his arms which were folded at the edge of the table.

The speed and strategy aspects of gameplay were clearly up to Ryan’s tastes, and Nikolai had expected no differently. He’d even lost a hand to Ryan due mainly to poor shuffling, and as a result, Ryan had clearly taken a higher view of the game.

Very predictable. Almost charmingly so.

“I tell you what, you Russians know how to pass the time,” Ryan said as he stood, nodding across the table at Nikolai, who was collecting the cards again as everyone around them began to meander back toward their pods.“Not bad.”

Nikolai snorted. “Now you know the rules. I finally have people to play against,” he said. “And who knows? Maybe one day you won’t be durak.”

“What’re you talking about? I just won,” Ryan said, that mildly pleased expression slipping away, turning into a boyish pout as he gestured at his brother.

“A matter of courtesy,” Nikolai drawled, pocketing his cards as he stood and took a step back, keeping an eye on the guard coming down from the center station to reprimand the stragglers. “For morale.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed, a hiss of air escaping his teeth, frustration written clearly on his expression.

All things were written clearly on his face, including deception. It was what made him fascinating, Nikolai supposed—that emotion twinkled and flickered so openly across O’Reily’s sharp, intriguing features, and yet seemed to do so at such a speed that the morons around him simply couldn’t keep up or know what to make of any of it.

“Sure, whatever, pal. Cyril, let’s go,” Ryan said, calling over his shoulder as he turned away.

Embroiled in their card game, he’d neglected to usher Cyril off for the usual second visit to the gym, which was some attempt to close the improbable odds against the upcoming match with the Sicilian enforcer, Pancamo, Nikolai assumed. Keeping up with appearances, anyway; it probably helped to make it look as though intense training was what would be giving Cyril the edge, rather than Ryan’s own meddling.

The missed training session was something Cyril didn’t look particularly broken up about, either way.

Funny, Nikolai supposed, wondering how much of Ryan’s match-fixing Cyril was in on.

Probably none of it.

“G’night, Nikolai,” he said, turning away also.

There had been enough groans and sighs in the Emerald City commons over the past few weeks for Nikolai to guess that the boxing tournament being organized by McManus was increasingly becoming a burden on Cyril’s shoulders. He was a pair of fists, nothing more, the poor fool.

That would make the new plan swirling in the back of Nikolai’s mind all the more simple to carry out, then.

“Spokoynoy nochi,” he called, which received an intrigued laugh and peek over his shoulder from Cyril and a sharp look back from Ryan as he climbed the stairs. “Good night.”

Nikolai headed back to the vulture that evening with a vaguely amused feeling, pleased to have had the small question bouncing around in the back of his mind answered for him by the O’Reilys themselves—not that they knew it.

Not that they would ever see it coming.

That was probably what made it all so irresistible; generally speaking, when it came to meddling in things of no real consequence to himself, Nikolai wouldn’t have bothered—after all, just being it seemed harmless didn’t mean that it was—but when it was all made so easy for him, and when there was no risk of discovery…

Why not?

The little paper he had pulled from the bucket the other day had said CYRIL, and as the Americans liked to say, ‘tis the season.

*

There was a rumor going about Emerald City—a rumor with roots in the very nature of Cyril’s very imprisonment—which whispered that the large scab that had appeared on Ryan O’Reily’s arm a few days earlier had something to do with the pretty, black doctor who worked most weekdays in the prison infirmary.

With a gentle voice and kind eyes, at first glance, one could easily misinterpret Dr. Nathan as an easy target for deception and bullying. A second glance, however, would reveal the tough edge that entered her tone when her patients attempted to take advantage of her kindness, and the fierce, no-nonsense attitude that arose when she witnessed an injustice.

Nikolai was counting on that latter factor that afternoon as he sat across from the doctor in her office. She took his blood pressure and apologised once more for the oversight in handling his medication.

“I don’t know what happened,” she said again, sighing as she flipped through his open file and shook her head. “This happens all the time…”

“Quite alright,” Nikolai said, keeping still as the machine attached to his arm beeped and Dr. Nathan glanced at the reading. “I was in Russian gulag seven years. Lucky my condition is not serious or I would not be here at all, da? Little paperwork slowness is no problem.” He smiled, and Dr. Nathan grimaced a little, still sighing, though nodding now as if to recognize he had a point.

“Oz must be a cakewalk in comparison,” she supposed.

Cakewalk!

Nikolai gave a warm laugh, agreeing, “No, ah, maggots in food. There is heating. Clean water. There is doctor like you. Yes, very nice. Even boxing tournament to watch for fun—although,” he added, turning contemplative, “That is one thing guards in gulag would not like.”

Dr. Nathan was half listening and half filling out a medical chart in front of her, her pen scratching smoothly across the page. “Oh, why’s that? No fun allowed?”

“Yes, and of course, very exciting, this American-style fighting. So much freedom. They would never allow such thing in Russian prison, but this is America. Land of free, as they say,” Nikolai said, chuckling, as if oblivious to the frown slowly creasing Dr. Nathan’s brow, and the way her pen hand had stilled.

“What do you mean, so much freedom?” she said cautiously.

He gestured vaguely in the air before folding his arms and leaning back, giving a shrug. “Take Cyril O’Reily-Pancamo match, for example. There is all kinds of bets—forgive me, but I’m sure you know, this is reality—the gambling…” he said in a low voice, watching her nod impatiently, her expression growing more and more perturbed. “Well, Cyril, he is already simple, yes? And he is fighting big man because American prison—no weight class—more fun.” He laughed again. “We are all waiting to see if punch to head will make O’Reily more, ah…” He pretended to remember himself, giving another big shrug as Dr. Nathan’s eyes darted over his face, widening ever so slightly. “Emm, but I’m sure it will be fine. There is referee watching. Good hospital here, too.”

“Yes,” Dr. Nathan said, vaguely, after a couple of seconds of silence. Her left hand went behind her neck as she looked back down, however, rubbing uneasily as she finished making notes on his chart.

Unnoticed, Nikolai smiled, settling in to wait and see where the ball he’d sent rolling into action would land.

He would have to get Cyril a more inconspicuous gift for the actual Secret Santa exchange, of course—the best secret was the undiscovered one, after all—but that was the fun in it. The singular knowing.

Ryan O’Reily would not be nearly so thrilled, Nikolai expected, but then, it wasn’t as though his new cards partner would ever get angry with him about it… and he supposed there was part of him that even looked forward to seeing how Ryan would react. What emotions would flash across his face.

He was fascinating to watch, Ryan O’Reily, and with Durak now, Nikolai had front row seats.

***

RYAN

Jeers filled the commons as McManus rounded out morning announcements with the news that Warden Glynn had cancelled the next match between Cyril and Pancamo, and that a match between Khan and Pancamo would be scheduled instead, to take place just after the new year. Robson would then be brought back to fight Cramer to determine who would go into the final match.

Pancamo shrugged. “Just skipping ahead, I guess,” he drawled indifferently at the neighboring table.

Ryan threw his cards down, jumping to his feet, fire in his belly as the news echoed through his mind and propelled him halfway up to the hack station before he was even really aware of it. “Yo, what about Cyril, McManus?” he demanded.

“O’Reily, cool it,” said Murphy, gesturing at him to slow down as he hopped the remaining steps up to where McManus was flipping down the papers on his clipboard and turning off the speaker system. Murphy stood shoulder-to-shoulder with McManus, looking not in the least bit sympathetic about the Irish getting fucking neutered so close to the final showdown.

“No, Cyril’s been training fair and square,” Ryan yelled, jabbing a finger past Murphy’s traitorous shoulder and straight at McManus. “McManus, you have to let him fight!”

A nasty look flashed across McManus’s expression and Ryan abruptly remembered himself, wincing and gritting his teeth as he pulled his arm back, bracing for the rebuke.

“Actually, I don’t,” McManus said with a shrug that was trying too hard to be apathetic instead of smug. The bastard. “And Warden Glynn decided that in Cyril’s condition, a round with Pancamo could be extremely dangerous—not to mention, the prison would be responsible for anything that happened to your brother. If you want to protest, you’ll have to take it up with Glynn,” McManus said, rounding Ryan to tromp down the stairs and back toward his office tower. “But his mind is made, and frankly, I agree—allowing Cyril and Pancamo to fight with their power difference would be akin to gross negligence. It’s for Cyril’s own good—something you owe him to consider, O’Reily!” he added over his shoulder, waving his clipboard.

Dick.

Ryan’s eyes narrowed and he glared at the back of McManus’s stupid asshole head as he retreated up the floor.

“Goddammit.”

Glynn would be hard to move, and his mind was still reeling in anger at the moment, no words of persuasion coming to mind.

“Ryan, look…” Murphy was still standing over his shoulder on the top step before the first landing, looking more commiserative now that the boss was gone.

“You gotta tell him he’s crazy, man,” Ryan spit. “You’ve seen Cyril train—he can beat that wop sonuvabitch!” His gaze flew back across the floor to where the Italians were gathered.

Everyone had already moved on from announcements, invested once more in what they’d been doing before—playing cards or wandering around or staring down their enemies.

“His hands are tied anyway, O’Reily. Dr. Nathan raised a medical concern with your brother fighting.”

“What?” Ryan’s neck practically cracked at the speed that his head whipped back around.

Gloria had done this to him? To Cyril?

“I’m sorry. He had a good showing against Robson, though—you oughta be proud.” Murphy shrugged. “Now… scoot.”

Ryan’s ears continued to ring, his fury doused somewhat—he couldn’t get angry at Gloria, but he did feel angry.

She was refusing to see him, no matter what excuse he came up with, managing to throw old man Prestopnik or a nurse his way every time he came to visit, instead. She was a hole in his chest and now on his arm, too, which was fine because he loved her enough that those things didn’t really fucking matter. And now she was finally responding again! Except it was only to fuck his shit up.

To fuck Cyril’s shit up.

To get back at him?

Blood racing, Ryan was slow to turn, only prompted, at last, by a familiar shriek of laughter that shook him out of his rumination and pulled him all the way back around.

Down the steps and a couple yards ahead at the card table with Stanislofsky and Liam, Cyril was on his feet, pumping his fist in the air in excitement. He hadn’t won yet, but he had only two cards left, Ryan observed quickly.

He walked back over, dropping into his abandoned seat with a frustrated huff not matched by anyone else.

“What’d he say, bro?” Liam asked dutifully.

Ryan shook his head, glancing over at Cyril, who was still on his feet and clutching his final cards with a huge grin.

“Emm,” Stanislofsky intoned, playing a card as he cued his next words. The guy had a habit of doing that before getting to his point sometimes, Ryan had noticed. It felt like a tell of some kind, but it was probably the language barrier. “Did they say why Cyril cannot fight?”

“Fucking medical concern.” Ryan picked his cards back up as Liam chewed his lip, staring at the three jacks Stanislofsky had played before slowly playing a king.

Quick as a whip, Ryan played another king to match.

Liam sighed, reaching out to pick all the cards up and add them to his hand.

“Now your turn, moy drug,” Stanislofsky said.

“I’m going to win!” Cyril slammed his second to last card, a seven of spades, the trump card, which would’ve probably beat any card played by Liam even if he hadn’t been defeated when it was his turn to Defend.

“Hey, nice, Cyril, man,” Ryan said, watching as Cyril hopped around in premature celebration. All that fucking energy and nowhere for it to go—no way for him to win again in the ring.

Goddammit.

Ryan slammed his cards down. “Cyril,” he snapped. “Sit down.”

“I only got one card left, Ryan,” Cyril told him, beaming as he pulled his chair under him and sat with a heavy breath. Happy energy continued to radiate off of him, sort of pissing Ryan off a little that he wasn’t more broken up about the boxing match.

Then again, there was a chance it hadn’t sunk in yet that his match had been stolen away from him.

Fuck, was that good or bad?

“That’s great, Cyril.” Ryan pressed his lips together, tossing down a couple cards that Nikolai easily beat, playing his own final card on his next turn, which Liam rolled his eyes and picked up, turning the game back to Cyril, whose glee was somewhat dampened by coming in second place.

“But I’ll get a meeting with Glynn,” Ryan announced as he played an ace of hearts.

Liam picked it up.

Ryan played two tens that Liam beat, and when he played that ace of hearts, Ryan put down his last card, the six of spades.

Across the table, Liam sucked his teeth, displaying his crap hand of eight cards left.

“You think Glynn will reverse decision?” Stanislofsky wondered as Cyril leaned forward, eagerly gathering all the cards on the table to shuffle and begin another game.

Ryan looked over.

On one hand, Ryan knew Stanislofsky had his own shit going on on the outside, what with how many calls he made in the phone room, plus, given his affiliation with the Russian mob and Oz not having much of an organized Ruskie presence, if Stanislofsky did have business within Oz’s wall, he was keeping it so lowkey, even Ryan hadn’t sniffed it out—yet.

On the other hand, he’d seen a lot of the guy these past couple of days, Cyril being obsessed with the cocksucker’s card game and all, and he had to admit, Stanislofsky was good enough company, and hadn’t made any sounds like he was trying to get in Ryan’s good graces, or get in his way.

Mostly, he taught Cyril a bunch of Russian shit to parrot at Ryan.

The fact that he was emerging as an unlikely new babysitter option for Cyril—on top of depositing him with Rebadow or Busmalis when Ryan had shit to do and Cyril didn’t want to stay in the pod—didn’t mean that Ryan was going to go divulging his whole thought process to the dickhole, though.

“I don’t know, man,” Ryan said tersely, and: “Probably not.” Then he bared his teeth, looking swiftly to the center of the table, before those fucking light brown eyes could turn curiously toward him for the admission. It’d slipped out in his frustration; he hadn’t meant for that little bit of cynicism to be shared with the table.

Across from him, Liam pressed his lips together, taking the cards from Cyril to shuffle.

Yeah, he had nothing to say.

Cyril, though—Cyril piped up. “Ryan?”

Ryan turned his head, drumming his hands on the table and sitting up from where he’d slumped and slid halfway down his stupid plastic chair. “Yeah, bro. Don’t worry. We’ll get you that fight.”

Shit.

He’d been telling Cyril he was going to win the tournament for weeks—not just to pump him up, either, but almost as a promise.

Cyril looked at him with wide eyes that only darted away once to check on Liam’s shuffling progress. “Ryan,” he said slowly. “It’s… okay.” He shrugged that clumsy up and down of his shoulders that had become so familiar since the accident. Like a kid who didn’t know how his shoulders worked—up and then back down.

There was none of that confusion when Cyril boxed. His body remembered, then.

“I didn’t want to fight, remember?” Cyril’s voice got quieter and quieter with every word and Ryan stared at him, a funny feeling in his throat.

It wasn’t anger, even though he was damn pissed.

He wasn’t even all that disgusted Cyril was unbothered by the turn of events; Cyril was unbothered by most turn of events, unless it was a program change in Miss Sally’s Schoolyard episodes or butterscotch pudding at lunch when he thought he’d picked up a vanilla in the lunch line.

What the fuck else could the feeling be?

“Yeah, whatever.”

Frustration—more bitter disappointment and fucking helplessness than fury, maybe.

Cyril had beaten the Aryan fuck Robson, but would it be enough to keep those skinhead motherfuckers from messing with him when he’d been forced out of the competition? Gloria’d had a medical concern, but what about Ryan’s fucking concern?

“So, emm, Cyril. What will you do instead of fight?” Stanislofsky’s attention had moved across the table as Ryan was zoned out.

“Here.” Liam began dealing six cards to everyone, flipping the card at the bottom of the deck to establish the trump card and then placing the rest facedown.

Cyril grinned, looking down at his cards. “There’s Secret Santa,” he said. “I have to get my present ready.”

He’d been stealing crayons one-by-one from Sister Pete’s office to work on his dumb map during lockdown. Way too invested in the secrecy aspect of Secret Santa, but Ryan wasn’t about to point that out when the whole thing was keeping Cyril busy during the hours locked up.

The printer paper was getting to be a bit of a hassle to keep getting for him for every new draft, though.

Ryan picked up the cards he’d been dealt and looked over them with a blank face.

Fuck.

No trump cards and no face cards right off the bat.

He could probably turn shit around, though. Nothing was really set until all the cards had been dealt and then everyone was truly locked in with what they had.

“Are you working on your Secret Santa present, Nikolai?” Cyril asked as Liam played a card first, putting it on him to defend.

He went to beat it, and in the process, opened a window for Ryan to match the card and force him to beat that card, too.

“Ah, yes. Secret Santa. I’ve had a few ideas,” Stanislofsky said brightly.

Ryan shook his head and Liam cleared the table for Cyril to attack next; his card was a six of spades that Stanislofsky quickly matched with a six of diamonds. Luckily, Ryan had an eight of spades and seven of diamonds—

Liam played an eight of hearts.

“Fuck me,” Ryan muttered, scanning his hand again. He had a seven of hearts—couldn’t beat the round. Sucking his teeth, he took everything in the middle into his own hand, fanning out the cards so he could see what he had as the game continued, skipping his turn to attack.

The others drew more cards to replenish their hands.

“But you know,” Stanislofsky said as he played a pair of eights, “I am told it is thought that counts so I am not worried.”

Ryan dumped his two eights on the table for Liam to beat as well, which he nearly managed to do with the help of a trump card just as Stanislofsky matched the queen he’d played.

Eat shit, Ryan thought gleefully, bouncing his leg under the table as Liam scooped up all the cards. “Yeah, but if your gift sucks, it still sucks, man. And a guy like you, I bet you have unlimited resources, huh? You could get something nice.”

He’d yet to narrow down who had pulled his name from the bucket, but he basically knew what he’d be getting Stanislofsky himself—the pair of woolly socks Aunt Brenda had given him last year that he never wore because wool made his fucking feet sweat.

Russians probably appreciated having warm feet, though, being from chilly Russia and all.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Stanislofsky said mildly, though there was a hint of amusement in his tone, too, because that was the game, wasn’t it?

Ryan knew Stanislofsky had outside partners. Stanislofsky knew that Ryan knew. It was all lip service.

Suddenly, Ryan wondered if the guy had any inroads with Glynn. The Sicilians used to have something on the warden that’d made them top dog around Oz. Maybe the Russians had blackmail, too.

As the game progressed, the wind left Ryan’s sails as quickly as they’d entered them and he gave an internal wince. Even if Stanislofsky had leverage, he wouldn’t use it for Ryan—he had no reason to.

“I’m gonna get my guy some coffees from Commissary,” Liam said with a shrug. “He really likes coffee.”

So he’d drawn Hoyt’s name from the hat, Ryan supposed.

“Coffee’s yucky,” Cyril opined, quickly followed by, “Do you like coffee, Nikolai?”

“Coffee? Yes, yes, of course,” Stanislofsky said, scanning his cards. “I like it with the…” He gestured in the air, rolling his wrist around. “The cream on top.”

“Whipped cream!” Cyril said, so fucking jazzed about it, Ryan snorted. “I like whipped cream on my hot cocoa before sleep.”

“Ah, yes. Hot cocoa. Good stuff.”

Ryan ignored Stanislofsky, eyes narrowing at Cyril. “Yeah, when were you drinking hot cocoa before sleep, man?”

Cyril’s eyes went wide. He shuffled his cards around in his hands, chin lifted as he said quietly, “Shannon let me, Ryan.”

Oh yeah.

Bitch kept letting him stuff his face with sugar and then complaining about how impossible he was afterward, but Ryan guessed Cyril wasn’t remembering the part where Shannon yelled at him.

“Shannon is…?” Stanislofsky said.

“My ex,” Ryan said flatly, the scab on his arm beginning to itch.

“Ah. My condolences.”

“Nah,” he replied, but thinking about Shannon only reminded him about Gloria fucking with Cyril’s chances in the boxing tournament.

Fuck, he needed to talk to her. Convince her Cyril was good to fight, and to go tell Glynn it was all good. She could say she hated him all she wanted, but she didn’t have to fuck with Cyril…

FUCK, he’d already confessed to setting up Preston Nathan’s murder. What more did she want from him?

He couldn’t take it back. He didn’t want to take it back!

Liam cleared his throat. “You got an old lady, Nikolai, man?”

“Emm, yes,” Stanislofsky said. “Old lady? Yes.”

Ryan snorted. “Don’t sound too sure about that, pal,” he quipped, slapping down two cards.

“Old lady is girlfriend,” Cyril explained.

“Yes, I have old lady,” Stanislofsky said, chuckling as he played his own card.

Liam matched.

Ryan matched Liam, and Stanislofsky paused, staring at the table for a moment before calmly beating every column.

The urge to smirk that’d been playing at the corner of Ryan’s mouth died again. “Oh yeah? What’s her name?”

“Emm… Lana,” Stanislofsky answered.

“Lana who?”

Stanislofsky’s mouth suddenly curled. “And why should I tell you, O’Reily?” he said. “What will you do with this information, hm? You have connection in Little Odessa?”

Ryan shrugged; it’d been reflexive—knee-jerk, attacking for Stanislofsky to defend, just like in the dumb card game they’d been playing practically all week. “Maybe you made her up.”

Stanislofsky looked fully tickled then, tilting his head. “Why would I make up girlfriend? Imagining woman to love me—kak zhalko.”

“Cock what now?” Ryan muttered, turning his attention back down to his cards.

Faggot—just like he thought.

“It means… how pathetic,” Stanislofsky said, and there was something crisp and haughty in the tone of his voice that had Ryan looking up to see Stanislofsky already returning the stare, eyebrows raised all condescending and shit.

Ryan smiled sharply, recognising a diss there.

What the fuck?

He started to open his mouth with Cyril butt in, “Is Lana Russian, too, Nikolai?”

“Ah, no. She is Ukrainian, but like you. American, born here.” Stanislofsky left it there with a glance at Ryan—what, like he was going to keep pressing or something?

Ryan didn’t care about some Lana from Ukraine who was maybe real after all. “You married yet? Don’t get married,” he said, playing it cool, though.

“Married’s not so bad,” Liam said absently, fiddling with the gold band on his finger. “Got someone waiting for you on the outside.”

Yeah, fuck that, Ryan opened his mouth to say.

“WORK DETAIL,” Murphy shouted from the hack’s station, cutting him off.

The table paused in unison, everyone glancing up as if the same announcement didn’t come every morning at the same exact time.

“Later,” Ryan said, on his feet in a flash and throwing down his cards. “Cyril—c’mon. Change for kitchen duty.”

“I had three trumps,” Cyril revealed smugly, showing his hand.

“Very good, moy drug,” Stanislofsky said. “You could have won.”

“Cyril.” Something about Stanislofsky humoring Cyril was suddenly wearing real fucking thin in Ryan’s opinion.

He preferred Cyril getting treated like a fucking human being and not a block of wood, but there were fucking limits, too, and any guy who made Cyril drag ass trying to remember how to say See you later in Russian was up to something, as far as Ryan was concerned, he decided.

He hooked an arm around Cyril’s shoulders as they headed for their pod, pulling him close.

“I don’t trust Stanislofsky, man. I don’t want you hanging out around him anymore, got it?”

“Why?”

Ryan could feel the way Cyril had stiffened immediately at the request, and what was more, the why wasn’t the whiney one that said he’d cave easily. It was the harsh one that sounded as close to the old Cyril as it got these days, headstrong and critical.

Back in the day, they’d had each other’s backs, no doubt, but Cyril’d always had his own way of thinking, too, and the rebellion Ryan had been seeing lately, especially with the boxing tournament, wasn’t anything new.

Just more fucking stupid.

“Because I said so, Cyril. He’s a fucking Russian, and I know he’s up to something, so just do me a favor and stay away from him!” Ryan said, hearing his voice rise into a snap as they reached the pod and he all but shoved Cyril inside.

Christ.

He gritted his teeth when Cyril stumbled and righted himself, whipping around to glare, pouty and eyes wide. His ponytail had gotten loose with the speed he’d turned around at and his hair tie was slipping off the hair over his shoulder as he planted himself right there in the fucking doorway and refused to budge.

“No. I wanna play Durak, Ryan,” Cyril said. Suddenly, he stood straighter. “And I didn’t want to fight anymore.” His chin quivered, eyes flaring. Nostrils flaring, too.

Jesus, what had gotten into him?

“And I’m happy I don’t have to box anymore, Ryan!” he added with what almost seemed like a sneer, his eyes narrowing. “Fuck!”

A silence seemed to echo afterward, even though the unit behind Ryan was plenty bustling.

Ryan stared and realized his jaw had gone slack when Cyril’s own lips pressed together tightly and his eyes darted over him. His puffed up stance deflated after a few more seconds.

“Are you mad?” he wondered.

Was he fucking mad?

Ryan blinked, the question suddenly ringing an old bell, pulling a different memory to the forefront of his mind—Cyril acting up a few weeks back, the first time, when it’d been that Christian fuck Cudney hissing poison in his ear instead.

“No, Cyril,” Ryan said calmly.

He couldn’t very well beat Stanislofsky with a fucking Bible and expect him not to get his ass back for it—maybe sic his creepy cellmate on Ryan, too.

Maybe Ryan could pay off Kosygin to kill Stanislofsky first, though? Word was, they weren’t exactly chummy. Same side, different factions or something.

Nah, but Kosygin probably wouldn’t go for it, either, Ryan realized with an internal curse. The jizzbags were cellmates and it’d be too easy to trace that association. Besides, who knew what the price for ordering a hit on a member of the fucking Russian mob would be?

Thoughts racing, plans came and went and Ryan was left, wheels spinning, a whole lot of irritation fueling him to deal with this—deal with the annoyance, but no direction to start moving in.

He just needed something more concrete to work off of.

“I don’t like Stanislofsky,” Ryan said. “But you know what, Cyril?” He took a step into the cell, assured when Cyril retreated to let him by. “If he’s your friend, I guess I can’t tell you not to hang out with him.”

Still, there was no way in fucking hell Ryan was going to let that shit continue the way it was; Cyril was easily influenced and it was up to Ryan to vet those influences. Old geezers like Busmalis and Rebadow were harmless, while Liam and, hell, even that dopehead Shupe could be trusted not to usurp Ryan’s authority, but it was a no to Mr. Cudney and his fucking Protestant puritanicalism, and definitely a no now to fucking Nikolai, who made jibes about Gloria, thinking he was being sneaky, too. He would turn Cyril against him just for the hell of it, the Ruskie bastard.

Absolutely not.

Cyril’s eyes brightened and Ryan could tell he was struggling to play it smooth as he lifted his chin again and said, “Good. ‘Cause I like him, Ryan. And I like playing cards with him. And you, too,” he added abruptly as he turned and went to go get his kitchen uniform out.

“Whatever,” Ryan said, but some of the iciness in his chest was trying its damn hardest to thaw at that last part—shit. “C’mon, man. Get dressed.”

Shit shit shit.

*

“Knock, knock,” Ryan said cheerfully, sticking his head into the pod as he rapped on the glass beside Stanislofsky’s door.

The man was reclining in the desk chair, one foot up at the edge of the table itself and a newspaper spread open against his thigh. He rustled the paper closed as he glanced up, watching Ryan enter the cell.

“Niko-Niko-Nikolai.”

“O’Reily,” Stanislofsky replied, not really moving as Ryan sauntered into the pod and crossed behind him, sitting down on the edge of the bunk there. “Always a pleasure to see you.”

“Yeah, right,” Ryan scoffed, staring a hole into the back of Stanislofsky’s head, which still hadn’t swiveled around to track his location.

No, the guy was folding up and putting his newspaper on the desk in front of him with leisurely movements, all concerned about creasing the paper wrong or something.

“Anyway, just swung by for a much needed chat—”

“Oh?”

“About my brother and what your deal with him is,” Ryan continued, keeping his tone light. When Stanislofsky didn’t have an interjection to that, he went on, “Uh-huh, see, ‘cause a little bird told me—”

Stanislofsky twisted around, bringing them nose-to-nose as he looked over the back of his chair. “I am Cyril’s Secret Santa,” he said before Ryan could even completely finish setting his bait.

Ryan blinked.

This close, he could smell the aftershave on Stanislofsky’s skin, cool and minty. He could smell the usual cologne, too, because of course the pansy fuck wore cologne, rich and floral rising over that smooth menthol.

Stinking up the card table.

“What’s that now?” Ryan said, sucking in a breath.

Secret Santa?

That shit?

Stanislofsky folded an arm up on the seatback between them. “Whatever little birdie told you, I don’t know, but it is wrong,” he said, and then gestured in the narrow space between them toward Ryan. “But I know you are protective, so I am telling you now—I am Cyril’s Secret Santa, so that is the deal. I thought if I get closer, I know what he wants. That is how the game works, isn’t it?” He cocked his head, cool stare roaming over Ryan’s face.

It couldn’t be that fucking simple, could it?

“Be that as it may, Nikolai, buddy,” Ryan said after a short beat, keeping that same, steady cadence as before. “I love my brother, but Cyril, he’s not exactly hard to figure out.” He let his smile drop, since they were talking straight now. “So why keep playing?” Fuck off, he wanted to add. And quit teaching him fucking Russian, too. “Smart guy like you—bet you figured it out day one.”

“Yes,” Stanislofsky said slowly. He had a habit of sticking his tongue between his teeth in between thoughts, the pink tip visible between his parted lips. “True, he is not good player,” he mused, and then rolled his eyes, fingers fluttering as he tossed a hand up in exasperation and leaned back a little to say, quicker, “But where he goes, you follow, and you are decent player, O’Reily.” He shrugged. “So I keep playing with Cyril, and the Greek, and Bob… And you. Liam, too. It is fun, playing game that is not chess and poker.” The corner of his mouth pulled up, lips pressed together and tongue hidden from view as he smiled wryly. “Kosygin, he is not much fun. Unfortunately.”

“Fun.”

“Yes.” Stanislofsky’s eyebrows arched and he drummed his fingers on the back of his seat, pursing his lips for a moment before adding, leaning in again as his voice dipped, “That is what friends do, isn’t it? They have fun.”

His eyes flicked back and forth over Ryan’s face.

“Hah.” Ryan stood, shaking off the weird intensity of Stanislofsky’s gaze.

He’d always had a sixth sense for secrets and things unsaid—could sound them out like a fucking divination rod, and that’s where the real fun was, as far as Ryan was concerned, because secrets were for figuring out other people’s and potentially using it against them, and it seemed to him that Stanislofsky wasn’t telling the full truth.

Just like he fucking expected.

“Alright, friend,” he said, shrugging. “My bad. I misread you, Nikolai. I know you wouldn’t try to do anything to hurt Cyril, or use him to hurt me or anything. Right? That’s not something a friend would do.” He stared down hard at Stanislofsky, who was tilting his head back as he towered over the fucker, speaking in fucking plain English, the threat right there for any durak to hear.

“No,” Stanislofsky agreed after a beat. “It’s not.” His expression revealed nothing—not at first, anyway. Another second passed, though, and a crease formed between his eyebrows which seemed to say something, except that it wasn’t concern or wariness or anything like Ryan might’ve expected.

It was kind of like…

Huh.

Confusion.

“Glad we clear that up,” Ryan said anyway, pointing a finger gun down at Stanislofsky and firing off an imaginary bullet. “Later, pal.”

He hadn’t misread anything, he decided as he let the smile on his face fall, body turning for the door.

“O’Reily, wait,” Stanislofsky called.

He paused, one hand on the pod door to push it open. “Yeah?” he said, lightening up again as he looked over his shoulder.

The guy was still sitting where Ryan had left him, one arm draped casually over his chair. “You think Cyril will like thirty-six card deck? They have, emm, old pictures—hand drawn. It’s very… ah, pretty,” he explained, flapping his hand.

The words trickled slowly through Ryan’s brain, not pinging any alarms. Just a normal question, no hidden agenda.

A thirty-six card deck. What, for more Durak?

Christ.

But Ryan guessed a thirty-six card deck would eliminate that minor tedium of picking out the lower suites at the start of every game.

And Cyril would like something simple like that, especially if there were pretty card faces—something different and special compared to the usual card decks.

Shit, Ryan sort of wanted to see that, too.

“Yeah, sure, Nikolai,” he said, and headed out with his thoughts swirling, tinged with his own confusion now.

*

By the time that McManus announced that the Secret Santa reveal would take place the next afternoon at one o’clock, Ryan still hadn’t figured out dick.

Despite the news that the gift exchange would take place during Miss Sally’s Schoolyard, Cyril turned back to the table excitedly. Of course he was excited, though—he’d finally finished his damn map and put it in an envelope made out of purple construction paper (because despite McManus’s vow to help, he couldn’t even fork over a fucking manila envelope). “What do you think you’ll get?” he asked, peering around the table.

“I dunno, probably a pair of socks or something,” Ryan said, slumped down in his chair and picking through his cards.

The rules of the new variation of Durak Nikolai had explained—where players could match a suite to transfer their defending turn to the next player—were still bouncing around in his head as he formed a new strategy around it.

Nikolai tended to sit to his left, which meant that if Ryan decided to transfer a defending turn, he could really fuck Nikolai with it—if only Cyril, who wasn’t much of an aggressive attacker, wasn’t sitting to his right. He tended to play weak to middling attacks, which left it up to the other players to build on it.

Keller was sitting across from Ryan that afternoon, though, and while he was still wrapping his head around the rules of the game in general, he seemed to get and like the aspect of ganging up on the Defender to fuck him over. That boded well for fucking with Nikolai.

“I got Poet a three month subscription to Three Sluts,” Keller drawled, shrugging as Nikolai dealt the new hand.

Ryan let out a snort.

“You can’t say who you haaave, Chris!” Cyril complained.

“Why? He ain’t listening.” Keller shrugged again, examining his cards. “You gonna tell, Cyril?”

“Yeah, it’s cool, bro,” Ryan muttered, before Cyril could get all highstrung about it.

Him and this Secret Santa thing, Jesus.

“What about you, Ryan?” Cyril asked, wiggling upright in his chair and holding his cards close to his face as he peered at them. That meant he had a trump card or two, Ryan knew. “What do you want for Christmas?”

“I’m keeping my mind open,” he said, because frankly he hadn’t given much thought to McManus’s Secret Santa fuckshit, what with not giving a damn in the first place besides the prospect of getting a present himself, and then Cyril’s boxing match getting cancelled.

In the end, he hadn’t chased any leads or tried to get a look at the list of Santas and recipients he knew McManus had on his clipboard somewhere, either. The most he’d thought about the exchange recently had been when Nikolai brought it up the other day, and fuck, Ryan still didn’t have a better idea of what the motherfucker was hiding, either.

He was sure there was something, though.

Liam had given him a pensive, doubtful fucking look when he’d told him to keep an eye on the Ruskie, and nothing had come up since then.

Sometimes, leads fell into his lap like gifts from above; this time, there wasn’t so much as a whisper as to what else Nikolai could be planning. It didn’t help that the inmates in Oz closest to him were currently… well, him and Cyril, through sheer contact hours alone.

The guy followed the routine of Oz—worked in the dress factory—somehow had wormed his way into a supervisory position despite being in Oz for less than half a year—and then returned to Em City with the rest. Sometimes he went to the gym to lift. Often, he went to the library. He made his phone calls, too, of course, but the rest of the time, he was either in his pod or to Ryan’s fucking left at a card table.

He only socialized with the Others during meal times, really, like he wasn’t looking to make connections in Oz for the duration that he was in for. Not yet, anyway. And shit, he was a Jew, so the chances he was planning something with the Aryans to fuck with Cyril or Ryan were pretty fucking slim.

More and more, the notion that Nikolai was hanging around for the company—for the fun of it—seemed to be God’s honest truth.

Ryan was keeping his eye on him, though.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, as the saying went. Since he still wasn’t sure which Nikolai was planning on being, he was staying close regardless.

It gave him something to focus on, either way.

Without Cyril’s victory in the boxing tournament to look forward to, and Gloria still avoiding him at every turn—Glynn had predictably rejected a request to meet, too—the days in Oz were back to the same old fucking bore.

“So, socks are okay?” Nikolai said.

Ryan glanced over. He was pretty sure that jibe just then was the Russian equivalent of a joke. Nikolai was looking real fucking tickled by his own question as he played his first hand against Keller.

“Yeah, whatever. I don’t care,” Ryan said. Nothing soured a joke better than complete apathy.

Nikolai continued to look amused by something. He put down another card for Keller to beat, matching the suite the former had played. “You do not have much Christmas spirit.”

“Yeah, well, Secret Santa ain’t really Christmas, or you wouldn’t be doing it too, would you, Nikolai?” Ryan retorted.

Nikolai shrugged. “If it’s something to pass the time… I’m…” His eyes flicked over, gleaming with even more fucking mirth. “Flexible.”

Ryan let out a huff of disbelief. “Yeah, I bet you are,” he muttered, ears suddenly ringing.

Was he saying what-?

No way.

But it sounded like…

Nah.

The amusement on Nikolai’s face was far too goddamn smug.

Yeah, he wished.

Across the table, Keller sighed. “I’m beat.”

Cyril slammed down some cards, giving Ryan his out—something else to look at—a pair of eights, which he quickly joined with an eight of his own, transferring his turn to Defend over to Nikolai.

“Hey, were you talkin’ about fucking?” Keller piped up just then.

Okay, so he’d heard it, too.

Nikolai was looking coolly at his cards as Keller began to smirk.

“Are you a fag, Stanislofsky?” he said with creeping delight, a mean, assessing glint entering his eye.

Nikolai raised his eyebrow. “Fag?” he said after a beat. “No. No fags in Russia.” He put down a nine, jack, and queen, neatly beating the middle cards.

Ryan placed a queen on the table, matching Nikolai’s move. “Yeah, sounded like you were saying you like to play cornhole in prison.”

“What is playing cornhole?”

“It means your butthole,” Cyril offered.

“Ah, my mistake—” Nikolai said something in crisp Russian and then played an ace—“Language barrier.”

There was a pause in the conversation as everyone glanced at their cards again.

Keller sucked his teeth and Nikolai smirked, shoving the beaten cards off to the side as everyone’s hands were replenished and it was Nikolai’s turn to attack.

“Speaking of cornhole,” he said, gesturing at Keller. “You and Beecher. What is happening there?”

The look in Keller’s eyes went cold—cold enough that even Ryan, who’s first instinct was to snort at the balls on Nikolai for throwing the question out there—held his breath. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth, feigning disinterest as he gazed at his cards.

Ever since they’d fucked over Schillinger’s kid, the tentative alliance between Beecher and Keller had fallen apart again. Beecher was keeping a Fuck Off distance from Ryan again, too, but Ryan was used to that—it didn’t tear him up inside like it did Keller.

There’d been a small, public argument between the two in the cafeteria the previous day, and now Beecher and Kareem Saïd were tight as thieves, Saïd on the outs with the Muslims for good after weeks of hurtling toward some kind of schism.

It was all so fucking dramatic, Beecher and Keller.

When Beecher had gotten sober—had told Ryan to piss off, that’d been that. Beecher wasn’t special. He could be replaced.

Ryan guessed that he understood that look on Keller’s face at the subtle reminder that he’d been spurned, though—after everything he had done to make it up to Beecher. It had to suck from his perspective.

The whole getting bent out of shape over a man part of the equation was a mystery, though.

“He’ll come around,” Keller said in a strange voice, too tense to be cavalier. There was anger there as he pushed back from the table, throwing his cards down. “I’m bored,” he claimed loudly, his eyes roving across Em City toward Saïd’s pod where Beecher was parked outside in a chair, reading the Qu’ran.

“Nice work, Ni-ko-lai,” Ryan drawled as Cyril reached out, turning over Keller’s cards.

“He had the Ace!”

“Too bad.” Nikolai said. Across the entire interaction, his tone and delivery hadn’t changed once, his poker face admirably solid. “Just the three of us, then. You take his turn, Cyril.”

“I think Chris should say he’s sorry,” Cyril volunteered as he peeked between his cards and the one Nikolai had played. “Saying sorry helps.” He reached out, taking it and forfeiting his turn to attack.

“When you hurt people you say you love, they do not so easily believe apology,” Nikolai mused.

“Gee, you should open an advice column there. Yeah, you’re just full of wisdom, huh?” Ryan said flatly. He couldn’t help but think it was another dig at him that Nikolai was making, but he couldn’t prove it, either. Nikolai wasn’t even looking at him. Ryan wasn’t going to let that psyche him out, though.

He was onto the asshole.

At this point, he could probably read Nikolai better than anyone in Em City, and the Ruskie had no idea, either. Sure, maybe he knew he was being watched, but he surely didn’t know that he was being read.

One slip up and Ryan was going to fuck him.

Ryan played a seven of spades, just to get rid of the lower suite.

Nikolai beat it easily and played a nine of hearts for Cyril to easily beat, too.

“I can put down nine, right, Nikolai?” he said, eyes lighting up as his card was already halfway to the table.

A serene smile crossed Nikolai’s face as if it didn’t overjoy him to say, “Yes. Now Ryan defends against two nines.”

The grin on Cyril’s face was shit-eating, too, as he laid down a nine of diamonds.

Jesus Christ.

Ryan looked down at his cards. He had the six of clubs, a trump card to beat one card, but no higher suite to beat the other, his hand full of black cards.

Sighing through his nose, he reached out to take the cards.

He had one more trump card, but if he couldn’t shed his hand before the remaining cards were dealt, his lousy hand would be the one he was locked in with.

To Ryan’s right, Cyril giggled.

To his left, Nikolai’s smile had turned sly, his tongue sticking between his teeth as he dealt Cyril one card to replenish his hand and took one for himself as well. “Molodets, Cyril,” he said.

That one meant good job, Ryan knew.

He fucking hated that he knew that shit, slumping further in his seat as Cyril chirped, “Spasiba!”

Thanks.

Snorting, Ryan rolled his eyes.

***

TIM

The Secret Santa exchange had gone better than even he could have anticipated.

As the gifts rolled in, piled together on the two desks beside Tim, he looked over his clipboard, pleased to note that everyone who’d signed up had brought something to give and that none of the emergency goodie bags he’d prepared just in case were needed.

Tim hadn’t been able to get the Muslims to participate but even Beecher, who’d signed up before his current involvement with Saïd—hadn’t backed out of the exchange. He was standing on the side of the room near the other Others—Hill who’d been carried up in his chair before the meeting began, and Busmalis and Rebadow.

Leftover goodie bags meant mini canes and Hershey kisses for his own desk drawer then, Tim supposed. Or maybe he’d just hand them out to Diane, Gloria, Pete, Andrea and all them. Not Claire, of course. Sean would probably take a couple of kisses, though.

“Alright,” Tim called, waving for the classroom of men to shut the fuck up. “Let’s get this thing rolling… I want to thank everyone—ALRIGHT, SETTLE,” he barked.

This time, the noises quieted down for real, attentions that had been wandering and jaws that had been wagging finally shifting forward and closing, respectively.

“I want to thank you all for putting your thought and time into this. To do something nice for your fellow inmate. It looks like we’ve got some exciting gifts here”—He gestured at the pile of boxes and lumpy packages, some gifts wrapped in newspaper, some in brown packaging paper, and even two in the nice holiday giftwrap Tim had procured, hoping someone would ask for it—“So let’s dive right in.”

He outlined the rules for gift collection; everyone had been instructed to clearly label who the recipient of each present was, so Tim would be picking them out of the pile and calling out names. For safety reasons—and to make sure everyone had adhered to the prohibition on gifting contraband, presents would be opened in the classroom.

“Let’s keep this festive, huh? No whining about what you got. We’re adults here, got it?” Tim said, glancing around the room as he was answered in snorts and grumbles of agreement. “Got it?” It was like pulling teeth.

“Yo, you want us to send thank you cards to each other, too, McManus?” Hoyt called.

The men jeered.

“C’mon, McManus, I want my present, man!” Wangler griped.

Tim pressed his lips together, choosing his battles as he turned to the pile of gifts and picked the first package that caught his eye—a nice, rectangular box, which, as he looked at the name scribbled over an old, blacked out shipping label, he strongly suspected was a re-gift.

“Nikolai S.!” he called.

As the man picked his way out of the crowd to collect the box, someone did a drumroll on a desk, earning snickers and complaints alike.

At least the inmates were in a jolly mood, squeezed into the classroom, Tim supposed.

Pressures were seemingly low in Emerald City as of late; delaying the next boxing match until after the new year had eased some of the competitive spirit that was spilling into real tension, though it was sure to be back on after the holidays. A match between Pancamo and Khan promised to be a solid one, and Tim suspected that the good behavior requirement of going to sit ringside was helping to keep at least a couple of the inmates in line.

With Cyril O’Reily out of the picture, the rematch between Robson and Cramer was keeping the Aryan Brotherhood on their good behavior, too. How long any of the peace would last, Tim didn’t know, but frankly, the end of 1999 was looking like it might be a quiet one.

Trouble had quieted beyond the usual scuffle here and there; no one had died in months—if you didn’t count Andrew Schillinger, who’d O.Ded in the Hole and therefore, not under Tim’s watch—and nothing big was brewing as far as he could tell. Even Ryan O’Reily hadn’t kicked up as big of a fuss about Cyril being medically disqualified from the boxing tournament as Tim had been bracing himself for.

Instead, of course, he’d been getting chummy with a certain Russian mobster. The new alliance didn’t seem to spell good news for the future—unless, as Tim allowed himself to hope, the new association was simply a sign that Ryan was getting into the spirit of Secret Santa. He’d pulled Stanislofsky’s name from the bucket as his recipient, after all…

As Stanislofsky opened the lid of the box, though, all that sat inside were two pairs of lumpy gray socks and a couple of packets of Swiss Miss.

Nothing special.

Tim suppressed a sigh.

So much for his theory. Yeah, they were probably up to some shit, then.

Shit.

Stanislofsky let out a snort, glancing up across the room and straight at O’Reily. “I got socks,” he told the room.

There was an odd swell of approval amidst the boos and borings.

“Great,” Tim said. “How about you pick out the next gift now?”

It went like that.

Each new gift recipient picked the next present to find its way home. The exchange ranged from the basic—coffees, candy and snacks, stationary, phone card money, various pre-approved books, some nicer deodorants and shampoos and lotions—to the slightly more effortful—finger tape for Vasquez, a magazine subscription for Poet, photo cards of old Hollywood starlets for Rebadow, a sudoku book for Beecher, NBA-themed Pogs for Hill, a thirty-six card deck featuring ornate Russian folk art for Cyril—and then on to slightly bizarre presents:

Adebisi had gifted O’Reily a larger version of one of his ridiculous hats, which Ryan spun around on his finger, no mystery to his Secret Santa as he nodded his chin in Adebisi’s direction, returning to his spot after picking up a purple envelope to be gifted next.

Cyril’s picture of the prison with little stick figures of Busmalis and Rebadow holding hands outside was slightly morbid in Tim’s opinion, the colors bright yet offputting, green and neon yellow for the prison and red for Busmalis and Rebadow’s smiley faces.

Note to self, Tim thought as the inmates gave a mixed reception to the picture, Schedule Cyril for another psych eval with Pete.

At least Busmalis seemed happy about the drawing, beaming from ear-to-ear as he carefully tucked it back in the handmade envelope.

As one by one, the gifts were all revealed, Tim was happy to note that no one’s present needed to be taken in as contraband, though it was dicey with a couple of them, like a jump rope Tim agreed not to confiscate once Burns agreed he would keep it in the office until next visitation when he could give it to his step-daughter.

There was also the matter of gifts that’d been chosen mean-spiritedly.

Opening one of the giftwrapped boxes, Alvarez revealed that the presents that had been hiding in that very box Tim had helped wrap had been a silver, plastic tiara and a cheap, little girl’s tote bag with a flower design on it.

Tim groaned internally as the onlookers burst into snickers and snorts.

Alvarez’s expression turned sour, meanwhile, a muscle in his cheek jumping as he clenched his jaw, his curious smile dropping away.

“Yo, nice purse, Alvarez,” Wangler called, making it clear, if Tim hadn’t already been aware, that he was the genius behind that particular gift.

Glaring across the room, Alvarez promptly snapped the tiara in half, chucking it in the trash beside Tim where the gift wrappings had been collecting as the onlookers whistled and cackled. To Alvarez credit, he didn’t storm out of the room, going back to his gang and sitting down atop one of the classroom bookshelves at the edge of the room with a scowl as Hernandez leaned over to hiss in his ear.

“Alright, enough, enough—settle down,” Tim snapped. “I said nice gifts. That? That was NOT appropriate.” He waved at everyone to shut up, and, because Alvarez had stalked off before he could choose the next gift, he picked up one of the few remaining parcels himself. “Chris K.!”

Pancamo had given him a simple but elegant leather belt—probably the priciest gift in the exchange, whether or not the leather was real.

Everyone oohed.

Even Tim wanted to ooh a little.

“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” he said, clapping as Keller picked up the last present, a soup can shaped package wrapped in newspapers.

“It’s for Adebisi,” he drawled.

With the reveal that Adebisi had been given a plastic dispenser full of toothpicks—weird—Tim considered whether or not to confiscate the gift.

Then again, since getting all the drugs out of his system and returning from his stint in the psych ward, Adebisi had been nothing but subdued and well-behaved. He smiled vaguely at the toothpicks and held them to his chest and Tim shrugged, supposing it would be fine to let him keep them for the time being.

“Alright, guys, give it up for everyone,” Tim said, clapping a hand against his clipboard.

A smattering of applause went around the room. Tim saw Ryan reach past Stanislofsky to tug on Cyril’s wrist, stopping him, and he rolled his eyes, lifting his clipboard.

“Okay, now that we’ve all got our presents, I’ll read off who the Secret Santas were and then I’ll let you go,” he declared, glancing up to note the vague interest that was keeping the men from complaining. “First, does anyone have any guesses?”

“Yeah, I have a guess,” Ryan said, plopping his new hat in a ball atop his head amidst rumbles of laughter. The hat slid off his head, caught with quick reflexes by Stanislofsky, who handed it back.

“I’ll just read the list,” Tim decided coolly.

He went alphabetically down his list, revealing that Alvarez had given Rebadow the photo cards, Beecher had been the one to give Fiona the holiday duo set of nail polish, Burns had gifted Shupe the tie-dye shirt, and so on.

O’Reily leaned over to mutter something to Stanislofsky when it was revealed he’d been the man’s Secret Santa, and judging by his quiet, responding smirk, maybe the hot cocoa and socks weren’t as thoughtless as Tim had assumed.

He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing in the long run, but he moved on, passing on by Stanislofsky’s reveal as Cyril’s Secret Santa, news that was met with a grin from Cyril, whose hearty clap on Stanislofsky’s back seemed genuinely to surprise him—or maybe that was just the force of the patting.

As the Secret Santa reveals reached the end, Tim could tell a couple of the guys were getting restless, rearing to be let back out to the floor, so he sped through the last couple names. “...And Miguel, Kenny was your Secret Santa,” he finished.

Knowing jeers circled the room as everyone had already guessed as much—probably from all the unsubtle cackling and pointing earlier—Kenny was only getting worse and worse these days, and he wasn’t particularly clever about picking his fights.

Tim was debating whether or not to have a second talk with Wangler about actually apologizing—

When there was suddenly a yell that broke through the low murmur of the crowded class:

“YO, BRICKS!”

And when Tim’s head snapped up, he had only the time to see Alvarez charging across the room with an angry look and hear the alarm bells in his head go off—like Wangler, not noticing the little tote bag until it was already swinging forward into full view, propelled by the momentous weight of what appeared to be two classroom encyclopedias that had been placed inside of it.

THWACK.

A ripple of surprised yelps and delighted hoots popped off around the room as Wangler’s small frame went flying off the desk he was perched on, falling onto Pierce and Poet as, behind Alvarez, Guerra and Hernandez jumped to their feet.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about, Michael!” Hernandez shouted approvingly.

The crowd roared, hungry for violent entertainment and whipped immediately into a frenzy at the promise of it.

Wangler was pushed upright, only to fall on his ass again, dazed and confused as Pierce lunged forward, quick to defend the kid’s rep.

“STOP!” Tim bellowed, seeing the writing on the wall.

Seeing was already far too late in Oz, though.

The classroom doors burst open and Joe and Sean attempted to break through the crowd of inmates blocking the entrance to the room while, in the center of what had become a battle ring, fists swung and kicks flew.

“Christ!” Tim yelled, ducking as a flowery tote nearly hit him in the face. “Shit!”

Hernandez had picked up Alvarez’s dropped bag and was beating the Homeboy Jamal Barnes into a corner with it while Carlo Ricardo stomped Wangler where he was curled up in the fetal position on the ground.

“Take that, cabrón! Take that!”

Pierce and Guerra were duking it out, too, having crashed against the desks, hands around each other’s throats, while Poet shouted at a slowly approaching Alvarez, “Aw, come on, man! We’re cool, man!”

“Goddammit, cut it out!” Tim yelled ineffectively as Poet scrambled over a desk to put space between him and Alvarez. Not so lucky was Pierce, clawing at the hands closed like a vise around his neck and shaking him as he gurgled.

“Ooh,” the crowd groaned sympathetically as Pierce’s knee landed against Guerra’s groin, instantly springing him free from strangulation.

His wheezing coughs and gasps joined the ruckus of the spectators as he sank to his knees on the ground, no different than his opponent.

“Christ, it’s always something,” Tim complained aloud, slamming his clipboard on a nearby desk to try and distract the fight with the noise. “HEY!”

Hernandez’s tote was now in a tug-of-war between him and Barnes who, bruised and battered, was finally putting up a fight. Ricardo was still kicking the shit out of Wangler, meanwhile, and Alvarez was hauling Guerra to his feet to shove in Poet’s direction.

And Tim, his throat was beginning to hurt.

It was all useless.

Animals!

An alarm began to blare through the unit a second later, as Sean, shouting into his radio, finally pushed through the Italians to join the fray, baton rising into the air.

Giving up, Tim leaned back on one leg, pinching the bridge of his nose as his ears rang and his head pounded. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in deep, placating himself with the fact that at least the spirit of Secret Santa seemed to have contained the spectators; they were letting the Homeboys and El Norte go at it alone, everyone cheering on the bloodsport but no one joining in.

“Yeah, man!” he heard O’Reily cheering. “Kill that ublyudok!”

S.O.R.T would descend on the classroom soon enough, Tim reminded himself, gritting his teeth as he let out a forceful sigh through his nose.

Fucking hell!

So much for peace in the new year.

So much for fucking peace!

***

THE FOOL

As he sat in front of the TVs, watching that fucking ridiculous puppet show, he was at least keeping an eye on Stanislofky’s pod across the unit.

Em City had been largely drained of all color that afternoon, as most of the homeboys and El Norte were in the Hole or the hospital following the brawl that’d broken out when the spic swang on ‘Bricks’ with what might as well have been a sack of them—for how quickly he went down, anyway.

Fucking pathetic.

Anyway, with the TVs on and the remaining inmates settled in front of them or quietly playing cards at the recreation tables, the hacks were on low alert, most of them congregated up at their platform station as the glass on Stanislofsky’s pod gleamed, the door swinging open.

Ryan came out, walking fast as he headed for their pod; the kid stood, curiosity piqued, and pattered over like a helpless fucking duckling.

“Did you give Nikolai your secret present?” the kid asked once he’d slipped into the pod after Ryan.

Ryan was leaning against the wall by the sink, rubbing a hand through his hair which was already spiked up in different directions. Vodka stunk on his breath as he let out a huff.

“Yeah, bro,” he said, breathing hard, an unconscious smile playing at his lips.

The kid grinned.

He was fucking terrible at reading their brother, but Cyril knew. Oh, he fucking knew it. He could see it in that way Ryan was blinking hard and turning away to splash water against his face.

You idiot.

He was going to do some stupid shit again.

Ask him what took so long.

“Did he like it?” the kid asked instead.

The kid ignored him. The kid was stubborn. The kid was tenacious. He hadn’t let Cyril back into the goddamn driver’s seat and now look where they were—fucking Oz!

How much did he drink?

They’d both glimpsed Stanislofsky’s and Ryan’s turned backs moving deeper into the cell.

“It’s vodka, bro. Of course he liked it,” Ryan said dismissively. He was staring into the mirror, though, sharp eyes searching his own face—probably telling himself some lie—before he reached for a washcloth and patted his skin dry, turning around.

He could trust the kid not to ask him about his tendencies because he probably assumed the kid didn’t remember.

Cyril remembered, though. Cyril knew his older brother. Cyril had always kept his secrets, because they’d had each other’s backs and because he’d loved Ryan!

And what had that fucking gotten him?

Tell him he’s obvious. Tell him he’s a stupid fa—

“Did you have some?” the kid giggled, leaning closer to whisper, perpetually juvenile, even when he was trying to be conspiratorial—especially when he was trying to be conspiratorial. “I can smell it, Ryan.”

Ryan snorted, slinging an arm around their shoulders and pulling him in tight. “What, you want some? Too late. All gone.”

The kid made a face. “Vodka’s yucky.”

The kid fucking sucked.

Cyril growled his annoyance, letting the kid know just how much he fucking sucked before storming off into the fog. He wandered aimlessly and angrily and when he finally drifted out of the haze, they were sitting at the fucking card table again, playing fucking Durak with the fucking Russian cards the kid had been so fucking over the moon to receive earlier.

Fuck!

Cyril watched the game in silence, tired and irritated as the kid missed opportunity after opportunity to shed some of his cards because Cyril wasn’t helping him that afternoon.

He could tell the kid wanted him to help, though.

Suck it up. Figure it out yourself.

He laid down in the big black room that was his own personal Oz and looked out the window to where Ryan and Stanislofsky were sitting opposite each other, at the tail end of exchanging some weird look that had Stanislofsky smirking a bit.

Hill, the inmate in the wheelchair, was seated opposite Cyril and the kid.

They were all chatting away about old holiday traditions and memories.

Stanislofsky was saying something in his dumb accent about the gulags and then Hill was talking again.

Blah blah blah.

“Jesus Christ,” Cyril said, startling a little when he realized the kid’s mouth had formed the exact same words. He perked up, looking around before Ryan nodded.

“Exactly. You can’t have a nativity scene without Jesus.”

Dammit.

“But it doesn’t make sense for baby Jesus to be there and have him be on the cross!” Hill argued.

Deflating, Cyril flopped back over onto his back with a sigh.

A time passed, and then, out of the blue, the kid nudged at him, forcing Cyril to roll onto his side and look down at their cards. For once, he didn’t have a million of them in his hands. In fact, he had an eight, two queens, and a trump seven and ten of spades.

Cyril jerked upright.

Shit, we can work with this!

The kid had gotten close to winning a couple of times, but Cyril knew that the times that he had so far, the other players had let him or had been taking it easy on him.

Beside him, Stanislofsky played a queen. He and Ryan were making eyes at each other again, which meant that neither had been paying enough attention to be helping the kid out a bit.

Okay, play our queens, Cyril shouted.

That turned the three queens to Ryan to defend against, which he couldn’t, taking the cards and forfeiting his turn.

Hill played cautiously, getting rid of a six; Stanislofsky played an eight.

The eight!

The kid didn’t move.

“All beaten?” Stanislofsky moved to clear the table.

THE EIGHT, CYRIL!

“Wait!” The kid straightened up, and as they shed the eight, Cyril realised he was on his feet, a giddy feeling in his chest.

Stanislofsky played a trump card, still beating the hand, but it was okay.

We got this, Cyril told the kid. Play your trump cards. As long as he doesn’t play a trump higher than ten, we can win.

Beside them, Stanislofsky pursed his lips. He had four cards left himself, and his fingers tapped the back of them in thought.

C’mon, you fucking Ruskie bastard, Cyril said, startled when the floor shook beneath his feet, knocking him over.

Fuck. Whatever.

The kid didn’t like the namecalling.

Cyril rolled his eyes, cursing under his breath as he staggered upright again.

Yeah, yeah, shut up, kid.

As disapproving as he was, the room stilled as they watched with bated breath;

Stanislofsky played an ace of hearts and then a black ace… Clubs, not spades.

BEAT HIM! Cyril screamed.

The kid slammed down their trump cards, jumping to their feet with a cheer. “FUCK YEAH!” Cyril cheered.

“Jesus,” Hill startled.

Below him, Stanislofsky laughed, shaking his head, and Cyril felt Ryan tugging on their arm, laughing, too.

“Alright, sit down, bro.”

“I won!” the kid crowed.

People were staring—even the hacks, looking over to the suddenly boisterous card table.

Fuck them—we won, Cyril said.

“I’m first place! I won!” the kid said again, letting Ryan drag him back down to his seat. “He played aces and I beat him!”

“Yeah, you got him, man,” he said, amused and—proud, Cyril guessed, feeling him squeeze their shoulder.

“Molodchinka, Cyril!” Stanislofsky said as he cleared the table. “You are getting the hang of this version.”

The kid beamed as he sat back in his chair to watch the rest of the game progress. The kid felt like his plastic chair had transformed into a throne and he looked around the table, feeling warm.

Yeah, good job, kid, Cyril told him, letting out a tired huff as he sank to his knees, suddenly feeling bowled over as a wave of fatigue crashed up against him.

The tide pulled on his ankle.

He knew he’d be slipping back under the depths of that sea of exhaustion soon; it wasn’t just that the kid was strong. Cyril was weak.

Don’t throw a fit when you don’t win again, he said, lying down. I’ll be back soon, okay?

He didn’t know if the kid could hear him anymore, but he could tell that the kid was happy.

Happy to play cards. Happy, for better or worse, to be there with Ryan, who’d thankfully quit reaming him over the boxing bullshit. Nah, there was Stanislofsky there now, too. He’d earned Ryan’s tentative approval and was maybe having a hand in watching out for the kid for whatever reason lately; of course, the kid suspected only general friendship, but Cyril had noticed a more calculating glint or two in the Russian’s gaze.

The kid could count on him as well until Cyril could return to help the kid handle things.

It was okay.

I’m gonna take a nap now, kid.

A fluffy pillow materialized under Cyril’s cheek, making him snort as he rolled over and found a blanket following him. He pulled it up to his shoulders.

Merry Christmas, moy drug, the kid said softly.

Cyril closed his eyes.