Ransom the Captives

Disclaimer: Oz is property of HBO Productions. I am not affiliated with them and am making no money from this piece.
Spoilers: For early fourth season, especially A Cock and Balls Story and Works of Mercy.


Ransom the Captives

Toby sat in front of the TV for lack of anything better to do. The dings and beeps from that insipid game show filled his ears, but before his eyes were only shadows--the shadows of Holly and Gary, his missing kids—floating everywhere he looked.

At the weight of a hand upon his head, he startled to his feet. His body recognized the man behind that touch if not the meaning of it before his brain had processed the whole thing. Chris Keller was as protean as a Magic Eight Ball from the wrong side of the tracks; you never knew from moment to moment what the next shake of chance might reveal.

Toby cursed himself and his irresponsible body for ten thousand types of fools as he couldn't help but turn into that waiting smile.

It was that joyless, metered, smile: the one that that would forever represent Chris Keller in Toby's mind. Chris held out his arms and Toby fell into them reflexively.

He'd forgotten how much he missed that scent.

Chris's arms--still solid muscle--wrapped around him, and for the first time in two weeks Toby breathed in safety and not fear. He fell against the beating heart and counted automatically the beats which spoke of Chris being here, alive and real.

Bam, bam, bam! The hack whacked the railing with his stick. "Break it up, you two!"

Reluctantly, they pulled apart.

Chris looked up at the guard station with that same joyless, metered face. On the surface it was unreadable, but Toby could see the hairs bristle on the back of Chris's neck. He could hear the difference in Chris's breathing and just barely see the way the arm muscles beyond the T-shirt twitched beneath the skin.

It was the look of the wolf on the hunt.

But Chris had his priorities. His eyes released the guard and shifted back to Toby. "Come on--the pod," he said. To outside eyes it seemed that the moment was over, but Toby knew Chris too well for that. Nothing was ever forgotten, just set aside for the appropriate, calculated time.

This was not the time for that.

Toby watched as Chris took of his tee. He didn't miss the little grunt that came with bending his right arm or the wince Chris tried to hide behind the cheap polyester blend as he pulled the shirt awkwardly over his head. "You okay?"

"Shit, yeah," said Chris. "They can stab me, shoot me, I still ain't going down." Was that another grunt or another mirthless laugh?

Chris turned, suddenly sober. "How you doing?"

Toby felt his lip quiver. Fuck, no: he would not do this here. "My kids--" The quiver quickened rapidly worse and he stopped speaking before he cracked entirely.

Chris moved in against him. "I heard; that's fucked up."

"I just feel so goddammed helpless!" No! No. He would not do this here in front of Chris.

"I bet." Chris moved even closer. There was no condemnation in his voice. He wrapped one arm behind Toby's neck. Toby could feel the heat both front and back. "Toby, they're going to be okay. It's going to be fine."

Chris Keller always knew exactly what lie his next mark wanted--needed--to hear.

Toby shivered as Chris stroked his hair, his neck, with a surprisingly gentle touch. Chris moved in for a kiss.

Toby turned away. His hand went to the bandage on Chris's chest. He pulled it off. "Oh man." Through the lung. It couldn't be far from the pulmonary vessels. Chris should be dead, by rights, shouldn't he? Chris had saved him from a shank, now almost died trying to take down Frenchy and his gun.

Whatever one might say about Chris Keller, that bullet wound was no lie. Toby thought it might be the most real, the most beautiful, thing he had ever seen.

"I missed you." Chris's voice was thick with an ache that Toby knew too well himself.

"Me too." Toby said and meant it despite it all. God this is so fucked up. But wasn't real love always little fucked up? Maybe that had been the perpetual problem with love all along.

There was pressure at the back of his neck as Chris tried to bend his face up for a kiss. Toby fought it and leaned down and in instead. He put his lips to the bullet scar and gently--reverently--graced it with a kiss.

The familiar heat came over him, and he was suddenly too hard to even think. Toby let his body have its way with him. Life was too short--too uncertain--and in Oz there were too few pleasures to let go lightly of one within one's grasp.

Chris held them together as they swayed as one; Toby let himself be held by Chris's strength. His groin pulsed acutely as he heard Chris's sharp intake of breath against his ear.

Toby deepened his ministrations until he tasted blood and life.

God, this was so fucked up.

"Toby--" Again Chris pressured Toby's face upward to his mouth. This time Toby let him do it, absently aware of being more surprised than afraid of how much he wanted--cried for--this intimacy above the others. There was no tentative teenaged hesitation, only the melding of two lonely men both taking what they needed for there may not be another chance. They pressed hips and groins together--one need against the other--until the act was more torture than pleasure to them both.

God, love was so fucked up.

Chris's breath was hot against his ear. "Toby, I love you."

Maybe it was a lie; maybe it wasn't. With Keller, how could one ever know?

With one hand, Chris massaged Toby's crotch; with one hand, Toby undid Chris's fly. Chris gasped with the first touch of skin on skin and Toby gripped him firmly, taking care to place his fingertips along the sensitive underside where Chris liked it best.

The rumble of pounding on the door jarred them both. "Break it up!" The hack barged into the pod and pushed Keller bodily against the wall.

Keller took it. He just stood there breathing hard, his erection pointed directly at the hack,

A trickle of blood ran down from his wound.

His eyes were now all wolf.

"Fuck!" said the guard staring at his hand where some blood had smeared his palm. He wiped it viciously on the bed. "You fucking faggots, knock it off. I don't want any trouble on my shift."

As if on cue, Poet screamed from the common area. The alarum sounded.

"Lockdown!"

"Fuck!" The hack turned and ran, his stick raised in the air.

Toby sagged down onto the lower bunk--Chris's bunk. Chris stepped over. "Toby, just because--"

"Drop it," said Toby. The moment was broken. Again the specters of his missing children flitted before his eyes. He squeezed them shut to no avail.

"Toby, I love you." It would be so easy, so nice to believe.

Toby opened his eyes. "You're bleeding." He tested a finger in the blood.

"It's nothing." Chris stroked his arm. "Toby, don't let them get to you."

Toby pushed away. He went to the sink for the bandage and gently covered the wound back up.

Chris stood still and let him do it. "I love you," Chris repeated.

"I know," said Toby. He turned from Chris's kiss and lay back down on the bunk. It was a little crowded for three--his missing kids haunting him and all--but in Oz you make do with what you get. He threw an arm over his eyes.

Keller's voice cut through the shields. "Toby, can I hold you? I just want to hold you, all right?"

Toby opened one eye. Chris loomed over him. There was no smile there at all. It would be so easy to believe.

Toby slid over on the bunk.

He felt the press of Chris's erection against his side, but Chris made no move towards sex at all. He just held Toby close and tight.

"Harder," breathed Toby. His own words startled him. He hadn't planned or tried to say them out loud. "Hold me harder." His voice was stronger now; the damage was already done, and besides, maybe that would keep the demons away.

It didn't, but it helped a bit. And in Oz, you make do with what you get.

They lay like that until lights out with one eye open for the hacks. One would think they'd have better things to do, what with the Aryans and the Blacks killing each other again just a few yards away.

But this wasn't a world where things made sense, baby; this was Oz. And in Oz, love is the greatest forbidden thing.