“Stop doing that, man,” and Chico’s body tenses, a sudden guilty look in his eyes as he notices Miguel watching him in the mirror.
“What are you, my mother?” he retorts, and Miguel can’t help but smirk.
“Gonna make it worse.” He detaches himself from his post, where he’d stood for a good two minutes before finally making his presence known – long enough to start to feel a little bit bad about it. It was the kind of shit Torquemada used to do, shit he’d hated at the time, enough to start trying to turn it back around on him and see how the fucker liked it.
Of course, the guy had just laughed. Keep it up, sweetie – patting his head, like Miguel was his fucking dog or something (“don’t want you to be my bitch”, his ass) – you’ll have it down in two shakes.
Miguel had stopped doing it around him, but he guessed he hadn’t stopped doing it completely – or else it had come back, now that he had someone he actually wanted to look at.
“You should’ve said something,” he continues, plopping down onto the bed. “Could’ve got you some cream from the infirmary.”
“Can get it myself,” and the ice in Chico’s voice stings, but Miguel figures he had it coming. Wasn’t trying to be a creep, he argues in his head. I’m not like him. We’re not like –
This shit is different.
But “alright,” is all he says. “Make sure you actually do, though. It ain’t gonna go away on its own. Hell, mine still fucking bothers me.” Man, what the fuck are you babbling about? Jesus, you do sound like his mother. Miguel picks up a shirt off the pile of clothes on the floor, smells it. Grimaces.
If you were his mother, you would have done the laundry.
He tosses the dirty shirt to the side, frustrated.
“What, your face?”
“Yeah,” Miguel mutters. It’s too late to throw his stuff in the wash now – should have thought about it in the morning but he’d been too riled up, woke up on the wrong side of whatever with his head full of horrors and his veins full of electricity, suddenly back in the same dark place he’d clawed his way out of months ago.
There’s nothing wrong with you, Miguel, Mukada had told him in that gentle voice of his. This kind of thing happens.
Yeah, well, it seems to happen to me a hell of a lot.
Chico’s gone uncharacteristically quiet – Miguel had been half-waiting for the next volley, the endless game of back and forth that he’d grown used to again now that they were cool (more than that, he reminds himself; needs to keep reminding himself, because days like today it feels too good to be true) – and when he glances up and sees the empty look on Chico’s face his heart drops like a stone.
Shit. What –
He replays the conversation in his head and it clicks. He sighs.
“Don’t worry about it, man,” Miguel reassures him. “Water under the bridge.” It really is. Maybe hadn’t been, not completely, that first day in McManus’ office – well, it definitely hadn’t been. He’d been suspicious as hell, figuring Chico’s declaration was just more of the same bullshit, waiting for the other shoe to drop – knife in his back this time, where he wouldn't see it coming.
But any residual resentment or wariness had dissipated completely that day in the laundry room – music blaring, fingernails tearing at flesh, the hacks wheeling Chico out on a stretcher.
You seem down.
Yeah. A guy...overdosed.
Didn’t realise he’d even cared all that much until then, how good it had been to finally have someone have his back again, until it was gone – nobody to look out for him when the Nazis came for him because of Cathy Jo, and nobody to break his fall into the abyss after the door to freedom had been slammed shut in his face once again.
Nobody except Torquemada, that is, with his oily words and his little green pills the only escape he could afford – and the price ended up being too damn high. Still paying it, really, but –
What’s done is done. It is what it is.
If he didn’t believe that –
Well, he’d probably go fucking nuts. Again.
“Hey,” he says suddenly, ‘cause he can see that Chico isn’t buying it, getting in his own damn head about what the fuck ever – makes him feel kinda good and bad at the same time. Good, because at least it isn’t just him who’s so fucked up, but he’d kill himself before he let Chico feel the same way. “Still beating,” he reminds him, taking Chico’s hand and placing it over his heart. “I’m still alive, and so are you.
“What’s done is done,” and he really does believe that. Usually. Most of the time.
Definitely about this.
“All scores are settled,” Miguel adds, thinking of Enrique – and as always, thinking of that pine box.
That could’ve been you. Could’ve been me.
But it isn’t. We’re both here, and we’re going to fucking stay that way.
The call for count rings out, and Miguel reluctantly steps back – would’ve stayed there forever if he could, all these sneering fucks be damned. Let ‘em make their snide fucking comments, about him being a prag, trading out Torquemada for Chico – what the fuck ever.
He knew the truth, and that was all that mattered.
This shit is different.
A kind of escape he could actually look forward to when the lights went out each night – no blur, no sickness in the morning, groping for half-formed memories and filled with regret – a touch he actually craved, ecstasy that lasted, intimacy that was real, for once.
Me, well, I've mostly been a loner.
Not anymore. Not ever again.
“Get your shit tomorrow morning,” he says, trying to tamp down the achey sort of warmth in his chest. Hours to go until 10 – he had to get his head on straight. “First thing.”
“Sí, jefe,” Chico drawls – back to his usual self, the clouds in his eyes wiped away. "Claaaro que sí.”
“I mean it. And I don’t want to see you messing with it in the meantime.” He points at Chico, who just grins at him, utterly unfazed. “Or else.”
“I like it when you get all bossy and shit. Better save some of that for later.” Chico flicks his tongue like a snake, and Miguel bites back a laugh.
“Cállate,” – shoving him lightly as he steps out of the pod. He’s still wearing a smile when his eyes meet Torquemada’s across the quad, and he sees the smug look on Torquemada’s face flicker – that all-too-familiar anger briefly cracking the facade when Miguel refuses to look away, just holds his chin high and stares him down.
Our shit is different.
See how the fucker likes it now.