The first time Ryan “not a fag” O’Reily kissed him, it was as part of a game of Truth or Dare – which, in Oz, may as well have just been called Dare, since nobody trusted anyone else enough to expect a sincere answer from Truth.
“Don’t make this weird,” he warned as he leaned in, aiming for his cheek, so of course Alonzo did – bringing his hand up lightning fast to clasp the back of Ryan’s neck and kiss him firmly on the lips, holding him in place, grinning against his mouth as he felt Ryan squirm to get away. When he finally let go, Ryan jerked back, glaring at him.
Whatever. It wasn’t like he was going to get another chance.
---
The second time was during one of their sparring sessions, offered by Ryan in exchange for a fee that Alonzo was happy to pay – the Sicilians had his back for now, but he wasn’t stupid enough to assume they would forever. He hit the bag too hard, felt something in his hand pop, and hissed in pain.
“Let me see,” Ryan said, reaching for his wrist. He held Alonzo’s hand up to his face, inspecting it – poked his knuckle, making Alonzo wince. “That hurt?”
“All good, baby,” Alonzo replied through gritted teeth. “Be right as rain, once you kiss it better.”
He meant it as a joke, but Ryan just brought Alonzo’s hand up to his lips, lightly kissed his knuckles, and Alonzo’s heart skipped a beat.
“Okay, hit it again,” Ryan said, letting go of his wrist and taking a step back, nodding at the bag. Alonzo raised an eyebrow at him.
“You serious?”
“What? I thought you said it was fine now.” A devilish gleam in his eye, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips.
Fuck it, Alonzo thought, and when his next punch connected he nearly passed out.
Ryan walked him to medical, hand between his shoulderblades the whole way.
---
The third time was in their cell after lockdown, both of them sat side by side on Alonzo’s bunk reading – Ryan with his travel books, occasionally pointing out pictures to Alonzo; Alonzo with a year-old issue of Vogue he was mostly just staring blankly at in between Ryan’s interjections. Even with Ryan on his good side, constantly turning his neck to look was starting to wear on him, and the 5th or 6th time he rubbed at it uselessly Ryan closed his book.
“Sit on the floor,” he ordered.
“Hmm?”
“Your neck,” he gestured. “Let me help.”
Alonzo laughed, a bit uncomfortably. “Oh, don’t worry about it, darling.”
“Just do it,” Ryan said with an irritated sigh. Alonzo reluctantly obliged, and when Ryan dug his thumbs into his shoulders he had to bite his tongue to keep a moan of relief from escaping.
“Was reading about it,” he said as he worked, rubbing little circles of varying pressure along the muscles, “easy to fuck up your neck when you only got one eye, ‘cause your body’s compensating for not being able to see or whatever.”
“Aren’t you a good little nurse,” Alonzo murmured, twitching a little as Ryan hit a particularly tender spot. “I do have two eyes, though.”
“Shut up. You know what I mean.” Ryan continued in silence for a moment, gently running his thumbs up and down the back of Alonzo’s neck. “Shannon had the same shit,” he said finally. “Not with her eyes, she just had a bad back. And Cyril got sore after the boxing matches, so. Got pretty good at this.”
“Mmm,” was all Alonzo said, both because the genuine note of pride in Ryan’s voice made any teasing remark he might have replied with seem a bit cruel, and also because it was sort of hard to think of one at the minute, an even mix of pain and pleasure overwhelming his senses.
Finally, all too soon, Ryan had had enough. “Alright, you’re done,” accompanied by a slight pull back on Alonzo’s shoulders and a kiss on the top of his head. Alonzo certainly didn’t feel ‘done’, but he wasn’t going to complain, nor was he going to ruin the work that had just been put in to twist around and look at Ryan, search his face for some sign of – well, he didn’t know.
Not like Ryan O’Reily was a fag, or anything.
By the time he unfolded himself from the floor and turned back around to climb back into the bunk, Ryan’s nose was back in his book, his expression unreadable. Alonzo sat on the end of the bed this time, facing him, so he didn’t have to turn his head to watch this time.
---
The fourth time happened when some bug was going around Emerald City, and Alonzo got hit with it pretty hard, laid up in bed with a fever for the better part of a week. Wasn’t quite bad enough that he needed to go to medical, but bad enough that the hacks mostly left him alone for the duration, allowing him to stay in the cell and sweat it out, only insisting he get up for count. Ryan had already been helping him deal the past month or so, just took a more active role while he was out of commission – collected the cash from Fiona and Masters, liased with Pancamo and passed along any relevant information. Should have been more worried, probably – Alonzo’d never allowed himself to forget Miguel’s warning, guy’s a snake, watch your back – but it wasn’t as if he had much of a choice.
Ryan did other things, too – smuggled back random stuff from the cafeteria for him: fruit, little packets of peanut butter, a weird spongey cake, once. Stayed in the cell when he wasn’t handling the business, reading to him about faraway places.
At the peak of his illness, right before the fever broke, he vaguely remembered waking up in the middle of the night to Ryan leaning over him, pressing a cool wet cloth onto his face. “You were moaning in your sleep,” he whispered. “Loud as fuck. Woke me up.”
“My bad, sugar,” Alonzo drawled. “I’m only dying.”
“Shut up. You’re not gonna die. Don’t be such a pussy.” The cloth was pulled away, and the back of Ryan’s hand replaced it. “Burning up,” he murmured. “If this ain’t better in the morning, I’m going to McManus, getting you transferred to medical.”
“Don’t want to,” Alonzo mumbled. “Wanna stay here.” With you, he thought, but wasn’t quite out of it enough to say, or maybe he was, because he thought he saw Ryan smirk in the low light.
“Not up for debate, ese,” Ryan said, and removed his hand, kissed him gently on the forehead, stroked his hair for a moment. “Go back to sleep,” he said softly, and pulled away, hopping back onto the top bunk.
When Alonzo woke up the next morning, he was drenched in sweat, but felt lighter, clearer – the memories of the night before a blur, hopelessly entangled with hallucinogenic dreams. The only evidence he might not have imagined it was Ryan’s damp shirt hanging off the edge of the sink, but he supposed there could have been any number of reasons for that – after all, it wasn’t like he’d been paying much attention, the past few days.
Ryan never said anything, so he didn’t either.
---
The fifth time was on New Year’s Eve, about halfway through the bottle that Ryan had revealed to him with a wicked grin as soon as the pod doors locked for the night. “First New Year in prison,” he said, taking a swig and handing it over to Alonzo. “How’s it feel?”
“Bad,” Alonzo said, knocking back a shot and grimacing – bottom shelf liquor he wouldn’t have even looked at on the outside. “Could be worse,” he amended after a moment, handing the bottle back.
“Oh yeah? How’s that?”
“Least I’ve got someone to kiss at midnight,” Alonzo replied, and giggled at his own audacity. Ryan grinned.
“Yeah? Is that what’s going to happen?”
“It is now.” Ryan offered him the bottle again, and he wrinkled his nose. “Guh. No more. Next year, baby, you gotta get something better.”
“Sorry, hermano, we don’t got Grey Goose here in Oz. You’re gonna have to get used to it.” He took a long draught, then looked at his watch. “Alright, almost there. You ready?”
“Ready, set.” Ryan scootched closer to him, put his arm around his shoulders, held up the arm with the watch – Alonzo struggled to focus on the numbers. Jesus, he’d become a lightweight. “Go,” he said, as it hit 11:59:50.
“10...9...8...”
Ryan counted down in a low voice, and Alonzo closed his eyes, resting his head against Ryan’s shoulder.
“7...6...5...4...”
Alonzo opened them again, lifted his head.
“3...2...1.”
“Psssh,” Alonzo said, splaying out his hand. “Fireworks.”
Ryan laughed. “Jesus, you’re wasted.”
“Guilty,” Alonzo replied, holding his wrists together. “You gonna arrest me, officer?”
“Nah.” Ryan pushed his hands down gently. “Let you off with a warning, this time.”
“Kiss me, then.” He shuffled around to face Ryan – the tiny part of his frontal lobe that wasn’t completely soaked in alcohol screamed at him to shut the fuck up, but he ignored it. He widened his eyes, pouted. “It’s midnight, baby. You promised.”
“I fucking didn’t,” Ryan said with another laugh, but he leaned in, lightly pressing his lips to Alonzo’s, and Alonzo kissed him back hard, his hand coming up to caress Ryan’s cheek, holding him in place once more, and this time, Ryan didn’t try to pull away.
When they finally broke contact – several minutes later – Ryan leaned his forehead against Alonzo’s, breathing hard. “Happy New Year,” he said finally, and Alonzo laughed.
“Happy New Year, Ryan,” he said, and kissed him again.
---
The alcohol had left his system by the time he woke up – leaving only the screaming part of his brain audible, filling his veins with a buzzing anxiety. Fucking stupid, he thought, overwhelmed with dread, feeling almost like he wanted to cry. He heard the springs on the mattress above creak, and wished he could melt into the floor.
Ryan “not a fag” O’Reily hopped down onto the floor, peered down at him.
“Yo,” was all he said, before ambling over to the toilet for a piss. “You doing alright, hombre? You were pretty fucked last night.”
“Mmm. Yes.” Alonzo sat up, struggling to get his thoughts in order – head pounding, blood roaring in his ears. “Suppose I was.” You were too, he thought. Must have been. Right?
“Better drink some water or something.” Ryan finished pissing, shook out the last few drops. “Hacks are pretty lenient on New Year’s, but they’re still hacks.”
“What about you, baby?” Alonzo asked, carefully, cautiously. “You good?”
Ryan didn’t say anything, just adjusted his sweatpants and went to the sink, turned on the tap and shoved his hands under it, splashing water on his face. Unreadable – as always, when it came to this. Alonzo got up off the bed.
“Just wanna make sure you’re not having any regrets,” he said smoothly – or so he hoped. “Would be a shame to ruin such a good partnership, over something that hardly even counts.”
Ryan laughed, got water in his mouth, choked for the better part of a minute. Alonzo slapped his back as he coughed, but it only made him laugh more. Alonzo found this suddenly very irritating.
“Penny for your thoughts, sugar?” he asked dryly. “Would be appreciated.”
“Yeah, no problem, pal,” Ryan rasped. He spit into the sink. “My thoughts are, are you fucking stupid?”
Alonzo paused. “No,” he decided.
“Yeah, you are.” Ryan straightened, turned to face him. “Don’t worry about it, T-man,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder. “We’re still partners.”
Partners in what? “Excellent,” Alonzo replied, a bit icily, lightly pushing Ryan to the side with his hip so he could get at the sink. “I’m thrilled.”
The lights went up, the buzzer for count sounded.
“Hey.”
Alonzo turned around – Ryan looked suddenly nervous, avoiding his gaze. “Yes?” he asked expectantly.
“Nothing.” Ryan shifted his feet, which had seemingly become very interesting to him all of a sudden. “It counts,” he muttered finally. “I think it counts.”
“Mmm.” Alonzo considered this for a second, then shook his head. “No. I disagree.”
Ryan looked at him then. “Huh?”
“You were drunk. I was drunk. New Year’s Eve, baby, it’s nothing.”
Ryan stared at him for a moment. “Yeah, well.” He took a step forward. “What about this,” and he grabbed the front of Alonzo’s shirt and pulled him into a rough kiss, no gentleness or hesitation this time – Alonzo let himself melt into it, wrapped his arms around Ryan’s neck.
“Mmm, yes,” he said with a smile as they pulled away from each other. “That counts, for sure.”